How much longer to beat?

[Human Required]

Just started chapter 7 and have been playing for 12 hours.

Like most of you guys and gals, I consider myself a somewhat busy person, so anytime a game starts getting around 20 hours of playtime (in a short period of time), I start feeling a little guilty/worried if I'm not absolutely loving every second of the game--how much longer do I have to beat this game if I keep doing what I'm doing (main quests mostly with a few sidequests when the mood strikes)?

I ask because I'm getting a little bored with the tedium of "jog to location. Punch goons with sloppy Yakuza 0 combat. Watch text blocks for five minutes." The story is very interesting, but the padding/gameplay that separates the important cutscenes is grinding my gears a bit. Yet, I don't think I'd enjoy watching the cutscenes by themselves on YT, either--it's a catch-22. So if anyone knows how many hours are left, that'd be great.

With a bit of research, it seems I'm 33% through the main chapters? Do chapters get faster toward the endgame as the plot (hopefully) tightens up? What's the shortest chapter(s) in the game?

[Inane]

There are 17 chapters in total. If you care only about the main story, I guess you should end your journey at around 30h mark. As for specific chapters length, maybe someone can give you more insight about it since I completed quite a lot of side activities. The last few chapters felt are quite short though.

[pauls]

If you will skip all business sidequests, you can beat game at 20-25 hours. Try to stay away from them unless you feel game is too hard. Also combat in yakuza 0 is one of the best, I don't any reason to hate it.

[ImHalfAwake]

I wish I can skip a lot of these cutscenes, some are just too predictable and I don't care for them lol. This would shave a lot of playtime down for me.

[Lar Dass]

If you dont like the combat then just stop playing and uninstall. its what the series is based off gameplay wise

[Human Required]

Originally posted by pauls:

If you will skip all business sidequests, you can beat game at 20-25 hours. Try to stay away from them unless you feel game is too hard. Also combat in yakuza 0 is one of the best, I don't any reason to hate it.

Yeah, that's what saddens me--if this is as good as Yakuza combat gets, that's a pretty low standard for the series as a whole. Just look at Sleeping Dogs--the combat's more precise, far tighter, easier to target enemies, streamlined interactive environmental design, etc.; Yakuza just can't hold a candlestick to games with far superior fighting. Not sure why it's the central mechanic of Yakuza, given that

Not that I hate it, no one's saying "hate" here--it just feels unrefined compared to other games.

[pauls]

Originally posted by Human Required:

Originally posted by pauls:

If you will skip all business sidequests, you can beat game at 20-25 hours. Try to stay away from them unless you feel game is too hard. Also combat in yakuza 0 is one of the best, I don't any reason to hate it.

Yeah, that's what saddens me--if this is as good as Yakuza combat gets, that's a pretty low standard for the series as a whole. Just look at Sleeping Dogs--the combat's more precise, far tighter, easier to target enemies, streamlined interactive environmental design, etc.; Yakuza just can't hold a candlestick to games with far superior fighting. Not sure why it's the central mechanic of Yakuza, given that

Not that I hate it, no one's saying "hate" here--it just feels unrefined compared to other games.

I haven't played sleeping dogs (couldn't pick which is better, original or remastered version), but it looks like variant of Batman's freeflow system, where you can't ever miss enemy, and your attacks are very limited besides of timing. Yakuza fight-system is closer to fighting games, where you can actually miss enemy and where you have to time your attacks, not only blocks. This makes gameplay more fun, even if this looks less cinematic.

[Human Required]

Originally posted by pauls:

Originally posted by Human Required:

Yeah, that's what saddens me--if this is as good as Yakuza combat gets, that's a pretty low standard for the series as a whole. Just look at Sleeping Dogs--the combat's more precise, far tighter, easier to target enemies, streamlined interactive environmental design, etc.; Yakuza just can't hold a candlestick to games with far superior fighting. Not sure why it's the central mechanic of Yakuza, given that

Not that I hate it, no one's saying "hate" here--it just feels unrefined compared to other games.

I haven't played sleeping dogs (couldn't pick which is better, original or remastered version), but it looks like variant of Batman's freeflow system, where you can't ever miss enemy, and your attacks are very limited besides of timing. Yakuza fight-system is closer to fighting games, where you can actually miss enemy and where you have to time your attacks, not only blocks. This makes gameplay more fun, even if this looks less cinematic.

Sleeping Dogs is the best open-world game I've ever played; I highly recommend you get it in any format you can (remastered, original, I've played them all--they're all great). It has just as much an eye for detail in its setting as Yakuza does, which is quite the accomplishment. And it has a lot more heart in it than games like GTA. Anywho, it's a special variant of the Batman freeflow system, in that you *can* miss--so there's still an element of strategy involved, a la fighting games. And, as a quick edit: it also allows you to mix guns and weapons (from swordfish to swords) into the combat, which modifies things exponentially.

Yakuza's combat, imo, just doesn't have weight or any real sense of precision at all (even compared to a standard fighter). It just feels like a guy whiffing punches through the air and accidentally knocking pixels around once in a while. There's no satisfying heft to impacts (outside of the last hit in a fight), and making environmental interactions happen is a chore.

With that said, I'm soldiering on b/c the story has me hooked, and I'm at chapter 11 (for anyone reading, chapter 9/10 are super short!) and the massive fight in chapter 10 was actually kind of badass because of the co-op aspect. Why did the developers reserve this awesome mechanic for a single fight, I wonder? If the combat had a few more unique moments like this, I'd like it a lot more.

Just my two (three, at this point) cents.

[hammerstar]

Originally posted by Human Required:

Originally posted by pauls:

I haven't played sleeping dogs (couldn't pick which is better, original or remastered version), but it looks like variant of Batman's freeflow system, where you can't ever miss enemy, and your attacks are very limited besides of timing. Yakuza fight-system is closer to fighting games, where you can actually miss enemy and where you have to time your attacks, not only blocks. This makes gameplay more fun, even if this looks less cinematic.

Sleeping Dogs is the best open-world game I've ever played; I highly recommend you get it in any format you can (remastered, original, I've played them all--they're all great). It has just as much an eye for detail in its setting as Yakuza does, which is quite the accomplishment. And it has a lot more heart in it than games like GTA. Anywho, it's a special variant of the Batman freeflow system, in that you *can* miss--so there's still an element of strategy involved, a la fighting games. And, as a quick edit: it also allows you to mix guns and weapons (from swordfish to swords) into the combat, which modifies things exponentially.

Yakuza's combat, imo, just doesn't have weight or any real sense of precision at all (even compared to a standard fighter). It just feels like a guy whiffing punches through the air and accidentally knocking pixels around once in a while. There's no satisfying heft to impacts (outside of the last hit in a fight), and making environmental interactions happen is a chore.

With that said, I'm soldiering on b/c the story has me hooked, and I'm at chapter 11 (for anyone reading, chapter 9/10 are super short!) and the massive fight in chapter 10 was actually kind of badass because of the co-op aspect. Why did the developers reserve this awesome mechanic for a single fight, I wonder? If the combat had a few more unique moments like this, I'd like it a lot more.

Just my two (three, at this point) cents.

Just going to say, I do love Sleeping Dogs. I've bought it three times on different versions and platforms. But the combat in it is simple as simple gets. It does FEEL good, but that's because it's easy to get the hang of it, just like Arkham. It's all about a specific rhythm. Keep that rhythm up and you're an unstoppable engine of destruction, miss a step and you'll likely take a few hits trying to get back in rhythm. Same thing with Shadow of War/Mordor which also use that style combat.

The Yakuza series' combat takes practice. I was in much the same boat as you the first time I played this game. Getting frustrated at the mechanics, especially later on when they start filling entire rooms with knives and guns. I was chugging a medicine bottle every few rooms in the final chapter.

But because I was that into the story, I kept going, rolling straight into Yakuza Kiwami and then Kiwami 2.

Now, if you think the fights are frustrating in 0, you will likely either change your perception or get even angrier at Kiwami. It is a shorter game, so they pad the length by making it harder. And they throw tons of knives and guns around even early in the game. And the final level, you get to fight through a giant room of 20+ guys who all have guns.

Big difference, however: You don't have half of each skill tree locked behind doing that boring real estate minigame like in 0. And you also have an experience point system for skill points instead of having to use money, so you're likely to unlock your moves and higher end abilities much faster (while in 0, don't do the minigame and you likely won't get those at all). And on top of it, Kiwami forces you to try different fighting styles by making some bosses outright impossible to even hit with a certain style, or guarantee you're going to eat pavement after only landing one hit if, again, you're in the wrong style. So it will force you to experiment. Plus having those higher level skills give you far more options to deal with otherwise cheap enemies with tons of weapons.

And that's how I really started to learn the systems. I kind of defaulted to Brawler for Kiryu all the way through 0, never really liked the feel with Speed or Beast, but now I actually prefer both of them over Brawler. Also changing on the fly to meet the demands of some of the later fights of Kiwami.

On replay of 0, I'm absolutely wrecking the game this time with what I learned in Kiwami. Mr. Shakedown was terrifying the first time I played, now I see him and go "Free money!" My practice in Kiwami even improved my skills with Majima as well.

I realized what actually was: First time playing Yakuza 0, I was fighting against the system. Now that I've learned it and am working with it, I'm finding so much depth and complexity to it that I never would have imagined was there on the first run.

It takes time to warm up to Yakuza's combat. Nobody's going to be good at it right out of the gate.

And for what it's worth, Kiwami 2 changes up the combat. Makes it a bit slower paced, but it's smoother and much easier to grasp, more focused on the fundamental moves instead of Heat actions. And it also combines all three of Kiryu's fighting styles into one, so no more switching, but you'll see recognizable moves from all three across it. I'm new to the series myself, so I don't know if it's the older combat from the original run of the games, or if it's the combat from Yakuza 6, since I know Kiwami 2 is made in that game's engine.

[Human Required]

Heyo, hammerstar--not sure where you got the impression anyone was complaining about the combat's difficulty; no one's mentioned it's hard here. No one's struggling with it, as far as I can see. My complaint is that it's boring/clunky. Manageable, sure, but not terribly enjoyable.

And either way, I definitely plan on skipping Kiwami--already sold my key for it since if I can barely stand the monotony of the most refined entry in the franchise, I definitely won't have the time to waste on a remaster of the Yakuza devs' freshman attempt at making a game.

With that in mind, I'm still considering Kiwami 2 since it looks prettier/the new engine seems to bring a lot of quality of life improvements.

[hammerstar]

Originally posted by Human Required:

Heyo, hammerstar--not sure where you got the impression anyone was complaining about the combat's difficulty; no one's mentioned it's hard here. No one's struggling with it, as far as I can see. My complaint is that it's boring/clunky. Manageable, sure, but not terribly enjoyable.

And either way, I definitely plan on skipping Kiwami--already sold my key for it since if I can barely stand the monotony of the most refined entry in the franchise, I definitely won't have the time to waste on a remaster of the Yakuza devs' freshman attempt at making a game.

With that in mind, I'm still considering Kiwami 2 since it looks prettier/the new engine seems to bring a lot of quality of life improvements.

Except you're getting the impression that I'm talking solely about the game's difficulty. I'm saying that if it feels clumsy, it's because you're not practiced enough at it and you are not using everything in the toolbox, or not using it correctly.

The game has a particular depth and flow to it, and if you don't know how to tap into that, that is what makes it feel clunky.

You'll see what I mean when you reach the endgame anyway. If "clunky but manageable" is how you're feeling about the combat in chapter 7, you are going to struggle when the enemy reaction times get so much faster then.

[Human Required]

I mean, I'm on chapter 13 now and everything's going smoothly, but it still feels clunky/kinda lame. And I'm playing on the default/normal difficulty. Doubting it's going to get more fun or complex. Either way, I'm sticking with it; the story's engaging.

Not saying the button mashing is awful; just saying it's not enough to float a game of this scope on its own.