Huge Yakuza fan. Is this game for me?

[Cress]

I heard it's not action focused like Yakuza, but I love japanese settings and heard the npcs have a schedule system. I've played Majora's Mask and Radiata Stories and the npcs have a similar system. To anyone who is familiar with those games, is the schedule and routines of the npcs as entertaining as those 2 games?

[Walker☻//︻ ---]

They are totally diffrent games hard to compare those together

[Inept]

Escrito originalmente por Stnank:

Escrito originalmente por Latch:

I have NEVER understoon the Yakuza - Shenmue comparison, they are both set in japan and have arcades you can play old sega games in, that's about the only solid similarity.

Yakuza is more like Way of the Samurai than Shenmue.

Well, how can you not be reminded of Shenmue when you see all those things I mentioned? It's a fair comparison. And it doesn't help that some Yakuza games have Space Harrier and Hang-On/ some of the same collectable toys. Shenmue certainly had a lasting effect on Yakuza.

The same way I'm not reminded of Wolfenstien when i play ARMA or Sensible world of soccer when I play FIFA

In Shenmue its all about the world, you can speak to every NPC and they all have routines, Yakuza has none of that. Shenmue is about slow pacing, opening draws, picking up objects, examining objects, learning to fight and practice moves by sparring or in a car park, Yakuza is about doing break dancing moves to beat 4x thugs in a random encounter that you then unlock moves with money and bump into a pervert in nothing but underpants or pretend to be someones girlfriend.

The games are polar opposites and to compare them to the point you can argue they are in the same vein is just idiotic! Ones more or less a real life sim, the other is an arcadey action game.

The closest comparison to shenmue is probably something like heavy rain and even that is at a push.

The games just have surface level similarities, that means nothing when it comes down to the actual games themselves. Work for a living driving a forklift to earn money or get into a random encounter with greasers every 2 mins to earn just under half a million yen a time.... Yeah, not really the same is it.

[Xrysol]

It's a good question that has a difficult answer, you should like it, it has yakuza things but it is not a yakuza exactly, it is an open world game where you can interact with practically everything and investigate things, besides QTE and fights in pure style Yakuza.

The fun of the game is the story, discovering things, it is not as based on fighting as yakuza, but there are fights, and the fights are fun.

It's hard to say "if you're going to like it" or "you're not going to like it" because if you like yakuza for fighting habitually, this game does not have it. But it offers other things that yakuza does not have.

For me it is a jewel of a game.

Maybe if you watch some gameplay on YouTube and see a bit of what the game is about, understand the concept better and you can decide if it's game for you or not.

[Redblaze27]

Escrito originalmente por Latch:

I have NEVER understoon the Yakuza - Shenmue comparison, they are both set in japan and have arcades you can play old sega games in, that's about the only solid similarity.

Yakuza is more like Way of the Samurai than Shenmue.

Yakuza uses tons of similiar concepts and ideas Shenmue built a foundation for, but took them in its own direction.

Like, both have their own takes on what a living world is like.

Shenmue is compared over Way of the Samurai as they are both Sega brands.

[Ǵ̶͓̂͑lí̴̤̀̄́tcĥ̸]

Yakuza was inspired by Shenmue, but went way waaaay more "Arcade" with the design - which is not a bad thing, Yakuza is a freaking amazing series, and streamlines everything down to a relatively pristine experience on a much smaller yet still compact scale than games like Shenmue (this is the proper way to streamline, and it isn't to the detriment of its predecessor either).

Shenmue is a much, much slower paced Yakuza with far, far more life-sim things that are even tied to the story (such as getting a job, which promps you to show up for work, on schedule, with pay, etc.) - this means many more interactable items, NPCs, shedule related things (more on this below: "Time also passes"...), and so on. Side quests are more sparse than Yakuza but there's a different type of heart to them that makes them worthy, and some are tied to pointing you in the direction of the main quest. There are a lot of optional cinematic moments as well involving either QTEs, interactions with other NPCs, combat segments, or all three - these mostly contribute to world building and serve to inject a lot more personality into the game, but some come with rewards and a few might affect future dialogue depending on how you deal with them.

The combat is more sparse as well, but it's a lot deeper. Where Yakuza is full of random (or not random) fights as you simply travel the map and, despite the existence of some combos, is mostly an action button masher - Shenmue's combat is mostly tied to scripted events (with exceptions/options later in the game and S2), some of which are optional such as the cinematic events described previously, and the beat'em'up combat uses almost full on Tekken-light or Virtua Fighter style controls. Combo inputs resulting in different moves and so on, with masteries of their own. Some of these moves must be discovered, through practice (which you can perform in various areas like the home/dojo, a park, empty parking lot, etc), some through scrolls purchased or found in the world, and some through optional interactions through NPCs (cinematic ones I mentioned, again) - but you do have a hefty starting pool of attacks as well, given having grown up with Ryo's father. These combat segments also use an adaptive auto-lock that works relatively well so that you are always facing your nearest foe (unless you sprint) and a controllable third person camera (which can create some issues, but is workable).

Speaking of the world - Shenmue's is quite a bit bigger than Yakuza's. Where Yakuza takes place on one or more somewhat condensed maps depending on characters or circumstances, Shenmue takes place across a series of multiple maps with their own events and such (NPCs travel between maps) - each series belonging to a certain amount of story progression. Some of these maps are pretty small, others are nice and big, and together they are quite big indeed. The world is also quite a bit more alive due to the minor life-sim stuff (more NPCs on their own schedules, longer conversations with some NPCs, more interaction in general, etc.)

Story progression itself is done somewhat similar to parts of Yakuza - Yakuza is mostly "run from point A to point B and do whatever you want in the meantime" with sprinkles of somewhat investigative elements. Shenmue is pretty much entirely investigative, usually tied to asking various NPCs how to find this place or that person before progressing to the next task, with scripted events and combat segments sparsed throughout ... and you can do whatever you want in between.

Time also passes in Shenmue via an in-game clock, with day and night cycles. This essentially means every day is timed, and events are tied to certain times and some to certain days of the week. There is also an overall game timer of like 4-6 in-game months (can't remember) to complete it and move on to S2. It's enough time, trust me - but it's not infinite. Relax and have some fun, but progress as well.

There's a lot more to it, but Yakuza is really just inspired by Shenmue in that it's a quasi sandbox/themepark game that is highly interactive and story driven, with QTEs and 3rd person (admittedly different feeling) combat. But Yakuza is the light version of Shenmue - this makes it much faster paced, but not quite as engaging or deep. Both games have amazing merits and I think if you would like a more interactive RPG type of game with a lot of the feel of Yakuza and maybe a hint of point-and-click (for lack of a better comparison), you'll fit right into Shenmue.

[Toots McGee]

A LOT less dialogue in Shenmue as opposed to Yakuza. Yakuza was just so drawn out. I never could get into it.

[Redblaze27]

Escrito originalmente por Toots McGee:

A LOT less dialogue in Shenmue as opposed to Yakuza. Yakuza was just so drawn out. I never could get into it.

I'm....confused at what you look for in a game.

[Toots McGee]

Escrito originalmente por Redblaze27:

Escrito originalmente por Toots McGee:

A LOT less dialogue in Shenmue as opposed to Yakuza. Yakuza was just so drawn out. I never could get into it.

I'm....confused at what you look for in a game.

Not knocking Yakuza. It just had a lot more cutscenes. Shenmue had more compact scenes that I felt didn't drag out too long. (Of course this is only my opinion.) I felt like it took me out of the game. I may give Yakuza 0 a try to see if it's changed any.

Edit: To clarify: Yakuza= I felt like I was watching a movie. Shenmue= I felt like I was part of a movie.

[Redblaze27]

Cutscenes retain their length throughout its main plot, but it does open up to let you have fun, even completely ignoring the main plot if desired.

[Toots McGee]

Escrito originalmente por Redblaze27:

Cutscenes retain their length throughout its main plot, but it does open up to let you have fun, even completely ignoring the main plot if desired.

Given the price of Yakuza 0, I'll probably give it a try in the next few weeks. After I get done with Shenmue, of course. :)

[ram8704]

I was in my teens when shenmue came out and then yakuza after that but I recall Shenmue 3 getting iced and Shenmue online getting shelved. I always thought Yakuza was born from the collapse of those projects. An attempt to make Shenmue more entertaining. Shenmue is the farther of Yakuza.