This game has one of the worst combat systems I have ever seen in any game.

[Nightmare799]

The hyper armor, stupid amount of hitpoint sponging, enemy regeneration, extremely annoying enemy moves that stunlock you because of how unresponsive the controls are...

They took everything that was wrong with Y0 and made it ten times worse in this game.
I love the story but the gameplay elements are so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ annoying that I don't get how they could have made something like this and think it's enjoyable.

Every facet of combat is made solely to frustrate the ♥♥♥♥ out of you and it gets progressively worse thorough the game.

[medion_no]

Publicado originalmente por LArc7thHeaven:

1. learn tiger drop
2. learn tiger drop timing
3. spam tiger drop
4. PROFIT!!

I can complete this game spamming X,X,X,Y and dodging. I dont understand the op complaints. Yakuza 0 was more fluid i can take that but too overpowered to present any challenge.

[Nightmare799]

Publicado originalmente por Slackerboy (Nate):

Ah, actually, I think that stuff is intentional. I noticed that too while playing Zero, if you commit to an attack, you have to go all the way. I think it actually adds a level of timing to your attacks in that you can't just got willy nilly and expect to get out of a bind if something happens that you didn't expect. Besides, the game gives you a ♥♥♥♥ load of healing items so it's not so bad. However, the super armor and stunlock are probably the most annoying mechanics in this entire game, I understand why it's on some moves but ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ can it be a pain.

Except it doesn't add an element of timing because the bosses just power through the moves anyways. It's incredibly annoying to not be even able to cancel attacks into dodges when bosses have hyper armor 98% of time, and knock you down every single time you commit to an attack because you are locked in the animation.

It's just poorly designed, it would be different if you could dodge an attack as it landed regardless of what you are doing, but as of now it just boils into hitting enemy over and over until they decide to knock you to the ground.

I have never been so frustrated with any bossfight ever. Even dark souls gives you feeling of occasionally getting an upper hand in a boss fight, but here? NOPE. Get knocked down to the ground every few attacks without even being able to get a decent combo on because your enemy has constant hyper armor.

It's so damn monotone and random it makes my want to claw my eyes out. Thing is, yakuza 0 made up for some of the shortcomings by having an absolute blast of a story, despite being relatively easy, but this game doesn't really have the same benefit.

[Nightmare799]

Publicado originalmente por medion_no:

Publicado originalmente por LArc7thHeaven:

1. learn tiger drop
2. learn tiger drop timing
3. spam tiger drop
4. PROFIT!!

I can complete this game spamming X,X,X,Y and dodging. I dont understand the op complaints. Yakuza 0 was more fluid i can take that but too overpowered to present any challenge.

I'm not saying the game is hard, I said it's frustrating. The combat is monotone and repetitive when it comes to bosses, with the odds stacked against you in such manner that you have to kite the ♥♥♥♥ out of the game and chug on healing items to compensate.

The bosses either constantly dodge, or seldom do. When they don't, they have hypearmor and wait until you try to get a combo on only to slap you out of it. They could get staggered but have counters instead of hypearmor like the player character does, they could use heat moves more with qte inputs...

There is just so much wrong with it that I don't understand how the developers could look at it and say ''yeah this is so fun people will love it''.

The boss fights are simply not fun, and being unable to cancel out of attacks and boss hyperarmor and the main reasons why. The bosses play by completely different rules, which would be fine if it enhanced the gameplay, but doesn't.

[PilleDBoy]

Just finished Yakuza 0 and started Yakuza Kiwami 1. Really? Same moveset, but you just get fully downgraded? The enemies are blocking the whole time, then you block, then they block again. Dash to the side to land some hits. Only thing working is grab? You have like a tiny health bar and deal no damage? Only the grab works from time to time. Then the same repetitive annoying mini games again? This is trash, way worse than 0. The combat isnt diffuclt, its just super boring.

[Nightmare799]

Publicado originalmente por ADPille:

Just finished Yakuza 0 and started Yakuza Kiwami 1. Really? Same moveset, but you just get fully downgraded? The enemies are blocking the whole time, then you block, then they block again. Dash to the side to land some hits. Only thing working is grab? You have like a tiny health bar and deal no damage? Only the grab works from time to time. Then the same repetitive annoying mini games again? This is trash, way worse than 0. The combat isnt diffuclt, its just super boring.

The amount of hyperarmor the enemies get in kiwami is downright obnoxious. You could actually get a combo through in 0 but kiwami? Forget it. Their HP is also stupidly high and they regenerate in Kiwami. Oh and enjoy getting stunlocked constantly. You have just started out, dont worry, the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ will come and when it does, it will be a crapflood.

[pauls]

Guys, you should learn to dodge enemy hits, and I never had problem with getting knocked down or failing to hit enemy. If enemies are tough, use your environment, grab bikes, grab benches, grab scooters and beat all ♥♥♥♥ out of them. That way I completed whole game using mostly Brawler and default stance. Also enemies are easier to hit after they missed at you couple of times, or at the exact moment they hit, but you have to hit first. Also whole game I had so much energy, I could do climax moves all the time.

[Nightmare799]

Publicado originalmente por pauls:

Guys, you should learn to dodge enemy hits, and I never had problem with getting knocked down or failing to hit enemy. If enemies are tough, use your environment, grab bikes, grab benches, grab scooters and beat all ♥♥♥♥ out of them. That way I completed whole game using mostly Brawler and default stance. Also enemies are easier to hit after they missed at you couple of times, or at the exact moment they hit, but you have to hit first. Also whole game I had so much energy, I could do climax moves all the time.

My issue is with the fact that every single thing you do is interrupted by the enemy's hyperarmor in boss fights. They don't even flinch at your hits yet you get stunlocked and knocked down every single ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ time. This is not about having trouble, but it being ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ unsatisfying. It's bad gameplay design, no amount of player countermeasures will fix the fact that the enemies play by different rules than you.

Your input is meaningless because you downright refuse to read ANYTHING I write. Kindly read what my deal is before responding, I don't want ♥♥♥♥♥♥ generic advice, I want to bring this to the attention of the developers so they fix this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mess.

[pauls]

Publicado originalmente por Nightmare799:

Publicado originalmente por pauls:

Guys, you should learn to dodge enemy hits, and I never had problem with getting knocked down or failing to hit enemy. If enemies are tough, use your environment, grab bikes, grab benches, grab scooters and beat all ♥♥♥♥ out of them. That way I completed whole game using mostly Brawler and default stance. Also enemies are easier to hit after they missed at you couple of times, or at the exact moment they hit, but you have to hit first. Also whole game I had so much energy, I could do climax moves all the time.

My issue is with the fact that every single thing you do is interrupted by the enemy's hyperarmor in boss fights. They don't even flinch at your hits yet you get stunlocked and knocked down every single ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ time. This is not about having trouble, but it being ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ unsatisfying. It's bad gameplay design, no amount of player countermeasures will fix the fact that the enemies play by different rules than you.

Your input is meaningless because you downright refuse to read ANYTHING I write. Kindly read what my deal is before responding, I don't want ♥♥♥♥♥♥ generic advice, I want to bring this to the attention of the developers so they fix this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mess.

Maybe the fact that you are one of the few who had problems with game should tell you that MAYBE you are playing wrong? If you brutforced your way through zero, which was super easy, does not mean that same tactic will work for kiwami. You have to know enemy moves to beat them easily, you have to predict what they will do, and if you know them well enough, you should force them to do moves you want them to do.
When there are more than one enemy, dodge away from them, and then make them attack you at the same time, miss you, and then hit them all back. Don't make them attack you one by one and knock you down each time the sec you got up.
Also, they play by the same rules. Enemy can block? So can you! Enemy can knock you down? So can you! Use the tools game gives you, not ignore 90% of gameplay and complain how it should get fixed. Damn, I completed game without even using any weapons, besides the ones enemies drops (last level was super easy with MIA handguns everywhere)
Boss heals up aftertaking damage? Not a problem, because you can do same, and if you fail to gather enough energy before he does, please, use staminian XX to restore it, and hit the boss before he restores any health.

[Nightmare799]

Publicado originalmente por pauls:

Publicado originalmente por Nightmare799:

My issue is with the fact that every single thing you do is interrupted by the enemy's hyperarmor in boss fights. They don't even flinch at your hits yet you get stunlocked and knocked down every single ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ time. This is not about having trouble, but it being ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ unsatisfying. It's bad gameplay design, no amount of player countermeasures will fix the fact that the enemies play by different rules than you.

Your input is meaningless because you downright refuse to read ANYTHING I write. Kindly read what my deal is before responding, I don't want ♥♥♥♥♥♥ generic advice, I want to bring this to the attention of the developers so they fix this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mess.

Maybe the fact that you are one of the few who had problems with game should tell you that MAYBE you are playing wrong? If you brutforced your way through zero, which was super easy, does not mean that same tactic will work for kiwami. You have to know enemy moves to beat them easily, you have to predict what they will do, and if you know them well enough, you should force them to do moves you want them to do.
When there are more than one enemy, dodge away from them, and then make them attack you at the same time, miss you, and then hit them all back. Don't make them attack you one by one and knock you down each time the sec you got up.
Also, they play by the same rules. Enemy can block? So can you! Enemy can knock you down? So can you! Use the tools game gives you, not ignore 90% of gameplay and complain how it should get fixed. Damn, I completed game without even using any weapons, besides the ones enemies drops (last level was super easy with MIA handguns everywhere)
Boss heals up aftertaking damage? Not a problem, because you can do same, and if you fail to gather enough energy before he does, please, use staminian XX to restore it, and hit the boss before he restores any health.

Go ♥♥♥♥ yourself and give me a break. You can knock down bosses? Sure, but they immediately get up with a hyper armor move and you will not be able to land a full ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ combo ever. I finished the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, I know damn well that every ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ boss has obnoxious amounts of hyper armor. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. You will literally either get stunlocked or knocked down on every ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hit because the game expects you to chug a million healing items instead of actually giving you a fair chance to fight the enemy toe to toe.

The boss fights are an epitome of bad design. HP sponging, hyper armor and preposterous disparity between the player damage and the opponents damage.
It's not difficult, it's poorly designed, that is my issue with it. I don't feel like some sort of legendary brawler, but some drug abusing slap dummy.

I finished both this and Zero. Zero had these issues to a certain degree as well, but it wasn't really as obnoxious with hyperarmor nor the tracking. Kiwami just adds a bunch of stupid rules to the bosses and masks it as difficulty.

[Wilbur Mercer]

Yakuza 0 has like two interesting fights in the entire game (both hidden behind hours of sidegame grinding). I'll take Kiwami cheapness over Y0 mashing boredom.

[Denamic]

https://youtu.be/aq7HjHgYfTk
This is a game of counters. Learn your toolset and how to use it. You can just use brawler to punch common thugs into the dirt, but wailing on characters that guard a lot is a waste of time. Build heat, use heat.
Dragon style is by far the most powerful, but brawler and rush both have a useful toolset for countering if you haven't powered up the dragon style yet. Brawler can counter punch after guarding, which builds a huge amount of heat, and rush is useful for slipping behind enemies to build heat for its elbow counter, etc. Tiger drop is the most powerful counter in the game, but it's risky and difficult to pull off reliably as it requires precise timing and leaves you vulnerable if you miss.
Don't blame the game because you can't play it.

[iASeventh - kao nikotin]

Combat sucks, everything else is top notch.

[TOYSIPO2]

Yeah, but spamming counters is boring.

By chapter 4 you're meeting goons minibosses who put Kuze, Awano and Shibusawa to shame by having very, very strict movesets and rules that don't actually make the game harder, they just reduce the amount of variety the player has available. With enough healing items and some patience, the player WILL make it through, but they'll be gritting their teeth the entire time.

Take Kimura, that random punk who threw a rock at a dog. First you have to fight a bunch of goons with him being the most aggressive; kind of messy, but easy enough after you swing a few bikes around, maybe drink a staminan or two if enemies picked just the right times to attack.

With the goons gone, it's just you and him. Hope you bought Change Up (Evade) or else this guy's going to walk all over you.

Most of his combos are simple and can be entirely blocked- well, except for one, where he'll trip you straight onto your butt and then stomp you. But, there is one big caveat.

This boy doesn't *have to* guard. He will flinch from the first jab, and then do whatever he wants to do right after, and Kiryu will bend over and take it.

Instantly, doing *almost anything* in Brawler is now a horrible idea, and without Change Up (Evade), this has instantly become a Rush-only encounter. You can use Beast to spam heat moves to clean him up because of his really low HP, but it's still lame how this literal nobody is infinitely more unapproachable than any boss from 0.

The only way to do anything in Brawler is to, in the midst of his samey jab string, run around behind him and begin a combo on his back. *Then*, you have to pray he doesn't *accidentally get twisted around* by the physics on Brawler's combo. Why? Because if he turns around mid-combo, the front engagement rules still apply. He'll just begin his combo and send Kiryu sprawling, dazzled and amazed, right onto his back.

Of course, you can block this guy, if you expect your string to fail and twist him around. But then, thematically, it feels like it doesn't make sense that you have to go... really, REALLY far to account for this random punk kid, essentially walking on glass the entire time and getting your momentum totally destroyed if you aren't careful, only for the cutscene after the fight to have Kiryu go "well that happened" and the guy you fought to go "wow I got COMPLETELY destroyed" even through the gameplay was, quite literally, the exact opposite (unless you spammed heat moves)

The same goes for the B-King fight. Takashi is slightly annoying, but he's slow so it really doesn't matter. Same goes for the stupid """lieutenant""" with the stock knife moveset, Asai or whatever his name was.

The thing about this, is that it's also a problem of skill pacing. The game plays really well with all the completed styles and with completed Dragon. Dragon becomes the bread and butter, since it gives so much raw command over Kiryu. You get to actually... fight the enemies, on a level playing field, almost!

Except, you're forced into encounters that are ONLY fun with maximum technical capacity really early in the game, and while they're of course fully possible without it, they're annoying. Change Up (Evade) and the Brawler Body Counter are both essential things to rush your EXP into, and it's a shame because honestly... the combat was actually *better* before chapter 4. It felt responsive and appropriate.

It becoming a "game of counters" means the ENTIRE psychology and playstyle and variety established by Zero pretty much has no point in being here. An interesting back-and-forth of skills, positioning and mobility becomes a far more tedious game of getting a Tiger Drop on your third attempt of timing it, instantly defeating an MIA Colonel because woohoo you did the thing, and, yeah. Cool, I see it's in the game, can I have my fun fights back?

It's shallow, it's far more boring, and is an unfortunate departure from the depth the series can seemingly exude at times. How can they design a fight as responsive and variable as Thug Style v. Jo Amon, or most encounters with Thug Style, and then throw you at trash punks in Brawler and purposefully design the enemies to be so constraining and impossible to approach is beyond me.

I don't even dislike the needed formula of Rush Sway -> Quick Change to Brawler -> Brawler combo on back -> back to Rush to get out after doing the combo, or optionally -> keep doing Brawler combo if he didn't turn back around, or -> Rush switch and Rush Weave if they have a mid-jab counter / start their combo anyway (everyone has to!), but the problem is the people you have to do that for. Little Timmy down the road shouldn't require 99% efficiency to so much as *beat* cleanly, let alone style upon. Little Timmy certainly shouldn't also be able to send Kiryu ricochetting around the room before smashing his skull head-first into the curb because Kiryu happened to walk at him the slightly wrong way.

Once you max Dragon, fight Majima a bunch and fight the final Climax Battle a few times, you start to realize the game was made entirely around Dragon's mobility. Pretty much the moment you hit chapter 10- the chapter you're allowed to finish your grinding I mean training- all the styles SPIKE into being actually usable. Counters for Brawler, Counter Quickstep for Rush, sway improvements for Rush, heat capacity and super armor for Beast's poise, pretty much everything ABOUT Dragon. Brawler becomes the defacto "guard to get heat" style, Beast becomes the defacto dps, burst of stylish flare and all-or-nothing semi-defensive option (looking at diamond resist guard), Rush becomes an even better positioning tool with basically no drawbacks.

And Dragon? It's what Brawler should have been to begin with, basically. Responsive, quick, effective. Positioning is no longer 4D Chess, against anyone or anything. Enemy will flinch from occasional jabs, so you can use that to open, get behind them, go combo city and see how long your combo lasts, and you get a not-too-good guard counter that's basically to let you do it again. Getting tired of that? Switch to Brawler after an evade for a fun combo maybe, or switch to Rush and get even more aggressive. Switch to Beast and do some cool-looking stuff like just-guards and super-armor combos, maybe make actual use of the furniture square-triangle combo to get some heat and do some extreme damage. It even give the highest damage coefficient with kiwami heat actions- doing a full health bar and then some sometimes!

Let's compare that to the midgame. You're fighting the B King, and they made WELL AND SURE there were no large objects around, so Beast is out of the question. They're also too aggressive for Beast's superamor, so yeah, don't pick Beast for awhile.

You pretty much just watch Kiryu bounce on his ass and flail wildly until all six dudes are gone and you can actually *fight* the B King. Once the tedious part is over, it's just you and him.

Once again, the formula is just "rush dodge behind him, walk on pins and needles, do brawler combo, pray he doesn't dare turn around out of Brawler's stupid combo, and curse once he turns around and completely annihilates Kiryu".

This is TWELVE HOURS INTO THE GAME! (I'd fought Majima to the point he didn't show up again, so I even had a ton of skills compared to other ways of approaching this scenario) What were they THINKING!? I mean, at least these trash punks have a low amount of HP so you can fight them and forget about them, but that's really no excuse for how just badly they're designed. If they were supposed to be forgettable, they should've just not had any superarmor and not have been made out to be literally tougher than any fight in the last entire freakin' game. They literally should've been on almost the same tier as the trash around them, and should've been, well, easy. That's the only way they'd have been thematically appropriate.

If they wanted hard encounters, fine. But, they should've rewritten the story or scenario or something to reflect that. As it is now, it's extremely weird in tone when EVERY ENCOUNTER has a VERY REASONABLE CHANCE of outright kicking Kiryu's ass, and then in the VERY PROCEEDING CUTSCENE it's literally the exact freakin' opposite situation.

Oh, it's even better when Majima starts to get super armor, because that also mildly reduces the fun until you get Dragon. What felt like evenly-sided back-and-forths before become Majima having vastly more power than Kiryu, and Dragon's the only thing that makes the tension reasonable again. Brawler starts to only work on Thug via the guard counter, how lame. Also, the "run in a circle around them and hope Brawler connects in the right way" strategy, but that feels so lame I hate mentioning it. It's also not until then that you can you Beast as a reasonable counter to either Slugger or Breaker. Dodging around every other boss and every other Majima encounter in Rush starts to feel droll because it's a lot of inputs for basically the same things you could achieve in 0 just with one quickstep and engaging their rear-side flank.

In this game? The rear-side just makes them face you, ending whatever you were doing instantly because they no longer have a shaky front guard from being engaged from behind. No, they just send you straight to the floor.

And, Mad Dog? Just go get the gauntlets from the colliseum. They block knife damage. That knife knockdown's not fun. It's obnoxiously long. It's to the point I feel annoyed after I stabbed an enemy and they do the *same animation*, just because it reminds me of all the times it's happened to me. God, how I *wish* I could poke Majima, have him turn around in baffled, dumbstruck awe, and fall onto his ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ face, before taking a good two seconds to get back up. You can do that before Rank D.

It's kind of notable how Majima doesn't get that much new variety after Rank D, though I have seen him do a phantom turn once or twice, and that's always really hype.

Where was I? Oh, right, the knife damage. The gauntlets make Mad Dog Majima so much more fun. I feel like Jo Amon from 0, blocking all his knife attacks like that.

The thing about Brawler too- is that you can't "just dodge". In Dragon, sure, you can dodge out of literally anything and it costs almost no heat. In Brawler? I saw that thing one guy said about pacing- and on trash punks, that's an annoying level of effort to go through. It's even weirder on Majima, who was made out in zero to like, NOT RELY ON HIS BRUTE STRENGTH SO MUCH as he does things like AGILITY, WEAPONS and STRANGE ARTS? But, nah, he's just *stronger* than Kiryu, full stop, ten times over. What...? They didn't even use Thug's *actual counter attacks from Zero*, which were slow and had a precise purpose FOR A REASON. Now Majima can just *continue* his combo, or just start a new one, and now you just have to guard because Kiryu is just, too, weak.

Kiwami 2 at least did a good job of making him feel more powerful, even if it took a step back and made the gameplay even more shallow. Easy, but shallow. Thematically appropriate, but also greivable. This game? Hard, shallow at times and depthful at others. Thematically inappropriate, but ultimately holding some of the best overall gameplay in the series. Well, discounting the progression. This game probably has the worst progression in the series, hands-down. Next to maybe Kiwami 2's fetish for giving Kiryu all too much attack and then throwing one health bar dudes at him. I mean, I know why they did it- it's basically to cover up Kiryu's lack of actually reasonable options to skillfully beat encounters without spamming the same charge attack over and over, while also making him look like big and strong and everything. It just feels superficial.

Zero may have had limited options for Kiryu, but the pace of fights did make it feel like there was a level of skill to using Brawler and being aware of its abilities, the same going for most of the other styles. Beast still suffered a "all or nothing" skill tree, though- and ultimately just became a mashing thing because it was so good by the end of it.

Breaker was an interesting experiment in truly responsive gameplay with its counters, but the standard combo string stole the show because of its sheer power and the nature of 0's enemy design. If we wanted to talk interesting counter-based gameplay, Breaker was it.

Slugger... well, not gonna lie, Slugger was somewhat shallow, but it was interesting. You could kinda just mash with it too because of how well it broke guards and did repeated damage.

Thug was what I wish you could use in Kiwami. Quick, to the point, various tools to control the situation, and responsive. Very precise, demanded a lot of your attention, but it felt right.

...I think I've said enough. Kiwami's enemy design for most of the game really needed to be changed- or you really needed a lot of different skills way sooner. If only random encounters actually meant anything- especially because they're unironically more fun than over half of the story encounters. You learn more fighting with them than you do fighting random freakin' super-armored teenagers who can send Kiryu to the next zipcode with anything they do.

[TOYSIPO2]

Oh, what's even better, is that Dragon has nearly none of the problems engaging from behind that Brawler does. It's all so fast and straightforward that if you attack them from the side rear or behind, they snap so their BACK faces Kiryu, enabling the combo to keep going. Brawler is the exact opposite, 100% discouraging Brawler's rush combo from almost ever coming into play meaningfully.

Brawler is a fun style on the surface level because of how it flows, but like... I almost feel like it should've just been removed from this game and they should've just sped up the acquisition of Dragon, or given you more of Dragon earlier or something. Which, they should have done *anyway*, especially because it's still nearly unusable by the time you get to the dragon re-inking cutscene, especially with the superarmored god teenagers that suddenly exist.

Not only did Brawler always struggle with having depth- it had a little because of how positioning-centric and fluid the fights were in 0- but here that design philosophy bites you HARD. All the excessive, wasted motions make it absolutely meaningless at the worst of times, and unwieldy and unresponsive at the best of times. Not that it's unintentionally unresponsive- but they did everything they could to make it feel absolutely ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ frustrating to use for anything that demands aggressive positioning, dodging or reflexes.

[Cooperal]

Easy mode is a feature in most games for people who want to have a power fantasy but aren't skilful enough to experience it at normal. There are literally no drawbacks.
If you feel like going easy damages your pride but normal is too much, suck it up and make a decision about what you want from this game. You can't have both.

Hyper armour is basically just an anti-cheese mechanic. It's what stops you from turning every fight into a stunlock party at the edge of the arena. It serves the same purpose in pretty much any game that it is found to exist.
Enemies will often leave themselves open for longer than usual after missing a hyper armour attack/combo. Make them miss. Use the right style for the right type of enemy, particularly enemies that block a lot. And keep your eyes peeled for enemies who are a little taller or fatter who can shrug off fast/weak attacks. For everything else use weapons and heat moves if you need to.

I've been cruising along only using fists and objects found during battle. You definitely get knocked down easier than in 0 but it's still something that a complete newcomer can adjust to.