Operation Backlog Completion 2026

RGG Summit 2023 Hopes and Predictions

 Video games  1 Response »  Tagged with:
Jun 022023
 

June is here, our mystery game celebration is at an end, and the contest winners are in the process of being notified.

Now it’s time to catch up on one of the exciting announcements that occurred during May: a new RGG Summit!

Last week, RGG Studio announced that a new RGG Summit will be held on June 16 at 12:00 JST (June 15 at 8 PM PT / 11 PM ET).

No specific details have been provided, so we don’t really know what to expect.

Last year, the first-ever RGG Summit was held in September, and it was quite an event. Like a Dragon: Ishin was revealed the night before at the State of Play, followed by a closer look and the release date announcement at RGG Summit. They didn’t stop there, officially revealing Like a Dragon 8 and announcing Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name at the same event. And while it wasn’t officially part of the summit, Judgment and Lost Judgment dropped on PC the same day.

Will this year’s RGG Summit be just as exciting?

Two reasonable expectations are to get a release date for Like a Dragon Gaiden, which is due out this year, and possibly a new trailer for Like a Dragon 8.

Now, how about some less likely guesses about what we could see?

  • New IP – Back in 2021, RGG said in an interview that they had a new IP in development, separate from Yakuza and Judgment. The time could be right to reveal it!
  • Judgment 3 – With the Judgment games now on PC, there’s no longer any reason to believe the Judgment series is cancelled. I still haven’t played Lost Judgment, but I’d be ecstatic if a third entry was announced.
  • Dead Souls remaster – The surprisingly enjoyable zombie spin-off never received a remaster like the others, and that would be a perfect surprise to slot in between the larger entries.
  • Kenzan remake – This is the least likely one, as they said a Kenzan remake would require considerably more work than Ishin. Still, Ishin seemed like a pipe dream until the sudden announcement last year.
  • Something from one of their other series – It’s easy to forget that RGG Studio has also worked on Binary Domain, Monkey Ball, and Virtua Fighter, so one of those would be fair game for an RGG Summit.

One way or another, we’ll find out on June 15.

The RGG Summit is only one of many showcases set for June. Yes, we’ve got another Not-E3 lining up nicely, so we’ll talk more about that soon.

What do you think will be featured at RGG Summit 2023?

Yakuza 5: The Parts Are Greater Than the Whole

 Reviews, Video games  No Responses »  Tagged with:
Mar 062023
 

In the midst of our romance celebration last month, I also finished Yakuza 5, the third and final part of the Yakuza Remastered Collection.

Like Yakuza 4, Yakuza 5 features multiple protagonists, each of whom has a story you play through before their stories come together at the end.

But unlike Yakuza 4, where everyone’s story was set in Kamurocho, Yakuza 5 has each part set in a different city.

Moreover, not only does each character have their own slate of substories, but each part also includes a side story with its own story and set of missions.

For example, the first part follows Kiryu, who is now living in Nagasugai under a fake name and working as a taxi driver. So alongside all the usual Yakuza gameplay and substories, you also can take on taxi missions and racing missions. Each side story is unique and has its own systems.

All of this together means there’s a massive amount of side content in Yakuza 5. It’s a huge game, with a ton of optional things to do.

And it’s great! The substories are as entertaining as usual, and I loved the side stories. I started joking that if RGG had interest in any genre at all, they found a way to include it in Yakuza 5, because the side story gameplay is often completely different from the main game. Meanwhile, the combat is a step up from the previous entry and really felt a lot like Yakuza 0 to me.

(Yakuza 5 is also by far the most Christmas-themed Yakuza game so far.)

In terms of gameplay, there are only two real downsides in my opinion. First, the encounter rate is absurdly high. I could run into five battles just trying to reach a save point. Walking slowly past enemies to avoid battles is something I started to do more and more. Second, although there are five protagonists, there are only four side stories since two character share a part. I wish all five characters had a side story. On the other hand, though, that would make Yakuza 5 even longer than it is already, so maybe it’s for the best.

Each part also has an interesting story, but it’s when they start to come together that it runs into problems. This isn’t like Yakuza 4, where the story is dragged down by a couple ridiculous plot twists. No, the problem with Yakuza 5’s overarching story is that it just doesn’t make a lot of sense. Some aspects of the overarching story work and brought plot points together in a great way! Others, however, just left me saying, “Huh?”

Click for Yakuza 5 spoilers
The Kurosawa reveal? That was great, I started to have suspicions ahead of time, and I thought it worked great (aside from it being on the heels of the protagonists coming up with the stupidest plan imaginable to bait out the mastermind). His plan, however? It barely makes sense and feels complicated for the sake of being complicated.

Then there’s the whole Aizawa & Morinaga mess, which still doesn’t quite make sense to me.

It feels like certain twists and plot points were added solely to surprise the player, regardless of how much sense they actually make. There’s an interview from around when the game originally came out where producer and writer Yokoyama said he didn’t decide how the story would go ahead of time because he likes to surprise himself, and while I respect and appreciate that style of writing, it’s important to go through afterwards and make sure all the pieces line up.

But despite my criticisms of the overarching plot, Yakuza 5 is an incredible game with great moments, interesting story moments in each individual part, and so much fun side content to enjoy that even though story is one of my biggest priorities, I came out of Yakuza 5 loving it. For the overall game experience, I’d rank it near the top of the series.

So if you’re making your way through the Yakuza series and are wondering if you should pick up the Yakuza Remastered Collection, or you’ve played up through 4 and are wondering if you should dive into 5, it’s absolutely worthwhile.

Celebrating All Things Spooky: Yakuza Dead Souls

 Celebrating All Things Spooky, Reviews, Video games  7 Responses »  Tagged with:
Oct 312022
 

Happy Halloween!

Our final Celebrating All Things Spooky review this year is an entry in a series that has become near and dear to my heart, Yakuza.

That’s right, Yakuza has a “spooky” entry.

I’d been playing Yakuza 5 and hope to finish that before the end of the year, but when October came around, I decided to put that on hold to try the zombie shooter spin-off, Dead Souls.

Yakuza: Dead Souls is a non-canon spin-off set after Yakuza 4. A zombie outbreak sends Kamurocho into chaos, and our characters find themselves at the center of it all as they try to survive, help the people of the city, and learn the truth behind the outbreak.

The thing that struck me the most about Dead Souls is how sincere it feels. I didn’t expect much from the story of a zombie Yakuza game, but it doesn’t feel like an excuse plot or something quickly thrown together. It feels like a genuine Yakuza story exploring what would happen if zombies overtook Kamurocho. To some degree, it comes across as Yakuza Resident Evil, but it uses these elements in a way that makes sense for the series.

It also has great character interactions and some surprisingly emotional moments.

Click for Yakuza: Dead Souls spoilers
Ryuji’s third chapter, when they turn his boss from the takoyaki stand into a monster and you have to fight him, and then Ryuji deals the final blow while flashing back to his boss showing him how to kill an octopus cleanly to avoid causing it to suffer… that was a heavy scene.

And then the start of Kiryu’s chapter, when he refuses to shoot zombies until he’s finally forced to accept that there’s no other choice, that hit hard. It makes perfect sense for his character, so I’m glad they actually did that instead of having Kiryu just go in guns blazing.

Then there are the substories. In true Yakuza fashion, Dead Souls is filled with optional substories that are often hilarious and occasionally heartwarming. Some are ridiculous even by Yakuza standards, and then there are others that involve minor characters from past games, part of the attention to detail that makes it feel so sincere.

If you’re wondering if Dead Souls is worth it, I’d personally recommend it for the substories alone.

We do have to consider the gameplay, however.

Unlike the rest of the series, Dead Souls is a third-person shooter. You get a variety of guns, with each character having a main type. Handguns have infinite ammo, while the rest require you to have ammo in your inventory. Heat is replaced by the snipe gauge, which lets you use things in the environment to wreak devastation upon the zombies.

The shooting does not feel great, especially when you aim. You can aim by going into first-person, but you can’t move while aiming. That would be fine, except it also decided that means the left stick should control your aim instead of the right stick (which controls the camera in third-person). Going into first-person also sometimes swung me around so that I was facing a different direction; I never figured out what caused it or how to avoid it. Aside from fights with bosses and certain types of special zombies, I found it easier to shoot without aiming, since there’s some sort of auto-aim in place.

I’m not the biggest shooter fan, so I can’t really speak to whether it’s fun or not. Combat was the game’s weakest link for me, but not enough to stop me from playing it.

(Chases were also rough and felt clunkier to me than Yakuza 3’s chases despite this game coming out after Yakuza 4, but fortunately they don’t occur often.)

Now, all of this zombie shooting occurs in the quarantine zone, which gets larger and larger as the game goes on. Outside of the quarantined area, life in Kamurocho goes on like usual. Between that and the ability to liberate businesses within the quarantine zone (at which point they act like things are totally normal despite zombies swarming outside), all of the usual Yakuza side activities are here. While it might feel surreal to eat with a hostess, enjoy some karaoke, and then blast your way through a legion of zombies, I appreciate how Dead Souls is a complete Yakuza experience.

Click for minor Yakuza: Dead Souls spoilers
And since Ryuji’s return itself isn’t part of the plot, just a retcon, I choose to believe Ryuji survived in canon as well and is just happily making takoyaki without drawing any attention to himself.

…Maybe without the gun-arm.

(It would be ironic if Ryuji is alive and just successfully managed to do what Kiryu’s been trying to do for half the series now – drop out of sight and live a quiet life away from the Yakuza.)

It’s the shortest game I’ve played in the series, with my playtime coming in at a little over 30 hours. However, while I did all the substories, I skipped a chunk of side content – like the procedurally generated underground dungeons, which I did one floor of and then left – that could make a playthrough much longer.

So, is Yakuza: Dead Souls worth playing? If story, substories, and side content are the main draw for you, I’d say it is, although finding it is another matter. Dead Souls is only available on the PS3. You can buy a digital copy for $19.99, or hunt down a physical copy like I did. Since PS3 games are region-free, I imported a PAL copy since they’re easier to find.

Will they ever remaster Dead Souls? I don’t know, but I think it deserves it.

Yakuza: Dead Souls is a strange spin-off that has a lot more good in it than you might expect. It turned out to be the perfect way to end this year’s Celebrating All Things Spooky celebration. Happy Halloween, and don’t forget you have until midnight tonight to participate in the contest!

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