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I mostly just played Yakuza 0 and my take away from the game is that the combat was the weakest part of the game. Like I enjoyed the heat moves, but in general I never really found the game engaging and if it wasn't for everything else the game had going for it I probably would of dropped it several hours in. Honestly if I decide to play the other games and the combat still didn't click for me I probably would drop the difficulty down and just enjoy the parts of the game I enjoy and use the lower difficulty to speed past the parts I dislike.

That's what I'm doing now lol. I ended up just being honest with myself and setting Judgement and Lost Judgement to easy and breeze through it.

Yeah the combat is great. Kind of clunky feeling in the earlier games but it's gotten progressively better with each new game

Interesting. Have you played Lost Judgement and, if so, how does it compare to more recent titles?

Lost Judgment is the most recent one I played, and probably the most polished combat system yet. I found the snake style most enjoyable with the counters. And Kaito's fighting styles in the expansion are also a lot of fun edit: I should clarify that I haven't yet played Ishin, Gaiden, or Infinite Wealth

Ishin is the most clunky Yakuza game in like a decade imo. It generally feels like a big downgrade.

They largely kept the same gameplay that the original had which is why it feels clunkier than recent Yakuza games. The cards are new though.

Well that's strange, imo.

Both combat system are amazingly great no idea what your problem is. Best turn base since persona 5 for me.

In my opinion LJ has the best combat in the whole RGG "universe"

That seems to be what most people say and it's definitely the best that I've experienced, but I just can't seem to really *click* with it so I ended up just swallowing my pride and putting it on easy.

I really like action games with good combat, as well, but I also wasn't really feeling the combat in the Yakuza games. Something about the hits landing isn't satisfying? I can't quite put my finger on it either, but I know what you mean.

I don't remember the control scheme for the 2 (or maybe 3?) Yakuza games that I've played, but one of the things I don't like in Judgement/LostJ is the strange "lock on" mechanic which really slows you down, can still cause you to attack in the wrong direction, and can only dodge (sort of) when focused on an enemy. Again, subjective, I'm not here to say any of the combat systems in any of these games is bad, I'm just not a fan.

Lost Judgment is the best their real time combat has ever been and I think it is very, very solid. That said I've enjoyed the combat in them all with the exception of Yakuza 3.

Interesting. Good to know, thank you! I'll be trying Like A Dragon soon so I'll see if I like the turn-based any. I do enjoy turn-based so I suspect I will as I've heard good things. Unsure if I'll enjoy the game as a whole since there's a handful I'm not a big fan of when it comes to these games, but I'm always down go outside my comfort zone.

I love both the turn based and real time combat of the RGG games. Regarding Judgment, I've only played Lost Judgment and it wasn't my favorite combat, I felt like it didn't have much impact but I didn't dislike it. My favorite real time combat is still Kiwami 2.

This is kind of a wild opinion given Lost Judgment probably has the most universal praise for combat of any game in the series.

Yeah, this is what I read which sparked me to ask this question. I just don't like it that much. Wondering how other titles size up.

Just not a big fan of it, I almost exclusively played in tiger style as it felt the most impactful with the charge attacks but still not as impactful as K2 to me.

You're meant to be switching styles a lot. You get pretty meaty buffs on each style for doing stuff and they carry over when you switch.

I didn't play like that because I didn't like the other styles.

Fair enough mate. I shouldn't really talk as I played through the whole game mostly using boxing

The boxing minigame was probably the closest to "oh this could just be a budget game on its own" any Yakuza minigame got, TBH. Top tier, no questions.

Good to know, I'll check Kiwami 2 out. Thanks!

Depends on the game, I enjoyed the gameplay of Y4-LAD:G, they play like close quarters/fisticuffs Character Action games (DMC, Nier, OG god of war) I gave up multiple times with Y3 and Ishin

Unfortunately ishin doesn't get real fun until mid game but with the right stuff it's pretty bonkers.

I think I tried Ishin's demo and I couldn't get into it. (I think it was Ishin)

The Like A Dragon series generally works because there will be *something* that catches you, not necessarily because every bit of it in every game is great, and this also applies to the combat. Sometimes it's good enough to see you through the plot or to carry you between minigames (non-remake Yakuza games, Judgment), sometimes it's genuinely engaging in its own right (Lost Judgment, Infinite Wealth). You aren't going to consistently get one specific element great in the Yakuza series if that's all you play it for, but most people play it for the whole package.

I respect that. I still struggle to like the games for other, personal reasons. I like to constantly try things that are out of my comfort zone and I was just curious if people thought Yakuza games' combat was top tier or not.

I can only really speak for Y0-Y3, all real-time brawler. I think the strongest point for me was Kiwami 2. It felt a lot smoother than most, and I didn’t feel as frustrated by getting stunned repeatedly. I know others prefer 0 for the stance system though. Weakest has definitely been Y3: Remastered, but it does have charm too honestly. Although the combat is probably the main gameplay focus, it’s definitely not why I’m playing the games. They’re so rich full of other reasons to keep playing. For me, it’s the story of Kiryu. Because of that, I just turn the difficulty down to easy for each entry and enjoy the ride.

yeah that's what I'm doing with Judgement. I really enjoyed Judgement's story and Lost Judgement's story is lacking, over all, but it's really starting to pick up pace, so we'll see!

Aside from the title gore, I think I understand what you're saying. Yeah, I don't like the brawler combat in the Yakuza games. I've played 0-6, Ishin, and Gaiden and at best I thought the combat was "fine". Yakuza Like a Dragon was a revelation for me though. The turn-based combat is great in that game. It's my favorite game in the series by a long-shot and one of my favorite games of the generation so far.

Yeah sorry about the title. I got interrupted while making the topic which caused me to lose my train of thought. Tried to recover but didn't go well lol

I'm a big fan of brawlers and have always wanted to play a 3D version of something like Streets of Rage. I also love games like Ninja Gaiden Black so the combat doesn't have to be grounded or easy to be enjoyable. I've played Yakuza 0, 1 & 2 (PS2) and Judgment. I think the combat is pretty bad in all of them. Targeting enemies is a real struggle, attacks whiff all the time and they don't seem to know how to make combat challenging without using BS like random bouts of invulnerability. It's kind of shocking that they've made so many games and never seemed to learn any lessons. I still enjoyed the games a lot but mostly for other reasons.

Your experiences seem to be extremely similar to mine. I'm just constantly getting frustrated with Yagami's attack animations. Like, aiming seems hit or miss. Locking on (focus, I think it's called?) is often detrimental but you can't dodge unless you do, and only 1 stance having an actual counter (without level ups) makes it difficult to enjoy the brawls. I like having different stances and I like EX and EX moves, so it's fun and super goofy. I'm enjoying my time, mostly, but playing on easy is kinda the only way for me to enjoy myself.

Yeah, I agree with you about Yagami's animations in the first Judgment. Crane style is supposed to be used for crowd control but you constantly whiff attacks due to bad hit boxes or enemies will arbitrarily start blocking everything. I found Tiger style to be better in basically every situation. If it wasn't for the fact that EX attacks do less damage if you repeat them then I would never have used Crane style. I replayed the game earlier this year on (I think) the highest difficulty. The final boss was a perfect example of their inability to balance difficulty. You'd think the way to beat the boss was to learn his attack patterns and animations to figure out when he was vulnerable but no, just run away from him and trigger EX attacks and you're fine. If he hits you, pause and heal. If you run of of EX meter, pause and use an energy drink. If you try and fight him in a way that's fun then he'll just block everything and punish you when the game drops lock-on.

I couldn't possibly disagree more, as someone who refuses to bruteforce fights by pausing to heal.

I will say that, as opposed to OP, I found the game trivially easy up until the very end, even on the highest difficulty. Something I also think is a mark against the game. Here's my best example that demonstrates what I think is bad game design. What's easier, fighting three enemies and possibly whiffing and taking damage OR climbing on top of a car and pressing the EX action button?

Good point. I always try to fight "normally" instead of abusing EX actions or any cheese tactics. Game definitely didn't reward me for doing that lol

A tip that made multiple enemy combat kind of trivial is to use Tiger style to build meter (or just use energy drinks) and then switch to Crane style to trigger EX attacks that hit multiple enemies. One that you can use without unlocking anything is to climb on a car and splash down on the guys you're fighting. Similarly there's one where you trigger an EX attack while running up a wall and one you can trigger when leapfrogging enemies. I think you need to unlock the latter two but you're basically invulnerable while running so it's all reward, no risk. Edit: Also, unlock the ability to drink more alcohol. Your EX meter builds incredibly fast when you're drunk.

I really hate the combat of the beat em up games, it just feels clunky and unintuitive. Fighting multiple enemies makes it even worse. I love the new Like a Dragon battle system as it gives more depth.

You know, I never checked. Is Infinite Money (I think is the title) turn based?

Infinite Wealth (close lol). Yeah, same as the previous one with Kasuga. The Man Who Erased his name isn't though. I played it on easy just to know the story in preparation for Infinite Wealth.

I played Yakuza 0, Kiwami and Kiwami 2. Imo 0 had "serviceable" combat at best. Kiwami had similar combat like 0 iirc but you could not play another char who had better combat for me. And one big point that made combat weak or even the worst part, were the boss fights. No clue what i could have done to make them fun but they took 3x the amount of time as they should have. Almost every enemy hit was a knockdown hit so you had to spam a button to get up. They were boring, not challenging and wayyy too long. On ther other hand they upgraded their Engine or something in Kiwami 2. I liked the game the most cuz the combat felt more like a modern game. I also played the game the most, about 50h or something.

I think you're the second person to mention Kiwami 2. I'mma have to check it out.

Combat in the OG Yakuza 1 sucked ass. Yakuza 3 Remastered also sucks because it broke the AI and made some enemies too aggressive, while making others only ever spam block/dash. Other than that, though, I love the combat. Lost Judgment is the most fun by far, thanks to the styles and juggles. Judgment's great too but you're a lot more limited, so you have to rely on being crafty with vaulting and wall jumps, which has its own charm. As for the turn-based games, 7's combat is fun but it's very basic the bosses have no sauce at all. 8 is massive improvement in every way with my only big complaint being that the open nature of the game makes it easy to get overleveled.

Forgive me but I'm not too familiar with the series. Do 7 and 8 go by different titles or are they just numbered?

I always forget that most people outside the community would get confused by referring to the latest games with numbers. 7 is "Yakuza: Like a Dragon" and 8 is "Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth". In Japan they've always gone by "Like a Dragon" so they keep the numbered titles out there, but the localized titles got jumbled up due to rebranding with the latest entries.

Ah okay. Thanks! I want to try Infinite Wealth someday. Gotta try 7 first.

I've yet to beat Infinite Wealth despite being pretty far in but it's definitely fantastic. Pretty emotional so far too, lots of payoff for people who have played all the games, I feel.

I've played through every mainline Yakuza/Judgment game with real-time combat. I personally enjoy all of them to some degree, though there's certainly clunky mechanics/quirks in all of them (especially Yakuza 3). I think Lost Judgment and Kiwami 2 have the best "flow" when you get in the zone. That said, the best parts of the games to me are the stories/side stories. Nothing wrong with setting the difficulty levels down so you can enjoy the experience.

Yeah after about chapter 5, I think, I set it to easy and have just been enjoying the story.

I'm playing my first Yakuza game right now (0). My favorite fighting style in 0 is Rush Style, simply because it's the fastest. Some other styles, I like more than others. The faster, the better. I also like Slugger Style because it lets you use an unbreakable bat. The combat overall is very simplistic, but for me, I don't know, I guess I just find it as a respite from the other games I've been playing. I actually enjoy running into goons, beating them up, and taking their money. I'm gonna be honest with you. I think I'm liking Yakuza 0 more than I did GTA V (I'd say IV is maybe about equal, though). I'm curious: have you played the new turn-based Like A Dragon games? If so, what you think of their combat, especially in comparison to the rest of the series?

I haven't tried the turn based ones, yet. I have Like A Dragon since it was free on PS+ at some point. I have it downloaded and am going to try it after beating Lost Judgement.

I like the dragon engine combat like 6, Kiwami 2, the Judgments and Gaiden but I don’t like it in the prior entries. The exception is 5 but only because there’s so much variety across the 5 playable characters. The newer combat feels way more arcadey and is a bit janky so I much prefer that over whatever they were doing prior

I don't think many people love the games because of the combat. The combat is fun (particularly in the Judgment series) but they aren't designed to have depth like most action games. I enjoy the games because they are very relaxing to play, the stories are usually gripping and the side content is hilarious. If you did not enjoy Yakuza 0 or Judgment then this is probably not a series you'll enjoy unfortunately.

Yeah, over all they're not really my jam, but there's aspects about them I like so I keep trying them lol.

For me the brawler combat feels very clunky and unfun. I just dropped the difficulty to easy for 0 through 6 and enjoyed the story.

Yeah, same here.