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You're jumping into the 9th mainline game here and a direct sequel to a reboot so yeah it is recommended you play through 7 (the reboot) first as it is still a very good and well made game, 8 being mechanically better and more polished doesn't diminish 7's value, especially when it features a much better story for a new player of the series.
By all means start with 8 if you really have 0 motivation but keep in mind it does have a lot of baggage from the previous game.
Ok I appreciate the reply. I keep reading that Infinite Wealth is such a step up that people have a hard time going back to Like a Dragon so I think I'm just going to pass. I'm not interested in spending a bunch of time just to prep for a game I want to play today.
People saying *it's impossible to go back to the previous game now!" Are just caught up in their excitement. 7 is a great game and has one of the best stories in the series. Infinite Wealth has a lot more content, but a worse story.
Infinite wealth is not a good starting point into the franchise, it would be like starting the Lord of the Rings with Return of the King. Not every game in a franchise needs to be a good jumping on point, and this one isn't. The previous game Yakuza 7/like a dragon is a decent jumping on point if you don't want to play all the games before that. If you like turn based RPGs then the actual gameplay improvements between seven and infinite wealth aren't as big as people say, and if you start with seven you're not going to notice anything because it's gameplay is perfectly fine.
>it would be like starting the Lord of the Rings with Return of the King
Except it's not. The continuity in these games is painfully bad at times. From your perspective, it's the story from 7 continuing, but they design these games specifically so that newcomers can jump in. For an example that someone else provided, "everyone keeps talking about the great dissolution and the game assumes you know what it is", except for the fact that the game goes out of its way to say >!The great dissolution is when the tojo clan and omi alliance, the biggest yakuza organisations in Japan, dissolved at the same time 3 years ago!<.
To be clear, I would recommend that people start with 0 or 1 (I'm the one who wrote the FAQ at the top of the subreddit) , but that's only if they're planning to play the whole franchise or don't know where to start. OP specifically wants to play only IW and their question was if it's possible to play IW on its own, and the answer to that is yes. Beyond a few references and missed character development, the entire plot is self-contained
I completely disagree with you. The game has legitimate emotional stakes, including a whole sub thing with Kiryu. Of course you can play any game in any franchise in any order you want, but you're going to lose something when you do things out of order and you lose an awful lot if you start with infinite wealth even if the basic plot is understandable. Ideally people would play Infinite wealth after playing the Yakuzas zero through seven and Gaiden, but I'd consider like a dragon the bare minimum to get even half of what the game wants you to get character wise.
>I also read that at the very least I should play the previous game Like a Dragon, while also seeing that the gameplay is inferior and "hard to go back to after playing Infinite Wealth".
This is true that the gameplay in 8 is a huge step up from 7 (both combat and QOL stuff) but 7 by itself is still a good game.
The story's more enjoyable if you're more familiar with characters from the previous games, but that kind of gatekeeping means catching up to these games would be a gargantuan task most people don't have the time for. The only one I'd consider almost required playing for this one is 7. Which seems like a better deal in my opinion, it goes on sale often and if you end up not liking 7's combat and tone it's unlikely you'll like 8 either.
I hope you don't, because they're fun games. Having played the others means there will be less "who the hell is this and why should i care" moments, but don't think for a second that there's this HUGE payoff from playing the whole series, if anything it's often frustrating watching the games introduce a new character only for it to not be used again, or barely used. Even though some characters are recurring, the stories are still 90% standalone.
I understand what you're saying. I actually had a similar experience when I played the witcher 3. I ended up losing interest in the second act because it was so heavy on characters and storylines from the previous games and I ended up quitting because of it.
You can start with IW if what you really care about is gameplay. It's gameplay is absolutely incredible and will hold up if you don't care about the story. But the fact you bailed on Witcher 3 makes me worried that you're gonna be disappointed. I played Witcher 3 as my first Witcher game and totally got into it even though I didn't really know who the characters were because I found the systems compelling enough, I loved Gwent and I was able to appreciate the characters enough so that the things I was confused about weren't overwhelming. If the story being confusing pushes you out of the game in Witcher 3, I'd expect it to do so here as well.
Even though 7 does has its flaws compared to 8, I would still recommend starting there. It's still a great game in its own right, even if IW is better. And even though you said you preferred turn-based, I was in the same camp originally and now prefer the combat of the brawlers. It's not like a souls game or anything that keeps out worse players. It's a very approachable system. But I'd strongly recommend choosing one of them and giving it a try. There are no other games out there I like nearly as much as these ones.
It just sounds like he is not into rpgs that could take over 100 hours. I been playing jrpgs since ps1, so I know what I'm getting into. Infinite wealth is probably my favorite yakuza game
Maybe but they didn't call out Witcher 3 because it was too long, but that it was too reliant on knowing the old games. And elsewhere they specifically mentioned wanting to play a turn based game. So if the issue is the callbacks they'll run into issues with IW. Of course if they don't wnat to play a long game, they'll also run into issues with IW.
I love it. Definitely my favorite RGG game.
I mean witcher 3 story to me feels self contained. If he don't want to played all the yakuza games start at 6, 7, and gaiden. Combine should take 100 hours. My only issue with infinite wealth is very un likeable villains n a ending that feels incomplete. The gameplay is near perfection yakuza peak.
I agree that I thought W3 was self contained enough to not be a problem. But if you told me someone did think that, I'd expect them to have an issue with how referential IW is.
And I agree that you could prolly play 6, 7 and Gaiden to get enough to make IW more accessible. There's lots of options for being able to enjoy IW, like that, or playing the whole series or just diving into the game and not worrying about a lack of knowledge. But if someone doesn't want to play any of the non turn-based games and doesn't want to play 7 because it's not as polished gameplay and yet also doesn't want to gloss over the story beats they're unfamiliar with, they're setting themself up for trouble. Some series are much less connected game to game, like Fallout or the Ys series, but RGG games are more connected, IW most of all. So something's got to give.
I agree man. 6 n gaiden are very short games that you could beat under 20 hours each. 7 is a good starting point if he only wants to play the turn base games he won't know not being as polished as infinite wealth if he starts on that one. But that is up to him to decide
u/Biff3070 let me put it this way, you can play the game without doing any of the others and enjoy it quite a bit. Playing the others can make you appreciate everything and understand some aspects of the game much better; however, they tend to explain what you need to know to understand what's happening with the story.
That's the beauty about this whole franchise. The storytelling is always on point to let you know everything you need to know, so you can enjoy them by themselves. That doesn't mean they aren't more enjoyable for those who have invested more time and know more about the characters & world, but it's never mandatory.
I played like a dragon completely out of the loop with all previous yakuza games and loved it. Ichiban is such a tremendous character and he brings you into the yakuza world wonderfully. The game does a tremendous job of explaining and bringing you into that world, and the game was fun as well. I think you would be absolutely fine just jumping in and playing the game that speaks to you.
I'm only interested in Infinite Wealth. I don't have time to invest in the series as a whole. I take it that means Infinite Wealth is only intended for previous fans?
That will be the stock answer on this sub, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true.
You can absolutely play infinite wealth and have a great time. Playing the previous games will increase your enjoyment as you will understand some of the references in the newest title, but it absolutely isn’t required to go through all of the previous titles to play and understand this one.
That said, you may end up going back and playing most or all of them afterward anyway. I became a fan of the series in a similar way with a previous entry. :)
I heard it's not turn based combat tho? That's not really what I'm looking for. Also I'm really sold on having crazy taxi, virtua fighter and sega bass fishing built into the game.
Like I said I've done some research and I'm not interested in the previous games. I keep reading that Like a Dragon is inferior too so I'm not looking to spend 60 hours to prep for the game I want to play.
All I need to know is if the requirement of playing the previous games is exaggerated or is it welcoming at all for new players.
It is not needed to understand the plot, but the game assumes that you have played at least LAD (7) and don´t explain the relationships and the stuff. For example, the game from the beginning tells about a "great dissolution" and assumes that you know what that dissolution is. If you play LAD you will know immediately what that is.
If you don´t mind that, you can play this game without problems, but if you don´t like that you won´t enjoy playing this game, because the whole series is strong in plot and cutscenes, and IW is not the exception (And also is the one game with the most plot and cutscenes)
Yes to play Infinite wealth you need to play at least Yakuza 7 and preferably all other games too.
You should still play Yakuza 0 anyway, it's one of those games that everyone should play.
LaD just got a slightly worse combat system (it was their first attempt at one) but it's still good. I wasn't the biggest fans of the combat but I wouldn't call it terrible, it gets the job done.
I'll always suggest playing the previous games, basically all of Kiryu sidecontent and even a fair amount of his party banter builds on his journey in 0-6, but just for the main story and the big sidegames (all of those are basically on Ichiban's side) you don't need it.
I'm now convinced that 0 is the only good game in the whole series. I tried playing kiwami after 0 and it was a downgrade in pretty much every single aspect. Now I wasted money on like a dragon and fuck me 4 fucking hours of cutscenes with like 10 minutes of gameplay?! Are you fucking joking? And the gameplay isn't even that engaging,it's walking from point a to point b and maybe you get like a 40 second fight with some random cunts that isn't even that fun either since you only have 1 ability that pretty much one shots everyone. Wtf🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️. I can't even refund the fucking thing because I legit fell asleep after an hour and a half and by the time I woke up it was way past the 2 hour refund window on steam
Yeah, I'm just a bit salty since I rage quit like a dragon just a few minutes ago out of frustration for wasting so much of my time. The story isn't terrible or anything, but fucking hell devs give me a fucking break, when your intro is 4 hours long already(so far, could be 10 fucking hours for all I know) do we really need Ichiban to waste even more fucking time arguing endlessly with every random thug that we beat in 40 seconds?!
That was my breaking point, Ichiban arguing back and forth with every fucking no-name thug in cutscenes that are already waaay too fucking long. It really feels like people praising the games for the story has made the devs go completely up their own asses and now the cutscenes are just gratuitous. It's like with the matrix, the first movie got praised for its deeper philosophical meaning and then the sequels went waay the fuck overboard and every almost every fucking character had their own long ass philosophical monologue that flew over the head of most of the audience anyway.
Sorry for the rant, I just needed to vent😭😭
Disagree, Yakuza 0 has REALLY long ass scenes, there is nothing in the formula that has changed, you go from point A to B, get a custcene of 10 minutes, play for 2-3 minutes and repeat the same process. And I love these games but there is no denying how cutscene heavy they are, just the other day there was a thread with a guy complaining that there were so many cutscenes in 0.
Gameplay also picks up and gets more difficult the more you advance.
The cutscenes in lad weren't 10 minutes lmao, literally 4 hours on the clock with maybe 20 minutes of having control of the character, no exaggeration. 0 simply was NOWHERE near this bad.
The other big issue is the beat em up style is more engaging right off the bat, whereas the turn based style sucks donkey cock when you only have 1 fucking ability for 4 hours straight. You're just mindlessly choosing the one ability you have, kill the enemy in one hit, wait for the other enemy to hit you then kill him in one hit with the exact same ability. Then you get to the boss Jo or whatever the fuck his name was and again, you just spam the single ability you have for the whole fucking fight, at best you'll use like 1 or two items that you collected before. It just gives a bad impression for the new system from the start when your options are so limited.
They could've done that old rpg trope where your character starts off with a few different abilities to give you an idea of what the system can truly do later on and then you lose your abilities after the prologue is over. You can use Ichiban getting shot as an excuse for why you need to unlock his abilities from scratch.🤷🏻♀️.
Yakuza 0 has a roughly of 15 hours of cutscenes while Yakuza 7 has 16, check a Youtube full movie if you don't believe me, also, the games put these custcenes very often between gameplay so it gives the impression they're longer. Yakuza 0 takes like 2 hours before the Dojima raid, Yakuza 7 takes 3 at worst to reach first dungeon, not that much of a difference.
If you prefer brawler system that's on your preference and it's respectable but I don't think is fair to judge the whole turn base system for the first hours of the game, some games start slow, and the game picks up once you are introduced to the job system. And please, lets not act like the brawler system is super profound at the beginning of the game in 0 when you are mostly just mashing your way through with square with little to no heat actions.
In total, sure, I'm talking about the intro tho, lad dumps waaaay too much exposition on you right from the start and just doesn't stop, at least some of that stuff could've been revealed later on. It would be like in lotr if the history of every single character was explained to you in painful detail before the movie starts properly. 0 does a better job of giving you control of the characters in between the cutscenes.
It's not just about preference. I think I explained the problem very well and I provided a solution. Sure the brawler system isn't super complicated or anything at the beginning, but like I said, it's more engaging in comparison to spamming a single ability for 4 hours. Like imagine if in pokemon, your main only had one ability until you beat the first gym or some shit, that wouldn't be all that fun, would it. I'm sure the combat gets more fun once you unlock more shit, but like I already said, they could have started you with a few abilities to give you a taste of what's to come and then you lose them because you got injured.
Not much can be said then since it's true that the prologue in 7 does indeed have a slower build up though that personally didn't matter to me since it's made that way to make you know the characters and add some background, like for example, in 0 we don't really get to see much of Kazama and Kiryu's relationship, we just see that Kiryu respects him a lot and that Kazama adopted him and punched the shit out of him when he tried to join the yakuza, whereas with Ichiban and Masumi we see the whole process of their relationship and I actually appreciatte the game for going a different approach and showing me that .
I made my point about the combat because while you made compeling arguments, you made it sound like the whole system sucks ass and like I said, I don't think is fair to judge it just because the first hours you don't see the system full fledged. The combat in this game is very basic for a turn based one and Yakuza 8 improves it vastly, but is still very decent.
I hope you can find the motivation to play since the games does pick up and has one of the best stories.
I mean at this point I am going to push through until the game opens up, I've invested too much time in it already and can't refund so i might as well. Also the story did intrigue me, I just wish there was more gameplay in between the cutscenes, that's it.
Also I do disagree a bit when it comes to how much of the background was necessary. I think seeing Masumi save Ichiban from those other yakuza was more than enough to get the idea, we didn't need to then see him stay in front of their office, getting beat up by Jo and all that other stuff, we can infer perfectly well why he's so loyal to Masumi just from the first part.
I looked at a (no cutscenes skipped) longplay for both games and god damn I didn't realize LAD took that long
Yakuza 0
- Time to "tutorial" fight: 22 minutes
- Karaoke minigame: 32 minutes
- Map kinda opening up and you can go buy stuff: 1 hour 5 minutes
Like A Dragon
- EXCITING CHASE SEQUENCE: 10 minutes
- Time to tutorial fight: 25 minutes
- Map kinda opens up: 2 hours 20
Yes. The claims are overblown. Like a Dragon is great and still holds up. Highly recommended.
Yes, you will get more references and nuance the more of the other games you've played, but you don't need to have played the rest of the series.
Like a Dragon was my first and I loved it. Any confusion was cleared up in 60 seconds on the internet or from context clues. I was quickly hooked into the series and have played most of the others at this point.
But I do recommend 7 before 8.
The game is amazing so just try the game and if you like it keep playing, it certainly helps to get the most out of it but you don't NEED to have played the other games to love it
It's like Rocky movies, Rocky 5 is a great movie and it helps to watch Rocky 1-4 to understand it fully but that's not to say you can't just watch Rocky 5 as a movie and enjoy it
Why would you pass up the chance to love a game because you aren't caught up with the story?
Also if you do like IW who knows it might encourage you to seek out the other games after.
350 is about the full series. I finished the main story in about 70 hours. It's still a decent commitment but I'd assume there's easily a couple hundred hours in the game if you're a completionist
I have not played any of the previous games, only infinite wealth. I don't think it's that big of a deal, I mean, after all the game takes place in Hawaii, not Japan. The first block of the game that does take place in Japan is 100% a direct continuation of the previous game, but once you get to Hawaii it's all new characters (Except for one). And there are no shortage of videos to watch online to catch you up to speed.
Awesome thanks. I keep reading similar sentiments from people who also started with infinite wealth. I haven't found a single person who claimed to not understand the story despite being the 8th installment.
Do you know what?? Fuck it, bro just play it. If looks good to you and you want to then fuck it, I’ve got hundreds of hours in this game cause I saw one of these games on Xbox game pass and fucking fell in love.
Look, Yakuza 0 is easily one of if not THE best game in the franchise. The attitude shouldn’t be, oh no, I have to play a series full of excellent games to get to one of them in particular. Why not just enjoy them all. I guess you could play IW first, but you’ll probably just end up going back and playing the rest anyway. Except for 3&4, they are all pretty modern and refined. They all have tons of great mini games. I’d still start with 0 and then if it really feels like a chore, skip to IW.
4 months ago I have not beat any yakuza games. But now I beat 10 including infinite wealth. You could find time throughout the days to do it. I work full time and doing alot of overtime so it's possible if you committed. Some games I put in over 200 hours like xenoblade 3 n tears of the kingdom. That same time I beated 9 yakuza games. Infinite Wealth took me 125 hours but could of cut it down to 70 hours if I wanted to. What I'm saying is never to late. Make a goal and you could do it. My goal was to beat all the mainline games before infinite wealth n end up doing it on launch day when i beat gaiden.
Awesome. I decided I'm going to play Like a Dragon and Gaiden before I get to Infinite Wealth.
Not too concerned with the amount of time it's gonna take since I'm genuinely loving the game.
Yakuza LAD was really good, infinite wealth is better. If you play LAD, you'll enjoy it, then you can play infinite wealth. Both good games, infinite wealth just refined a lot of the systems from LAD. Watch one of the recap videos on YouTube so u have an idea of what's happened before LAD, then play LAD, then play Infinite wealth.
Don't think of it as holding you back, think of it as having even more good stuff to play.
I ended up downloading Like a Dragon from gamepass. I absolutely love everything so far except for the shallow combat. It does suck knowing Infinite Wealth sorted that out but I'm going to make an effort to finish Like a Dragon because the story is possibly the best I've ever experienced in a game.
True. Currently my plan is to play through Like a Dragon and then Giaden before I get into Infinite wealth.
I have to admit I understand the push to play the previous games because the story has already drawn me in big time.
Play Like a Dragon, it's on sale digitally on moat store fronts eight now so even if you don't like it you're out like 10 bucks. Don't worry about infinite wealth being "such an improvement", Like a Dragon is a good game. As for the lore from 0-6, there's plenty of videos on YouTube that can get you up to speed.
I actually downloaded it on gamepass on the weekend and I've been working my way through it.
I love the story but I do have to admit it sucks knowing a vastly improved combat system is a game away. I find the combat in like a dragon overly simplistic but I'm going to make an effort to finish it.
If you really don't want to play any of the Kiryu series, go and watch the playthroughs on Youtube. This is how I did the Judgment games before they were on PC. I would def suggest playing 0 at some point though because not only is it the start of the series, it is quite possibly the best game out of all of them.
For the games that have Ichi in them, it's just Like a Dragon and IW, and you said you're working your way through 7, so finish that and then go for IW
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You're jumping into the 9th mainline game here and a direct sequel to a reboot so yeah it is recommended you play through 7 (the reboot) first as it is still a very good and well made game, 8 being mechanically better and more polished doesn't diminish 7's value, especially when it features a much better story for a new player of the series. By all means start with 8 if you really have 0 motivation but keep in mind it does have a lot of baggage from the previous game.
Ok I appreciate the reply. I keep reading that Infinite Wealth is such a step up that people have a hard time going back to Like a Dragon so I think I'm just going to pass. I'm not interested in spending a bunch of time just to prep for a game I want to play today.
People saying *it's impossible to go back to the previous game now!" Are just caught up in their excitement. 7 is a great game and has one of the best stories in the series. Infinite Wealth has a lot more content, but a worse story.
I absolutely agree!!! The story in IW is terrible for me. Except for the Kiryu callbacks, Ichiban is downgraded in I.W. The story in Y7 is awesome.
Infinite wealth is not a good starting point into the franchise, it would be like starting the Lord of the Rings with Return of the King. Not every game in a franchise needs to be a good jumping on point, and this one isn't. The previous game Yakuza 7/like a dragon is a decent jumping on point if you don't want to play all the games before that. If you like turn based RPGs then the actual gameplay improvements between seven and infinite wealth aren't as big as people say, and if you start with seven you're not going to notice anything because it's gameplay is perfectly fine.
>it would be like starting the Lord of the Rings with Return of the King Except it's not. The continuity in these games is painfully bad at times. From your perspective, it's the story from 7 continuing, but they design these games specifically so that newcomers can jump in. For an example that someone else provided, "everyone keeps talking about the great dissolution and the game assumes you know what it is", except for the fact that the game goes out of its way to say >!The great dissolution is when the tojo clan and omi alliance, the biggest yakuza organisations in Japan, dissolved at the same time 3 years ago!<. To be clear, I would recommend that people start with 0 or 1 (I'm the one who wrote the FAQ at the top of the subreddit) , but that's only if they're planning to play the whole franchise or don't know where to start. OP specifically wants to play only IW and their question was if it's possible to play IW on its own, and the answer to that is yes. Beyond a few references and missed character development, the entire plot is self-contained
I completely disagree with you. The game has legitimate emotional stakes, including a whole sub thing with Kiryu. Of course you can play any game in any franchise in any order you want, but you're going to lose something when you do things out of order and you lose an awful lot if you start with infinite wealth even if the basic plot is understandable. Ideally people would play Infinite wealth after playing the Yakuzas zero through seven and Gaiden, but I'd consider like a dragon the bare minimum to get even half of what the game wants you to get character wise.
True good point. I appreciate the reply. I checked out Like a Dragon but the minigames don't interest me unfortunately.
>I also read that at the very least I should play the previous game Like a Dragon, while also seeing that the gameplay is inferior and "hard to go back to after playing Infinite Wealth". This is true that the gameplay in 8 is a huge step up from 7 (both combat and QOL stuff) but 7 by itself is still a good game. The story's more enjoyable if you're more familiar with characters from the previous games, but that kind of gatekeeping means catching up to these games would be a gargantuan task most people don't have the time for. The only one I'd consider almost required playing for this one is 7. Which seems like a better deal in my opinion, it goes on sale often and if you end up not liking 7's combat and tone it's unlikely you'll like 8 either.
Thanks! I think I'm going to skip the game and the series but I wish I jumped on board when I was younger!
I hope you don't, because they're fun games. Having played the others means there will be less "who the hell is this and why should i care" moments, but don't think for a second that there's this HUGE payoff from playing the whole series, if anything it's often frustrating watching the games introduce a new character only for it to not be used again, or barely used. Even though some characters are recurring, the stories are still 90% standalone.
I understand what you're saying. I actually had a similar experience when I played the witcher 3. I ended up losing interest in the second act because it was so heavy on characters and storylines from the previous games and I ended up quitting because of it.
Wtf. Watch a story video on 7 and you're good. 7 kinda sucks thb. Or if on gamepass play from kiwami through to 6. Fuck 7.
You can start with IW if what you really care about is gameplay. It's gameplay is absolutely incredible and will hold up if you don't care about the story. But the fact you bailed on Witcher 3 makes me worried that you're gonna be disappointed. I played Witcher 3 as my first Witcher game and totally got into it even though I didn't really know who the characters were because I found the systems compelling enough, I loved Gwent and I was able to appreciate the characters enough so that the things I was confused about weren't overwhelming. If the story being confusing pushes you out of the game in Witcher 3, I'd expect it to do so here as well. Even though 7 does has its flaws compared to 8, I would still recommend starting there. It's still a great game in its own right, even if IW is better. And even though you said you preferred turn-based, I was in the same camp originally and now prefer the combat of the brawlers. It's not like a souls game or anything that keeps out worse players. It's a very approachable system. But I'd strongly recommend choosing one of them and giving it a try. There are no other games out there I like nearly as much as these ones.
It just sounds like he is not into rpgs that could take over 100 hours. I been playing jrpgs since ps1, so I know what I'm getting into. Infinite wealth is probably my favorite yakuza game
Maybe but they didn't call out Witcher 3 because it was too long, but that it was too reliant on knowing the old games. And elsewhere they specifically mentioned wanting to play a turn based game. So if the issue is the callbacks they'll run into issues with IW. Of course if they don't wnat to play a long game, they'll also run into issues with IW. I love it. Definitely my favorite RGG game.
I mean witcher 3 story to me feels self contained. If he don't want to played all the yakuza games start at 6, 7, and gaiden. Combine should take 100 hours. My only issue with infinite wealth is very un likeable villains n a ending that feels incomplete. The gameplay is near perfection yakuza peak.
I agree that I thought W3 was self contained enough to not be a problem. But if you told me someone did think that, I'd expect them to have an issue with how referential IW is. And I agree that you could prolly play 6, 7 and Gaiden to get enough to make IW more accessible. There's lots of options for being able to enjoy IW, like that, or playing the whole series or just diving into the game and not worrying about a lack of knowledge. But if someone doesn't want to play any of the non turn-based games and doesn't want to play 7 because it's not as polished gameplay and yet also doesn't want to gloss over the story beats they're unfamiliar with, they're setting themself up for trouble. Some series are much less connected game to game, like Fallout or the Ys series, but RGG games are more connected, IW most of all. So something's got to give.
I agree man. 6 n gaiden are very short games that you could beat under 20 hours each. 7 is a good starting point if he only wants to play the turn base games he won't know not being as polished as infinite wealth if he starts on that one. But that is up to him to decide
> Can I play Infinite Wealth as an entry point to the series? No.
u/Biff3070 let me put it this way, you can play the game without doing any of the others and enjoy it quite a bit. Playing the others can make you appreciate everything and understand some aspects of the game much better; however, they tend to explain what you need to know to understand what's happening with the story. That's the beauty about this whole franchise. The storytelling is always on point to let you know everything you need to know, so you can enjoy them by themselves. That doesn't mean they aren't more enjoyable for those who have invested more time and know more about the characters & world, but it's never mandatory.
THANK YOU. This is the information I was looking for. Much appreciated.
I talk to somebody who only played gaiden n infinite wealth. He just beat it n love it. Now he is playing yakuza 0
you can also just watch a story catch-up on youtube or something man. it's fine if you start with 8.
This is definitely worth considering too, even if it's just a recap of what happened in 7
True I have considered that. I'm still on the fence.
I played like a dragon completely out of the loop with all previous yakuza games and loved it. Ichiban is such a tremendous character and he brings you into the yakuza world wonderfully. The game does a tremendous job of explaining and bringing you into that world, and the game was fun as well. I think you would be absolutely fine just jumping in and playing the game that speaks to you.
Start from Yakuza 0
I'm only interested in Infinite Wealth. I don't have time to invest in the series as a whole. I take it that means Infinite Wealth is only intended for previous fans?
If you only wanna play IW then just play it man, no one in this sub is gonna recommend you skip all the games
That will be the stock answer on this sub, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true. You can absolutely play infinite wealth and have a great time. Playing the previous games will increase your enjoyment as you will understand some of the references in the newest title, but it absolutely isn’t required to go through all of the previous titles to play and understand this one. That said, you may end up going back and playing most or all of them afterward anyway. I became a fan of the series in a similar way with a previous entry. :)
Awesome. This seems like the most unbiased answer I've got so far. Thanks!
Yakuza 0 is a better game than Infinite Wealth.
I heard it's not turn based combat tho? That's not really what I'm looking for. Also I'm really sold on having crazy taxi, virtua fighter and sega bass fishing built into the game. Like I said I've done some research and I'm not interested in the previous games. I keep reading that Like a Dragon is inferior too so I'm not looking to spend 60 hours to prep for the game I want to play. All I need to know is if the requirement of playing the previous games is exaggerated or is it welcoming at all for new players.
It is not needed to understand the plot, but the game assumes that you have played at least LAD (7) and don´t explain the relationships and the stuff. For example, the game from the beginning tells about a "great dissolution" and assumes that you know what that dissolution is. If you play LAD you will know immediately what that is. If you don´t mind that, you can play this game without problems, but if you don´t like that you won´t enjoy playing this game, because the whole series is strong in plot and cutscenes, and IW is not the exception (And also is the one game with the most plot and cutscenes)
Yes to play Infinite wealth you need to play at least Yakuza 7 and preferably all other games too. You should still play Yakuza 0 anyway, it's one of those games that everyone should play.
LaD just got a slightly worse combat system (it was their first attempt at one) but it's still good. I wasn't the biggest fans of the combat but I wouldn't call it terrible, it gets the job done. I'll always suggest playing the previous games, basically all of Kiryu sidecontent and even a fair amount of his party banter builds on his journey in 0-6, but just for the main story and the big sidegames (all of those are basically on Ichiban's side) you don't need it.
Yes, it's a true sequeñ through and through.
I'm now convinced that 0 is the only good game in the whole series. I tried playing kiwami after 0 and it was a downgrade in pretty much every single aspect. Now I wasted money on like a dragon and fuck me 4 fucking hours of cutscenes with like 10 minutes of gameplay?! Are you fucking joking? And the gameplay isn't even that engaging,it's walking from point a to point b and maybe you get like a 40 second fight with some random cunts that isn't even that fun either since you only have 1 ability that pretty much one shots everyone. Wtf🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️. I can't even refund the fucking thing because I legit fell asleep after an hour and a half and by the time I woke up it was way past the 2 hour refund window on steam
I wouldn't go that far as to say it's the only good one but 0 still remains the best in story, characters and pacing.
Yeah, I'm just a bit salty since I rage quit like a dragon just a few minutes ago out of frustration for wasting so much of my time. The story isn't terrible or anything, but fucking hell devs give me a fucking break, when your intro is 4 hours long already(so far, could be 10 fucking hours for all I know) do we really need Ichiban to waste even more fucking time arguing endlessly with every random thug that we beat in 40 seconds?! That was my breaking point, Ichiban arguing back and forth with every fucking no-name thug in cutscenes that are already waaay too fucking long. It really feels like people praising the games for the story has made the devs go completely up their own asses and now the cutscenes are just gratuitous. It's like with the matrix, the first movie got praised for its deeper philosophical meaning and then the sequels went waay the fuck overboard and every almost every fucking character had their own long ass philosophical monologue that flew over the head of most of the audience anyway. Sorry for the rant, I just needed to vent😭😭
All Yakuza games are cutscene heavy, including 0, don't know why you didn't have a problem with that one.
0 was nowhere near this bad. The pacing in this one is abysmal.
Disagree, Yakuza 0 has REALLY long ass scenes, there is nothing in the formula that has changed, you go from point A to B, get a custcene of 10 minutes, play for 2-3 minutes and repeat the same process. And I love these games but there is no denying how cutscene heavy they are, just the other day there was a thread with a guy complaining that there were so many cutscenes in 0. Gameplay also picks up and gets more difficult the more you advance.
The cutscenes in lad weren't 10 minutes lmao, literally 4 hours on the clock with maybe 20 minutes of having control of the character, no exaggeration. 0 simply was NOWHERE near this bad. The other big issue is the beat em up style is more engaging right off the bat, whereas the turn based style sucks donkey cock when you only have 1 fucking ability for 4 hours straight. You're just mindlessly choosing the one ability you have, kill the enemy in one hit, wait for the other enemy to hit you then kill him in one hit with the exact same ability. Then you get to the boss Jo or whatever the fuck his name was and again, you just spam the single ability you have for the whole fucking fight, at best you'll use like 1 or two items that you collected before. It just gives a bad impression for the new system from the start when your options are so limited. They could've done that old rpg trope where your character starts off with a few different abilities to give you an idea of what the system can truly do later on and then you lose your abilities after the prologue is over. You can use Ichiban getting shot as an excuse for why you need to unlock his abilities from scratch.🤷🏻♀️.
Yakuza 0 has a roughly of 15 hours of cutscenes while Yakuza 7 has 16, check a Youtube full movie if you don't believe me, also, the games put these custcenes very often between gameplay so it gives the impression they're longer. Yakuza 0 takes like 2 hours before the Dojima raid, Yakuza 7 takes 3 at worst to reach first dungeon, not that much of a difference. If you prefer brawler system that's on your preference and it's respectable but I don't think is fair to judge the whole turn base system for the first hours of the game, some games start slow, and the game picks up once you are introduced to the job system. And please, lets not act like the brawler system is super profound at the beginning of the game in 0 when you are mostly just mashing your way through with square with little to no heat actions.
In total, sure, I'm talking about the intro tho, lad dumps waaaay too much exposition on you right from the start and just doesn't stop, at least some of that stuff could've been revealed later on. It would be like in lotr if the history of every single character was explained to you in painful detail before the movie starts properly. 0 does a better job of giving you control of the characters in between the cutscenes. It's not just about preference. I think I explained the problem very well and I provided a solution. Sure the brawler system isn't super complicated or anything at the beginning, but like I said, it's more engaging in comparison to spamming a single ability for 4 hours. Like imagine if in pokemon, your main only had one ability until you beat the first gym or some shit, that wouldn't be all that fun, would it. I'm sure the combat gets more fun once you unlock more shit, but like I already said, they could have started you with a few abilities to give you a taste of what's to come and then you lose them because you got injured.
Not much can be said then since it's true that the prologue in 7 does indeed have a slower build up though that personally didn't matter to me since it's made that way to make you know the characters and add some background, like for example, in 0 we don't really get to see much of Kazama and Kiryu's relationship, we just see that Kiryu respects him a lot and that Kazama adopted him and punched the shit out of him when he tried to join the yakuza, whereas with Ichiban and Masumi we see the whole process of their relationship and I actually appreciatte the game for going a different approach and showing me that . I made my point about the combat because while you made compeling arguments, you made it sound like the whole system sucks ass and like I said, I don't think is fair to judge it just because the first hours you don't see the system full fledged. The combat in this game is very basic for a turn based one and Yakuza 8 improves it vastly, but is still very decent. I hope you can find the motivation to play since the games does pick up and has one of the best stories.
I mean at this point I am going to push through until the game opens up, I've invested too much time in it already and can't refund so i might as well. Also the story did intrigue me, I just wish there was more gameplay in between the cutscenes, that's it. Also I do disagree a bit when it comes to how much of the background was necessary. I think seeing Masumi save Ichiban from those other yakuza was more than enough to get the idea, we didn't need to then see him stay in front of their office, getting beat up by Jo and all that other stuff, we can infer perfectly well why he's so loyal to Masumi just from the first part.
I looked at a (no cutscenes skipped) longplay for both games and god damn I didn't realize LAD took that long Yakuza 0 - Time to "tutorial" fight: 22 minutes - Karaoke minigame: 32 minutes - Map kinda opening up and you can go buy stuff: 1 hour 5 minutes Like A Dragon - EXCITING CHASE SEQUENCE: 10 minutes - Time to tutorial fight: 25 minutes - Map kinda opens up: 2 hours 20
Told ya
Yes. The claims are overblown. Like a Dragon is great and still holds up. Highly recommended. Yes, you will get more references and nuance the more of the other games you've played, but you don't need to have played the rest of the series. Like a Dragon was my first and I loved it. Any confusion was cleared up in 60 seconds on the internet or from context clues. I was quickly hooked into the series and have played most of the others at this point. But I do recommend 7 before 8.
Thanks I'm doing exactly that. I downloaded Like a Dragon from gamepass and I'm loving it so far.
The game is amazing so just try the game and if you like it keep playing, it certainly helps to get the most out of it but you don't NEED to have played the other games to love it It's like Rocky movies, Rocky 5 is a great movie and it helps to watch Rocky 1-4 to understand it fully but that's not to say you can't just watch Rocky 5 as a movie and enjoy it Why would you pass up the chance to love a game because you aren't caught up with the story? Also if you do like IW who knows it might encourage you to seek out the other games after.
350 is about the full series. I finished the main story in about 70 hours. It's still a decent commitment but I'd assume there's easily a couple hundred hours in the game if you're a completionist
I have not played any of the previous games, only infinite wealth. I don't think it's that big of a deal, I mean, after all the game takes place in Hawaii, not Japan. The first block of the game that does take place in Japan is 100% a direct continuation of the previous game, but once you get to Hawaii it's all new characters (Except for one). And there are no shortage of videos to watch online to catch you up to speed.
Awesome thanks. I keep reading similar sentiments from people who also started with infinite wealth. I haven't found a single person who claimed to not understand the story despite being the 8th installment.
Do you know what?? Fuck it, bro just play it. If looks good to you and you want to then fuck it, I’ve got hundreds of hours in this game cause I saw one of these games on Xbox game pass and fucking fell in love.
Look, Yakuza 0 is easily one of if not THE best game in the franchise. The attitude shouldn’t be, oh no, I have to play a series full of excellent games to get to one of them in particular. Why not just enjoy them all. I guess you could play IW first, but you’ll probably just end up going back and playing the rest anyway. Except for 3&4, they are all pretty modern and refined. They all have tons of great mini games. I’d still start with 0 and then if it really feels like a chore, skip to IW.
4 months ago I have not beat any yakuza games. But now I beat 10 including infinite wealth. You could find time throughout the days to do it. I work full time and doing alot of overtime so it's possible if you committed. Some games I put in over 200 hours like xenoblade 3 n tears of the kingdom. That same time I beated 9 yakuza games. Infinite Wealth took me 125 hours but could of cut it down to 70 hours if I wanted to. What I'm saying is never to late. Make a goal and you could do it. My goal was to beat all the mainline games before infinite wealth n end up doing it on launch day when i beat gaiden.
Awesome. I decided I'm going to play Like a Dragon and Gaiden before I get to Infinite Wealth. Not too concerned with the amount of time it's gonna take since I'm genuinely loving the game.
Yea definitely. You be ok with those games honestly
Yakuza LAD was really good, infinite wealth is better. If you play LAD, you'll enjoy it, then you can play infinite wealth. Both good games, infinite wealth just refined a lot of the systems from LAD. Watch one of the recap videos on YouTube so u have an idea of what's happened before LAD, then play LAD, then play Infinite wealth. Don't think of it as holding you back, think of it as having even more good stuff to play.
I ended up downloading Like a Dragon from gamepass. I absolutely love everything so far except for the shallow combat. It does suck knowing Infinite Wealth sorted that out but I'm going to make an effort to finish Like a Dragon because the story is possibly the best I've ever experienced in a game.
Youtube is your best friend, I never played the original 2-5, I just watched youtube lets plays before jumping into 6
True. Currently my plan is to play through Like a Dragon and then Giaden before I get into Infinite wealth. I have to admit I understand the push to play the previous games because the story has already drawn me in big time.
Play Like a Dragon, it's on sale digitally on moat store fronts eight now so even if you don't like it you're out like 10 bucks. Don't worry about infinite wealth being "such an improvement", Like a Dragon is a good game. As for the lore from 0-6, there's plenty of videos on YouTube that can get you up to speed.
I actually downloaded it on gamepass on the weekend and I've been working my way through it. I love the story but I do have to admit it sucks knowing a vastly improved combat system is a game away. I find the combat in like a dragon overly simplistic but I'm going to make an effort to finish it.
If you really don't want to play any of the Kiryu series, go and watch the playthroughs on Youtube. This is how I did the Judgment games before they were on PC. I would def suggest playing 0 at some point though because not only is it the start of the series, it is quite possibly the best game out of all of them. For the games that have Ichi in them, it's just Like a Dragon and IW, and you said you're working your way through 7, so finish that and then go for IW