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Have the Yakuza games replaced Final Fantasy for anyone else?

Even though the majority of the Yakuza games had brawler-type combat systems, the latest one being the exception, a lot of the core gameplay still had RPG-inspired elements. Gaining experience to level up, being able to equip armor and weapons, items to recover HP and Heat (basically MP). In addition, you can always expect a good story with likable characters, and tons of side content.

The Yakuza series, to me, represented what Final Fantasy used to be, and while I no longer look forward to a new Final Fantasy, I do look forward to every new iteration of Yakuza, for a lot of the same reasons I used to look forward to a new Final Fantasy. I was wondering if anyone else felt the same way?
 

reksveks

Member
Kinda of with you. I still prefer the gameplay of ff (least old FF) but generally prefer the story/characters of yakuza.

The brawler combat of yakuza was a bit meh to me except for one of them(still going through them)
 
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lh032

I cry about Xbox and hate PlayStation.
i almost fall asleep playing yakuza games.

I have Yakuza 0, Yakuza 6 (brand new) sits on my shelf collecting dust now.
 
Yes minus the sense of exploration. If there was ever a Yakuza game that had you travel across Japan, even if it meant drastically scaled back cities, I would almost fully agree with you.

edit: Yakuza 5 sort of did that, but it was structured that each city was pretty much its own self-contained story area, as opposed to a "party" traveling among them on some sort of search or adventure.
 
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I feel the same way i love the story and characters and world. Kamurocho feels like home. I get excited for a new Yakuza everytime.
I was turned off from FF games after FF13 games and FF15. .

I pray that after Sega is done with Judgment and Like a Dragon saga they go back to Kiryu. Would anyone want to play a Kiryu prequel saga that shows Kiryu's rise to the top of the Tojo clan? I want to see a trilogy featuring Kiryu, Majima, Shinji, Daigo and Nishiki. I know during that time period Daigo was the young one and was being shown the ropes, Nishiki must have started developing a slight jealousy of Kiryu, We would get to see more of that relationship with Yumi and Kiryu. Erica was developing and unspoken love for Nishiki at that time too. Kiryu and Majima working together for the first time(remember they never met until Yakuza 0 was over).So many great ideas to explore.

Yakuza(kiryu games) combat feels so good except there was no juggling. I wish the Kiryu saga had some juggling moves like in Judgment. I hated it when I couldnt continue to smash my opponents. btw Judgment 2 looks sick
 

Jeeves

Member
Were Final Fantasy games the only RPGs you played or something? I get what you're saying but it seems weird to just single out FF.
 

EverydayBeast

thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
Yakuza and final fantasy are great but they haven’t made the open world jump yet it’s like they’re stuck in the 90s and early 2000s, even final fantasy mmo “feels” small compared to games like Days Gone which isn’t a big open world game at all.
 

deriks

4-Time GIF/Meme God
i almost fall asleep playing yakuza games.

I have Yakuza 0, Yakuza 6 (brand new) sits on my shelf collecting dust now.
tumblr_oz3vqgEKoS1qg39ewo1_500.gif


Not for me. One is more epic with fantasy stuff, other is based on modern day and kinda has a foot on the ground

I'm happy that we have both
 

klosos

Member
for me the Yakuza/ Judgement series are my exciting games to look forward to , great Stories and Characters and extremely fun combat (Something no Final fantasy game can match the writing) . Sorry but Final Fantasy completely lost me when it went fully voice acted. Even more so now they are moving further and further away from what i like and want in a Final Fantasy game.
 
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GuinGuin

Banned
No, doesn't scratch the same itch. Yakuza is about sampling Japanese whiskey with escorts. Final Fantasy is a grand adventure with a rag tag team of scrappy upstarts.
 

Fbh

Member
I really like the Yakuza games but I don't see them as a FF remplacement.

Be it combat, setting or storytelling, they are quite different from each other.
One of the big things I've always liked about FF is how the story, characters and setting change from game to game. Yakuza us the exact opposite with the same characters and locations being the focus of most games in the franchise.
 

wvnative

Member
For me it's just an awesome compliment to FF, one I hold in very high regard.

Like a dragon came damn close to replacing it though
 

BennyBlanco

aka IMurRIVAL69
No, Xenoblade did. Yakuza is great though, and FF has been bad for longer than it was good at this point. FF is firmly in it's own sonic cycle at this point. When they get announced everyone thinks this will be the good one, and then it comes and is bad.
 
Not really. Yakuza is largely the same every game. Final Fantasy is usually completely different every game.

For all the flaws in the series, I will always show up for a mainline FF game just to see it. You just know that whether or not they succeed, the developers will be giving it their absolute all to try and put out something that pushes the boundaries. I always admire their ambition, and it's still worth checking out FF for me, even if they fail sometimes.

I have yet to play the new Yakuza though, so I'm honestly pretty excited to see it since its actually substantially mixing things up for once.
 

DonkeyPunchJr

World’s Biggest Weeb
I’ve only played Like a Dragon. The entire game takes place in a relatively small city sandbox. The only dungeon is a sewer that consists of a bunch of large rectangular hallways.

I did enjoy the game but it’s not even close to scratching the same itch that Final Fantasy does.
 

killatopak

Gold Member
No.

No, Xenoblade did. Yakuza is great though, and FF has been bad for longer than it was good at this point. FF is firmly in it's own sonic cycle at this point. When they get announced everyone thinks this will be the good one, and then it comes and is bad.

The only bad games you could really say was 13 and 15.

I don't think what you said is true at all. That's recency bias.
 

sublimit

Banned
I love RPGs and turn-based combat but not every series needs to have one just like not every traditional turned based RPG needs to become an action RPG. I was a Yakuza fan since the PS2 days but Like a Dragon put me off completely and i'll be skiping the series from now on since they decided to abandon the old gameplay.Sadly i dislike Judgement's protagonist very much so i'll be skipping that as well even though the gameplay and combat is much more to my liking.

Final Fantasy on the other hand have been experimenting since the first days so i had made my peace for it abandoning turned based combat a long time ago.In fact i like how with every installment you never know what to expect. This is something that was always in the DNA of the series and i like that.

So no Yakuza hasn't replaced Final Fantasy and on the contrary they have lost a long time fan with me and i'm sure the same applies with many others as well.
 
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DonkeyPunchJr

World’s Biggest Weeb
No.



The only bad games you could really say was 13 and 15.

I don't think what you said is true at all. That's recency bias.
13 has one of the best battle systems I’ve ever experienced. It’s fast paced, challenging, rewards you for playing well, and every single buff/debuff/ability has its uses, even in non-boss battles. It was worth it just for the battles, environments, and god-tier soundtrack. Yes the characters and writing were absolute shit and deserve every bit of hate they get, but there was still a really great and innovative game there.

Like a Dragon was like the exact opposite of FF XIII. Safe, comfortable, unremarkable battle system paired with some pretty good writing in a modern day open-world setting. Best thing I can say about the battle system is that battles happen right there without transitioning to a new arena, and the auto-battle feature works pretty well. So at least I didn’t have to devote my full attention to it while beating up the same group of hobos for the 5000th time.
 

Graciaus

Member
I only tried one yakuza and I turned it off after a few hours. Found the combat very boring. Final Fantasy has been pretty terrible since the ps2 days. I would say the Tales of series is more accurate for me.

13 has one of the best battle systems I’ve ever experienced. It’s fast paced, challenging, rewards you for playing well, and every single buff/debuff/ability has its uses, even in non-boss battles. It was worth it just for the battles, environments, and god-tier soundtrack. Yes the characters and writing were absolute shit and deserve every bit of hate they get, but there was still a really great and innovative game there.
13 had an awful system and very quickly I figured out the best class setups. All style no substance.
 
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killatopak

Gold Member
13 has one of the best battle systems I’ve ever experienced. It’s fast paced, challenging, rewards you for playing well, and every single buff/debuff/ability has its uses, even in non-boss battles. It was worth it just for the battles, environments, and god-tier soundtrack. Yes the characters and writing were absolute shit and deserve every bit of hate they get, but there was still a really great and innovative game there.

Like a Dragon was like the exact opposite of FF XIII. Safe, comfortable, unremarkable battle system paired with some pretty good writing in a modern day open-world setting. Best thing I can say about the battle system is that battles happen right there without transitioning to a new arena, and the auto-battle feature works pretty well. So at least I didn’t have to devote my full attention to it while beating up the same group of hobos for the 5000th time.
while true, only to a certain extent. You don't really get to use the complete battle system until the latter half of the game. The writing is okay but the problem is the useful stuff is tucked away inside the menu screen in some glossary.

I'm a firm believer that 13 is a great game and you can see my post history with ff13 praising it in the past. The general populace however has issues with the game and I can understand that.
 

DonkeyPunchJr

World’s Biggest Weeb
while true, only to a certain extent. You don't really get to use the complete battle system until the latter half of the game. The writing is okay but the problem is the useful stuff is tucked away inside the menu screen in some glossary.

I'm a firm believer that 13 is a great game and you can see my post history with ff13 praising it in the past. The general populace however has issues with the game and I can understand that.
Yeah fair enough, it did take a long time to fully open up.

I did really love the overall flow of battle though. I liked how you had to build up your defenses, debuff the enemy, then break their defense and combo the shit out of them. Lots of split second decisions of whether I can finish an enemy off or whether to revert back to a defensive/healing setup.

I found that way more fun than the typical “sit there and use direct damage abilities until you win” DQ-inspired turn-based JRPG formula.
 
I never thought about that, but now that you mention it I kinda get where you're coming from.

Can't wait for September to play the next Seiken Densetsu Judgment
 

YukiOnna

Member
Mm, nope. Both coexist for different reasons for me. I'm happy that FF is always trying to do something new with each title even if it never works out (although 13 and 15 were due to development troubles as the formers sequel showed) but they don't ever come in close contact as a replacement for me. I look forward to both and they cover different genres and subgenres and reasons for liking them. I don't want every game to be turn-based or action or the same combat system/design for FF or RPG's in general. I'm okay with it for Yakuza. That said, nothing ever comes close to the excitement of a new FF title. I'll be there day 1 for it to try it out.

Honestly, FF has always been like this so I don't quite understand why it's a target.
 

DonkeyPunchJr

World’s Biggest Weeb
Mm, nope. Both coexist for different reasons for me. I'm happy that FF is always trying to do something new with each title even if it never works out (although 13 and 15 were due to development troubles as the formers sequel showed) but they don't ever come in close contact as a replacement for me. I look forward to both and they cover different genres and subgenres and reasons for liking them. I don't want every game to be turn-based or action or the same combat system/design for FF or RPG's in general. I'm okay with it for Yakuza. That said, nothing ever comes close to the excitement of a new FF title. I'll be there day 1 for it to try it out.

Honestly, FF has always been like this so I don't quite understand why it's a target.
Final Fantasy has ALWAYS been a target for as long as I’ve been a fan.

Old school FF fans bashed FF7 onward for being “not fantasy” or being too focused on graphics/cinematics (lots of “hurrr I want to play a game not watch a movie, remember when it used to be Final FANTASY?”)

Lots of hardcore JRPG fans resented Final Fantasy for getting all the attention while other JRPGs were relatively niche (kinda reminds me of how Slashdot dorks had a hate boner for iPod/iPhone/iPad)

Then when FF ditched traditional turn-based combat, all the turn-based purists started hating it as well. They still haven’t healed from this grievous wound after ~20 years since the last mainline turn-based entry.
 

EDMIX

Member
Even though the majority of the Yakuza games had brawler-type combat systems, the latest one being the exception, a lot of the core gameplay still had RPG-inspired elements. Gaining experience to level up, being able to equip armor and weapons, items to recover HP and Heat (basically MP). In addition, you can always expect a good story with likable characters, and tons of side content.

The Yakuza series, to me, represented what Final Fantasy used to be, and while I no longer look forward to a new Final Fantasy, I do look forward to every new iteration of Yakuza, for a lot of the same reasons I used to look forward to a new Final Fantasy. I was wondering if anyone else felt the same way?

lol hell no.

I fucking LOVE the Yakuza series and I don't see it as "RPG-inspired elements" i see it very much as an RPG. You fight to gain XP, you level up, you equip stuff wit yo moneyz lol That being said........yea I'm still hype for a new Final Fantasy and that is not to say I'm not type for a new Yakuza. Its not an either or for me.

As much as I even love Yakuza, most of the entries are literally the same concepts, I love that btw, but shit we really can't be out here pretending that safe approach is now what....bigger then a DIFFERENT FF every time?


Soooooooo the hype behind FF could also be based on people KNOWING it will be different each time vs 99% the same each time. I'd argue a part of why I like Yakuza is knowing it legit will be "I go around and beat the shit out of people, level up, hear a new story, mini games". For god sakes, MOST of the series is in the same place. I love the game, but you can't compare it to FF. It doesn't even make sense. So the game that actually risk doing NEW places all the time and new concepts all the time should not be hyped, but fuck the game that literally is in the same set locations should get all of the hype for being safe? You can't even say this shit about Assassins Creed...... you'd have a better argument with that tbh.
 
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