I played the demo for 3-4 hours.
The game looks and runs better on base PS4 than Y6 or Judgment.
New city is a breath of fresh air. Copying Kamurocho in every Yakuza has run it's course.
The thing I was afraid of were slow, turn based battles, but surprise, surprise they're quite fast and dynamic. You can even wipe out a group of 4-5 thugs with one special bat swing. The battles are fun and everything has that positively over the top feeling. Crazy special attacks for all characters(sending pack of crows by hobo drunkard) and enemies like beach boys with mattress.
Runing around with your buddies feels natural, you really feel that you have your team. In the demo you start with 3 team mates and get a 4th one at the first story point.
Buying new weapons and armor is super straightforward, you just buy stuff, it shows the stat upgrade and instantly equip it. No menu dabbling necessary.
Minigames are brand new and very arcadey but not too special.
Now the bad stuff.
The substories are as boring and cumbersome as in the old titles. You just talk to one person, run couple streets, talk to another, come back, maybe fight 1 weak enemy, see happy ending and repeat. I finished all 4-5 substories in the demo and somehow felt even more bothersome than in the recent titles.
And I think I know why...
The worst part of the demo are constantly respawning enemies. If you thought the thugs in past Yakuza's spawned too often then this is 10 times worse.
It is ironically like in old jrpgs where constantly had those battles every 3 steps. Yes you can run away but it makes little sense since you can bet that another group of enemies waits just in the street you're running to.
You don't really want to avoid them because you constantly level up.
After these 3-4 hours I was already tired of it and that's fucking bad. Very tiresome and it's just a demo. I hope they tune it in the final game but I doubt it.
I have mixed feelings now.
It's probably worth waiting for western version. Fun characters and world and even battles on one side and crushing repetition, respawning enemies every 2 seconds and dull side stories on the other.
gematsu.com
