00:00.70 Dave Hello everybody my name is the David of dojima Dave Jackson patriarch of tales from the backlog clan which is A Tube Podcast Network subsidiary where each week I am joined by a guest to to bring a game out of the backlog play it and discuss. My guests today are friends of the show. First of all, we have the co-chief of the fun and games reignite and screen snark clans subsidiaries of the cpo v family. The mad dog Matt aka stormageddon matt welcome back. 00:31.48 Matt Glad to be back happy to be here. 00:35.52 Dave Of course and we're also joined today by the matriarch of epilogue gaming clan and co-chief of the left behind game club podcast family Ms. shakedown flora mary gold flora welcome back. Fantastic! Yeah, happy to have you both here. Um. 00:45.59 Flora Joryu! thanks for having me. 00:55.70 Dave Longtime listeners of the show will recognize both of the wonderful guests today. Matt's been a guest on several episodes in the past including one that we did that was just all about why the Yakuza series is fucking awesome which is good because today we're talking about another one of those. And Flora was previously on the show when we talked about the last of us part 2 which is an episode that I thought went really really? well. So let's see Matt was also here for bayonetta 3 and there is another 1 right. 01:22.78 Matt Yes, metroid to the many versions of metroid 2 Yes I'm happy to be back for a new game that hopefully we like a lot better than the last one. 01:26.35 Dave Right? The metroid 2 remake episode. Yes, okay, cool. So that's right Yeah today we're going to talk about like a dragon guide the man who erased his name. Which is developed by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios and published by sega for contemporary consoles. Minus the switch of course and PC in 2023 and I'm deciding right now at the top of the show. Do I want to commit to the Tim Rogers bit of saying the full title? Every single time I so I mentioned the game we're talking about today. Do I want to? yeah I think so yeah, so ah, if you have not played like a dragon guide in the man who erased his name. 02:00.60 Matt I mean I feel like you have to now after bringing it up. 02:02.24 Flora Yeah, now that you've brought it up and raised the stakes I think it's necessary. 02:14.54 Dave We are not going to spoil the story for you in the non-s spoiler section of the show as always, you can check down in the show notes for when spoilers begin we have some elevator pitches here for like a dragon gaiden the man who erased his name I say this is Yakuza 6.5 Matt what's the elevator pitch for like a dragon guide in the man who erased his name. 02:38.57 Matt Ah, my pitch for like a dragon guide in the man who erased his name is short but sweet the perfect you choose a snack. 02:45.40 Dave Short I'm looking at your play time over there and it's short but sweet relatively for this for this series. Ok Flora what's the pitch. 02:53.47 Matt It's yeah. 02:56.66 Flora Ah, my pitch is the Ryu Ga Gotoku mom saying we have Yakuza games at home and then the Yakuza games at home. We get this. 03:06.52 Dave Ah, huh all right? So ah, kind of along the lines of what Matt said in the pitch there. This is a shorter game for the series. Although like so I played on pc it took me sixteen and a half hours to beat which is again when stacked up with the other games in the series. Ah, not the shortest. What I've played at least the way that I play but it is relatively short. Um, so where did you all play this and how long did your playthroughs take you. 03:34.64 Matt So ah, mine was on the ps 5 the ps 5 is pretty much for the newer games at least become a dedicated Yakuza machine like a dragon machine. Ah though I did play the early games on pc ah a pc and playstation ah mixed. And it took me about 18 hours to start to finish. Um I did some of the substories but not all of them. But yeah, it took me about 18 hours which is I think the shortest it's ever taken me to beat a game in this franchise. 04:02.50 Flora Wow I guess I wasn't anticipating being the one who came here with the most play time but I spent 28 hours on my PS 5 playing this game similar to Matt I for some reason my PS 5 has become my yeahakkas a machine. 04:12.66 Dave Um. 04:17.80 Flora Ah, even though my library of all the Yakuza games is split between steam and ps 5 now. Um, and I think what happened is I just sort of like went with this ethos of um, taking it a lot slower at first than I ended up taking it at the end I think like the actual. Core content. This makes a lot more sense. Why you both ended up in a similar place. 04:34.54 Matt Um, yeah. 04:36.52 Dave Yeah, the way that I kind of play these um I will talk about side content but I kind of dabble inside content unless I get like super addicted to something like I did the business minigame in yaku's a 7 Um. 04:48.56 Flora Yeah. 04:51.60 Dave And so that's why I kind of like I did each of the side things a couple of times but pretty much mainquested it for a while. So yeah, pretty short. Um, as far as that goes so we always start the show out by giving our histories with this game. But ah, this game in particular, we got to kind of talk about our history with the series in question too. So Matt you've already been on the show talking about this exact question for like an hour so real quick. Give a refresher for people who weren't there. Maybe. 05:20.10 Flora Fatra. 05:24.45 Dave What's your history with the Yakuza series and then what made you want to play like a dragon guide in the man who erased his name. 05:31.43 Matt Sure. So um I as I said in that episode I had known of the franchise for a while and it wasn't until I started a subs series in funny games called side quest which both of you done episodes for where a friend of mine Dark Van Dyke did an episode on yakuza zero and listening to it and the escalating insanity that had to do with that game I went. 05:49.28 Matt I have to play this and then um, due to being displaced during ah with a fire in my building and having a ton of downtime this was years ago now back home all safe but because I had a ton of downtime and I was just kind of sitting around all day I was like I'll finally play this game and then I finally played this game and the next one 06:07.23 Matt And the next one until I played pretty much all of them over the course of that year all the way to like a dragon. Um, and then I took a break right before going on ichi bonds venture and came back to it I think like six months to a year later and then I've been playing them as they released since. 06:22.99 Dave Okay, and ah flora your first time talking about Yakuza on the show. So what was it that brought you to the series and then this game in particular. 06:33.00 Flora Strangely enough I am um in a Discord server that posts a bunch of different Yakuza Jifs and I saw them for years from people like just like tagging me with Kiryu slamming his fist on the desk or kicking a door open. 06:48.26 Flora Or like you name it and and I was always just like there was no context given for these and there was a very very small cult in this discord of like 3 people but they were obsessively posting this large repertoire of just gifs from this game and um, so at some point. I I started stubbornly saying I'm never going to play these like these are just meme games. No thank you? Um, and then someone gifted it to me on steam like on a winter sale for like five bucks and it sat there and sat there and I finally got around to the first one I was streaming a lot more actively at the time on Twitch. 07:23.31 Flora And I fell in love and like Matt was saying just sort of barreled through the entire series linearly um I have played 13 games that I would consider yakuza games or adjacent games. Um, so at this point I would say pretty clearly this is like my favorite video game series. I wouldn't say any individual Yakuza game is my favorite game. It's just as a series I get the most excited about this and so with like a dragon gaiden easy day one for me anything in this universe I'm going to pick up immediately. 07:51.40 Dave Yeah, yeah, absolutely what was your first game that you played was it 0 Okay, yeah, me too. My first one was zero. Um I've I've said it on the previous yakuza episodes on the show but it was. 07:55.86 Flora 0 Yeah. 08:06.86 Dave Just like I bought a ps 4 I looked up the top 10 ps 4 games on all these lists and Yakuza zero was consistently there and I watched some reviews by Acg on Youtube and his reviews just highlighted the ridiculous over the top shit that you get into. In the series. So it was very much like okay well I have to try that and then you know a tale is old this time I played Yakuza zero and then I played Kawami and then I played Kowami to that remaster collection and um, finally caught up. This is the first one that I played right at release. 08:37.11 Flora Oh yeah. 08:45.28 Dave Ah, this was day one and kind of like you all said like this was no hesitation day one I'm going to play it. It also launched on game pass. So very easy to you know jump into that. 08:59.10 Flora I feel like the moment you buy the remastered collection that little trilogy of 3 4 and 5. That's when you know that you've been like you're rabbit hole never to return? Um, so it's beautiful that we've all sort of been there. 09:02.98 Dave Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 09:05.91 Matt You're in. 09:10.54 Dave Yeah, absolutely. 09:12.85 Matt I also just want to shout out really quick. The folks over at 47 ah specifically Jordan over at 47 because I did get a review copy of this game which like as far as hitting it. Whatever the hell that means in indie podcasting being able to review more than 1 game this year 09:25.56 Dave Ah. 09:30.90 Matt Or well last year as of when this airs ah of my favorite franchises is incredible and the fact that I got a yakuza game day one as a review code to do stuff like this and I have some write ups that came out at the end of the year about it too like that's so cool so shout out to 47 I'm really glad that I got to play this and. 09:48.53 Matt But again, yes, all of the other ones that I didn't get codes for day one purchases and of course will be in the future forever. 10:10.89 Dave Little opening thoughts here before we dive into we restart that also just like a part of the history with this series is the spinoff series judgment. Um I flora you mentioned in our group chat that you've played. Ah, judgment and lost judgment I bounced really hard off of judgment. The first time I tried to play it, I think it was probably because I just played too many yakuza games that year and my brain was like a dude not this is not now try again later. So maybe another time I'll try them. 10:37.69 Matt Um. 10:42.86 Flora I also bounced off of judgment really hard which is strange and it was a four or five hour stream which for a yakuza game was pretty standard for me at that point and I don't I don't know if it was exactly like fatigue of this universe or this game style. 10:49.17 Dave Um. 11:02.32 Flora Um, but my impressions of judgment were very negative or at least like lukewarm being generous whereas lost judgment this like sequel game to that is I think on par with my favorite games in all of the Yakuza franchises. 11:07.16 Dave Smith. 11:17.17 Dave Okay. 11:19.38 Flora And so the fact that it can like whiplash in that direction like the improvements and the changes and also just like the writing investment that I felt in the sequel was so much greater that like now I'm in now I'm hooked and I I think that if you also bounced off of it. There's a small chance you might have a. 11:19.50 Matt Ah. 11:30.15 Dave Okay. 11:37.23 Flora Ah, strong reaction to the sequel like I did. 11:39.37 Dave Um, yeah. 11:39.68 Matt Interesting. Yeah I also bounce ah like I bounced off it. But I think just because I got distracted I have this habit of starting old games and the new games coming out and I forget about them. It's why I've replayed final fantasy ten four times and never finished it. Ah, but maybe the fifth times the charm. But yeah I Like judgment. Well enough I just didn't stick with it. But I think if I ever get a moment to breathe between like a dragon games, it doesn't seem to happen anytime soon. I may go back to it. 12:00.10 Dave Yeah, yeah, I think I was saying in the Discord server earlier today or in the group chat I forget where but like. When we have a year with no new Yakuza games then I'll go back and try and play judgment or like you know later in 2024 if I'm just fucking fiending for this universe again I'll go try it again. But yeah, um, all right? So some quick opening thoughts before we dive into. Like a dragon guide in the man who erased his name I'm already regretting that ah commitment to the bit. Um I thought that this would just be like a little side story to tide people over until infinite wealth comes out as we're recording this infinite wealth comes out in about a month as you're hearing this. It came out about a month ago so we're in this weird liminal time here. Um I thought this would kind of be like a game that would struggle to justify its existence just kind of like a hey, let's write a little side story and put it out and it'll be on game pass and people can play it and. Just a little cute little thing right? Um I was really surprised by the quality and I think like care put into the story in this game I didn't expect it. Um, it feels kind of and we'll talk about this but in more detail in a bit but it feels to me like. 13:24.46 Dave A kind of a mix of a closer look at Kiryu's like character in inner struggle than other Yakuza games have given and kind of like a Kiryu’s greatest hits game put together. So those 2 things together I thought they did well. I think they did one better than the other but the one was really good. So It actually stands pretty high in my Yakuza series rankings at the time which you know they change by the day. But I think this game is pretty good. I was also really impressed by it. Like improvements they made to the gameplay. Um, and then all in this little bite size package. You know bite sized in air quotes. So yeah, pretty good. 14:11.29 Matt Yeah, for me I'm pretty much in agreement. I really did like I was excited for it and I didn't think I would dislike it because as ah, um, Dave and I have talked about in the previous episode we did. There's no bad yakuza games like even the worst in the franchise is still a pretty good game. 14:27.55 Matt So like I wasn't worried that it would be bad but I was like you concerned like oh well, what are they going to do like I Really like Kiryu are we really going to get something satisfying and like narratively while I think I have a so a few complaints mostly I think it's probably. 1 of the best stories in the franchise if you love kier you but only because of the way the ending lands and we'll get to that but like that's what I like without that ending I don't know that I would say that because of where it ends I think that really like locked it in. Ah. 15:00.27 Matt And like combat wise I think it's got some of the coolest combat in the franchise ah because a lot of the beat em. Ups can be frustrating at times and I never really felt that with this I was always kind of happy to punch some fools so that was nice. 15:02.40 Dave Yeah. 15:14.73 Flora I'm coming to this conversation extremely mixed about this game and it's unfortunate that the second appearance I'm making on your show Dave involves another game that I have complicated feelings about um. 15:26.89 Matt Ah. 15:27.31 Flora But hopefully the good faith of me saying this is my favorite series is like enough context to be able to like discuss those discrepancies that I I still haven't resolved yet I'm also sort of hoping that this conversation will be like a little bit of a therapy session where I in the way that when we discuss the last of us part 2 left the conversation feeling a little more charitable to the game than when I arrived to the conversation about it. So I feel like I strongly agree that the combat is really engaging in this game. I think that some of the mechanics that this game introduces like the unique ones. Especially. Are are the ones that I had the most fun playing around with and I also enjoyed the fact that in the way that it was described as like a greatest hits sort of dimension to this game. The combat sort of like Alternates with styles of combat um like different modes and um I thought that was an interesting almost like nod to Yakuza 0. 16:18.98 Flora Um, the like here's here's a different part but I feel really mixed about though like the substories, the side content and what is going to be described as Akame missions. Um I found to be incredibly rote and I didn't get anything out of them but yet. It sounds like I did about ten more hours of them than either of you and so maybe that's my issue is that like I was really trying to like dig into this content or this mechanic or this like this system that rewards me with experience to level up my character. Um i. 16:37.16 Dave Yeah. 16:52.70 Flora Couldn't ever click with that stuff and one of the things that brings me to the series is the side content. The substories like some of those are the most memorable aspects of the games. Um, even something seemingly dull like pocket circuit keeps me hooked and apparently this game has pocket circuit and ah. 16:57.74 Matt Sure. 17:11.63 Flora Even though I spent another 10 hours with this game then y'all I still didn't even see it or encounter it. So there's a lot of stuff like that where I feel like I also barely scraped the surface and yet I was frustrated with the fact that it wasn't so in my face like other games. Um. 17:27.79 Flora And then the final thing I'll say to kind of lay out my like initial takes um is that the the moment-to- moment story I agree with Matt in that it took me until the ending to feel really like this was clinched as a story worth telling? um. 17:43.29 Dave Ah. 17:43.84 Flora I was sort of wondering if this was going to justify itself throughout my playthrough in a way that most Yakuza stories I don't find myself questioning that. 17:51.76 Dave Yeah, most yeah yeah, most yakuza stories are in my opinion. Not really attempting to do like character work the way this game I think is trying to do ah but you're right like it it it all was like. 18:04.97 Matt Um, the app. 18:09.19 Dave Kind of hanging in the balance until the ending and then the ending was one of the best endings to any game that I played this year so I can't wait to talk about that in the spoiler section. But for now we're going to take a break and when we come back, we will dive into the story setup of. 18:16.43 Matt Um, yeah, never. 18:27.24 Dave Like a dragon guide the man who erased his name like a dragon guide the man who eras his name takes place between yakuza 6 and yakuza like a dragon ah, the naming convention is beyond fucked at this point. 18:43.80 Matt Correct. 18:44.79 Dave Ah, but think of it as like I said in the elevator pitch yakuza 6.5. It's set in yokohama at the beginning which is the same place that Yakuza a 7 a k a Yakuzah like a dragon took place in then the rest of the game is mostly in Osaka which is the same neighborhood as. A lot of previous games in the series. So it is kind of like revisiting your favorite places again and it stars the longtime series protagonist Cosmo Kiryu who we thought a long time ago that he had ridden off into the sunset but he's back. He's the cop who's got 1 more job and. Stuff like that before we dive into the story I want to get your takes on this question. Um, since this is Yakuza 6.5 what would you say to someone who is asking like can you play this game first because it's on game pass and it's new and we said the combat's really fun. Um, do you need to have played Yakuza 6 and Yakuza 7 or any other games in the series to have a good time? 19:49.36 Flora I don't think you need to have played other Yakuza games to appreciate the first 2 thirds of what this story has to offer. I think the back third and again, no spoilers yet. Um that back third is entirely dependent upon your. 19:54.70 Dave Then. 20:05.22 Flora Knowledge of the series. 20:07.79 Matt Yeah, so it's interesting I would have said no, you can't start here. However, um, Kyle Hilliard over at game informer who has been talking for months about how he started with this now. He had watched his spouse play I think like a dragon and some of 6 had. She's a fan of the series. He had some awareness of the plot but said he really enjoyed it had a great time. He is going to play infinite wealth just after playing this so I won't say it's not possible. But I'm inclined to agree with um flora especially like combat wise mechanic wise. You can jump in and have a good time with this needing none of the context. Um, that said also because it's shorter than the other Yakuza games I also might recommend it. I mean I still think I will always and I've told Dave this before 0 and like a dragon are like my 2 starting points 0 is the preference I think you should play the whole thing. But I will agree that like I think you could feel something from the ending of this without having the context but I don't think it's going to mean as much to you as like it meant to me as someone who had been with curio all this time and so you know I'm kind of I guess that was a whole long way of saying maybe you could start with this one. 21:17.37 Dave Um. 21:17.54 Matt Like I I think that's where I'm at. Like I wouldn't I wouldn't recommend it but I wouldn't say oh you're making a mistake either like starting with maybe 4 or something. 21:22.27 Flora Yeah. 21:27.70 Dave Yeah I'm with you. Um I my initial reaction was the exact same which is to be like this is the worst place to start. But I think you would be in a worse place starting by playing yaku's a five first or something like that. Um, I think that this game. Probably does a good enough job of setting up its story and giving you things along the way to make the ending mean something to you. Ah, but all of us have literally hundreds of hours with this character. So. Those things will just hit way harder with all of the context and all of the history and everything like that like the plot setup of this game is that Kiryu in a kind of witness protection type situation and that's not new like everyone can understand what that story is ah but. 22:18.92 Dave Having that context and that long history does make things um hit harder both like emotional moments but also some of those moments where I was like this is the fucking. Ah this is fucking awesome like the coolest thing I've done this year like those moments wouldn't hit as hard without playing yakuza 7 So. 22:35.82 Flora Right. 22:38.14 Dave Yeah, ah, it's complicated. So yeah, nice, ah, nice cop out everybody. Um, so in like a dragon guide and the man who erased his name. Ah you play as Kazuma Kiryu as we said at the end of Yakuza 6 sorry we're spoiling the end of yakuza 6 but. You know if you start this game up. You'll see it in the first 10 minutes he fakes his death at the end of Yakuza 6 and this organization is going to help him do this and put him in this kind of witness protection as we said in order to keep him from entangling other people in. Ah. More yakuza conspiracies. That's one of the big things about that choice was everybody who's close to Kiryu because he's this legendary yakuza because everyone wants a piece of him. Everyone who's close to him has bad things happen and he wants to put a stop to that so he's living in anonymity he's living under the identity of Jori you and ah yeah he's living in a monastery in Yokohama and so you start out. He's undercover, he's living the monk life chillin meditating smoking cigarettes having a good time and his cover gets blown like. 45 minutes into the game and then ah then it's on with the usual yakuza conspiracies stuff like that. Um, the man who helped him fake his death named Hanawa which is a name we're going to say a lot more in the spoiler section when we talk about the story. 24:12.60 Dave Ah, Hanawa comes up with an offer to do some like light security Work. Kiryu says no, but you know this guy has blackmail material on Kiryu So he yeah do this work quote lest anything happen to the the only thing that Kiryu really cares about. Which is this orphanage that he was taking care of a big plot in Yakuza 3 through 6 basically is this orphanage and the kids that are being raised there so he goes to act as security for a smuggling deal. But like I said basically as soon as you go there. Everyone's like hey. 24:51.10 Flora Sure. 24:51.40 Dave You're the most famous yakuza in the entire country like I'm a Yakuza. I know who you are and um, yeah, the deal goes bad. There's conspiracies. There is backstabbing all of these things and Kiryu is kind of playing damage control for the rest of the game. 25:05.79 Matt I love that after the 45 minute Mark where your cover is blown it then continues to get blown like every hour on the hour and and every time it's blown Kiryu goes I don't know what you're talking about my name is Joryu.. 25:21.43 Dave Yeah, my name's Joryu yeah. 25:25.40 Matt Every time like in the spoiler section. There's even a bigger payoff with that but like I just I think that's the kind of nonsense that makes these games incredible that it doesn't matter how many times his covers blown Cure. You staunch not wavering I'm Joryu and believes it. And like I just I Love that. 25:43.92 Flora I thought it was so amusing that I could never tell which characters fully believed that this was a different person versus like saw through it like there was such a consistent Uncanny Valley element that I was like okay. 26:00.29 Flora It's transparent to me the player and the game is like it winked and nodded at me enough times to like tell me Yes, we are aware. This is a very thinly disguised thinly veiled sort of excuse now. The other characters like some of the major plot points even that lead up to fights involving this identity and like whether or not it's really Kiryu. And so I think that that was just so strikingly odd like I mean welcome to the opposite series. But um I but I had so much fun with that, like discerning which characters were thick enough to be tricked into this versus um, like dude take off your glasses come on. 26:35.65 Dave Yeah, yeah, his identity is basically like he doesn't get a new haircut or anything, he doesn't grow a beard or anything like that. It's just him but he has glasses now. So yeah, um so. 26:46.56 Matt Yeah. 26:51.33 Dave This ah series is known for two things I think um flora you put it really? Well when you said strikingly odd. It's known for that kind of tone. Um, while also being super melodramatic crime stories. Um with. Like I said backstabbing and betrayals and like you saw a guy die and then he comes back 15 hours later and he's not dead. Ah, but actually it's a body double but actually the original guy is still alive too like all kinds of stuff like that. Um I thought that like that aspect of this game. Was fairly straightforward. It's exactly what you would expect from the series. Um I thought the key story takeaway here is that I think they really wanted to put a focus again on Kiryu as a character and there's a lot more to me or at least maybe i. Noticed it more in this game a lot more um introspection from him. Um, he's different like his personality is different in this game and so as someone this is one of those things that you would lose if this was the first game you played in the series. Um. That was interesting to me to see because he's trying to maintain his cover. That's it. He's also like reflecting on his life a lot more. He's more sentimental about stuff that's happened in the past. Um, but also when he's dealing with people. He's a lot more confident. 28:25.56 Dave He takes a lot less shit from people in this game. So like that evolution was really cool to see. 28:32.17 Flora I think an immediate thought that has been rattling around in my mind is like evolution to what exactly because um, song of life. Yakuza 6 is so dedicated to bringing closure that I wasn't expecting a game like this in the character of Kiryu. 28:46.71 Dave Mean. 28:46.97 Matt Right. 28:50.10 Flora And to like when we saw him in the trailer for infinite wealth with um Iuban I I was like what like in addition to the great haircut. But with this game I think I don't know what that stepping stone is exactly. 28:57.13 Dave Yeah. 29:07.00 Flora And part of that I'm sure is going to have to wait for the spoiler conversation. But I also like was puzzled at the existence or like the premise of this game in the first place albeit very excited for it. It's just I still haven't figured that out having finished the game. 29:19.49 Matt I I mean I what I would agree pre playing the game I felt the same way like I didn't need to know where he was between the 2 games when he shows up in spoiler alert he shows up in you ku all like a dragon but like now that I've played it I'm like well I think it was worth it. I don't know if there's a straight. Point a to point b journey as far as why it was important but I don't know that the why matters to me anymore because the what was so impactful. Um, but yeah I mean I think that ultimately what's fun about this game is it's kind of a truncated version of the normal nonsense. We get out of the franchise which I didn't mind 29:56.85 Matt But it was kind of like um, a little more condensed I mean especially considering how long they're saying infinite wealth is which is killing me as someone who plays too many games as it is but like I do agree also Dave that like this is this at its core. The basic framework is no different than any other Yakuza game. It is doing the same kind of stuff. Um, and I think that this version of cur you we saw towards the end of song of life. But really only in those final moments and I think it is. It connects really well to them this Kiryu were with here or Joryu I guess ah that um, that is now. Yeah, he's way more confident. He's kind of cocky. He's still like the kind of doofus in the side missions that he always was one of my like it's funny. He goes from stoic hero to absolute himbo when you go from the main story off to the side missions and I love it. I never get tired of it. 30:48.81 Dave That's always been part of the heart of the Yakuza series and something that we talked about in our special. You know why? Yakuza rules episode is that this series has always managed to do both things. It can do this melodrama that like. 30:58.81 Matt Um, yeah. 31:05.51 Dave If you just watch those scenes you might think like this they take themselves so seriously during some of these cut scenes. Um, but also they don't because like you know you'll have one of these serious conversations and then 30 seconds later you're fist fighting a tiger or something like that. So like this. Series has always done both of those tones really really well and then when you do the side stories like you said it it shifts into this much goofier. Um, but also still somewhat heartfelt or somehow heartfelt. Um, yeah tone to it all. It's. . 31:43.22 Dave And this game's no different, like those side stories are goofy as hell like there's some supernatural shit going on in some of the side stories which doesn't fit with what happens in the main stories of these games at all. But it's yakuza so basically anything goes and. Think both those tones are pulled off pretty well here. Um that I think where I was going with that. You know talk about Kiryu's characterization here and I you know before I threw it to you all is that I think and this might be recency bias and it might be because I haven't played. Some of the other games are like several years at this point. Um the thought of replaying Yakuza zero is very enticing but also very frightening to me as someone who also plays way too many games. Um, this feels like some of the best like character writing as far as this series goes for Kiryu. 32:25.37 Matt Yeah, okay. 32:38.80 Dave Um, lots of stuff where he is, you know, introspective thinking about his past, thinking about his role in all of this and um I thought it was really really effective and kind of surprising I did not expect this. 32:53.32 Flora Do you think that that's specific to Kiryu um or do you think that you would also say that about the other characters who take a main presence in this game. 33:02.36 Dave Umm I think a lot of the other characters are pretty standard. Yakuza's characters to me like akame is one of the other main characters that you meet the woman who runs kind of like this underground intelligence network in Osaka she's probably. Her and hanawa are probably the 2 most prominent side characters in this game and both of them could fill any role akame is basically like the guy who did the exact same job in the other yakuza games in Kamurocho um she's more charismatic than that guy. But there's not. They don't have the depth that Kiryu does in this game and in a lot of the other Yakuza games I don't think Kiryu was that deep of a character. He's an intensely likable character. But I don't think they've ever made it a point to really explore. How he feels about every little thing the way this game did. 33:59.23 Flora Right? Like the emotional focus on Kiryu's introspection makes a lot of sense to me as far as the vulnerability were offered from his character and what that vulnerability adds to like texture the other versions of the character we're seeing like that alternation that Matt was describing with like himbo versus melodrama. Um. I think the reason I wanted to ask that question is primarily because I didn't really connect with any of the new characters in this game um, including a comma and like and so when you were speaking with praise about the writing of the characters I definitely agree about Kiryu but I I was wondering if you had like latched on to someone else. 34:21.33 Dave Um, yeah. 34:35.53 Flora And akame or another but but for me that would I think I can point in most of the other Yakuza games to specific secondary characters or at least tertiaries sort of like like or even a dual protagonist For example that um that I would like sort of get hooked on and feel invested in and feel nuance about. 34:54.84 Flora Their Portrayal Um I really didn't get that here And in fact, back to the idea of the greatest hit sorry to keep harping on that point but I really felt like a lot of the new characters particularly the antagonists were like majima stand ins like like they were sort of just like. Filling trophy roles of what I would expect a Yakuza game to do and they were like really visually distinct I Just don't remember a lot about like their their like motivations as characters. 35:21.76 Dave Yeah I think the praise about character writing is if I didn't say it outright I wrote it in the notes this way. It's specifically talking about kier you the other characters are pretty. 35:35.15 Matt Yeah, yeah. 35:39.88 Dave Interchangeable with characters that have filled similar roles in other Yakuza games for sure. 35:43.30 Matt Yeah I think the overall writing is still pretty great in this game but I do agree that yeah, there's no like especially after like a dragon had so many interesting characters because it was a huge cast that you fell in love with literally almost all of them. 35:47.96 Dave Oh yeah. 36:00.96 Matt This does feel like less than that. But I think my defense for it would be curious the one we're here for right like he is the focus of this story in a way that he wasn't even in the other games because after like 2 even in 0 like he's not the only focus and so like because this is mostly. 36:10.98 Flora Yeah. 36:19.46 Matt The first game that is a hundred percent focusing on him besides maybe song of life. They really kind of zoomed in and I yeah I agree I think the other characters though written well kind of become a little forgettable because of that focus but I do believe it was probably intentional on some level. 36:34.26 Flora Yeah, and I think that maybe to speak a little bit of positivity back into my characterization with my question like I would say that the other games were focused on a scale of like inner Clan warfare between different factions of Yakuza and whatnot whereas this game is. 36:46.56 Dave Yeah. 36:47.76 Matt Yeah. 36:52.15 Flora Very much focused on like the antagonist in this game always have some sort of like fulcrum for character development for Kiryu um they are there to teach him a lesson about what he needs to learn about himself and so um, like whatever that might mean and so I can say that it's a. 36:59.90 Matt Yeah. 37:10.84 Flora Effective. All of the placement of the characters are effective. I just didn't get attached to the secondary characters in the way I was I think either expecting or used to. 37:21.35 Dave Matt you mentioned the writing and I want to take this opportunity to just shout out the localizers for Ryu Ga Gotoku who are some of the best in the business at um, number one just making just writing interesting dialogue and stuff like that. But also. 37:39.40 Dave I Feel like they do a great job of localizing dialects and um, you know this is a rich person. They speak a certain way. This is a street thug. They speak a certain way. These are regional people. Maybe this person is from a more rural area or something like that they speak a different way. And they have localized all of that from Japanese to English in ways that make sense in ways that are entertaining in ways that are very funny. I mean hats off to localizers everywhere because it's a really difficult thing to translate things like humor and dialect and all of that into different languages. Um, but I feel like every time I do a Yakuzi game on this show I have to shout out to people who do it for these games because they are just incredible. 38:28.60 Matt Yeah completely I like I never feel lost or like oh that's worded funnily and I mean most games now at this point are at that point I think it was you know a bygone era of like things kind of not lining up whereas. 38:28.56 Dave At this. 38:43.38 Dave Yeah. 38:45.17 Matt Most of the time I don't feel it but I also just feel so steeped in this world and mind you I've never been to Japan though I've always wanted to go but I like I feel like I know the culture and this place just from these games beyond what I've learned in other places and I think that's a testament to how much they bring you in by knowing how to translate that. To a way that we understand. 39:05.27 Flora Right? And I would also say that like 1 of the successes of the series because I think as a strength overall as the localization across all the games is it also doesn't condescend to you the player who doesn't really have that context either like it's going to throw out like a term for a type of food that you're probably not going to know unless you've had octopus balls before. 39:13.78 Matt Yeah. 39:15.96 Dave Then. 39:23.37 Flora But it's not going to say Octopus balls right? It's going to say Takoyaki and like I never going to try Takoyaki but I love that I know what that is now and um, like these games just they they do this really great striking of a balance between assuming some degree of cultural intelligence and like wherewithal but also like. 39:25.76 Matt Um, yeah. 39:41.76 Flora Making those accommodations like the fact that it can be funny is kind of a miracle. 39:46.75 Dave Yeah, along those lines too, like for someone who's listening to this who's never played 1 of these games and doesn't know like their general strengths. Um I have been to Japan many times when I was living overseas nearby and. 1 of the best parts about these games is recreating these japanese cities in fictionalized ways but they are still very very close to the original thing you don't go to Kamurocho in this game which is ah the red light district. It's based on the red light district in Tokyo where I have been. And spend a night out um they recreate it beautifully in this same with the neighborhood in Osaka where you spend most of this game the feel of it like this intangible feel of the neighborhood. It's here in the ah the game and it's really great and also flora if you ever get a chance. You should try takoyaki it's fucking. Delicious. It's fantastic. Um, yeah so yeah, the things that made the series strong like the writing, the humor, the recreation like that virtual tourism aspect of Japan. 40:41.92 Matt Yeah I want to try it so badly. 40:58.83 Dave Ah, the melodrama. The goofiness is all here in like a dragon guide and the man who erased his name. So um, you can look forward to those whether you're a longtime fan or coming to it for the first time. Um I want to bring up something that I believe flora brought up in the opening section. Which is my biggest criticism of this game's story is the pacing. I think this is the shortest game in the series other than maybe Yakuza a 6? um but it still felt like it was too long to me. 41:22.47 Matt Yeah. 41:34.38 Dave Ah, like it felt very artificially padded in some places like this could have been a dlc story for Yakuza 7 um and that it grew into its own game. It has that field to it like in every yakuza game. There's a main quest that takes you to a coliseum. 41:41.46 Flora Right. 41:53.99 Dave And you have to fight some people in the underground coliseum in the seedy underworld of whatever city the game's taking place in this game makes you do that. But it takes up a larger percentage of the entire game. Um, this game also has a lot of sections where. They will say they'll literally just tell you here's a list of side quests you have to do a bunch of these side quests before you can move on with the game which is not something that the other games really do because they have dozens of hours long stories. So. I think ah, a lot of stuff that's optional in other games is mandatory in this game and so I think that the main story without all of this extra fluff would have been like 5 to 10 hours long or something like that. Ah, but because the stuff is here. And if you're into the colosseum fights then you're gonna you're gonna dig that stuff if you're into going and doing these subs stories then it might not bother. You. It didn't like bother me bother me but I noticed this game as being padded even though it's only 15 hours long 43:05.78 Matt Yeah, no I'm with you there I think look I'm always saying give me shorter games shorter or better like I've got stuff to do like I want to get if if it's satisfying I don't care how long it is um and so yeah I agree with you that I wish they kind of were. 43:09.49 Dave Yeah. 43:22.26 Matt Braver to make this an 8 hour game that was just completely satisfying from point to point than making you have to rise the ranks of the coliseum which you're rarely forced to do in the other games you kind of can do. You're forced to do a match or 2 and then you can do whatever you want? um. And then yeah like the site like I like this up stories like Flora was saying earlier. There's some of the best stuff and there are some really good ones in this game but forcing you to do them. You run out of the good ones. Real quick. Ah, and I think that that's the biggest problem with like. The length of it I think if it were just kind of more streamlined and they drop some of the forced side missions. Some people might complain that it's too short but I don't. I don't know. I think people would be happier with that way than forcing you through some of the side stuff that elongates it. 44:11.97 Flora I Think that this is the moment where I have to out myself for missing our initial recording deadline for this game because I think that um the reason that I was so far behind where I thought I would be is because every single time I was released into this game from like a story point. There would be a. 44:17.93 Matt Ah. 44:28.92 Flora There are tons of exclamation points all over the map and they don't take a ton of time to necessarily complete. But I had a compulsion to wipe out the map and clear it every single time and so the flip side of that is that I didn't experience subjectively like pacing issues with that main narrative. Because from my perspective it was like I was the 1 incurring all of the wrath upon myself and so though I was still frustrated and a little bored with what some of the side activities had to offer. Um, although Dave's comment still makes me chuckle to myself about like you'll never believe what people are losing up in trees. Um, like the sort of stuff that you get up to in this game is absurd as you would hope. But um, but the flip size I thought I was doing that to myself. Um, it sounds like if you don't take on all that extra stuff then you're going to get like roadblocked in almost a grindy way and that's that's like way more frustrating to hear about. 45:22.74 Dave Yeah, and that plays into this criticism of the pacing because every single Yakuza game has tons of optional stuff that you can do anytime you want when you're not feeling like doing the next story mission. There is almost infinite. 45:37.23 Flora Right. 45:42.15 Dave Ways to spend your time in these games. You know we'll talk about in the gameplay but all the side activities substories Stuff. You mean, go around and hunt and get stuff down from telephone wires and stuff like that like these games have this stuff built in but it's always optional. So The fact that a lot of that optional stuff that you know I like doing some coliseum fights but I never beat the whole coliseum in any of these games. So The fact that I was forced to do more of it. It kind of made me see the puppet strings more than I normally do where they're like. 46:19.32 Dave Oh they were storyboarding this and they were like well the main quest takes 6 hours we need to pad this out and it really it felt like I could just notice it here and that it always kind of sucks when you notice it. 46:33.49 Flora It's weird because like there are some really strong things I could say about this game like the animation quality or something like that, like even how fun the combat is um I don't want to completely denigrate it based on the pacing issues. But I also fully agree that like. 46:39.49 Dave Um, yeah, yeah. 46:48.89 Flora Either have the confidence to make this dlc and like trim out the fat or I would say this. There's no way this could work financially but like how cool of a demo would this be like we were speaking about final fantasy 16 and how the demo felt really self-contained in a way that made you super hyped to play the rest of the game. 47:08.63 Flora If I had played a more truncated or abbreviated or even just edited for clarity sort of version of this game. Um I wonder what that would do to get people into infinite wealth because clearly that's what this game is here for. 47:20.57 Matt Yeah, yeah. 47:20.73 Dave Yeah. 47:22.85 Flora Um, as much as it is to like, maybe give a little bit of a windfall of funding in between major releases. 47:29.20 Dave And you know criticisms aside I do want to like make it clear that this game does have some of my favorite story content. Some of my favorite missions in the series. So like I Just you know that contrasts with the times when. 47:37.94 Matt Yeah, yeah. 47:47.91 Dave You know they say you cannot advance the story right now and it's not for a story related reason they just say reach silver level in the coliseum and then you can advance the story. I'm like I don't have to be doing this right now like we could have thought of something else or. Like Matt said we could have had the confidence to just make this a shorter main story because I think the people who are in the pocket for this game. Yakuza 6.5 a side story that happens alongside the last game and is leading into the next game in the series. 48:08.40 Matt Yeah. 48:24.84 Dave The people who are in the pocket for it are probably going to play this and do a bunch of side content anyway because that's one of the things that people like about the series. So um, did you all have fun with the substories ah like these are always that contrast like I said the. 48:28.55 Matt Yeah. 48:43.73 Dave More serious. Not totally serious Again, you fist fight tigers in main story moments all the time in this series but like the contrast to the main series serious like Melodrama of the main Quest is often these goofy substories that carry you into wild situations. Um. 48:48.66 Matt Yes. 49:03.23 Dave What did you all think about these in this game in particular? 49:07.27 Matt I think for me, they were kind of average. They weren't the worst because we've all played Eshan and I'd say most of the substories in Gaiden were pretty forgettable though there were a few good ones. Um, and so I was at least happy that I enjoyed playing. Most of these even if I didn't think narratively or like content wise they were the best like I was never I I was maybe sometimes a tiny bit disappointed but I was never like all this sucks right? Which like I know that happened a bunch with Ishin um I will say that they are. Less memorable in this name than a lot of others but the ones that are memorable are some of the best they've ever done and so I think that like it's that dichotomy that helps it from getting completely tarnished is that even though I don't think it lives up to the best in the series like 0 and kiwami 2 and stuff. It does still have some really great ones. Ah that kind of elevate the rest of the baseline. 50:03.69 Flora Um I Guess I'm really wondering which of the substories in particular you're speaking with praise about because I can't actually pick one out and place one as memorable and that's sort of like a damning with faint praise sort of thing I don't want to say that it's it's. Bad. It's very average. Um, but in this game it felt to me like the Akame missions sort of filled the role of substories and I didn't run into substories nearly as much like the ratio of them to the main story was so much lower. 50:23.21 Matt Um, right. 50:39.48 Flora At least in the way I was running about the city or something and so I feel like I did less of them overall and have less to say about it. Um, the stuff that was functionally being a substory was just like grab this out of the tree fight this like like entourage of dudes like pick up this briefcase bring this guy. Taco Yaki like like that's kind of the extent of it. 51:00.25 Dave Oh you know? um I misspoke when I say Subst stories I mean the Akama missions because they are the substtories from the old games. They're all just concentrated in one Quest giver in a way that the old games don't do them So the ones that you run into by just. 51:14.44 Matt Um, right. 51:19.45 Dave Talking to people on the street like you know, get this kid's toy down from a tree, bring this guy Takoyaki The way you would run into old substtories in the old games. Um I can see how that would be confusing the way I worded it but the akame missions are what I was talking about here. Um. I Kind of think that they are fine. Um, some of them I think serve that purpose of helping Kiryu introspect or like look back on the past in an effective way and some of them also fulfill the role of like the clip show like the greatest hits type thing. Um, but overall you know I made it a point. We'll talk about it in the spoiler section like the specific ones but like I made a point to write down the ones that I thought were really noteworthy and there are 3 that I wrote down so it's kind of a mixed bag. 52:13.56 Matt I probably have the same three. I'd be curious. But yeah, that's what I was talking about too. Yeah I'd I'd infer. Um, yeah, the getting the smaller stuff that you're speaking to Flora I would agree are almost completely forgettable other than the first time you zip line something out of a tree like that was. 52:15.22 Dave Probably probably. 52:30.67 Dave Um, yeah. 52:31.45 Matt And I would argue it is always fun but not super memorable. It's like insert item here. But otherwise it's changeable. 52:32.36 Flora Um, right? yeah. 52:39.32 Flora Right? Like I can I can tell you for days like anecdotes from. For example, Yakuza zero about the burrocero ring or something like I will distinctly remember that for the rest of my life and here's why but with this game like I I mean I do remember pulling a woman's underwear from a tree once but um, but like I. 52:43.65 Matt Yeah, yeah. 52:57.27 Matt Yeah. 52:57.41 Flora Don't have an anecdote to give beyond that like that's just a fact about an action I took in a video game I got experience for that. It was great. 52:58.16 Dave Right. 53:05.54 Dave Right? There's nothing that reaches the levels of like the phone sex mini game side Quest in Yakuza zero or the baby club side quest that you do and many of the other games. Um, most of them don't really reach that. 53:12.79 Matt Here. Ah. 53:22.79 Dave That height and I think that you know honestly if they're they have the same writing staff. They're probably saving all the good stuff for infinite wealth. So yeah, all right? any other things to talk about about the story before we move on and talk about other aspects. 53:29.00 Matt Likely yeah. 53:39.57 Matt No I think I think most of my other comments are spoiler related so I will save them. 53:47.56 Dave Yeah, yeah, so I guess just to wrap up this section about the story. Um, we probably. We can't. I'll just say we can't talk about the most interesting stuff about the story in the non-spoiler part and some of the most effective stuff. We've been dancing around and kind of. Saying it's there but we can't say what it is quite yet so hold on until the spoiler section if you want to hear that stuff otherwise bounce out and play it Again. It's ah it's a short relatively short game. It's on game pass at the time of recording. So ah, you can experience those story things for yourself for now we will listen to some music. Come back and talk about some aesthetic things about the game. I think this game looks really great. Um, and Yakuza games usually look good. They go for a photo realistic type of style. Ah, this game has some of the best character designs I think out there as far as games that try to make regular people. You know, in their games. They have very very distinctive faces. Um. 54:47.88 Flora Yeah. 54:54.88 Dave Clothing is outlandish and Memorable. We're talking in the green room about something we'll talk about in the spoiler section about a guy that once you see the shirt He Wears. You'll never forget it. You'll recognize him no matter where he shows up. Um, all of that stuff I think is and then recreating the cities like I talked about. Ah, earlier. They do a great, great job of that. Visually so you know I'm not always impressed by photo realism as far as art styles and video games. But Yakuza games always impressed me because of those things and this is the newest one so it looks. Better than the old ones. 55:33.56 Matt Yeah, completely agree. It's funny I think the first time I clocked it was in yakuza zero when ah Nishki and ah Kiryu were having a drink together on the giant ice cube with the liquor and I'm not even a drinker anymore but like it looked like I could grab it off the screen and it's only gotten better. And yeah I agree this game. It's one of the best looking ps 5 games I've played in a year filled with incredibly good looking ps 5 games. So like there was no shortage of them. But I think the realism is the real lack of gritty realism right? I think what I love about Yakuza's realism is it's always shiny. 55:58.56 Dave M. 56:10.76 Matt It always sparkles like you cannot. You cannot argue that games like Final Fantasy 16 and the last of us too part 2 and like all look really well-made but like I tend to not pay as much attention or take in as much of it because it's also a lot of brazing. 56:11.20 Flora Yeah. 56:12.92 Dave Ah, ah. 56:29.50 Matt Grays and browns and reds and like it's meant to be Grimy. Where's this like everything sparkles, shines Neon bright colors and they all look great. Um, even these fictional like locations they create that we're going to talk about in the spoiler section all look phenomenal and like I could just step into the screen and go there and. It's one of my favorite things about taking in these games. It's like they're just a feast for the eyes. Absolutely. 56:52.48 Flora I definitely agree with all of that and I will say like the one maybe nuance I have within that perspective is like what these games do astonishingly well is incredibly selective. Um Matt mentions the sort of. The ice cube whiskey situation and like how particularly striking that one was I think of an ashtray design from the same game which just like there's no reason it had to be modeled that well and then meanwhile like there's like a house plant sitting in the corner. That's like 3 pixels. Um. 57:16.00 Matt Yeah, yeah. 57:19.86 Dave So. 57:29.18 Flora I think in a calendar year where we got the e and remaster or remake. However, you want to look at that. Um I was feeling sort of wishy washy about that game and how muddy it was like quite literally how muddy it was in the streets but also just the art design. Sometimes it was really inconsistent in a way that I wasn't in love with. I do think that this is one of the best looking yakuza games. Um, and so it at least has that going for it in terms of like rendering quality photorealism I also want to say the animations in this game are astonishingly good like especially facial animations action during cutscenes and also this is one of the first games in the series that has a really seamless. 57:57.33 Matt Yeah. 57:59.60 Dave Ah. 58:06.60 Flora Transition between cutscene and action like playability. Um I don't know if that's just PS 5 version or if pc versions do it the same way I'm sure they do ah but the fluidity in that felt really great to me and I'm not used to that because like just a few Yakuza games ago I was loading to go into the poppo store. So. 58:08.78 Dave M. 58:14.30 Dave Oh yeah. 58:24.36 Matt Yeah. 58:25.14 Dave Right? Or you know you're running down the street and you know some dudes come up and want to fight you and you have to do a loading screen to go into battle. Um, nothing like that. It's instantaneous in this game. 58:25.24 Flora Here We are. 58:35.20 Matt Right. 58:41.19 Dave I'm glad you mentioned the animations because I wanted to touch on those 2 like especially like fight cutscene. Choreography is always really really entertaining um especially in some of these like multiphase boss fights like you'll fight a dude, you'll knock down a health bar or 2 and then you'll just get like this. Twenty second cut scene of them. You know, throwing each other off balconies and stuff like that and it's always really, really well done. Um, lip syncing in these games is really great also like I think I think rg g does a lot with like. Asset reuse and stuff because they make so many of these fucking games but they are making them look really really good. 59:24.34 Flora Um, yeah. 59:24.62 Matt Yeah I agree it was funny. Having played these all back to back. There was this moment in ah, you co the like a dragon god these name conventions are going to kill me ah and like the first time you see familiar faces that I won't even spoil in that game. And like how good they looked when I had seen that character like a game ago and they just didn't look that good and like that's the same thing I noticed when characters like that familiar character showed up in this game I was like man this is the best you've ever looked and you're an attractive man to begin with so like. 59:45.80 Dave Um, yeah. 59:55.46 Matt It's just those things like that were really striking and like even Kiryu like the unfortunate thing about this franchise spanning the way it did is like the jump from kiwami 2 to 3 and then like so 5 to 6 like there's this curious face just changes drastically and like. 01:00:10.85 Flora Um, yeah. 01:00:12.98 Matt We're now at a place where those faces are pretty consistent, especially from like 6 to 7 to now each and in this and like I really it was just very even more striking than I think it had been before. 01:00:26.18 Flora I Actually think the one inconsistency with his appearances is eyes in this game. I don't know if either of you felt this way but his eyes in this game are very glassy, very hard and very like monochrome in a way that I'm not used to seeing and Kiryu. 01:00:43.18 Flora I Don't know if that's somewhat nostalgia lens like like goggling on my past experiences or if it's really a contrast but everything else I felt was great like he's He's a little more gaunt now I think I would say but his eyes if I really felt like there was something there and I don't know. 01:00:43.71 Dave Um. 01:00:52.69 Matt Yeah. 01:00:53.81 Dave No. 01:01:00.47 Flora If that is intentional or not. 01:01:01.18 Matt Based on information that was spoiled for me in a trailer that I won't spoil here for infinite wealth. It seems like it might be intentional and related to you saying how it looks more gaunt but I don't know. I think I mean also having just the last game the last mainline game I've been having played was. Like ah a yakuza like a dragon where he mostly looks the same in that one. Ah I I didn't notice it as much but it could. It could be intentional. It's unclear. 01:01:22.11 Flora M. 01:01:29.27 Flora Actually you saying that makes me realize like I think I have that same realization like a dragon. So I wonder if the fact that those are explicitly connected means like yes that is intentional or again it could just be like here's the new model and it just looks a little bit different and I just need to get used to it. 01:01:33.64 Matt Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right. 01:01:45.73 Dave Yeah, ah, did you all play this with english voice acting or japanese always japanese that's the correct answer um the japanese voice actor for Kiryu is Takaya Kuroda 01:01:50.90 Matt Always japanese. 01:01:51.98 Flora Always japanese. 01:02:02.77 Dave Who is just the king he is incredible. 1 of my favorite voice actors out there. I could never hear him do any other character and he would still be 1 of my favorites for the way he does Kiryu. it's um It's fantastic it's to the point where like. 01:02:04.66 Matt Um, yeah. 01:02:21.28 Dave You could hire my other favorite voice actor who does English voice acting to do kier you and I would still play in Japanese because these games in particular like I like to play games if they're set in real places I like to play in the language that they speak in that real place I played. 01:02:37.80 Flora Right. 01:02:39.99 Dave A plague tale innocence with french voice acting because it felt better and I don't mind reading subtitles. Um, these yakuza games are like the poster child for please play them with japanese voice acting. I don't care if Mark Hamill Voices Majima in yakuza one. Um. Do it in Japanese because they're fantastic. Um I don't think any of the emotion in any of the scenes is ever lost by not being able to like, hear and understand what they say the ending of yakuza like a dragon made me cry. Um, and you know. 01:02:57.99 Flora Yeah. 01:03:13.63 Matt Yeah, yeah. 01:03:16.95 Dave Stuff in this game as well. Hit super hard so recommendations from the 3 of us play with japanese voice acting. 01:03:23.40 Flora Absolutely and this is a conversation I've been having since like I was in middle school with anime where like I'm a pretty hardcore like sub fan when it comes to anime like we are subtitling our way through this and I think part of it is I've always felt that the melodrama of the japanese voice acting doesn't. Gale to the English language in the same way. Um, like when you hear like like it's it's iconic to hear like nutty um or like like other sorts of thing like if I just hear what like like ok I'm used to that I'm dulled to that it doesn't strike me as like like like it doesn't have the tone to me. 01:03:43.10 Dave Yeah. 01:04:00.82 Flora Of the words that I'm used to in my own native language and so um I'm not saying it's wrong to play with english voice acting here but I did play 1 game. It was the first judgment game in English and um I think that largely contributed to why I failed to resonate with it. It didn't feel right. 01:04:16.34 Dave Moon. 01:04:19.91 Flora It didn't immerse me to the degree that when I play with Japanese it did but like right before we started recording the English dub dropped on this game. So I'm sure many people will choose to play it that way. 01:04:31.97 Matt Yeah I mean I'm in agreement although I will say with anime I grew up in the toonami era so like cowboy bebop um, um, outlaw star and a bunch of others had incredible. The world of Steve Blum who voices everyone like those. 01:04:36.65 Flora Um, Lewis. 01:04:49.18 Matt Those anime I watched in english because they were some of the highest quality. But I agree I grew up watching Dragon Ball Z in japanese those are the voices I hear in my head when I'm reading any of that stuff and so this absolutely like it's funny I had this experience with persona 5 royal earlier this year where all the kids go on a trip to the US and they talk. 01:04:56.79 Dave M. 01:05:07.99 Matt Yeah, but nobody here speaks japanese and I I don't know english they said in english and I was like oh ok like that took me out of that moment immediately I forget it 10 minutes later because those voice actors are so great and it's such a charismatic as but like that moment happened and so like I like Dave also try and play. 01:05:14.66 Flora Ah, yeah. 01:05:27.71 Matt If something is very specifically set somewhere I guess with the exception of persona 5 which was obviously set in Japan um I try to also use it. But also like I believe yakuza zero is only in japanese and so like I started that way and so like since then subsequent games have had english cast who do a fantastic job. 01:05:42.23 Dave Um, yeah. 01:05:47.47 Matt But like because I started that way and then just got used to the voice actors like I just ah, always will play in japanese the hardest game going from kiwami to to 3 of the remastered version. It's still the same voice actor but that is the first time he is voicing that character I think. At least for the american audiences and so it sounds so different from then the later performances as he fine tunes it but beyond that I agree Kuroda is absolutely King his cure. You is a motive in a way that I don't know, like explain ah Kazuma Kiryu has quickly become one of my favorite video game characters of all time. 01:06:23.49 Flora Yeah. 01:06:25.61 Matt And a lot of that is absolutely key to his performance especially in this game. 01:06:32.34 Dave Yeah, and and by all accounts like the english voice acting in Yakuza like a dragon was really good also but I didn't play it and the guy who does the japanese voice of ichiban fucking crushes it. So yeah, um, ah yeah. 01:06:49.38 Dave Little bit of controversy with the english voice actor for Kiryu in this game. Um I actually don't know how to pronounce. I've never said his name out loud before , Yong Yea ok um yeah I've I've watched him on Youtube he doesn't say his name in his videos. So um, yeah. 01:06:57.88 Flora Um, Yong Yea,, he's a youtuber. 01:07:06.54 Matt Um, yeah. 01:07:07.39 Dave He's the voice of Kiryu in English. I looked up some videos of some of the scenes from Infinite wealth. Ah because they released a demo with English voice acting I think or maybe it was just a trailer or something like that. Um I. Don't want to just come out and say that it's bad voice acting but it like because there is also the thing of like this is a person voicing a character who I have a very established voice in my head of what that character sounds like um but I will just leave it at please play this game in japanese. 01:07:42.52 Matt Yeah. 01:07:43.70 Dave Please There are scenes in this game that I think depend on it. 01:07:47.86 Matt I Would agree. 01:07:51.57 Flora I Don't necessarily have an opinion and I haven't listened to young Yes, performance here. Ah but when he was the one who was cast for this role I remember feeling incredibly shocked like almost like a direct feeling of worry because. A this character is so iconic in the way that he's portrayed normally so like everything you're saying um the original voice actor is the only voice actors forms as I'm concerned. Um, but I don't know how to give this new voice actor stepping into this role a chance in a meaningful way. 01:08:22.73 Matt Yeah, yeah, yeah. 01:08:23.33 Dave Yeah, like I feel like I don't have room in my heart for a different voice for Kiryu and if that's on me then that's on me but that's the way it is. 01:08:26.28 Flora Um, it. 01:08:33.88 Matt Yeah, well, it's like ah majima showed up in a game where there's an english cast and Matthew Mercer was cast as him and Matthew Mercer's incredible voice actors done a ton of great stuff but still not my Majama and like I'm sure his performance is phenomenal because even in games that I haven't loved. 01:08:44.33 Dave Yeah, yeah. 01:08:50.72 Matt His performances are always exceptional because he's a great voice actor but just not that won't work for me because I just there's something about someone yelling here you Sean that like which I won't even attempt to intimidate ah to ah to reproduce but like. 01:09:05.70 Flora Imitate this. 01:09:07.85 Matt I just couldn't hear it in any other voice. It just wouldn't work you know and so like yeah I I think I'm sure that the English dub is great because Rgg does a great job with that stuff. It's just not for me and yeah I will always encourage the Japanese version. 01:09:22.69 Dave Yeah, and across the board like not just Kiryu every character is charismatic I mean like maybe not just some dude you talk to you know the the clerk at the you know the convenience store or something like that like they say they're lying and it sounds okay, but. 01:09:41.70 Dave I don't speak japanese so I can't really like critique voice performances to that level. But like every main character is super charismatic. They're all great. I wanted to especially shout out Akame’s voice actress Uika first summer. She's great super super charismatic and memorable. And I will hear Jodi you in my head forever in my sleep. 01:10:02.46 Matt Um, forever. Yeah. 01:10:05.40 Flora I was doing a little preliminary reading and apparently she's released many songs of her own like singles and such um, independent of this voice performance and so I don't know if either of you spent any time karaoking with um akame. 01:10:10.23 Dave Mean. 01:10:18.62 Dave Oh yeah. 01:10:19.57 Matt Um, yeah. 01:10:20.52 Flora Like her voice. Her voice is rather strong and it turns out that she has a separate career going on. So um, to me that speaks to why the other performances in her voice are so strong. 01:10:24.25 Dave Sick. 01:10:24.28 Matt Amazing. 01:10:29.00 Dave Yeah, oh yeah. 01:10:29.70 Matt Sure Also kuroda in every karaoke of every game since the beginning, just the best performance is the fact that he just goes for it and often sounds incredible. But like even when it's clearly a song not meant for someone in his range. He's still. 01:10:34.24 Flora Yeah. 01:10:47.25 Matt Absolutely kills it in the best way. 01:10:48.79 Dave Yeah, good voice performances of somebody singing badly at Karaoke for sure. Okay, let's ah music So gameplay in. 01:10:52.26 Matt Yeah, exactly. 01:11:04.75 Dave Like a dragon guide and the man who erased his name this goes back like a damn. The naming is fucking me up to Yakuza like a dragon the previous game um in the release timeline was a turn based Rpg This goes back to the old style the action brawler combat. 01:11:12.71 Matt Um. 01:11:22.84 Dave Like the other games that Kiryu stars in, I think that um I talked earlier about how they recreate these cities. Um, but the other part of that is that these are open world Games. You can go anywhere on the Map. You know other than certain times in the story where they're like maybe don't go here. Um, you can go anywhere you can go into a bunch of stores you can go into all kinds of side activities bars. Whatever, go do side quests. Um, but when I say open World. They are contained in open Worlds. They're relatively small like it takes maybe 2 minutes to run from side to side of the map and that allows them to pack them really densely with stuff to do like a real Japanese City is. They're very very. Ah, dense places with businesses and stuff like that. So before we talk about combat because the combat has new stuff to talk about. Let's just talk about those side activities and the way that you spend your time out in the open World. So. 01:12:33.13 Dave This game has a lot of the classic side activities we mentioned karaoke you can go sing by yourself or with a partner. Um, it has a driving range. It has pool. It has pocket circuit which is slot car Racing. It has Majong if you know how to play that. It has shogi if you know how to play. It has a cabaret club and all kinds of ways to spend your time. So What of these or anything that I didn't mention. Maybe um, did you spend time doing it? 01:13:07.37 Flora I didn't really spend a lot of time investing in the side activities in this game. Um compared to how I usually might and it really depends on the Yakuza game for me. Um, like when I played dark as a zero. The intention was to platinum that game when I played like a dragon I platinum for that game etc. 01:13:23.35 Flora So that requires a long-term investment in some of these side activities that with this game I didn't try and pressure myself to complete anything. Um the first 2 chapters I did anything and everything that was sort of accessible to me. Um, and so I did initially dabble and some of those Akame missions involve. Going to the driving range or doing pocket circuit or billiards or whatever. Um, but when I see your list I Somehow didn't know there was a cabaret club in this game. Um, and and so like the night and day nature of this experience. 01:13:50.85 Dave Ha. 01:13:57.48 Flora I Don't think I entered an arcade or anything like that like I feel like I really skimmed side stuff because once I realized that oh my God I'm taking forever in these chapters and I need to start working through the story I just ignored everything else and I bet some of that stuff opens up later and I just never found it. 01:14:16.52 Matt Yeah I I didn't do a ton of the side stuff too. But I did the favorites like I did pocket circuit very addictive. Um I did karaoke because I just love the music videos and all like they go. They go all out on those I did the Cabaret club but I was kind of taken aback. So. 01:14:23.43 Flora Fairy. 01:14:33.95 Matt Anyone who knows anyone who plays these games the cabaret club is a ton of fun because it's like a resource management sim where you're like managing the girls picking what tables they go to kind of like the manager of the club. This game is so different. You're attending the clubs and chatting with the young women who work there. But also the young women are all fmv like it's all Fmv style. It's not. It's not a club manager like it's been in a bunch of the other games and I was completely thrown off by it. Still fun. All lovely but like definitely threw me for a loop initially because they hadn't really, they'd done that with some photography minigames they'd done fmv. 01:14:56.90 Dave Yeah. 01:15:13.58 Matt With actual people before but I just wasn't expecting with the cabaret club billiards I hated you have to play it at least once I'm bad at pool in real life I'm bad at pool in a video game so like didn't touch that and then March Mar Jong and shogi I just I I I have friends I have friends who competed on a professional level in ma jung and yet I still have. No clue how to play that game. 01:15:36.82 Flora Um, one of the things that I noticed that was really striking to me. Um, because with like a dragon and with the Yakuza the 2 games I tried to platinum um I was able to play them on pc and so I had a lot more like precision control over like darts billiards. Whatever um. This was my first time having to like work through those things on a controller and I found that to be agonizing and I just want to reassure anyone who might be deciding which platform to go for to like maybe I'm going to be an achievement hunter here. Um I really missed the option of dual wielding a controller in a mouse or just like. 01:16:15.86 Flora Even just having my mouth sensitivity up because I couldn't throw a bullseye and darts in this game to save my life. Um, another reason I probably didn't go super deep with this stuff. 01:16:26.10 Dave Gotcha Yeah I I played I mostly beat all the driving range mini games because I love the driving range. I was sad. There's no batting cages. That's always my favorite in these games. Um, so I went to the driving range I played. 01:16:44.30 Dave Pocket circuit slot car racing which I had ignored in Yakuza 0 but like I didn't understand what to do and playing it in here I was just like oh this is just adjusting stats this is adjusting gear in an rpg but you'd slot car racing. So I played quite a bit of that. 01:16:56.80 Flora Right? right. 01:17:03.95 Dave Um, I did all the karaoke songs multiple times. I just you know if I have the game on and I'm like well I got ten more minutes to play I can't start a new main story mission I'll go sing a few karaoke songs or something like that. Ah, the cabaret club. I hated it in this game. I. I don't want to sit here with fmv cabaret girls talking to me I'm just it's just like I don't want this in a Yakuza game I it's similar to kind of like them more like like they're not porn but they're like the sexy minigames and a lot of the other Yakuza games that use fmv. Um, like real adult actresses and stuff and you know that's cool I don't care that it's there. But I don't I don't do those in those other games either. So as soon as I saw that in this game I was like well I'm never going back there again. Just not my bag baby. Um, yeah, so. 01:17:43.60 Flora Yeah. 01:18:02.15 Dave Mostly karaoke and driving range for me for site activities. Um I tried to hit the restaurants because I like ah seeing what all they have including the Jackson Burger my namesake in the game and um, yeah, so as you're you're rolling around ah the town kind of exploring. 01:18:07.19 Flora Yeah. 01:18:09.60 Matt Yeah, yeah. 01:18:22.10 Dave Do inside content that kind of leads you into the other part of the gameplay which is combat because I don't know how you all feel about this. We'll get into it but every couple minutes you'll run up on a gang of ah people out on the street who have a problem with you and then you'll get into like quote random encounters. So that involves you fighting a big bunch of dudes and then of course there are boss fights against you know, single very strong enemies throughout the game too but this is action combat and this is the first of the classic brawler combat games that I've done on the show. I did Eshan but you're fighting with a sword and a gun in that game. So it's quite different. I mean this one is just all fisticuffs unless you decide to pick up a motorcycle and bash somebody with it. Um, so for those who are unfamiliar. You have a punch button, you have a kick button and a grab button and then you can like. Make combos between those and then you have these context sensitive they call them heat actions in the game they're finishing moves. Basically ah you fight people you build up this gauge when it's full or you fill 1 segment. You can do one of these moves. Um to. 01:19:37.16 Dave Either just defeat somebody not kill, not kill, never carry you operates like Batman um, he doesn't kill anybody he might break their spine but they're not dead and they apologize to him after it's all over, um. 01:19:38.31 Matt Never. 01:19:38.39 Flora Never kill, never kill. 01:19:50.43 Matt Yeah, he may knee a combat knife into your chest but you're still alive. It's exactly. 01:19:55.90 Dave Yeah, you're still alive and you're thankful for the experience. That's one of the key parts like everyone learns a lesson after Kiryu sticks their head in a microwave. 01:20:10.72 Dave Um, so I think this combat is better than any of the other brawler Yakuza combat systems. Um, it may not have as much variety as yakuza 0 but it feels the best like in the. 01:20:28.67 Dave Small things like I'm facing the direction I want to face my punches are hitting the person I want to hit stuff like that in the fluidity of it too I think this feels the best. 01:20:41.60 Flora I am still going to die on the hill of 0 being my favorite here. Um part of it is because of the over the top nature of the animations in combat and like you suggest the break dancing like oh my god um I love some of the things. Um. 01:20:42.46 Matt Now. 01:20:49.23 Dave Oh the break dancing And yeah. 01:20:51.70 Matt Yeah, as if. 01:20:59.30 Flora In this game that are new like the gadgets which we're going to talk a little more about in a second. Um, I found them really engaging. But the way you have to use them I thought was imperfectly implemented. Um, for example, if I can talk about spider gadgets. It's sort of you. 01:21:10.82 Matt Um, yeah. 01:21:15.47 Dave Yeah. 01:21:18.94 Flora You flip out a little web and loop yourself around somebody like a lasso and yank them towards you across the map and you can upgrade this to like I can suddenly grab 4 people and throw them all against this crowd of other enemies and do massive amounts of damage and chaos. It's Great. It's incredibly useful. But I found personally that initiating that animation was so inconsistent for me like I would sit there and hold because you have to hold your buttons to activate these gadgets in the game I would hold the circle button and it wouldn't do anything and I would just take a punch to the face and. 01:21:54.40 Flora There were so many moments like that in combat where like okay, you had some really great ideas of how to make this brawler combat more dynamic and interesting and new and fresh but there were still some rough patches for me like that that I ended up just really struggling with. All the way up until the end. 01:22:12.80 Matt I mean I would so I agree I think that the spy gadgets when they were at their best were incredible. But at their worst were rough. That said as someone who is only ever in any game played in the equivalent of the beast fighting stance because it's the best 1 01:22:18.71 Flora Right. 01:22:31.30 Matt Um, I mostly did the brawler stuff and had a little issue. I will say the first thing I do in every modern New Kuza game. As soon as I get a heat action I go to find punks on a bridge so I can fight them and do the best heat them. Animation ever which is just Kiryu yeeting them off the bridge literally just lifting and throwing them off and what's the best part is it's looney tune style like as he's let them go it zooms in on the enemy's face as they look shocked and then fall in the water. It's the best. Um, but I mean I. 01:22:58.75 Dave M. 01:23:04.15 Matt It's hard to beat 0, I just really love zero's combat but I will agree with Dave I'll kind of be in the middle. This was the tightest to control when it worked its best and like the brawler fighting like I never was not targeted on the right person which is very common in the brawler stuff and so that was great. Um, but. 01:23:12.18 Flora Um, sure, right. 01:23:23.13 Matt I will agree that like a lot of the spy gadget stuff when it worked it was really great but I had issues as well. Ah, but I love the fighting. I love grabbing random items and beating people to death with them and the heat actions where you grab a gun and you like put it in someone's stomach fire it 3 times blood goes everywhere. 01:23:34.71 Flora Um, oh yeah. 01:23:41.35 Matt And then the battle's over they get up and apologize and run away like is just it never gets old and there and there are some of those that I just cringe out. There's one that carries done I think pretty much since zero where it's a heat action at the enemy's head where you literally just punch their teeth in on the floor. 01:23:43.39 Dave Um, yeah now. 01:24:00.91 Matt Full impact. It shows the fist and then they get up and they just like I'm sorry and walk away. It never gets old. 01:24:06.27 Dave Yeah I was just going to ask? Um, since we're on the subject of heat actions. What are some other favorites because the throwing someone off of a bridge or I think like in some games you can even throw them off of rooftops like ah. 01:24:19.70 Flora Um, oh yeah. 01:24:22.10 Dave That's a classic and that's one of the ones that gets memed. Um, but what are some other heat actions that you think are just very funny. 01:24:31.41 Flora In this game I don't think I picked up on like an oh my God I'm so glad this is my new favorite heat action but like traditionally like I hate to be really base with my humor here but any sort of like. 01:24:46.14 Matt Yeah, yeah. 01:24:46.80 Flora Man's genitals colliding with telephone pole or anything of that nature. It's usually that's going to work on me. I agree with Matt like seeing someone get looney tuned off a bridge is fantastic and those occasional heat actions that involve like an item you've picked up like it like a persimmon or something. 01:24:49.58 Dave Ah. 01:25:02.23 Dave Um. 01:25:03.88 Flora And all of a sudden that person is like used to clobber someone's head in like and send them to the orthodontists later um like perfect. Um I didn't like have a strong memorable 1 in this game unfortunately. 01:25:17.14 Dave Yeah I don't think there are many like brand new ones in this game unless there are some. There might be some that are like related to the gadgets I'm not sure. Ah, but the. 01:25:20.50 Flora Yeah, yeah I didn't. 01:25:29.65 Dave The old favorites and because it's the first time I'm talking with you both about a specific Yakuza game just Figured. We get some of those favorites out there. Um, there is a heat action if you're near or inside of a convenience store where you so Shove. Someone's head in a microwave and turn it on which is very funny to me. Um, not how microwaves work but okay and um, there are stock heat action finishers for different types of items. There's one if you're holding a baseball bat or a crowbar or something like that. There's a finishing action for that type of weapon. 01:25:48.80 Matt You know. 01:26:06.44 Dave Um, the one that gets me is if you're holding something big like a street sign or a motorcycle. Um, they use the same animation and the animation makes some sense if you're holding a potted plant or like you know one of those. Um, what do they call them ? The the signs they stand up on the street or like a parking cone or something like that but they use the same animation if you're holding an actual motorcycle so that always makes me laugh because Kiryu swings a motorcycle as a weapon with the same efficiency that he does a baseball bat which is just very very very funny to me. 01:26:42.63 Matt Yeah I think some of my favorites in this game which I think we're in other games is like I mentioned before like if you pick up any kind of short blade like a knife or like you know any retractable blade cut you will shove it into the person and then knee it in further and it just looks like it hurts like hell. 01:26:43.63 Dave Always. 01:27:02.34 Matt Um, and what was the other one? Oh yeah, there's always like a slam. The guy into the wall and then elbow the back of their head like these are all just like real classics I mean I don't know that there's a bad heat action the bunch but I like the one that Dave also like when you're holding a really large object like for me the one that gets me is the sofa like if you're holding a. 01:27:21.26 Flora Um, yeah. 01:27:22.54 Matt Wolfa you knock them down with it and then you spin around and body slam it onto them and like it shatters into pieces and it's It's just it's never not funny. Um, I hope we get some new one. Well I mean so there's no heat actions in the rpgs and there are other really cool, funny things. 01:27:27.20 Flora Um, that shatters. 01:27:31.85 Dave Yeah. 01:27:41.65 Matt But I think what I missed in Yahuzal like a dragon the most was the heat actions because they just they're so goofy there are other goofy things in its place but like you can't you can't beat and like I mean even Dave and I have joked about how an ishin you're walking around with a gun and a sword and you absolutely cut a guy in half in the heat action. 01:27:46.62 Dave M. 01:27:59.49 Matt And then they get up and run away and it's like. 01:27:59.51 Dave Yeah, there's a heat action in Eshan where you stab someone in the stomach with your katana and then shoot them in the forehead with your pistol and then they they get up and like we said they apologize to you I'm so sorry sir I don't know what I was thinking and then they they go on their way speaking of goofy. 01:28:07.70 Matt Yeah. 01:28:15.43 Matt Yeah. 01:28:19.30 Dave So you both mentioned the gadgets. Let's talk about those? Um, as part of Kiryu's like assignment like the story reason for these is like he's on these you know light security detail in air quotes and so they're like well we have these gadgets to help you be more efficient with this or more covert or whatever. Um, and so you get 4 of these gadgets. You can use the grappling shot like they like um I think it was flora that talked about the grappling shot. Basically it's Spiderman's webs , it's yakuza's version of that. 01:28:51.28 Matt Yeah. 01:28:55.76 Dave Ah, whether you're pulling a woman's underwear down from a tree or whether you're tying up a dude and lassoing him around and slamming him into the concrete in combat there are 3 others though there are exploding cigarette light grenades that you can toss out in combat. There are drones that you can send out to kind of. Bother people and last but not least the best 1 they give care you rocket shoes ah about halfway through the game and you can just power your way through groups of enemies with the rocket shoes and knock them away like bowling pins and. When I tell you I did entire combat encounters just with the rocket shoes. It takes like 10 times as long as it would just to fight them normally but it was just bro having a great time with the rocket shoes. My favorite by far. 01:29:47.14 Matt The rocket shoes are great I think also what's great about the rocket shoes and the thing that kills me in most brawlers, you lose the games is getting caught in a corner like there are invisible walls and geometry and if a boss especially. Or even a bunch of thugs catch you in those places you can kind of get beaten down really quick but not with the rocket shoes they trap you in the corner you throw those on and just send everyone flying I will say also about encounters in this game I forgot to mention before so 2023 had a ton of games with instantaneous loading. For different reasons Spiderman, when you know you fast travel or switch between characters when you go to different applications in final fantasy 16 but nothing blew my mind more than in this game when I rolled up on thugs and they immediately fought me there was no stutter. No nothing and then when I beat them I just kept running like. 01:30:39.89 Flora Um, yeah. 01:30:40.90 Matt That just blew my mind in a way that I was not prepared for . It was great as far as the gadgets go. I like the rocket shoes. It's hard for them not to be the favorite but I like the exploding cigarettes because they were the most absurd of them like that. 01:30:58.56 Matt Kiryu has this unlimited supply of exploding grenade cigarettes and that they always work and they always send folks flying and again then they get up at the end and apologize and walk away even though they've got burns on them or like you've been blown up. It doesn't matter, it's fantastic. 01:31:14.54 Flora I Believe they also can like friendly fire yourself like they backfire and like will explode on you if you drop one too near to yourself or like dash your way into your own cigarette. Um, and so there were a few occasions where I found myself more inconvenienced by like. 01:31:18.54 Matt Yes, correct. 01:31:33.23 Flora Oh crap I forgot that was like little power that I had um I loved the Rocket shoes. Um, it took me a while to like realize how to implement them well in combat. Um, but the go to and the and the most frequent thing I used was definitely the spider the grappling shot. 01:31:51.79 Dave Ok, so all of that being said I rarely use the gadgets when I had to fight when I had to fight. Um I would start out combat encounters against groups of people with the. Ah, rocket shoes basically until I couldn't anymore. But if it ever came to a point where I had to actually fight somebody I always used the it's called yakuza style which is just Kiryu's regular fighting from the other games like the dragon style from ah from other games and then. There's the other stance. That's the agent style and that's the only one where you can use the gadgets. So if you're like in a boss fight or something or in a there are some like wandering bosses that you fight for substories and stuff like that like if you're in a real fight. And you actually have to fight with what I think is the better melee combat style then you can't use the gadgets so like I would start out and just you know, go bowling with the rocket shoes. But if it you know turned into a real fight I would have to switch to the other style and so. I never used the grappling shot in combat really? Um I used the exploding cigarettes in the arena when you have like those fights where there's like 35 fucking people. You're fighting. I would toss those left and right but I never use the drones ever. Um. 01:33:12.60 Matt Yeah. 01:33:20.15 Dave And you have to like spend your experience and your money to upgrade these things and you don't get enough to upgrade everything So I kind of picked I was like alright Rocket shoes My my baby the Rocket shoes for sure. But then everything else was in the Yakuza style increase my health and increase my damage. 01:33:21.26 Flora By. 01:33:38.28 Dave All of that stuff. 01:33:40.70 Flora I'm curious. How far y'all leveled up your like akame ranks. Um, because like that's obviously directly tied to how much you can rank up these gadgets. Um I found that the hornet drone was incredibly useless until it had like 3 ranks up on it. 01:33:57.90 Flora Um, and but I it sounds to me like I'm probably going to be quite a bit further into that progression cycle than either of you given the play time. Do you either of you remember how far up that chain you got. 01:34:06.55 Dave I got pretty far but there was a point where it was like um it was it was I got to a point where it was like go do another set of Arena fights and I was like okay I'm I'm I'm done with this So I definitely didn't do all of it. 01:34:19.20 Flora Yeah, yeah, okay. 01:34:24.39 Matt Yeah I mean I definitely didn't have enough points to max everything out I leaned more towards the you cru a style because like I said I like when essentially Kiryu fights like a bear and so like I tend to lean into that. Um, but I did level up some of it and like I did try in earnest to use the gadgets early on. 01:34:33.14 Flora Um, yeah. 01:34:40.40 Flora Yeah. 01:34:41.91 Matt When they were kind of okay against enemies ah without being leveled up. But yeah, once you get to like having all the equipment which I'd say is about halfway through the game maybe 2 thirds. Um I stopped using it as much because it just felt less effective than the other you crus of stuff I had. 01:35:01.35 Flora It definitely felt more or less effective for me as well in the sense that like one style was clearly like crowd control slash like street thug sort of context any other one was very much like boss Centric and so um I think I invested a little more into it because of those ecom missions early on which largely like you have. 01:35:16.45 Matt Yeah. 01:35:19.50 Flora Tiny little packs of people. You're fighting. Um, but like if you upgrade the spider gadget. For example, like you get additional ropes and then like you you get like it becomes progressively more useful in a way that isn't just damage and I thought that that was really good as far as keeping me like. Switching between those styles because I kept finding that use just to like almost the way Dave was using the rocket shoes like okay, we're just going to do a little bit of damage clearance. We're just going to like wipe the field out and pull the weeds out of the garden real quick before we actually like focus on the 2 or three large health bars here. 01:35:53.57 Dave Speaking of large health bars. Um the boss fights in the series in this all the brawler games in my opinion are. 01:35:55.74 Flora Um. 01:36:04.12 Dave Interesting characters like big personalities. Oftentimes you do want to beat the shit out of them. They often take place in really interesting like visual locations. Ah, but mechanically I have never thought that this series does boss fights well like at like. I think they're bad in most games. Most boss fights are bad in this series because they are um, a guy who can block and or counter most of your attacks and he has 9 health bars like that's basically boss design throughout the series. Ah. Until the turn based 1 which I loved a lot of the boss fights in that even if they do last a bit too long, um the changes to the combat system were like the kind of fine tuning of the combat system in this game made the boss fights more fun for me more manageable and this is the first. Game in the entire series of all the action games that I did not switch to easy difficulty very early on in the game I did switch to easy during the final boss fight and we'll talk about why in the nonspoiler part. Why can say why now. Um, it's because. They have you have a counter against bosses like bosses will have a big special move. It has a big anime style windup to it and everything they glow red during it and then you have like a timed counterattack to that and if you pull it off. 01:37:33.39 Dave You interrupt the attack and you do a bunch of counter damage to them. It's great. Um, the final boss will just kill you in 1 hit if you miss that. So after failing that 3 times and having to do phases 1 through 5 of the final boss again before that attack comes back up I was like all right. Putting this on easy. We're finishing the game. Um, but this the first one where it took me that long I don't think the boss design is better in this game than previous games. But I think that combat is better and I guess they do less like automatic Parry and. Block in this game than they have in previous ones. So I guess I will retract that they are a little bit better. 01:38:15.62 Matt I Think what makes the boss fights better in this game is that counter because in the other games. You don't have a counter like that whereas in this game as long as you time it right and hold the right buttons when they're doing that big wind up. You can pretty much always counter it. 01:38:33.43 Matt Like as long as your timing is right? and it's a very generous timing window but like all of us have played souls games on 1 level or another where it's way less forgiving and so like I think that's what made them all bearable and why I also played on normal for the majority of the game which was a first for me as well. Um, but. That said, yes I also agree they are not designed better. They're still 18 health bars or whatever. But that's just kind of how these games are and also since I've played most of them on easy and have no second thought about it I don't think that hard about the boss fights but I would agree that these were better just at least because we had that counter. And some other resources that made them feel less impossible. 01:39:12.83 Flora I have played Yakuza 0 at least all the way through to credits on legend difficulty. So I feel like I can speak with a little bit of authority on like oh I can handle yakuza combat this game is so randomly tough. 01:39:28.54 Matt Yeah. 01:39:30.57 Flora To the point that I found it frustrating like I couldn't actually like I died so much in the first like five hours I've never I almost never die inaka's games I don't know if it was like the fact that like I could only bring 5 stamina x's with me everywhere. Um like there's a very specific inventory limitation in like arbitrary ways in the game. 01:39:37.68 Matt Huh. 01:39:49.92 Flora But um but I dropped it to easy like quickly and and I was so glad about that because I first tried um, let's say a late game boss that has like 14 health bars um like like whereas if I had hit that and died 3 times like it sounds like you did Dave I. i. would've been really resentful of of the way that that boss felt I think so for me, it was the right decision in this game to go easy because um, it just made everything feel so much more fluid and I wonder if that actually plays into why I use the gadgets so much more in combat because like they they don't do a ton of like percentage damage over ah a general health bar. 01:40:26.62 Matt Yeah. 01:40:27.41 Flora Just fun. Um, so I think that maybe my willingness to be a little more frivolous and like to have fun with combat encounters um is because I dropped it much earlier than it sounds like either of you did. 01:40:27.87 Dave Um, yeah. 01:40:38.70 Dave Yeah, part of the power fantasy for these games too is that you're playing as Kiryu the most legendary fist fighter in the history of humans basically like he's never been defeated in single combat like he everyone knows who he is people still challenge him because they're. 01:40:48.10 Matt Yeah, yeah. 01:40:57.14 Dave Idiots but like that is part of the fantasy is you're this dude who can beat up anybody with your bare hands or any number of people with your bare hands. Um there's some famous scenes throughout the series where it's like Kier you versus 200 street thugs and he beats all of them. Um, so that's also part of why I play these on easy because I think it doesn't make sense for these games to be super difficult. Um I just didn't struggle with the combat that much in this game until that final boss where it's like I agree that that counter move that you get. Is pretty generous timing. But if you have to execute 8 of them in a boss fight and if you miss 1 you instantly die then I'm like well that that's shitty and I yeah, yeah, bumped it down so I could see the ending and um, yeah, that was worth it. 01:41:36.99 Flora Yeah. 01:41:38.53 Matt Um, right? yeah. 01:41:49.95 Dave I think this is a good time to transition into our final thoughts about like a dragon guide and the man who erased his name and um, then get into the spoiler section. Not that this wasn't unforeseen but we are going for a while here. So um. In this section. We just kind of give some wrap up thoughts. We have also decided to give our Yakuza slash like a dragon series rankings just real quick. Um, just for funsies and then ah answer the question who would you recommend. Ah, this game too. So let's start with that question: who would you recommend this game to Matt I'll kick to you first um to what person would you recommend like dragon guide in the man who erased his name. 01:42:35.97 Matt I mean I would recommend like a dragon guide in the man who erased his name ah to any fan of the franchise I mean if you've spent any amount of time with Kiryu I think this will be rewarding I think the only person I wouldn't. 01:42:40.83 Dave So. 01:42:51.42 Matt Initially recommended to is like I said earlier to someone who's never played a yakuza game I think I don't think it would be misplaced to play it I think you probably still have a good time but I feel like to really feel the impact of this game. You need some even I think even people who've just played Yourussa like a dragon. Would enjoy this game and feel its impact more because you get a lot of curious backstory just in the parallel of that game. Um I think as long as you've played all you cus a game and really enjoyed it you should play this game. Ah. 01:43:10.75 Dave Yeah, yeah. 01:43:26.35 Matt If you're someone who just likes beat em up some brawlers and don't care about the story I mean I don't know why you would come to this game but you would definitely enjoy it mechanically like there's definitely stuff to play here. Um yeah I think that's kind of the broad way I would recommend the game. 01:43:40.89 Flora I think I agree with what Matt just said in the sense that like a dragon is the one hook that I think gets immediately enriched by this experience or like can find that connection and that like mutual sort of reinforcement. But when it comes to like the other alternative of the type of yakuza fan who would get something out of this game. You're asking them to play 7 games and that's I don't think that's reasonable or fair. So like this is a game in my opinion that is for someone who doesn't want to do the work of Yakuza to 0 through 6. 01:44:01.82 Matt Right? yeah. 01:44:04.94 Dave Ah. 01:44:13.71 Flora But wants to know who that Kiryu guy was when they tried like a dragon and I think that with that in mind. Ok sure this could be a great like previously on but playable um part of me like we said earlier in the episode thinks you can get away with playing this cold turkey like or. Cold not cold turkey but just rather out of nowhere. Um and like I wouldn't recommend that as the path I especially since this is not in the top half of my favorite yakuza games. Um, but I do think that there is it as we said earlier it stands alone on its own by the. and I think it's a self-contained experience. I can definitely see someone playing this and deciding huh I wonder what that whole Xyz was about in this game. Let me go back and play some of those earlier titles. So if this is a hook for somebody great I just worry that it might not be. 01:45:09.88 Dave Yeah I agree with everything you both just said. I don't really have a lot to add to that. Obviously if you're a longtime fan of the series and if you were wondering like did this game need to exist, do I need to play it? I do think that it will add something for you and it's not. 01:45:13.40 Flora Um, like. 01:45:29.11 Dave Ah, 60 hour time ask like some of the other games in the series are um, there is 1 other special person who I'd like to recommend this to special type of person and um it was ah this was inspired by Adam Aka Desbo who's one of a friend of mine and former guests on the show Discord member. Um. 01:45:42.26 Matt Yeah. 01:45:48.50 Dave Adam doesn't care about the story in these games but Adam likes beating the shit out of people in fun and interesting ways and yakuza games are perfect for that. So if you want to just jump into one that feels good to like we said, toss a dude off a bridge into the river in Osaka and um. 01:45:56.70 Flora Yeah. 01:46:08.21 Dave Maybe stick someone's head in a microwave that you'll have fun with this like that stuff is fun. Um, it's kinetic. It's entertaining. It's goofy even if you don't like the story I think this might be 1 of the better ones to just play to to beat the shit out of people because it's 15 hours long you know and um. 01:46:27.68 Dave That's how Kiryu solves all of his problems anyway is by beating the shit out of people so well that not just Kiryu. That's how problems are solved in this universe is by taking your shirts off and fighting on a rooftop. Basically so um. 01:46:38.71 Matt Correct correct. Yes, yeah, yes, sure. 01:46:40.00 Flora I Think that's real life too. If we're really going to get philosophical about it. 01:46:44.88 Dave Yeah I think we can try and dress real life up in society up all we want but that's what it really boils down to doesn't it. Um, yeah, so shout out to Adam for our conversations in the Discord and reminding me of that. So um, real quick. Let's do quick. Yakuza series rankings ah flora will kick to you first this time. 01:47:08.38 Flora So my list is probably going to be the longest one here if I had to guess because I've played like every Yakuza game that exists except for finishing kenzan because it hasn't been localized yet. But I played it with an english translation like like a full on like gameFAQs sort of form. 01:47:18.43 Dave Okay. 01:47:25.27 Matt Oh wow. 01:47:27.24 Flora For enough hours to have an opinion about it because I'm I'm that into the yakuza games for me I put like on the same like sort of plane yakuza 0, Yakuza like a dragon and lost judgment I think those are all sort of like right in the same like word cloud for me. Um. 01:47:42.90 Dave Sick. 01:47:45.21 Flora Underneath that yakuza 6, Yakuza Kawami and 2 and it seems like I'm a bit of an Ishin liker here compared to the 2 of y'all? um I really clicked with it. But my first time playing it was the version that came out in 2023 um I haven't ranked it but that's where my gut tells me it belongs is in that little cluster. 01:48:03.98 Flora I sort of have like okay feelings. These skills are sorry these games are good but maybe not like made me cry degrees of memorable Yakuza five four um and then like a dragon guidance fits in that little wheelhouse for me that like the sort of b tier. Maybe even CTier and then finally just underneath that like the games that I'm probably never going to want to replay are judgment yakuza 3 and yakuza dead souls which was funny to play but like there's literally no reason for me to go back. So just to recap yakuza 0 like a dragon and lost judgment are my are my pinnacles in this series. 01:48:39.99 Dave And Matt. 01:48:42.17 Matt Um, so I think this list we'd gone over in the the self-indulgent episode where I made us talk about yakuza but I have now in certain guided into this and it's very interesting I feel like everyone's number 1 on some level are either like a dragon or zero like that is agreed across the. 01:48:51.10 Dave Ah, yes. 01:48:56.26 Flora Yeah. 01:49:00.27 Matt Board and so for me I have a distinct ranking of all of them. Ah, it starts with Yakuza zero obviously with like a dragon right? behind it. 6 is my third favorite because the story impact and how it wraps up Kiryu’s story meant a lot to me and then I have four because it introduced one of the other. 01:49:10.39 Flora Um, yeah. 01:49:18.51 Matt Best characters ever in the franchise akiyama then right under that is like a dragon guidance like it really left its mark on me and then below that is Ishin because mostly I enjoyed it. The story I thought was great but like the subs stories were not then Kiwami 2 and then Yakuza 3 you three is not my least favorite only because a it made me cry and I really love this story in that one even though the gameplay is not great. It hasn't aged well at least then you cus a 5 and then I really don't like Kiwami one I just think Kiwami one is the worst of the franchise and again none of them are bad. But like I just considering how great zero and two are it just makes Kiwami one just feel worse and worse to me so that's my ranking. 01:50:03.20 Dave All right? and my ranking and preface this and I think that you two would both echo this to some degree that like my least favorite Yakuza game is still a game that I enjoyed playing you know like I always. 01:50:14.95 Matt Yes, correct. 01:50:17.13 Flora Um, agreed. 01:50:20.13 Dave You know if this comes up in conversation I always shout out this series as being like very very consistently good and there are so many games in the series that is pretty remarkable like what other game series that has over 10 entries. Can you say all of them are good I can't really think of one. So. 01:50:35.84 Flora Yeah, yeah. 01:50:39.33 Dave My ah, my top is yakuza 0 It's all alone at the top for me. Ah, maybe because it's the first one. But I also think it's really fucking good um, the next tier is like a dragon in Kiwami two I like equally I seem to like Kiwami 2 more than most people but ah Kiwami 2 has a love story in it. And I really really liked that um Gaiden is after that. Um and then five I really like Yakuza 5 I like the Haruka parts in Yakuza 5 I thought those were fun. Um, and I like the baseball player too. 01:51:09.73 Flora Um, yes, yes. 01:51:10.50 Matt They're great I mean they're the best part. 01:51:15.94 Dave That was it I like baseball and Japanese Baseball's fun. So yeah Yakuza five then Yakuza kiwami then Yakuza four then Ishin, Ishin was fun as like a little trip I described it in the episode as like watch my friends put on a play and that was kind of fun. Um. 01:51:30.19 Matt Yeah, yeah. 01:51:33.76 Flora Ah. 01:51:35.15 Dave Wasn't in love with it though. Yakuza 3 after that. Ah, ah yakuza 3 is not last because you could see Kiryu in dad mode in that game which I really loved and then 6 is my least favorite I just like I like. 01:51:44.41 Matt Ah. 01:51:50.51 Dave I like this story when I like sit back from it. But when I played it I was like not ah, not really a fan of it so those are my rankings and I think if we were to deliberate the rankings. We would spend a lot more time. So let us move into the housekeeping before getting into spoilers. Ah, first things first wonderful podcasts and our writing between the 2 of you. So um Matt has too many fucking podcasts. So Flora yeah flora. 01:52:17.32 Matt True. That's a fact about me that is absolutely true. 01:52:23.10 Flora Um, it's true. 01:52:24.31 Dave Um, talk about left behind game club and talk about epilogue gaming. 01:52:28.68 Flora Ah, Thank you? Gladly. So I'm a part of epilog gaming which is a website and a community like that does twitch streaming podcasts and all sorts of things in between but primarily I write articles that go into sort of like criticism about video games of all sorts but primarily. Video games that are focused on their storytelling their narrative and their art style and so a lot of what I cover includes like I have a full breakdown of every single yakuza game that I just mentioned in that ranking of mine I would encourage you all to go read any of those if you want to like take a little preview that's relatively spoiler. Free. 01:52:54.49 Dave M. 01:53:03.38 Flora Before picking up your next yakuza game. Um and then on top of that I'm a part of the podcast left behind game club where we sort of treat video games like a book club and we go around having roundtable discussions about our experiences playing them. Um, and both of you have been a part of that show. So Um I don't have the episodes to plug at the top here. But maybe I can shoot those links and put them in the show notes for later. 01:53:26.80 Dave Yeah, for sure. Um, you can find me on left behind game club on the 2 part final fantasy 16 series that was a good time I think despite kind of dunking on that game a lot throughout those episodes. We had some. Positive things to say too of course. But I think there was a lot of really good conversation in those episodes. Um, so go check those out also on that podcast is Jacob Mccourt who guessed it on tales from the backlog about metal gear rising revengeance one of my favorite games. A good good time there. And then um plans for other hosts on the show to come on the podcast later on. So um I really recommend that I really recommend also checking out the writing over on ah epilogue gaming I really enjoyed reading the story. Ah the article that you wrote about. Ah, like a dragon Ishin because the scene that you wrote about in that article was my favorite scene of that game as well for a lot of reasons. So um, yeah, go go check that stuff out writing podcast flora does wonderful stuff. Um, also doing wonderful stuff is Matt so Matt like I said at the top. Host of many podcasts fun and games screen Snark and reignite. So tell people about those and you've also started to do a little bit more writing of yourself. 01:54:46.67 Matt I will plug because I do remember all the episodes I've done. I was on the last the first last of us episode on left behind game club I also guessed it on the spoiler part of the you who's a 0 episode with you and Katie which is a blast and then i. Most recently guested on our coffee talk episode of love iron game club which was a delight. Um yes I host too many podcasts. Some may say I'm crazy and I would be inclined to agree but the very brief pitch on all of those podcasts is screensnarkisatvmoviepod. Both of you have been guests. 01:55:23.63 Matt Ah, it wasn't for about half of this year during the strike in solidarity. But we're back to covering Tv and movies the first half of the show is ah both hosts and a guest talk about the most recent thing they've watched and then the back half is an interview ah portion. It's always a good time. 01:55:24.15 Dave Um. 01:55:39.40 Matt Mostly an excuse to make fart jokes and funny noises with our mouths. Ah reignite is a Bioware Retrospective Podcast we did all 4 ma effect games. Ah, and then we are now moving on to the dragon age franchise and currently in dragon age origins as of when we're recording but not by the time you hear this. We are working our way through dragon age. Ah origins awakening the largest dlc I think I've ever played for a video game. Ah, and that's been a really good time and then of course the video game podcast I do that probably broadly a lot of your audience would be interested in is fun and games which you've also been guests. Both have been guests on the main Show episodes Flora joined us for our very recent as of when recording ps 2 retrospective and then ah Dave joined us for our emergent gameplay ah conversation and that both of those episodes are incredible. Great places to start. 01:56:21.49 Dave Um, yeah. 01:56:29.60 Matt And then you've both done side. Quest Dave has done too many meant to mention at this point. It's just the list gets longer every four to six months Dave's like I got another one and then so on um, but that show the main show is broadly a topic based conversational podcast that me and Jeff Moon and do where we talk to. 01:56:38.30 Dave Aha. 01:56:49.21 Matt Devs voice actors. We do retrospectives about franchises and consoles. We talk about the state of the games industry. We always try and put a positive spin on it though while there's of course terrible things worth talking about. We want to embrace the positivity of the gaming community which doesn't always seem to be there and that. Specific point inspired side quest which is a subseries that runs 3 times every 2 weeks where different hosts every episode talks about a game they love and why they love it. No judgment. No back talk no guidance they get just to talk into a microphone about why they love a thing and it's been one of my favorite projects to work on because. It's convinced me to play so many games I would have not thought twice about and that's kind of my favorite part about it on top of that you know I I twitch stream sometimes I've been a dj for a long time and then as Dave mentioned the Patreon for funny games which is mostly where we live these days as social media is constantly on fire. I've been writing articles that are free on the Patreon if you subscribe to the Patreon at the free tier you get or even if you don't subscribe at all, you get access to these. I've been writing some really fun articles. My first foray back to writing articles flora helped co-edit which I was very grateful for as I am. Getting better but still think my writing does ah need improvement but I'm working my way through it and did a really great article where I actually showered a ton of praise on Dave for helping me realize that even cowards can like horror games. Ah, and. 01:58:13.11 Matt I have now become a horror sicko as we like to say in the tales from the backlog ah discord and have played a ton of them last year and wrote an article about how I learned to find my love for horror games even as a coward and so all worth checking out that's at ah patreon.com/fundinggamespod. Ah yeah, that's probably everything and if not just go to Deej Stormer get and dot com there. You go really tied it up. Nice and simple. Oh my god. 01:58:33.44 Dave Yeah, nice nice work it's almost like you've done this before. Um, yeah, the ah the side quest series is a lot of fun I do have more by the way. It's just like whenever you feel like the wells running dry just hit me up I got several ideas for him. Um. Did one about disco elysium. The most recent one was Rain world which was a game I finished and as soon as I finished it I was like I'm not recording tales from the backlog for like another month I got to get this out. Matt has anyone done rain world or side quests so other ones that I've done there too. 01:59:11.70 Dave Always a good time. Love Jeff co-host on fun and games. Love Rachel co-host on Screen Snark Um I will listen to reignite when I start playing a bioware game but I have not yet. Um, yeah, lovely people on all of those podcasts, good discussions as always highly recommended and um, the. The way I was introduced to Flora was on an episode of side quest that she did So I Forget the game but I remember listening to it like this person has good opinions . I should invite her. 01:59:39.93 Flora Oh yeah, if found right? that would have been the episode. Yeah, that's wonderful. 01:59:42.63 Matt Yes, it was if found , yep. 01:59:45.99 Dave Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, so um, yeah, lots of good stuff out there. Um, between the 3 of us more podcasts more writing than anyone has time for but it's all quality stuff. Ah, for this show if you want to support. It's the same calls to action as always, you can leave a rating and review um at the time of recording Christmas is almost here if you did not get me a Christmas present you can rectify that by leaving a 5 star rating and review on Apple Podcast Spotify or podcast addict. 02:00:20.47 Dave And while you're listening to the spoiler break music. You can go ahead and do the same for all the podcasts that Matt and flora just talked about as well. Um, you can join the discord server and join the discussion about the Yakuza series this week as well as all sorts of other gaming pop culture life related topics. We have a wonderful community in there I'm very proud of the community that we've cultivated and that we we maintain it's my favorite place to hang out online and if you want to support monetarily you can do that at patreon.com/real Dave Jackson you can vote in polls for what games I do on the show you get bonus episodes. Ah, higher tears have a bonus retro gaming show where I torture myself by playing old retro games. Most of them are fine. Most of them. Um, yeah, that's it. We're going to listen to some music and when we come back. It's full spoiler time for like a dragon guide in the man who erased his name. 02:07:29.51 Dave All right I am back with Matt and flora and it's time for full spoilers for like a dragon guide the man who erased his name I don't think I've missed one yet. I think my commitment to the bit is still 100 % complete um also just real quick before we start this, we are going to spoil part of the ending of yakuza like a dragon. Um, we're going to spoil a big scene from that game. 02:07:58.31 Matt Um, yeah. 02:08:01.65 Dave And just general Yakuza series spoilers I think are fair game here. Um I can't think of anything like we're not going to spoil the end of Yakuza zero because that doesn't matter in this game but like I don't want to really like. 02:08:13.13 Matt Yeah. 02:08:18.38 Dave Tiptoe around the end of Yakuza 6 or the end of Yakuza like a dragon or something like that because they they tie directly into this story and we got to talk about this story and everything in it. So ah before we get to those more we'll call them sensitive things. Let's ah, let's talk about some notable substories. Or a kame missions in this game as it were I have a couple that I wrote down but before I talk you know my stuff I'll kick to either of you were there any of these substories that you felt were memorable in any way. 02:08:52.36 Matt So for me like. 02:08:54.90 Dave That sounded bad I mean like you know, memorable, funny or emotional or anything like that. 02:09:00.98 Matt Yeah, so there are 2 that you don't have here that were memorable to me that unfortunately I won't remember the character names. But I remember the moment so there's one that I think dates all the way back to 0 maybe ah with this older woman who like you first encounter her and she jumps you and like is pinned you to the floor. Ah. 02:09:15.90 Dave Oh yeah, yeah. 02:09:17.76 Matt And claims that you're her lover and then in this game Turns up again with a fresh head of purple hair. Love it and like is pulling the same nonsense while also screwing up some spy mission you're on and it's like you would think you'd be annoyed by her constantly messing with you. But honestly it gets better and better. 02:09:25.24 Dave Aha. 02:09:37.29 Matt And then ends with her actually helping you out of a bind which was my favorite part so it was just absolutely charming. Ah, and then the other one is you agree to help this person with like this apartment that they're working in that's supposedly haunted ah and like by people who died there. 02:09:49.43 Dave Yeah, yeah. 02:09:55.70 Matt And the longer you're there, you then find out that actually he's the Murderer who's been killing them and then tries to kill you and you actually defeat him. You beat him up and then like a supernatural kind of creepy thing happens like hinting that there was actually a ghost which they've not really touched on here. But so in this franchise besides dead souls. So like. 02:10:07.00 Dave Yeah. 02:10:14.44 Matt That was really fun 1 um, also because it's the classic like young college student guy kind of pathetic pitiful turns out to be a um serial murderer it was just kind of like a wild thing. So those are the 2 favorites that come to mind besides the ones that we're going to talk about that. You brought. 02:10:31.70 Dave Um, yeah, like in the ghost one. Um at the end First of all any substory where someone just thinks that ki use this old man that they can just beat the shit out of like what he's canonically like forty years old or something like that. Yeah. 02:10:41.52 Matt Yeah, 40 he's my age. He's my age and like everyone calls him old man. 02:10:42.13 Flora Um, yeah. 02:10:49.37 Dave And yeah and everyone's like I you're you're just such an old piece of shit like I can take you easily? Ah so he beats the shit out of them and then yeah at the end the ghost writes like in lipstick or something or blood on the mirror. Thank you after that's all over so I was like what but that's Yakuza. 02:11:02.14 Matt Yeah. 02:11:08.80 Dave Um, that old lady that pins you on the ground. She was my cabaret club superstar in Kawami two which is why I remember her. 02:11:12.95 Matt Nice. 02:11:15.99 Flora Um, it sounds like you're evoking the Obitarian. I don't actually think I did this substory but when you were describing it like I'm completely brought to that point. 02:11:20.42 Matt Yes, yeah, yeah. 02:11:26.53 Dave Um, um, Flora did you have any that stuck out to you before I get into the three that I wrote down here. 02:11:33.20 Flora The only one that I would really want to to speak about is what's on your list which is the kaito related um up story and and I think one of the reasons that stuck out to me is because I've played the lost judgment Dlc which is like Kaito files I believe is what is called. 02:11:37.35 Dave Okay, yeah. 02:11:46.35 Dave M. 02:11:48.21 Flora And so in addition to the main games the judgment games that like walk you through and introduce you to this character who for all intents and purposes I I Really do already Love Um, the dlc is like kind of dedicated like ah, almost like a fanfiction for this character. And then to see the links start happening in this game where like these characters don't yet know each other but like the dramatic irony of it all is that we do. I thought that that was super charming in a way that wasn't purely fan. Service. Um, like I think with something like this substory you can imagine that. 02:12:24.25 Flora Fan service thing would make you roll your eyes. But for me, it was the genuine giddy excitement to see these characters like and and their little like seeds of their future relationship being sown. Um, so that's the only clearly distinct one I think I messaged you both like all caps like wait what Kaido and um. 02:12:42.19 Dave Um. 02:12:42.96 Flora So that was a fantastic delight. 02:12:44.26 Dave Okay, just real quick. Do you think they're going to merge these 2 universes together like do you think this is pointing that way or does lost judgment point that way. 02:12:51.93 Flora Yes, or well yeah, this canonically does link it right? and there are a couple characters in lost judgment. 02:13:01.61 Dave Sure yeah. 02:13:06.39 Flora And ah Yakuza like a dragon I don't want to spoil anything but like you will see a character cooking something in a kitchen with their back turned and you will very very clearly know oh that was one of my party members in this game and um and those links have been there for at least a game or 2 02:13:11.10 Dave Okay. 02:13:22.78 Flora And if we're going to go all the way back to your elevator pitch and say Yakuza 6.5 I think you've answered your own question to some extent like yes I don't know what the significance of that is because I think what Ryu Ga Gotoku made very clear is they're going to divide this up into like we're no longer doing brawler focus games. We're doing this turn-based thing now. 02:13:27.43 Dave Okay, fair enough. 02:13:41.40 Flora And yet immediately the games they've released since saying that Publicly have all been the brawler types and so I don't know what to make of that element of your question like what is the future of the series in terms of what you're doing as a video game because I. 02:13:45.40 Dave Um, yeah, okay. 02:13:53.96 Dave Right. 02:13:56.50 Flora I Really was enamored with like a dragon. The turn based thing I thought that was one of the coolest things they could have done for the series at the same time I would be lamenting the loss of the brawler combat that I've grown to know and love over several games. So I kind of thought judgment was going to split off in one section and be the brawler version of this and. Like a dragon as we're calling it now would be the turn based version of this but I feel like this is like a clear like middle finger to that assumption in a way that I can't quite resolve at this point in time. So That's my speculation. 02:14:27.90 Dave Yeah, makes sense. Um, whatever direction they want to go I'm sure it's going to be entertaining. Um, this was the person I was talking about in the non-spoiler part when I mentioned that the shirt that you'll never forget I played. 5 hours of judgment like three years ago at least and I recognized the shirt as soon as he was on screen. I was like that's that big motherfucker from judgment I know that guy. Um so they have like a little friendly rivalry. I just wrote this down because um. 02:14:53.68 Flora Yep. 02:15:01.71 Dave They're going around interviewing um homeless people looking for gorillas is like their detective lead or whatever in the homeless person I put the screenshot in the notes here. He says listen I've been around the block a time or 2 and I'll tell you something you 2 are the most gorilla ass motherfuckers I've ever seen. And as soon as I saw that I laughed and screenshotted it. The localization again is fantastic. Um, but good to see fun to see those 2 characters that you know the other 2 substories that I wrote down one of them is like a greatest hits. Ah, type sub story is the ruji goda imposters goda was the antagonist in Kiwami two and they just bring back people that look like him. Um, that are trying to use his name and stature for their own gain and I thought it was kind of a greatest hits type thing because. Kiryu is angry at them for not respecting his legacy um, which was weird to me goda was not a good person in that game. He was terrible but Kiryu and the other people that he fights have this very anime ass like. 02:16:03.85 Matt Um, yeah. 02:16:13.30 Dave Mutual respect for other strong people you know and I think that that's why he remembers that fondly even though goda was endangering the woman that he loved in that story. So um, there was that one and then there was a. 02:16:14.70 Matt Yeah. 02:16:31.24 Dave SubStory about an orphanage scam. Um, that was just a little bit of like Kiryu reflecting on how he was brought up like his father figure ran the orphanage that he was brought up in his father figure was a Yakuza crime boss. So like they do kind of like. 02:16:34.13 Matt Um, even. 02:16:50.29 Dave Talk about how Kiryu never really stood a chance to lead a normal life as he was raised by the yakuza um, and they do kind of talk about that in that substory and there's a nice little resolution where Kiryu talks about how you can't choose it who raises you whether it's you know. Growing up in the crime family or anyone really, but you can choose who you follow basically so I thought that was nice. A nice what you're doing in the quest is you just beat the shit out of a bunch of people several times. But the content. The story content was quite good I thought. 02:17:28.10 Matt Yeah, though, those 3 were the other I mean yeah, the Kaito Quest I love just because you're looking for someone who matches the description of yourself pretty much and you keep getting lead in circles. Um, but yeah these were some of my favorites as well. The like the orphanage scam artist one really kind of like took my breath away and the fact that it's the first time I think in the game where curio really gets introspective like that and then it just keeps happening with other missions and like that was kind of really cool like often even like looking up to the sky like talking to those who have passed. 02:17:55.40 Flora Yeah. 02:18:05.44 Matt And like that I'm just I'm a sucker for that kind of stuff. It's cheesy, but it was really effective. 02:18:12.29 Dave I Think part of it too is like this game has a tone of like kiryu is somewhat defeated by the situation that he's in like I think. 02:18:24.40 Matt Yeah. 02:18:26.68 Dave He understands that he's in a very unwinnable situation here like he can't just punch his way through this. Um, because anytime he gets that idea the the kids at the orphanage are dangled in front of him again to kind of keep him in Line. So Um I Think. There are more scenes in here where kiryu does get introspective. Um, he seems pretty depressed for several parts of the game which is not something you could have said about him in other stories. Um, so like this. 02:18:52.67 Flora Um, yeah. 02:19:01.87 Dave Ah, substory about the orphanage scam was not. It wasn't that. But like here you already had this kind of mood about him for a lot of the story starting pretty early on so I think stories like this where he introspects fit more so than in like. 02:19:10.11 Matt Yeah. 02:19:20.85 Dave Yakuza kiwami one or something like that. 02:19:22.39 Flora Right? And I feel like this game with Kiryu and the way that we like see him portrayed. The thing that's distinctively different to me is that camaroo or whatever the setting of the game has been previously. He. 02:19:22.78 Matt Um, yeah. 02:19:37.30 Flora Kiryu’s solution is to punch down the wall that is in between him and what he needs to do, like whatever's urgently calling him. But here we see him pacing around inside the barrier of a cage in a way that we kind of don't in the other games. Um, there's always been that closed open world thing that we talked about earlier in the episode. But. 02:19:54.87 Flora I Think in this game I felt it a lot more not in terms of like oh you put an invisible wall up but like in terms of the storytelling. There was an invisible wall up in a way for this character that I don't really feel like we've had to grapple with in previous games. 02:20:07.38 Dave Yeah, you, you got the feeling in a lot of the other stories that if kiryu felt the need to leave Cama Roo and just go hang out in the mountains for a week and then come back like he could have. But does he feel kind of trapped in Osaka in this story? yeah. 02:20:27.80 Flora Yeah, like an animal in captivity almost like where you see that their environment is maybe not completely unhealthy, but still not the best and most supportive for them and like we all know where Kiryu would rather be right now and what he would rather be doing. 02:20:36.87 Dave Right? yeah. 02:20:42.90 Flora And he's unable to do that So he's like helpless and seeing this strong character in like a pitiful state like that is I think just like vicariously really like empathy building. So. 02:20:52.36 Dave Yeah, and I think um so throughout the story. There's the guy Hannaa who did him a favor by like setting up this you know faking his own death and setting up this kind of witness protection system but Hanawa also blackmails him and. You know is is generally like not a great person to him like he he very much wields the power that he has overKiryu but throughout the story hanawa finds himself in danger several times and kiryu goes to as much at lengths as he can to save him and I think um. That this is Kiryu like latching onto the only person that he can get close to other than a kame which he he does kind of latch onto her as well. But um, this would like when I was playing this I was like this guy's a piece of shit like he's basically blackmailing you to do dirty work for his. Organization. But why? So why is Kiryu like endangering himself endangering his ah you know secret identity and all of that to try and save this guy. Um, and I think it is just him latching onto any sort of human connection because he is like you said that animal in captivity. 02:22:05.56 Matt Yeah, totally. 02:22:05.81 Flora I Don't know if either of you felt this way but it almost reminds me of the Sagawa relationship with majima and Yakuza zero to some extent. Um I'll be yet much less sadistic and manipulative in that nature but like in the way that there's sort of an implicit bond between those characters by the end of that game. 02:22:13.77 Matt I can see that. 02:22:25.57 Flora Um, it somehow they're able to like for like move on in some perceivably healthy way. Um I felt some kind of analogy going on here with those characters. 02:22:27.15 Dave Yeah. 02:22:28.79 Matt He asked. I mean Also cur's one skill is making people like him even people who hate him like begrudging respect to absolutely adoring I mean like look at majima right? someone who could be considered a villain for a good part of the series by. 02:22:33.31 Dave Yeah. 02:22:38.40 Flora Um, right. 02:22:48.67 Matt The later games is like he considers Kiryu his best friend even though curious like you're crazy, get away from me So like I think that that's that effect here with Hannowa and also I think you know a lot of these games show that these terrible people do have some good in them and if you can bring it Out. You might find that they're actually genuinely good people. It happens with daigo it happens with taiga that happens with pretty much every main Yakuza Character. So like I think that this game is just giving us a none um another one of those but from. Some private corporation instead of the Yukuza but is basically the same thing. 02:23:25.54 Flora It wouldn't be a Yakuza discussion if daigo didn't come up at some point So I'm glad I bingo. 02:23:30.55 Matt Um, I mean right? Yeah yeah. 02:23:35.74 Dave The other kind of part of this is um, his relationship with a comma. She's the person he spends the most time with and I started out thinking she was just going to be like a short term quest giver I didn't know she was going to be a big part of the story. Um, and then I expected her to become kind of like the woman in Kiwami to kind of like Haruka is used in some of the games where she would almost be like a damsel in distress and a love interest and stuff like that and that's not really how it play it plays out with Akame. 02:24:08.93 Matt Yeah. 02:24:10.92 Dave Ah, like she's in danger because of the stuff they Kiryu is doing but um, like I don't know I I thought that she was going to die at some point I thought there was going to be a romance between the 2 of them and like you can go out and drink with her and sing karaoke with her. Um, some of the conversations they have together when they're out at the bar are really good, but um, the story between them did not follow like those predictable beats that I thought they would and I appreciated that and she comes and kicks some ass later on in the story too. So. Really interesting with her too. So you have like these 2 characters that Kiryu can latch onto literally the only 2 people that spend any time with him. Um, just a really interesting setup in this game I like this like more desperate type of social situation will say. 02:25:04.10 Matt Yeah I like that a comic gets to be her own character and is not wrapped up in romance or anything else and I mean Youusa is not always great with female characters for sure. But I feel like in the last few games, especially they've been much better. 02:25:21.42 Matt Like the pro-s sex worker stance in Yakuza seven was really great because of how of the soap land that Ichiban grew up in and like all of that stuff and like what I like about ah a comedy is here is that like she is that like kind of plucky sidekick that could be 1 note. She's always happy. She's got that. Positive tone in her voice but she actually has joy you but still has so much depth and like I really liked that well I didn't always love her missions I thought she was a very interesting character who was who is like especially those conversations you have at the bar like there's so much to her and she like. 02:25:39.35 Dave Georgia. 02:25:56.89 Matt The voice actress does such a great job of endearing you to her character for sure. 02:26:00.39 Flora It took me until the segment where akame like opens up about like how she developed a relationship with like unhoused people informed this network in the first place like it took me like a surprisingly long amount of time at her story to like start caring about her. 02:26:10.79 Matt Um. 02:26:16.95 Flora Because I think I was sort of also cynically expecting something that was similar to what Dave is alluding to about like this is going to eventually hit these beats and I'm going to roll my eyes about the portrayal of women and I also was like rather okay with how akame's character fits into everything I didn't really feel like. This character was simply a plot device or a placeholder in the way that like so many women in the series have been. 02:26:41.80 Dave Yeah, and like I said um I thought she was going to die and the reason I thought she was going to die is number one cu you can't have nice things and number 2 Um, by the time I got. 02:26:48.84 Matt Um, true. 02:26:56.12 Dave Maybe like halfway 75% of the way through the story and it became clear that Kiryu and Akame were getting closer. Um, not romantic, but just closer together. Um I started to see those little burblings up through my muted words on Twitter of like. Oh my god the ending of this game fucked me up and so I was like okay a Kama is dead a hundred percent if they're going to kill any character in the story. It's going to be her um because again here you can't have nice things but that's not how it goes and we'll talk about that in a little bit. Um. 02:27:17.49 Matt Um. 02:27:33.47 Dave I Think part of the thing with Q you too that I thought was a like nice interesting characterization and um, kind of sets up where the story is headed I think way earlier in the episode hours ago I think flora. Said something you said something to the effect of like to what end are they doing all of this with kiryu. Um, the characterization right? something he says in here. It's during a conversation I think he's talking to hanawa. 02:27:58.90 Flora Um, yeah, like ah like I think it was something yeah like evolving into what from where he was at the end of sex. 02:28:12.40 Dave Um, he's talking about the woman he used to love and he says that he is thinking about his death. He says that he wants to go to Hawaii and bury her ring and that he wants to leave Japan before he dies and like this is levels of like thinking about the future that Kiryu has never. Really shown before um, it's always really really immediate solving the problem in front of him by punching through a wall or trying to protect the people that are in danger because of him. Um, but he's thinking about his mortality here and I think that part of his situation makes him think about that stuff in a way that. Maybe he didn't have to before but I think that's what this is leading toward. This is what's on his mind and um I don't want to say anything else because I was also yeah, um I think that's what this is leading toward. 02:29:04.91 Matt Yeah I mean I think also like that's the big thing right? like we all as adults know we're adults when we start thinking and planning for the future because this you know part of childhood is not worrying about that stuff being very much in the moment. there are plenty of adults who are in the moment and don't know their ass from their elbow but most well adjusted adults are trying to plan for what's coming and cu you was never that well adjusted adult until I'd say the sixth fifth and sixth games when he was thinking of. I mean pretty much from the third game on. He's thinking of others and as that character grows but like for sure in this game like that line where he's talking about burying the ring like oh not only is he thinking about his future. He is already assuming that he is going to die soon because he sees how his life is going and that's just not a thing he ever did. 02:29:37.15 Flora Right. 02:29:55.17 Matt Even in the situations where he'd rather die than let someone else get hurt. There was no and if I die here here's what happens in those moments in the previous games. It was always I'll die here doing what's right and nothing else matters and he's not thinking like that anymore and this game really highlights that. 02:30:17.20 Dave Yeah, it's it's that's part of the reason why one of the big things I mentioned early very early on in the episode that I love about this game is a different look at Kiryu's character um than we usually get and I think that they pulled all this stuff off really? well. And like from a writing perspective and of course from a voice acting perspective done really? well. Um, this is going to be a big jarring tonal shift here. But there's 1 fun thing before we talk about like a couple of big things that happen in the story. Um, one super memorable moment. In the arena that I don't feel like I could not mention and be happy about it. So um I think this is in a main story quest. It's very early in the arena it's when they are reenacting like famous moments throughout the series in the arena. It's part of what gave me like this clip show type vibe from the story. 02:31:14.20 Dave Um, and they reenact Nishiki's mob versus cur you from Yakuza kiwami from the end the one where he fights a million people in front of the ah millennium tower um, there's there's a guy first of all, there's a guy you fight a guy dressed like Kiryu and he. He gives this ah this line where he says like come and get me or something like that and ki is like I do not sound like that and that was very funny. Yeah, um, and then they do a reenactment of ah the end of Kwame too and you fight. 02:31:42.91 Matt Ah, that gag is always funny in any game. 02:31:52.55 Dave Someone who looks like ryujii goda but there's also 2 tigers and um fighting the tigers has become something that happens in most of the games at this point but it never gets old. It always comes at an unexpected time and it's like oh shit. Okay, it's tiger time um in a. 02:32:07.71 Matt Yeah. 02:32:11.87 Dave Yakuza like a dragon you fight the tigers like inside of a burning bathhouse like why are there tigers in there in the first place you know. But yeah, what is wrong with the rest of the video game industry? Why am I not fist fighting tigers in dark souls I suppose you can. 02:32:15.51 Matt Um, yeah, how. 02:32:17.71 Flora Why aren't there any other games? 02:32:25.96 Matt Yeah I mean in the preview images of infinite wealth. We know that you fight it looks like a giant ass shark. So like clearly so like clearly they are not letting that go. We're still going to fight some wild animals in that game too. 02:32:34.23 Dave Oh yeah. 02:32:36.29 Flora Um, yeah. 02:32:42.10 Dave Yeah, um, that scene with the tigers I even wrote down it ends like the ending cutscene of that is you pick up the Ryuji impersonator and swing him around like a weapon and knock the 2 tigers unconscious. 02:32:42.88 Flora Hell yeah. 02:32:52.89 Matt And knock out. Yeah, it's true. 02:32:57.50 Dave Ah, because this is Yakuza and that's the kind of ways that you solve your problems. Ah all right? Let's ah, let's talk about these 2 big story things. 1 of them I think is like fuck. Yeah, awesome and then we'll talk about the ending. Um. 02:33:16.40 Dave in yakuza like a dragon when Kiryu makes his entrance if you remember that scene. Um, and I had to go back and watch it again on Youtube but in that scene. Um, you're doing it from ichiban and the party's perspective in that game and. This dude takes a knife. He's going to run up and stab the Yakuza boss who's just given the speech that he's dissolving the clan. It's a big thing and somebody in that scene. You don't see who it is just punches the fuck out of this guy from off camera. And I when I played that game I squealed because I knew it was cur you like of course um, and then now you get to do this scene from kiio's perspective and it's so fucking. Cool. It's awesome. They pulled it off perfectly. 02:33:51.75 Matt Yeah, yeah, yeah. 02:34:02.80 Flora Yeah. 02:34:02.16 Matt It is yeah this whole scene where you get to do the same. I love when games like games in a series do something like this where you get to see something from a different perspective and like. 02:34:12.36 Flora Right. 02:34:16.82 Matt I was worried that like oh they're going to give it give up the ghost and like it's not going to be as fun from the side but it absolutely is and like it. It's just Kiryu constantly gets to be a badass and every time it happens like you'd think you'd be tired of it by now after however, many games but no I am a simple person. Who loves to watch Kiryu punch folks to death and like it's just it's such a cool moment. Ah I Loved it. Yeah, it was really cool to see this happen from the other side. 02:34:49.63 Flora I don't want to over dramatize this but I can't escape the connection because I just happen to be on the same podcast where we talked about the last of us part 2 but like that's a game where you get a mirror reversal of a scene. Um at 2 various moments out of the story. 02:34:59.55 Matt Yeah, yeah. 02:35:01.75 Dave Aha. 02:35:04.10 Flora And like that's the immediate reference point that I have here where like oh my goodness I get the other perspective the other half of this puzzle piece and like it enriches the experience in a way that I don't know that I needed it and I probably would have been completely fine moving through this game without it. But for me like that was fan service that served a purpose and worked like it was well Delivered. It wasn't just oh big room of 40 people to fight it like the scene felt more impactful seeing the other side of it. 02:35:23.71 Dave Um, yeah. 02:35:33.81 Dave Yeah, and you so put yourself in the shoes of somebody who played Yakuza 6 and then thought kier you was gone forever like I did and then played Yakuza like a dragon and Kiryu shows up during this brawl. 02:35:43.85 Matt Yeah. 02:35:52.77 Dave But you don't know why he's there. They don't really talk about it throughout the rest of that because but you have this burgeoning like mentor mentee type of thing between him and ichiban that takes like the focus for good reason. It's great. Um, but now you get to see why he was there and I think like the point of this game. Is it to show you why Kiryu came back? Why he's there and why he's in infinite wealth going forward and so like this is the part the whole game is leading up to you have the we we haven't talked about the plot but it's a bunch of backstabbing and stuff over the plan to dissolve. 02:36:12.40 Matt Yeah. 02:36:31.39 Dave The yakuza clans but or decentralize them at the very least. Um, there's a lot of people that are going to be pissed about that. So Kiryu is there as a kind of security for this clan chief who's giving the speech um, but in like a dragon that scene is. Is incredible. Like I said I squealed like a little kid when I saw the punch because I knew only one man could throw that punch. Um, but now you get to see the other side of it and yeah I totally agree Flora it's fan service but it's perfect fan. Service. 02:37:03.60 Matt Yeah I mean it's funny like I'm going to use this opportunity to talk a little bit about yakuza like a dragon and like the first time I actually squealed is the boss fight and we're spoiling stuff from that game we mentioned but I'm just reiterating I'm spoiling a major boss fight. But when Tiga and majima come down those stairs. 02:37:14.86 Dave Um, yeah. 02:37:21.47 Matt Like I literally squealed the highest pitch squeal and um, one of my good friends Rebecca Valentine had already gone to that point and had recently become a Yakuza fan and had been alluding to it so when I got to it I just dmed her in all caps. Oh my god it's fucking majima and like lost my mind. 02:37:38.67 Dave Yeah. 02:37:40.40 Matt It's one of my favorite songs in the entire soundtrack I listen to it all the time and so like after that moment happened and then my best line my favorite line ever which is when daigo breaks up the fight and then he goes what are you doing boss I was just about to go all out like a child like Majima was just bummed. 02:37:55.26 Flora Yeah. 02:37:57.80 Matt But like after that moment happened I went this is it. This is the pinnacle of this game. These are some of my favorite characters and I'm good like I'm satisfied, so like even more so when you got to that moment with that who who could have possibly thrown that punch like I was there like it was just. 02:38:04.63 Flora Right. 02:38:14.29 Matt I Didn't think I could get higher and then I did and now we have all the context for that. It really is a great summation of that whole moment that just elevates it even more. 02:38:23.54 Flora And I don't know if you'all felt this way when playing like a dragon but the reprisal of the core series characters that happens felt very like totemic to me in a sense of like I wasn't really getting a 3 dimensional version of this character I was getting like an avatar that represented this character idea that I had. 02:38:40.70 Matt Yeah. 02:38:43.30 Flora Um, and because you kind of only get them in like major combat moments and then they becomes like summons for lack of a better term and you're not really like spending time with them emotionally developing them or like learning about like hey what have you been up to um and so so I think. 02:38:47.70 Matt Yeah. 02:39:01.43 Flora The layer of appreciation for me is a little bit of like groundwater in the sense of oh okay I I now have like the emotional dimension that wasn't there originally in the game that like this game now just supplements and I find that to be like really effective. 02:39:14.74 Dave Yeah, like a dragon guide and the man who erased his name does give you the reason why Majima and Saejima are there too. You get to spend time with them. There's cut scenes where they all talk to each other. They talk about the plan they talk about how everything's going. Majima talks some shit to Kiryu. It's like old times. Um, there is actually I feel like more of it than in I Yakuza like a dragon even though that game is 5 times as long as this one is um, you do yeah. 02:39:42.70 Matt Yeah. Yeah I also like that in the scene where they're all reunited Kiryu is still not admitting to being Kiryu Majama pretty much says I know it's you and he goes I don't know what you're talking about my name is jury. You. 02:40:02.73 Dave Um, yeah, of course. Yeah. 02:40:03.10 Matt And Mahuma pretty much goes, you're crazy but whatever which coming from majima says something but like like they just they all like it's funny because everyone else is kind of amused by it majima of course the combatant always wanting to push Kiryu is just like I'm not buying it and and care you still won't. 02:40:06.67 Flora Um, yeah. 02:40:07.30 Dave Yeah, yeah. 02:40:20.41 Matt Like Kiryu still won't admit to being Kiryu it's very funny to me. It's but it's played I think to the heart of these characters as well. Which I think is really fun, but it is still absolutely a recurring comedy bit that I never get tired of. 02:40:26.63 Flora Right. 02:40:33.47 Dave Yeah, Kiryu saying that to someone who he has known for decades in the series timeline. Um, yeah, very very good stuff. Um. 02:40:39.75 Matt Yeah. 02:40:41.52 Flora Right. 02:40:53.98 Dave Yeah, so ah, the kind of continuation of k' security job plays out where this yakuza member who just will not give it up basically like all of your characters and everyone on their side or there you're down with the plan of. Decentralizing the Yakuza. It's just too hard with all the new regulations and that pesky new mayor in Tokyo that's the villain in yakuza like a dragon and all of that. Um, so you fight this guy is the final boss I kept you know. Missing that counter and dying instantly. But that fight I think is really fun just to shout it out as like a spectacle you know, moving from location to location and the way that you move from location to location is by punching somebody off of a balcony or jumping on a chandelier and you know. Spectacle stuff like that. Um I only say that because this is Kiryu's job that he's on for hanawa and by completing this hanawa gives Kiryu a reward when he goes back to the monastery. He's just out there chain smoking. You know. Meditating um, and this ending is unexpected like I did not expect this from this series to play out the way it did and I think that this is. 02:42:23.31 Dave 1 of the most effective scenes that they've ever done in the Yakuza series which is saying something in a game that like quote didn't need to exist I think um so what it is and then we'll we'll get reactions and everything for those just playing along at home from the very beginning Kiryu's. 02:42:30.21 Flora Right. 02:42:43.26 Dave Whole purpose for agreeing to this like hidden identity and like changing his name and all of this stuff the sole purpose of this was to keep these kids safe if everyone thinks he's dead then no one can use the kids at the orphanage in Okinawa as leverage against kiryu. Um. Just keep them safe. Ah so he obviously can't contact them and that includes Haruka who's his adopted daughter and Haruto who is his adopted grandson now who you think he'd want to spend some time with so the reward that Hanawa gives him. 02:43:21.31 Dave Is a hidden camera recording of the kids that live at the orphanage. Um, they're all grown up Yakuza 3 was a long time ago. Um, and they're going to the camera is set up on Kiu's grave in Okinawa and so he shows kiryu a recording. Of the kids going to visit the grave and then ah I'm like I have a well of emotion recounting this. So if you have the kids see like ah, a glint from the lens they go over to check it out and they see it's a camera and they immediately deduce that. 02:43:46.90 Matt Yeah. 02:43:57.79 Dave It's connected to him somehow and so they're kind of like well he might be Watching. We think he's dead but he might be watching so we might as well just kind of give him the rundown on how everybody's doing and so they just kind of like go kid by kid and just say like. Oh you know this kid's going to college This kid's doing whatever this kid's doing this at the Orphanage. They're all like teenagers or like young adults now and it starts out like as soon as Kiryu Sees it. He just like oh fuck and this plays out and he is just. 02:44:30.13 Flora Yeah. 02:44:34.60 Dave Bawling his fucking eyes out all over this ipad that's showing this recording and boy when I tell you I have not cried like that in a very long time. Good god. 02:44:45.12 Flora Yeah. 02:44:48.56 Matt Yeah, same I was playing it alone at home during the day. My spouse is at work and I like so first of all credit where credits do that? Ah Kuroda ugly cries. He literally does what Kiryu is doing like he is ugly crying. 02:45:00.53 Dave Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's very good. 02:45:03.88 Flora Um, yeah. 02:45:05.75 Matt Sniffling snot like it's when someone ugly cries because they are devastated that performance portrays that and the minute the first teardrop hits that ipad I'm weeping and then the minute the minute cota. Ah Corrota is ugly crying I am. 02:45:15.29 Flora Yeah, yeah. 02:45:23.60 Matt Loudly ugly crying much to the dismay of my puppy Otis was confused as to why I'm so upset but I was inconsolable the entire time watching the scene through tears and I was so affected by it that my spouse who I love and will even if not. Interested in the game that I've played like it's not a game that they're interested in if it affected me well listen to me talk about it and I got to explain to them why this meant so much which just made me cry more like I am. 02:45:56.15 Matt I cry at these games all the time. There are plenty of deaths and pivotal moments in many of the games that have made me cry. Dave and I joke about it all the time on the other episodes we did and all sorts of other things but nothing hit me as hard as this and absolutely made everything else worth it. It doesn't justify like. Any mechanical issues or like how it's bloated but narratively and its place in the legacy this scene absolutely did that and I I was a wreck like I hadn't been this messed up since to bring it back to something that relates to all of us the last of us too when I finished the last of us too I literally had to. Sit silently in a room for like a long time to the point we were living in a different place I was in the basement times that Sarah was concerned because like I just didn't know what to do with myself and this also gave me this kind of powerful emotion that I just spent hours processing. 02:46:53.70 Flora I cry at basically everything always and so part of me wants to diffuse this intensity by acknowledging that I'm a weepy wreck at all occasions. But in particular I agree with you Matt that this one. Had me loudly ugly crying and I found that to be really astonishing given how I felt about the rest of the game. I didn't think this game had it in it and yet this scene that we're talking about with like the tears on the ipad is. 02:47:16.94 Dave Yeah. 02:47:17.97 Matt Um, yeah. 02:47:30.56 Flora Kind of a top 5 sort of feeling of just like oh my god they nailed it like every component of this scene from the framing and how long it took the camera to actually show Kiru's face once he started crying and the fact that we learned that he's crying like more than just like being broken up by seeing. 02:47:33.87 Matt So. 02:47:49.52 Flora Like the evidence on the iPad of the teardrops like all of that stuff worked incredibly well for me and I am a sucker in all narratives but specifically video games have taught me this about myself that characters can die and characters can break up. Other tragedies can happen and they can evoke emotion to me but the things that get me the most are like after watching a forest burn Down. You see one flower sprout up in bloom like that little promise of hope that little like redemptive part against in Despite. All of the suffering that you've just looked back at like I don't think Kiryu needed to suffer here in this game I don't think that he is as trapped as he thinks he is with the situation. But. To see him find that catharsis for me and for it to be like it was like joy inside of the pain. It's hard to really describe like what I mean by that but it wasn't just a painful cry for Him. He was letting out that pain he was finding like some sort of. 02:48:47.71 Matt Yeah, yeah. 02:48:55.55 Dave Yeah, yeah. 02:49:00.90 Flora Closure to the agony that he has been unable to Express or articulate or even share like not only with himself but with the people those little human connections. We talked about it earlier. So um I like this is the type of scene that will just absolutely fuck me up and. 02:49:16.78 Dave Yeah. 02:49:19.93 Flora It delivered at this point in the narrative was one of the most effective emotional deliveries of any Yakuza game for me and it's weird to square those 2 things together. I didn't love this game. I have a lot of issues with it this scene? No complaints. 02:49:34.45 Dave Yeah I think you nailed it. It's not that it's not that he's angry at his situation. He is angry but it's not just that he's angry at the Situation. He's like so because he has had no contact with Them. He's just so happy that they're doing well um because they're telling about how the kids are succeeding everyone that he cares about and like they hear about how haruto is growing up and stuff like that. So like there's that happiness like that they're okay and that they're thriving. Um. 02:49:52.88 Matt Yeah, yeah. 02:49:58.38 Flora Um, yeah. 02:50:09.99 Dave Along with the frustration that he feels like he's trapped and he can never go see them and spend time with them again. Um I expected some kind of gut punch because this series hits you with lots of them. Um I cried at the end of Yakuza a 0 02:50:21.87 Matt Yeah, yeah. 02:50:28.40 Dave I Cried at the end of Yakuza Kiwami 2 because it didn't work out the way I wanted it to um I cried at the end of like a dragon because Ichiban's voice performance at the end of that game is so powerful and emotional What he's talking about like the content of it. 02:50:30.62 Flora Yeah. 02:50:41.13 Matt Um, yeah. 02:50:45.79 Dave Didn't affect me so much as the power in the voice acting but this one is so much quieter like it's not this big explosive thing like nobody died this is a happy thing that's happening. Um, but the voice performance. The fact that like you said flora it's. Water works from this character who is like the face of stoicism and um, you know he doesn't always have things under control but you always get the feeling that he's going to get it under control and this is something that's just. So far out of his control or at least he feels that way. Um, yeah I don't think I've cried this hard since a pet died like it was like that level of ah like when I say I cried at things like a couple of tears I will choke up stuff like that. Um, this was actually like no no, you're crying. You're crying crying during this and I think it's because they managed to hit all of these emotional angles to the scene and then with the writing the way they set it up and then Corrota again. The voice acting here is ridiculously fucking good um. 02:51:41.19 Flora The honor. 02:51:57.10 Flora Bright. 02:52:00.94 Dave For him who's playing this character who's just this total badass for hundreds of hours of voice performance up until this point you'd never heard him do this before but he like he crushed it. 02:52:14.71 Flora Yeah. 02:52:17.63 Dave They also ah part of the scene too is that the kids once they see the camera. Um, they bring this drawing that haru to Drew and it's this little kid ass drawing of Kiryu and like that makes him lose it even harder and that's what. 02:52:28.88 Flora Yeah, yeah. 02:52:31.84 Matt Yeah. 02:52:35.99 Dave He starts to really let out his frustration that like he's missing his kids grow up. Basically um and then the monk at the the monk in air quotes. He's a Yakuza guy too. Um, kind of makes a comment that like. 02:52:41.61 Matt Um, yeah. 02:52:53.57 Dave This is his real legacy like the dragon of dojima is bullshit compared to this and like I don't think he's satisfied by that but it was a nice um thing for someone to say to him in that moment. Um, but yeah that that second part where they showed the drawing I was like oh God. Just really tighten this there like turn the knife you know. 02:53:15.23 Flora I Think that what you just said made me realize another word to put on this scene which is pride like I think that like crying when you're prideful for someone else is of singular sort of emotional outpouring. 02:53:21.42 Matt Is. 02:53:23.98 Dave Um, yeah, yeah. 02:53:33.20 Flora Really doesn't have an analogy like everyone knows what it feels like to like be hurt and therefore cry but to to feel like just an abundance of love for something to the point where you cry is truly special. 02:53:45.54 Dave M. 02:53:47.48 Flora And I think that that's another layer to the experience that I really cherished here. 02:53:51.67 Matt Yeah I think I said earlier that Kiryu has become one of my favorite video game characters of all time and I stand by that. But I think that there is a severe lack of ah in in games of your but. More so. It's happening now of powerful characters seemingly invincible characters being vulnerable. I think about the recent god of war games. I think of the last of us of course. I think of this game. I think there's such an importance for seemingly invincible people to. Like show like think about super the times we've seen Superman be at his most emotional is when there's something beyond his control and like something about the vision of Superman crying to me is like the embody the absolute embodiment of something like this something someone who's completely invulnerable still hurting and like this scene is like for the you. Who's a franchise the pinnacle of that the like a dragon franchise and really affected me and then of course like Dave said the minute he starts to try and talk through the tears that made it worse for me because I've because because it's a feeling I've had I'm someone who I'm an empath I grew up emotional I cried over the drop of a hat as a kid. 02:54:52.94 Flora Yeah, ah yeah. 02:55:01.30 Matt And so seeing someone I respect, care for and really like this vulnerable just immediately destroys me in a way like you said Flora like the bittersweet happiness almost makes this scene more emotional than any death or anything else. Um. 02:55:17.34 Dave Yeah, it. 02:55:21.90 Matt I was just say it reminds me of I saw guardians of the Galaxy 3 the same year that I played this game and like the end of that movie is a celebration and I wept through it like I won't spoil for those who may not seen it but like I Wept and I think those happy like moments of small hope like you said really do. Fuck me up way worse than any death or like great tragedy in the in a different way. 02:55:46.51 Dave Yeah I think so like from my perspective I spent a good portion of this game thinking that the big explosive thing that people were crying over was that a Kama was going to die um and just thinking about like. How that would have hit me compared to this if it's night and day you know a character that I like dying but you know a relatively minor character you would see something like that and maybe it would affect you. Emotionally maybe you would just go. 02:56:07.75 Matt Um, yeah. 02:56:22.30 Matt Yeah, yeah. 02:56:22.58 Dave Well, that really sucks . that's how it played out because yakuza has things like that characters have died friendly characters. Um, charismatic villains and stuff like that. But this is the first I think the first time that they've ever layered on so many like. 02:56:41.20 Dave Really well-realized emotions in this type of scene together. Um, and it's you know it's the reason that like I forget which one of you said it but to me this scene justifies the entire game. It was all leading up to this scene and I think there was good stuff along the way that I made sure I wanted to point out but like seeing this and if you're thinking about the totality of curio's character in his story arc and how things ended in Yakuza a 6 and. What brings him back into the fold in the series like that's all yakuza stuff that's bringing him back into the fold and stuff like that. Um, but this feels like because it kind of felt like they one of the criticisms I've heard is that it kind of abandons the ending of yaku's a six like. 02:57:34.22 Flora Um, yeah. 02:57:34.50 Dave He rode off into the sunset now he chose up he punches the shit out of some guy at this thing. What happened to him riding into the sunset and faking his death and trying to protect these kids now we see it now we see like what the effects of that ending. Was so like it's not abandoned. It's considered and now when you see later in yaku's a 7 or maybe wherever it fits in the timeline now at least at the very least when you play infinite wealth. You will have this in your mind as part of kiyu's character. This is something that happened to him, this is something that's on his mind. Um and like that whole thing about him wanting to go bury the ring and leave Japan before he dies and stuff like that infinite wealth takes place in Hawaii so like he's you know. Checking things off right? After this he goes to Hawaii he leaves the ring in the church so he completes that last thing he said he wants to do before he dies. Um, so it just. Puts like an extra dimension to Kiru's character wherever the rest of the story takes him. I think that this adds something to your perception of him as a character. 02:58:55.82 Flora Super minor note there but um I feel like this is something I should have noticed but I want to ask you both since you're both relative diehards of Yakuza. The church thing surprised me and threw me off a little bit. Um I feel like I can't easily recall like direct thematic. Christian sort of elements in Kiryu's like philosophy of looking at the world before um to me that was like I didn't quite know where to put that in my understanding of the character where did you all make sense of that. 02:59:26.66 Dave To me because he's taking the ring from Yumi who he thought he was going to marry so to me, it's like this is the closest thing to us getting married that where we'll ever get I will take the ring to a church where you know. 02:59:31.59 Flora Yeah. 02:59:44.40 Dave Likely they would have been married in a church I would say um I don't want to say that for sure because like you know Japan's not 100% Christian I don't know what his religious beliefs are ah but that's what I read I thought it was kind of a putting closure on this um marriage. 03:00:01.90 Flora So it's symbolically the venue that they would have taken if this love had worked out and that's it. Okay, okay. 03:00:02.46 Dave Storyline. I I think so yeah. 03:00:09.29 Matt Yeah I mean that's the same read more or less I got I don't think Kiryu is particularly religious. Um, but like also and I say this as a Jew churches are pretty commonly associated with like movie and media weddings. 03:00:23.45 Dave Yeah, yeah. 03:00:24.52 Matt In a way that like a Jewish temple wouldn't be in anything else and so I think it's a shorthand for the majority of people but not not necessarily right or wrong. I think that's part of it too is like it's just an identifiable marker for a journey. Ah yeah I hope I hope. Also, 03:00:24.61 Flora Um, yeah. 03:00:42.93 Matt Some of these crises explain why Kiryu looks like he's a new member and new lead singer for Linkin Park but like we'll get to that I guess. 03:00:49.70 Dave Yeah, yeah. 03:00:54.44 Flora Um I was puzzled with it because I've played ishin this year which is very temple based like monastic lifestyle and then also this game is sort of monastic lifestyle in parts at least beginning and end. 03:01:00.50 Matt Yeah, sure. 03:01:09.34 Flora And so um I was sitting there like just struggling with where to fit that in philosophically. But if it's if it's pure symbolism for the narrative of the character and the relationship that was you know, ah that never was let's say then that makes sense. 03:01:20.52 Matt Yeah. 03:01:23.14 Dave Yeah, yeah, that's what I thought um what one last question for you all and I'm not I don't expect you to know this. But if you do that'll be a cool little bonus for me. Um, when kiryu goes to Hawaii in this scene we should say he does have that new. Ah, pop star haircut. Um, so like the person who went through like a trauma and then just totally reinvented themselves with a new haircut and dyed hair stuff like that. Um I'm thinking of a character in Balder's gate 3 that did the exact same thing. Ah so um. 03:01:49.25 Matt Yeah, yeah. 03:01:59.93 Dave He goes to the church. He leaves the ring. Um, but before that he had said when he was leaving the monastery he had said he wants to go to Hawaii but before he goes to Hawaii there's something he had to do first and then it cuts to him in Hawaii. 03:02:18.47 Dave This could just be something from like a dragon because he gets involved with the late story in that game too but could it have been something else. Any ideas did you pick up on this like I did. 03:02:30.60 Matt So my theory is this is just leaving the door open for the next for infinite wealth right? like we know he connects with each Yourhan again. Um, because they're both on like the cover of the game together with his pop star haircut. So my guess is. My guess is if I had to assume anything he has to pass the torch he needs to make sure that this is the final part of his plan to leave the world in a better place when he's gone if he needs someone to take on his mantle. Essentially, it's like we talked about in yakuza seven right? Yeah 7 series is killing me ah that they kind of he kind of passes the torch in that game I think that's what he has to do he wants to find each your one and be like here's what you need to do here's what you should know kind of a thing I think he wants to officially pass on the responsibilities of saving the Yakuza world some like. 03:03:08.33 Dave Ah. 03:03:24.69 Matt More eloquently than that. But that's my theory at least. 03:03:27.29 Flora Part of me is still chewing on the question of like why we are getting this game in the first place and specifically like if anyone feels that this game robs Yakuza 6’s ending of the impact that it established for curious's character. And like this is like now the new definitive stopping point for that like stepping stone indie infinite wealth I wonder like why is the final scene orphanage related like obviously this has been the sort of um, sort of damocles being held over him this entire game. But I wonder if infinite wealth is going to like use those kids again for our purposes now that we've like established with clarity that they're okay and they're thriving like part of me wants to suggest that they are going to be used against Kiryu in a way where if he's preparing for his death. 03:04:18.20 Flora He will actually die on behalf of them trying to protect them in that next game. I don't really know if I trust that that's where they're going to go with that character given the fact that we've had 43.5 bait and switches of his death at this point. Um, but lowered all of the characters I guess um, but. 03:04:36.80 Flora I think that's the stepping stone that I'm wondering about most actively is like the way in which the quote unquote orphans or orphanage sort of situation are going to be linked to those future events and to what extent since this is a meditation back on like curu's love life and like. Let's say family life. Um, are we really going to return to like Harca and Harto like ah is that where this goes or curiously in the the scene that we've all gushed about um I'm forgetting the characters names who talk directly into the camera but like the grownup children. Um. 03:05:14.43 Flora I Wonder to what extent they might be a part of this now. Um, if those are actually cut off links within this game. We just get that closure for the orphanage line moving on or if that is like hey dangle Dangle dangle foreshadowing for. 03:05:29.63 Flora You know the follow up that we're going to get in the much longer infinite wealth. 03:05:32.35 Dave I personally would assume I like my assumption and kind of my hope is that this is the biggest source of like actual closure that kier you is going to get with the orphanage kids. Because they take the camera away and like it. It's kind of to me. It felt like that was the 1 thing he's going to get because the agents came and took the camera out of the graveyard. So no more messages from the kids. Um, and I do think that he's at least scared enough to stay away. So. 03:05:56.38 Flora Right. 03:06:11.38 Dave It feels like this is the closure that he gets from them and then maybe he'll reflect on it. Maybe he'll talk about it in future stories. But this felt like ah. 03:06:25.98 Dave Closing the chapter as far as like active things happening in that storyline if that makes sense. 03:06:32.33 Flora Definitely I think I failed to make the final link there which is that perhaps he like leaves a letter or something like that to these these characters in in a sense of like hey when you want to be able to answer the questions you had about XYZ come to this place in Hawaii and you'll find those answers. 03:06:47.13 Dave Um, yeah. 03:06:47.21 Flora And rather than it being an explicit. He shows up at the orphanage or something or up shows up in their lives like this is like a sort of like more passive and therefore like his logical way of trying to avoid the prying eyes following him directly like I I don't really believe any of that and I like that you said the word hope Dave that like. 03:07:05.45 Flora I Don't really hope that's what happens either. I Just didn't really like the closure for the character of Kiryu. I don't know that I felt the closure in terms of the overall skill of the plot if that makes sense. 03:07:15.26 Matt Yeah I think though something you bring up kind of links I have like maybe Eachuban is the connection here right? like when I'm gone talk to my friend Ichiban to know the life I lived or something like I can see that kind of thing like I think that's where this loop closes. But we'll see. 03:07:22.71 Flora Right? Exactly right? Exactly like. 03:07:35.23 Matt Um, like the ah I do think that those kids will come up again in this next game I Just don't know how like I don't think Ki he goes to the orphanage right? He's never seeing them again. But I think that there's a loop to close there where those kids like you get. 03:07:43.81 Flora Now. Yeah. 03:07:52.30 Matt Get the closure of what really happened to Curio now that Curio really knows what happened to them right? like the other side of it I Just don't know how. 03:07:59.30 Dave To me, it felt like there was. There's a loop to close for sure. But there's also a poetic ending where they just leave it at this that I think would be very effective because you everyone like the kids go home with the kind of spark that. 03:08:07.78 Matt Yeah, absolutely I agree. 03:08:10.50 Flora Um, I hope so. 03:08:18.88 Dave He might still be alive. Um, and he gets to leave with the update on how they're all living and like that kind of bittersweet ending but it would be poetic I think to just leave it at that and not force. A you know here's your closure type of ah. 03:08:37.69 Matt Sure. 03:08:38.63 Dave Type of plot beat you know or type of ending. So. 03:08:40.23 Flora Yeah to clarify I am on your side there I don't really want all of the extra loops I Just think is possible. So. 03:08:44.64 Matt Same yeah. 03:08:48.20 Dave Possible and you know what if they do decide to do it I think that the studios have proven that they know they do write more often than they don't So I my my trust in the storyline is fully in their hands as well. It should be because they're the ones who are doing this. So. 03:09:03.60 Flora Um, agreed. 03:09:07.17 Dave I have faith they'll do it right? However, it does end up going. Um, speaking of doing it right? I think that we have done it right tonight Matt and Flora thank you so much for taking over 3 hours to go sicko mode on another yakuza game with me. 03:09:23.48 Matt Thank you for yeah I'm happy to be here I think I've been pestering you since the last time we talked about you. Ah I want to talk about 1 of the games and so I'm grateful grateful to be here because it's fun to find like it's fun to torture people who don't care about it with it. 03:09:25.75 Flora Um, anytime with Yakuza. Yeah. 03:09:32.39 Dave Yeah. 03:09:43.18 Matt But it is but it is also fun, even more fun to talk about other sickos as you put it who really just love these things to death. Um Flora said much earlier on that this is probably. 03:09:50.71 Flora Yeah. 03:09:56.11 Matt 1 of her favorite franchises and I have to agree. It's easily my favorite Sega franchise without a doubt like sonic used to be but not anymore like this leaps and bounds better and delivers way better, but a track record for short too. 03:09:59.18 Flora Um, yeah. 03:10:11.33 Dave Yeah, what other series again. Can we say has over 10 entries in them and they're all good. It's ah it's a very it's ah it's a real big feather in their cap for the yakuza series. So. 03:10:19.82 Matt Um, yeah. 03:10:25.50 Dave Again I really appreciate the both of you taking so much time on a school night to come talk with me about yakuza. Um, this has been awesome. As soon as I saw some of those story beats I was like well you know these demand a conversation and I couldn't have picked 2 better guests to have it. So I appreciate you. Both. Um, anyone's still listening mvps we appreciate you and another call for you to go check out everything that Matt and flora do whether it's on fun and games screen Snark Reignite for Matt and Matt's writing on patreon good stuff. There. 03:10:58.82 Flora Blue. 03:11:00.57 Dave And then Flora's writing on epilogue gaming and podcasting on left behind game club. All just such quality content. Maybe go check out that yakuza zero series on left behind game club if you're itching for more yakuza content. So with that I will say good night for tonight. And once again, thank you everybody for listening tune in next week for the next game to come out of the backlog