Jrpg Jungle

If you’re like me and enjoyed the outrageous combat, outlandish villains and wide-range of mini games available in Yakuza games like the recent Yakuza 6, Yakuza Kiwami 2’s version of these things in its demo makes it look like an intriguing experience. With a new city to explore, Kiwami 2 features a lot of what’s made more recent games in the series feel good mechanically, along with a stylish visual flare that make it easy to forget that Yakuza 2 was originally a PS2 game. With a few new mechanics that save it from feeling too similar to the last Yakuza game and a wealth of new activities in this demo alone that keep the charm of the Yakuza series while adding plenty of new things to play with, Yakuza Kiwami 2 seems to be a satisfying new take on an older game in its series that is easy to pick up for those who’ve played the newer games in the series. Yakuza Kiwami 2’s demo begins in the second chapter of its story, scratching the surface of what will no doubt be a bigger narrative. T...

I never thought I’d be playing a game called Yakuza for the story, but Yakuza 6’s well-written story and characters made this experience a stand-out in JRPG stories this year so far. With an activity-filled open world and satisfying action combat with familiar stat-building systems, these things ended up being the cherry on top of a story that kept me coming back for more with its deep and emotional look into its tough characters that always had multiple sides. I thought this experience would just be a bunch of fights and open world exploring before I played it, so I’m pleasantly surprised that it ended up having a deep story that hooked me in from start to finish and with many of its side activities and stories still left behind, I’m glad its great demo convinced me to try this deep and interesting world. For fans of previous entries of the Yakuza franchise, Yakuza 6 serves as the final chapter in Kiryu Kazuma’s journey. For me, however, it was my first Yakuza game, although I never f...

I don’t know about you, but when I think of the JRPG genre, the Yakuza series isn’t one of the first that comes to mind. Before that are usually the many fantasy games with deep stories, combat and worlds that the genre is widely known for, such as Final Fantasy and Persona, so if you haven’t tried the Yakuza games, you may be surprised to hear that Yakuza shares more in common with them than you think. When I downloaded Yakuza 6’s demo and played its first few hours, I expected to be running around in an open world, running into fights along the way in a plot with a rough tone but what I didn’t expect was a moving emotional story that can rival some of the big current JRPG stories well. Combined with JRPG systems and a big world, Yakuza 6 is a JRPG that appealed to me way more than I would have expected and has completely drawn me in with its well-written introduction to its story. After watching others talk about Yakuza 6’s wacky mini-games, I decided to download Yakuza 6's demo ...