Yakuza's Open World Is Biggest And Bestest (The Jimquisition)

Jim thanks so much for highlighting this wonderful franchise.

6 has been released and 3, 4, and 5 are being released very soon. I hope you can make a similar video about them 😊

Just bought the remastered collection and Yakuza 0. Still have Kiwami from PS Plus to. Gonna play 0 first though.

I just started playing Yakuza 0 yesterday, and I'm already hooked.

IMO yakuzas are best played over time. I agree that the cities and story are jam packed with content but the relatively small location and similarities in appearance between each street in the game can grow very stale.

Zero I stopped about halfway through and took about a year break from it before finishing the story. I’m a fan of the series but I think people gush a little too much over what amounts to a game that reuses like 70% of its content every new game and that has a new entry nearly every year.

It is a fun, quirky, thoroughly overrated game.

It isn't the biggest

Only thing I don't like about yakuza is the mini games cause I'm not good at them hurts too that there tied to the main game

You forgot to mention that the hostesses are modeled and voiced after actual japanese pornstars.

In light of today's episode, just wanted to drop by and say this is my favorite positive episode. This video is what inspired me to finally play Yakuza 0 (had it sitting on my shelf for around 8 months untouched). Since then I've played all the way up through Yakuza 5 and had hours upon hours upon hours of joy from these games. Thank god for this video and thank god for Jim!

with how meany times kamurocho is used i know the streets like the back of my hand

"Dear person who threatened to murder me 2 weeks ago. Why am I still here son?" That cockiness is one reason I love Jim so much.

The fact that this episode (and this game series) isn't one of your more popular videos, is a travesty

Simply this. I didn't expect to spend 60+ hours on this game, but I did.

YES YES YES
I friggin love the Yakuza titles and I'm glad you gave em a go!

Another interesting thing sbout those small worlds is that even collectibles you find around them are more fun to collect because it actually feels like exploring and playing a little hide and seek instead of looking for a needle in a haystack.

Just started playing it on game pass. Yakuza 0 is as good as GTAV and Witcher3. I'm on chapter 4 and its consistently fun. I only read text if the game or movie is an A+. Try out sleeping Dogs if you like Yakuza 0.

I'm starting to memorize the street names by accident

Give me a small map jam packed with varied, interesting, and engaging content over a huge boring repetitive map any day. Assassins Creed Odyssey for example might take you 80 hours to complete, but most of that will be grindy busy work, doing the same copy and paste shit over and over. Yakuza 0 will take you 80 hours but every minute of it will be fun as fuck.

if they wanted to be cool they should've just put on the original song "I'm Just a Bill"

Exploring the world of Yakuza isnt backtracking, its living in the world. Giant worlds kill games, like the last 2 Assassin's Creed.

The gameplay's niche for these but games like old Harvest Moon titles, Persona, etc., only take place usually in a single town or locale. They remain fun nonetheless just because of how much stuff there's to do, what to do, etc.


Like what Jim says, it doesn't really have to be large all the time; just how it's used. I mean faccing kek, Resident Evil 1's like just a mansion.


Yea, open-world is a genre nowadays I guess, but man, it's just hard to do right and most just fill it with crap.


Side note, Charwood sidequest in Neverwinter Nights is still one of the best sidequest lines I've played. Sidequests doesn't have to be boring, especially so if you actually like to read.


Eh, different stuff for different people I guess.

Finally started playing Yakuza 0 and the first thing that I remembered was this video. Jim really nailed it with this one. Because pretty much everyone he said and other fans of this series has been saying is true.

Yakuza series is a really amazing and their Open World design feels much more alive than other Open World games with even bigger maps.

Just started Zero. HATE subtitles but AMAZING story that gets me thru with anticipation. Thanks.

One of my biggest issues with open worlds is that they tend to be rather closed off offering lots of open space but very few interiors to interact with. The usual population of he map usually have little to nothing to offer while interiors could offer unique and interesting scenarios that could be explored through their differences as opposed to the same old looking streets.

If they could just take a map like GTA5, make many if not all interiors open, and make many of them with unique activities and scenarios it would be amazing.

It's the same thing with Majora's Mask. It's a pretty small map but it doesn't feel like it. It actually makes you feel like you've been transported into a totally new world filled with actual communities of people. There's so much to do and so many actually interesting NPC's to meet and do things for. Compared to like a typical Ubisoft open world game where the game's worlds are like 50 trillion square miles but they just are never that interesting vs games like Yakuza and Majora's Mask with blip sized maps.

i miss this intro...its so Jim Sterling

JIMATHU CHAN

The substories are awesome. I like them all but a favorite so far was the Yanki greaser band that u had to teach how to act tough lol. Or the Michael jackson bit. His dialogue 😂😂😂😂

Its also funny that u can actually end up going inside more buildings than u can in GTA 5. Grwnted, they are ususlly small but high in detail. Just adds immersion and makes the gaming world feel more lifelike and alive.

Has Jim played Yakuza: Like a Dragon yet? It was my introduction to the Yakuza series. I simply MUST know what Jim thinks of best boi, Ichiban.

The best character in the series:

Haruka "Uncle Kaz, can we go and play poker at that shady underground casino" Sawamura

Yakuza has still many annoying and almost frustrating flaws. CONSTANT almost nonstop fight moments with pointless guys, i just cant explore that city without any annoying action. And even that there are so many NPCs, it is still empty, cause i dont care about them. The thing is, when it comes to GTA games all NPCs have many cool quotes and there is some kind of interaction with them. I cant understand Japanese, so i just dont care about those conversations in Yakuza if it is not an sub story. And there is no interaction with them, at all. And also, some weather changes are not there at all, no dynamic. Just bright night or sunny day. I really like 0 and i am excited to play it more + other Y games, but it is far from best open world for me. For me, it is still GTA San Andreas that has everything i can think of.

truth

This is more relevant than ever now that Ichiban Kasuga has stolen all our hearts.

The Yakuza/Ryu ga Gotoku series is EASILY my favourite game series for pretty much all of the reasons you stated. I've been really pleased to see it finally getting the attention it deserves in the Western market. Like you, I also think that the single map of Kamurocho (and in later games, Sotenbori as well) is a strength of the series, not a failure. The map of Kamurocho remains essentially the same, with a few news shops and activities popping up from game to game, and it really enhances the sense of meaningful passage time in the story to see the city grow and change around you.

Excellent video 😃👍 new sub

This video aged poorly now Yakuza Like a Dragon has DLC, I mean A LOT OF DLC

Thank God For You Sterling

Play Yakuza...that is all

I mean, Yakuza 5 not only has 5 playable characters, 5 equally dense Cities, but also a entire second gamemode for each character with their own full plots

Yakuza rules.

weird all you need to do is put fun things to do in your game and the player will have fun, whoda thunk.

Yakuza is the world GTA should have been

I personally enjoy open world games that are just repetitive tasks with few well written sidequests, you mention No Man's Sky, which I actually love, and while I haven't played a modern Assasin's Creed game I know I'd love them from watching a stream of Odyssey. That's all just because well I'm a neurodiverse boy who enjoys repetitive tasks because I find them soothing. I also definitely acknowledge that there is more actual ART going on in a game like Yakuza that has well designed minigames and sidequests with good writing in them. So this video is definitely still on point.

I literally didn't start playing Yakuza 0 until like 6 months ago. Had it in my steam library for a while and kind of forgot about it while I was suffering through the later Saints Row games.

I just spent an hour looking for this video, because the first time I watched it, I thought "That gives me an idea for D&D!" I have no memory of what the idea was, or what inspired it. I hope it was a good idea.

The bowling in Yakuza 0 is worth 10-15$on its own it's that good

It’s not an open world if there’s invisible walls limiting to where you can 💀 idc what anyone says the yakuza games are shit if you take this biased fan boy away and have some one else review it it’s a different story 💀

I fucking love yakuza 0. Finally finished it and went straight into yakuza kiwami. And I'm fucking loving it!