Hardest Yakuza Games
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Highlights
- The Yakuza series is well-known and praised for its captivating stories and depiction of Tokyo’s red-light district.
- Many of the Yakuza games are accessible and easy to jump into, while others will offer players a real challenge.
- Some of the games, such as Yakuza 6 and Yakuza Kiwami 2, offer less challenging gameplay due to powerful abilities and upgrades, making them easier to complete.
The Yakuza series has become well known and highly praised by fans and critics for a few reasons including its incredibly captivating stories and jaw-dropping depiction of Tokyo’s red-light district. One aspect that rarely gets discussed is the difficulty, and this is probably because the majority of the games are very accessible and easy to jump into, even for people who might not be very familiar with action-style games.
Still, this doesn’t mean that all the games are a complete cakewalk as a handful of them either start difficult from the get-go or simply elevate the challenge as the story goes on. It’s time to finally take a closer look at how challenging these games really are.
The Kiwami remakes of Yakuza 1 and 2 will be the focus as opposed to the original games, and only mainline entries will be included.
8 Yakuza 6
Considering just how much Kiryu had been through by the time of Yakuza 6, it does make sense why he would be so immensely strong, but this also ended up making the combat system in the game a little bland and far too easy. For starters, the Extreme Heat Mode, which allows Kiryu to essentially one-hit enemies, is unlocked very early on in the game, which ended up removing a lot of the challenge. The bosses are also much easier to handle this time around, especially because they all only have one health bar, which makes them feel far less intimidating than previous bosses who could soak up much more damage, making that eventual victory all the more satisfying.
It seems that developers Ry Ga Gotoku were aware of how easy this game was since they even included Training Gear that would lower Kiryu’s stats, which some people will even advise to have on from the very beginning. Ultimately, since the game was marketed as being the end of Kiryu’s journey, it’s the story that makes it special as opposed to the gameplay.
7 Yakuza 5
The wide catalog of extra moves players can learn in Yakuza 5 can make the game incredibly easy since a lot of these techniques are extremely strong, and in some cases, entirely game-breaking. One of the most obvious examples of this is the Tiger Drop, which can be learned from Sosuke and essentially acts as a parry with a fairly generous timing window.
It’s also very easy to become a little too strong due to how the food works in the game, providing buffs and stat enhancements that can make bosses an absolute breeze. Additionally, the constant random encounters essentially feed the player XP, ensuring they are always at least strong enough for the next encounter. The game does still have a few spots where it poses a decent challenge, such as in the Coliseum for example, but these moments are very few and far between.
6 Yakuza Kiwami 2
While there are quite a few missions that can really push Kiryu to his limits in Yakuza Kiwami 2, this only really relates to the side content, such as the Bouncer Missions, which will force the player to use every ability and technique they had learned to make it out alive. In terms of the main fights, aside from the first few that can easily catch players off guard, they become far too easy due to just how powerful Kiryu becomes with upgrades.
There are still a few bosses with multiple health bars who can be a little stubborn to keep down, but as long as Kiryu has a weapon or two handy, it lowers the challenge by a large margin. There are also plenty of random encounters that end up making Kiryu extremely strong in little to no time at all, which is quite ironic considering the original Yakuza 2 would actually stop these fights from appearing at certain points to avoid this.
5 Yakuza 4
Yakuza 4 is an easy experience if players pick any difficulty other than Hard, but if they do go with the more challenging option, they will be met with some pretty tanky enemies with large HP pools that can be quite tricky to take down. Some of the most difficult areas on Hard include the chaotic Seajima prison break, which will easily punish the player if they aren’t paying attention. Tanimura’s final fight is another section that will require at least a handful of healing drinks to overcome.
For most of the game, the hardest encounters will be when facing down large groups of enemies who love nothing more than blocking attacks, but everything else is pretty straightforward, especially on Normal and Easy. It does need to be said that the Saito boss fight on Hard is one of the most difficult encounters in the entire series, who feels more like a boss ripped right out of Dark Souls.
4 Yakuza 0
Potentially the most beloved and well-known entry in the series thanks to its outstanding story and characters, Yakuza 0 is fairly balanced in its difficulty with only a few parts where it begins to spike. Many people who are jumping into the game without any prior experience with the series will probably have a much harder experience since the game doesn’t do a great job of explaining the best ways to stay alive.
The inventory health items and weapons, such as the zap gun, for example, which becomes essential for boss fights, are resources that make the game much easier, but they first need to be sought out by the player. There are also a few weapons that can make quick work of large enemy groups, one of which is the devastating shotgun that can easily blast multiple foes away with a single shot.
3 Yakuza Kiwami
The remake of the very first Yakuza game does become a little more manageable as it goes on, but there’s no denying that those first few hours can be downright brutal due to how severely underpowered Kiryu is. Not only has the Beast style been nerfed to the point where it becomes essentially useless to begin with, but even the Dragon Style feels a little impractical and sluggish at the start of the game too.
The game also throws many more enemies at the player at once when compared to Yakuza 0,which means there’s a lot of damage that the player will inevitably have to take during a fight. If players manage to see through the beginning of the game and get to grips with the controls and mechanics, they’ll be in for a challenging but ultimately very fun experience going forward.
2 Yakuza: Like A Dragon
While technically a mainline game, Yakuza: Like a Dragon switched up a lot of things from the games that came before it. Not only had Kiryu been replaced with a brand new fuzzy-haired protagonist by the name of Ichiban, but the game also abandoned the action-oriented combat for a turn-based system, and in the same vein as the classic RPGs that inspired it, the game provides a very challenging experience.
Because the enemies will level up as the story progresses, players will need to spend a good amount of time upgrading their gear and grinding out XP to ensure that they don’t end up becoming overwhelmed. While there is technically a blocking mechanic that limits damage, it’s designed to act as a “perfect block” with a tiny input window, making it incredibly hard to pull off. Yakuza: Like a Dragon managed to successfully merge the compelling story of Yakuza with turn-based RPG combat, and it also replicated the punishing difficulty that had become synonymous with that genre.
1 Yakuza 3
In most Yakuza games, players could get away with mashing inputs and only evading attacks every now and again without having to put too much thought into their actions, but Yakuza 3 doesn’t work this way. Enemies love blocking in Yakuza 3 and are far more methodical in how they attack, so players will need to get into the habit of evading strikes at the last second in the hopes of landing an attack of their own, which is the case for both thugs and bosses alike.
Regular attacks feel more or less useless in Yakuza 3, which is why it’s heavily advised to seek out some of the most powerful Heat Moves such as the deadly Cigarette Mastery attack that can be learned by playing the Inner Fighter minigame. Yakuza 3 undoubtedly feels like the most “unfair” game in the series for its difficulty. It’s just a good thing Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios decided to iron out many of the issues that made the game so frustrating in the later entries.
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