thunderkiss92 said:Tozi Tiberius said:You're not wrong. The stories go from the extremely serious to zany in two shakes of a lamb's tale. In other games, this would become a jumbled mess of a product, but somehow they pull it together with Yakuza and it all works to its benefit.
You'll find a hundred different opinions in the forums here, but if you're really unsure of how to start the Yakuza franchise, I personally recommend one of the more recent games (all the games are self-contained stories so you're not missing much besides some character backstory.) I started with Like a Dragon, but Kiwami 2 or Judgement would be other excellent places to start. If you find that you really like the game, then go back to the older ones like Zero or Kiwami and continue from there.
Thanks for the info, this is very helpful!
I'm sure you could start with those, but my personal recommendation is to start with Yakuza 0. It's the beginning of the series story wise, and gameplay wise its mechanics are on the newish side of the games. I think if you like the series enough from that one, you'll like the rest of the games.
One of the weirdest reasons for this (I guess it's on theme) is that the city of Kamurocho changes with each installment and its usually based on story reasons, so it's kind of cool to see something in the city and know why a building or a random character from a previous game's side quest is there, versus going to something like Judgement and not understanding or appreciating the references the game often rewards you with for playing an earlier installment.
I'm just starting Yakuza 3 and it's been a wild but incredibly fun experience so far.