I never got around to playing or finishing Lost Judgment, which will have to wait out for a bit because I've been busy with playing the new remake of Ishin. The old PS3 game that never got worldwide release, and that turned out to be a big regret on Sega's part. As soon as the Yakuza series ballooned up after Y0, people have asked for the off-shoot titles to be ported.
Sega didn't have the source files, so they thought, "alright, let's make the game over all over". With English subtitles added. A full recreation of the same game, 9 years after it was released. For the unfamiliar, there's quite a lot that makes this spin-off stand out.
Of course, another Japanese game this month with technical problems all throughout. I have faced stutters, mechanical bugs, cutscenes and poor PC support. This is a first for a Ryu Ga Gotoku game on PC, because they've always made good ports. But the bigger question as well is, how good is the game?
And just like the first game, Kiryu(Sakamoto Ryuji) returns to his hometown, only to see trouble follow soon, as his foster family are bent on changing the old Draconian caste system that plagues it. Taking place right at the end of the Edo period, with the Meiji era just around the corner.
Within my first 3 hours of playthrough, it gets pretty real when Ryuji gets caught up in a major conspiracy, and is set on setting things right before running away to Kyo. 2 years have passed, this is where the Yakuza shenanigans start.
In this game, unlike most of Yakuzas, there are actually 5 different combat styles: Gunslinger, Sword, Wild Dance, Brawler, and equipped weapons. And easy to switch from the D-pad as usual. From the experience I've had, suffice it to say, ithe mixed combat style doesn't warrant it being called a brawler.
I am also saddened to say that, unlike the Kiwami games, this game is 80-90% a carbon remake of the original. Just with English localization. There are some improvements and changes I've seen, like adding the trooper card system to activate abilities, and passives. This time in every single combat sequence.
And there are the changes to Wild Dance, the gun and sword mix style combines both for some insane fighting moves and longer combos with parrying attacks. Easiest way to cheese enemies was using this. The Gunslinger was OP in the original, here it's less strong. But after upgrades, I could take on entire mobs. The Sword style is kind of bland, and didn't seem fun for me to play with, despite being forced to several times.
A few things am disappointed about, is how wonky it feels playing the game. That is because they never did change the movement animation, it is exactly as telegraphed from the original. Which, kind of sucks I think for a remake to do, but I got used to it very quickly.
And this has the least difficult progression to work through, just play a style long enough and earn points from it. Spending them unlocking heat actions, damage and health, and more. And I am glad that the trooper card system is so well integrated, allowing me to have so much to do as well as unlocking more cool stuff on the way.
Even if the gameplay feels a little dated, it sounds and plays like a remaster of Yakuza 0 in some sense. The combat is fine-tuned with responsive controls and fluid mechanics. The real fun starts when I use the cards. There are some wacky stuff like Kamehamehas, making the enemy dance while my health heals, and this one. This whole Star Wars thing wasn't anywhere in Japanese history, the heck?
One of the things I do also like, is how much that Ryoma is Kiryu, but with complete different goals. Kiryu is someone carrying trauma, and has moral obligations to stop anything bad happening to anyone. In here, he needs to resort to killing someone in order to restore balance. Despite that, all around nice dude.
A lot of the characters from the early games, that including Y7 also roleplays as different characters. It's weird seeing Nishi though as this adversary that continues to be around just to fill his need to prove something. But, nothing really to do with Kiryu at all, other than being a jerk. And he isn't the only one, several characters have had their faces put into characters that didn't match the personalities from the Yakuza games.
Best way to look at it for me was that everybody was in some kind of play, and decided to make some adjustments. Also, I am shocked that the quality in writing and storytelling is as good as any mainline Yakuza games, but this never made it offshore till now.
Ishin plays very bonkers, compared to any Yakuza games. History be damned, because nothing here will start making sense soon as I deck out my upgrades, and cards. I am glad that is the case, because after Y7, the studio has embraced this level of absurdity that actually befits the game series quite a bit.
But there's this big elephant in the room, and that is the game's optimization. This wasn't a well-thought-out port, and the big issue starts with the stuttering. Happening because this game was made using UE4. The whole shader compilation problem echos in myriads of games, before they got patched out. How am I supposed to enjoy my game if some heat action or me dodging results in the game to stutter? There are others like lack of certain support, but it's possible to look that up elsewhere.
It does look rather stunning, but at times getting a closer look at the characters, some small areas have such finer details in the early games using Dragon Engine. This transition obviously seems a bit messy, and it shows. My games had bugged several times when my style got locked out, despite the game instructing me to change it.
As I moved on, and continued playing, saw there's a good number of these mini-games coming back as well as a few added ones in the remake. I can even farm on the backyard of my house and sell food stock for profit. There's plenty to get busy with. I do wish, though, that they redid the gameplay mechanics, with the story and characters sticking by. Not the case here, even if I was able to enjoy the game, despite the shortcomings. It's been a while and a patch hasn't arrived to fix the issues it has, they better hop to it.
