My personal experience is that in the Yakuza games 'extracurricular activities' are only introduced to make the player aware they exist, but you can completely ignore them and refuse any optional request that might pop up on your radar at any given time.
Over the course of the 20-ish hour main storylines of each game those introductory scenes add up to maybe a handful of minutes. That's hardly something I would call intrusive and it being optional makes it non-mandatory by definition.
Not that there's anything wrong with anyone choosing to just focus on the main storyline, that's why the extra content is optional to begin with. One of my friends who also likes the Yakuza games tends to just focus on the main storylines and invests very little time in any of the side content.
With that being said, to me personally, playing a Yakuza game and ONLY playing the main story equals only eating half the plate of an exquisite meal. I don't like the concept of rushing through games, especially RPGs. It feels counterintuitive.
I prefer to player fewer games, but take my time with them - where applicable - rather than sprinting through as many as I can. It would suck the joy out of it.
Do you ever think Sega would re-release the spin-off Yakuza games?
I would be completely fine with minimum effort remasters of Kenzan / Ishin that offer upscaled graphics at 60fps and just English text added. I imagine it would be similar to the remasters of Y3-5.
For the Black Panther games I want Kiwami-style remakes. I've played the fan translations for those earlier this year on the PSP and feel like they would really flourish with a bit of love.
That's all wishful thinking though as I feel the spin-offs are a tougher sell to Western audiences compared to the mainline games. But then they took a risk with Judgment and it paid off, so who knows?
Do you ever think Sega would re-release the spin-off Yakuza games?
I would be completely fine with minimum effort remasters of Kenzan / Ishin that offer upscaled graphics at 60fps and just English text added. I imagine it would be similar to the remasters of Y3-5.
For the Black Panther games I want Kiwami-style remakes. I've played the fan translations for those earlier this year on the PSP and feel like they would really flourish with a bit of love.
That's all wishful thinking though as I feel the spin-offs are a tougher sell to Western audiences compared to the mainline games. But then they took a risk with Judgment and it paid off, so who knows?
I’d love the opportunity to play a Kiwami-style version of the Black Panther games. Don’t know exactly how the story was, but if it was about like, a high school delinquent, then I definitely wouldn’t mind the whole high school scenario being integrated.
Every fandom has that obnoxious loud minority section where all the entitled, toxic and unappreaciative trolls reside. They're not representative of fan communities as a whole and I wouldn't want them to stand in the way of the rest getting what they want. Although I can definitely relate to your sentiment to a certain extent.I selfishly don't want them to be translated, because the series has (on the whole) shitty Western fans and not only would they not appreciate the two titles (ESPECIALLY Ishin!), a ton would be lost in translation (like the significance of the Secret of Onomichi was for 6).
I mean, the character election was done in 2013, after 5 came out and Western fans would have no idea why all past characters are showing up as members of the Shinsengumi.
Plus, I voted like 200 times a day to get Kashiwagi in the top 10 and damnit, I'm proud that I was able to help get him there!
As for Kurohyo, I too would actually play a Kiwami version of those, rather than just an upscaled update; I loved my time with both and Ashura Hen is an incredible handheld game, especially for the hardware it came out on.
He's a dropout and has 0 to do with high school though, so I don't think that would be included. Kamurocho and Sotenbori would be reused as well, so the settings are pretty much set as well.
Yeah, I see a lot of Kenka Bancho in it, but it works. I love the fighting system of Kurohyo. Kurohyo 2 is the natural evolution of it. I love giving him the punches of a boxer, the kicks of a muay thai fighter, the grapples of a bjj black belt, and the finishes of a pro wrestler.Correct: Syn Sophia were the Devs, with Sega only handling publishing and the like.
Every fandom has that obnoxious loud minority section where all the entitled, toxic and unappreaciative trolls reside. They're not representative of fan communities as a whole and I wouldn't want them to stand in the way of the rest getting what they want. Although I can definitely relate to your sentiment to a certain extent.
I'm just really hoping for a Western release, in whatever form it may come.
As for the two Kurohyou games; they really took me back to the PS2 era of the franchise - albeit for mostly technical reasons - but yeah the way the story flows is unique to those two games. I first thought not having traditional cutscenes may take me out of it, but the artstyle of the handdrawn story sections is great and I actually would like at least some of it to survive a potential port / remaster / remake. I have no clue how they would tackle the battle system, though. Not saying it can't be done, it's just interesting.
On to a spin-off I haven't addressed yet, because it actually did come out in the West: Dead Souls! I actually haven't played the game yet. By the time it came out I was kinda turned off that instead of a mainline title we got a spin-off that wasn't canon to the mainline games.
At some point I did read that the game didn't do very well outside of Japan. My own added speculation is that Dead Souls' lack of success was the reason it took so long for Yakuza 5 to make it here and might be what's keeping further spin-off localizations from happening. Not sure if that was actually ever commented on in any official capacity.
Over time I became such a fanboy of the series and studio RGG though, that my sentiments have changed and it's on my to play list. But their Hokuto no Ken / Fist of the North Star game will probably come first. I've even been watching the anime to get into the story and have my suspicions that some of its moments were directly responsible for certain elements we've encountered during Kiryu's adventures. But I digress..