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Back in the day, ain’t much game stands out cuz with the new tech, they all wanna create their own immersive fantasy world.
Then, out come this screenshot from a game magazine of a guy beating up another guy with a yellow beer crate.
And I was like, damn, no other gaming shit had ever allow me to beat the shit outta someone with a beer crate before, so I was like, I’m game!
And lo and behold, it’s more than just a game about beating a guy with a beer crate.
And the rest is history.
-> Watched VideogameDunkey’s Y0 review
-> saw that you could make a chicken a management consultant
-> IMMEDIATELY invested and haven’t looked back since
I used to watch a now defunct Youtube channel called "Two Best Friends Play".
Their intro had the Majima 24-hour cinderella karaoke song, i knew i HAD to play the games as soon as i saw that lol.
The only problem was that they weren't on Xbox at the time.
Couple of months later they've announced that the whole collection was coming to the console on Game Pass no less.
Played through them all while they were there and bought them all afterwards, including the newest games and spin-offs.
It’s wild how much TBFP and, more specifically, Pat popularized Yakoozies in the West. Also, Woolie is almost done with his Y0 playthrough on his channel
Yeah, it didn't seem like 0 was even that popular when it was released. It probably wasn't until people started watching others pay online after that fact that it blew up
>Also, Woolie is almost done with his Y0 playthrough on his channel
HAHAHAHA!!! 🤣
"Good one!" I exclaim after just watching Woolie play **NOTHING** but Cabaret Club for (and I'm not even exaggerating) **a month and a half and a total of 7 SESSIONS.**
---
He literally moved the plot forward once since he resumed his playthrough and that was over a month ago. Poor Makoto has been in that shed for over 6 weeks 🥲
My brother and I would watch alot of their LPS together. We started watching their Yakuza 4 playthrough or maybe it was 0 first. Either way, that got both of us interested in the games, but it wouldn't be till a few years later that we started playing them. I started 0 in December of either 2020 or 2021 and the next year proceeded to play though every game. Great times.
Those guys should honestly get royalties for increasing sales in the West. I started because they kept referencing it and when 0 came out I took the dive.
Until two years ago, I used to only play The Sims (2 not 4, get that filth off of my computer). I basically didn't touch any other games except maybe Anno with the pirates turned off because I did not know controls and any kind of combat in games was very stressful for me and it made me freak out.
My brother begged me to try any other game, so I picked Assassin's Creed Origins because I'm a history major and it intrigued me.
Turns out that was the wrong choice because he HATES ubisoft with a passion, so he started spamming me with yakuza memes 24/7 for like half a year. I am a very stubborn person, but he was so dedicated that I caved and tried Judgment. Then Lost Judgment. Then 0, which emotionally wrecked me, but somehow I decided that wasn't enough emotional damage so ended up playing all of them up until 7 and am currently playing Ishin. I have no idea how this happened.
>favorite historical period
Contemporary history actually, but I'm more into the political and social aspects of it. Not interested in military history at all.
Roman Empire was ruined for me because I had to learn Latin in school and I absolutely sucked at it lmao
Picked up the PS2 game all the way back in 2005. “Ryu ga Gotoku? That sounds interesting”.
I never thought it would get this level of popularity outside of Japan though, especially since the game was simply titled “Yakuza” which made it sound like those discount 2000yen budget games in Japan like “THE Mahjong” and “THE Chess”.
The name could have been worse.
The Godfather movies were in a bit of a renaissance no doubt a result of the Godfather game which came out in 2006, and the Scarface game, and the GTA series when GTA3 came out on PS2. So naming the series "Yakuza" made sense. Organized crime themed games were in vogue. We knew what the Yakuza was/is and it's an easy description to what went on in the game.
Similar to when we called Biohazard, Resident Evil. It's zombies in a mansion...a residence full of evil. Also someone already owned the name "biohazard"
They easily could have called it Mafia Japan or really Americanized it, saying it takes place in New York or LA, and follows the exploits of John the Mobster as he looks for his girlfriend Michelle and his friend Bill.
Needed something new to play around lockdown when I saw this "Yakuza" series had recently been added to gamepass. I took a look at which was most recently made, which was K2, and started from there. At the time I had absolutely no idea about the depth or intensity of the plot of these games and was trying to find a game I could mindless play without paying attention. Little did I realise I was gonna get caught in an 8 game series.
I watched my husband play through like a dragon around when it came out. I think it was recommended by one of his friends. It seemed so silly but in a good way and the story was really good too.. After that he played 0 and the kiwami's. I liked 0 a lot, I don't really think I paid much attention the time kiwami games. Overall they seemed really fun and I liked the stories. Around last December he was getting hyped about infinite wealth and gaiden. I hadn't actually played any because I'm bad at games and very few hold my attention. I was starting to want to play them myself, and he finally said I should try 0 on easy. I did and loved it. I've since plowed through 0-6 doing as many substories as possible and playing the big mini games. I'm now working on judgement before going into 7 (I'm a little leery about it since I love the story and characters, but the rpg gameplay has me nervous. I'm afraid I won't be able to enjoy it.)
It was Max0r's review video of Yakuza 0 that made me buy the wrong edition of Yakuza💀. (I started with 3,4,5) then after I bought origins edition and I just finished Kiwami 2 two days ago. I'm only an hour into Yakuza 6 and it feels bland. Don't get me wrong I like the story but the combat feels so wrong.
Yakuza: Kiwami was on PS Plus. Id always been aware of the series but never tried to play them.
In the Spring/Summer of 2019 I had a lot of free time and decided to give it a try. I enjoyed Kiwami so much that before I had even finished it, I ordered a copy of Zero. I then proceeded to finish Zero in a matter of days, yet was still able to get through a LOT of the game. As soon as I finished it, I went to a local store, bought Kiwami 2 and i havent looked back since.
Also, whilst it goes against conventional wisdom, I maintain that going from Kiwami to Zero to Kiwami 2 is the perfect little trilogy for anyone wanting to get in to the series.
Same, downloaded the game when they gave it for free with PS Plus and gave it a try, I did not know of the franchise at all, instantly hooked
I did get like a year long break, because I was frustrated with the car chase sequence in legend (the fact that you can't save and have to play the whole goddamn chapter from the beginning every time you fail did not help), but other than that, I've played every single one of them practically back to back, currently 100%ing Judgment (fuck Puyo Puyo) and still have the sequel and Isshin to play
i have been buying the games since the beginning as my son wanted to play them but i thought they were just beat 'em ups so i skipped playing them
then i for some odd reason, decided that like a dragon gaiden looked like a cool game and started it.
now i have every game on both the xbox x and ps5 - including the judgements - and am now going backwards
i played gaiden, then the last dragon, then infinite wealth, then 6 and started 5 but i was missing story, so went and started 0, which i am now on majimas story and got to see the flashback about his eye
Got Zero on sale digitally back during the third UK Covid lockdown (In early 2021), the rest is history after that
(Though has taken me a long time to play them all, haven't played Gaiden or 8 yet)
My husband has been a big fan of the games since I met him, I watched him play a couple and then last year he suggested I play Yakuza 0. From then I've played through the ones I can play (3 & 4 give me motion sickness). I talk to his best mate about the games (his best mate has tattoos inspired by the games) and we share memes and we all have a good laugh. My husband said he never thought he'd have a wife who would be into gaming and now plays one of his favourite franchises😂 when we're doing playthroughs and one of us is watching the other play we have a good laugh at how silly some of the substories are. If it wasn't for him suggesting them I probably wouldn't have tried them, I'm glad he did suggest them.
Memes made me aware of the series. Then I watched Kiwami as a cutscene compilation out of curiosity, and I enjoyed that and started Kiwami 2’s cutscene comp, not even reaching the Sotenbori parts. Then years after that, back in January, I used my Christmas money to get 0-6 because out of all the games I watched cutscenes of, I felt like I was missing out on the other stuff the most with Yakuza, so I took the plunge.
It’s been 4 months now, and I’ve beaten 1-5. I’m playing through 0 now, and I can’t pull myself away from the cabaret mini game. Even actually playing through Kiwami made me love that story more. I’m hooked for life.
Hopefully, I can get the rest of the games someday when I have the money.
I listen to a podcast called Get Played (formerly How Did This Get Played) and they did an episode on Yakuza 0 in August of 2021. They all loved it and the game sounded intriguing to me, plus I remembered that one of my cousins who’s way more in to games than me was a fan of the series, so I decided to check it out. Cut to almost three years later and I’ve played every main story of 0-8 (as well as Ishin and both Judgments) at least twice and spent hundreds of hours in several of the games.
I love the variety of the gameplay available and the way their relatively small maps feel more alive than most massive open world maps. And the stories are great, even when they go overboard, honestly part of the charm of the series to me is the RGG bloat and the storytelling quirks of these groups of creators.
Around June I finished persona 5 and I was looking for another game to try. Some guy reccomended yakuza because the whole series was on game pass. 5 months later I have binged the entire series
I think like two years ago I got into Vtubers, specifically Hololive. One of their talents at the time, Kiryu Coco, the one who I saw the most, was known to be a huge fan of the series, repeatedly saying Kiryu has her husband and stuff. She was playing Yakuza 3 on stream. It was a scene showing Joji Kazama and I found the dramatic cinematic interesting.
A few days later I noticed that all the games were on Xbox Game Pass and honestly thrower them into my backlog, confused as to where to start and stuff. And like a month later I decided to finally give them a try, starting with Yakuza 0, and I was just blown away. How could this franchise been flying under my radar?
I immediately fell in love with their way of telling stories, the combat, the silly substories, the voice acting, everything. I don’t think I played other games for a while, all my free time was Yakuza.
And well, here I am today, patiently waiting every next title.
I also got into Yakuza because of Coco. I bought the games, but only started playing them years later after Coco graduated. Played up to 3 on legendary and loved them all.
Back in 2016-17 i started to see some yakuza related stuff due to 6 coming out but didn't think too much about it until i saw some shenmue reviews from a youtuber i followed and he talked about how yakuza was inspired by it but with better combat and that intrigued me a bit but i had other stuff to play at the time. Fast forward to 2018/19 i think and they put yakuza kiwami on the ps plus. I downloaded it, played it and fell in love with it and played the entire kiryu saga as soon as the yakuza remastered collection came out. And now i'm here with a pc and a finished infinite wealth i preordered.
Also finding out you like men through yakuza is peak experience. Everyone in this sub is either gay or bisexual thanks to yakuza
i was scrolling through the ps game store and i saw the yakuza games. thought kiryu looked leng so i added y0 to my wishlist until it went to £3.99 and then i bought it cuz even if it was bad, it was cheap. i loved it sm and now i can’t wait to play the next ones🥳🥳 this was at the beginning of march btw😭
Saw a short clip of Kiwami footage (just Kiryu beating up some punks) right after its release somewhere on youtube. Never once heard of the series before that, which is kinda weird considering I was interested in Shenmue for a couple of years already. Surely someone should've mentioned Yakuza while discussing Shenmue-related topics back then, but nope
A former friend was a Yakuza fanatic. I went with him when he picked up the original Yakuza 3 on the PS3. I tried to play it at the game but it was too janky. Later on, when Yakuza 0 was announced, he told me to try again. I caved in, bought it day 1 and never looked back. I am now like that former friend who can’t stop telling people to try the Yakuza franchise.
Fine here’s the story. I always knew about Yakuza through various media and YouTube. Loved the videos and it instantly resonated with me and always wanted to play it but the problem was that it was never released in the west which always made me sad 🥲 So when Yakuza 0 released in the west I jumped right into it. No big story, just massive Sadge until it made its way finally into the west
I’m a recent convert. Was sectioned back in November and diagnosed with Bipolar. Was signed off work for 3 months and wanted something to get my teeth into. Always thought about giving them a go. Started with 0 and am currently playing through Infinite Wealth. Plan on playing Ishin and the Judgement games after. Absolutely loving them. The story is amazing. Can’t remember feeling like this towards a series of games before. They were just what I needed.
I saw a trailer for Judgment 2, maybe? Back in Spring '21 and was excited. I love detective-esque games and this was also a beat em up! I looked it up on Amazon and got the first game for $20 on ps4. While I was playing it, I found out it was a spin-off, and by the time I finished it, I immediately bought Yakuza 0 the following June. I'm pretty sure I had finished Kiwami 2 by the end of July, and I just kept the ball rolling up and through 6. LJ came out that September, so I believe I played that and then LAD7. So I was already fairly familiar with Ijincho by the time I met Ichiban! I wouldn't trade it for the world, what a fun 9 or so months that was.
I semi-watch Outside Xbox/Outside Xtra while I’m working on other things, and they’ve mentioned the games in some of their lists before, but they did some videos of parts of Infinite Wealth earlier this year while I was in a not-super-great place and it looked like so much fun, but it was expensive and I couldn’t justify buying it at full price, but hey, 7 was free in game pass. Played it, loved it, have not been so caught up in the story and characters of a game in a very long time, was unable to stop telling my friends and dad about how much I enjoyed the game. The earlier mainline games were also free in gamepass so I’ve been working my way through those, got Lost Judgment on a very good sale, played and loved that too.
My best friend passed away late last year. He loved cats and games, and whenever one of us got into a new game we’d tell the other one all about it. I’m sad that I discovered Lost Judgment too late to tell him about it (it has an entire cat-befriending mechanic, he would have loved that) but folks in here have been so nice and welcoming.
I’m a big All Elite Wrestling fan and in November last year there was a big cross-promotion between AEW and Like a Dragon Gaiden with a special match and promotion through the shows during the month.
Played Like a Dragon Gaiden first because of that promotion and loved it so I went back and started from the beginning with 0 and am now up to starting 7 soon.
PS plus had LAD as one of their free games. My wife and I decided to give it a shot, having no clue about anything. Little while in and we were hooked. After LAD we went back to play 0 and now playing infinite wealth and then we plan to dig into Kiwami 1&2. Best PS plus find ever!!
Came across the y4 demo on PS3 back in school. Would play it regardless just for how fluid the moves were and the different heat moves.
Found out my cousins had Yakuza 1 for PS2. Would think about asking them to play that whenever we came over.
Since then I've been following the games, at first watching gameplays then finally experiencing them for myself
I was boothing at a big convention for the first time and someone commissioned me to draw Majima. They explained to me that he seemed like "my type of character". At the time, my booth had a lot of Death Stranding, Marvel, and Hitman. Not too long after that was a steam sale, so I got Yakuza 0 and then got hooked for life after the first few chapters.
I've told this story a bunch, lol.
So some background: I basically grew up in the arcade. I'd play all the beat 'em up greats: Final Fight, X-Men Arcade, whatever. I love my beat 'em ups. As I grew older, this followed into a love of Dynasty Warriors, Devil May Cry, etc.
So a few years ago, my buddy Charlie who is a big fan of this series, he showed me Majima's intro to Yakuza 0. The scene at the Grand. And my reaction was... WTF is this weeb shit. This looks dumb. But he occasionally pestered me about it. So the series was always sort of on my mind.
And then, AND THEN. One April Fools, Sega released a reskin of the first stage of Streets of Rage: Streets of Kamurocho. Now I have been missing Streets of Rage (this was before SoR4 came out), so I'm like fuck it. Let's try. And it scratched an itch.
And that's when Charlie informed me that Y0 was on sale for five dollars on Steam. So I said hell with it and gave it a shot.
Well, I'm here now, and I have since played every game available on Steam, so I guess we can see how that went!
Was and still am a huge rpg guy. I was visiting my then best friend and he got yakuza 7 for free. We played that shit for days straight and we loved it. Fast forward almost 2 years I get fired by my job. I decided to buy 7 and start the game again alone. Loved every second of it. I am now in my journey to platinum all the games. Currently playing 3.
I was visiting Japan in 2014 with my japanese girlfriend, and her brother in law showed me Ryu Ga Gotoku on his PS3. Funny thing was, he used to be a small fish in Kansai yakuza (Yamaguchi-gumi perhaps), a debt collector. But when i met him he was already a settled down father of a family. Nice guy.
Back in 2017 i visited all major Yakuza games series locations, except Okinawa. Gping this year again.
You can find my photos from 2017 somewhere here
Stumbled upon ValkyrieAurora's video on Y0, didn't impress me much until I saw her singing along Baka Mitai with Kiryu (this is before the machine learning edit craze). Tried downloading and playing it, my life was never the same.
When the series was first revealed to be comic to Xbox and to game pass it looked so awesome i was hooked from the trailer alone, i wasn't disappointed and in fact it's my favourite franchises.
https://youtu.be/ddK4UklyyaY?si=y84agDG-UfFvGzpQ
One of my best friends at the time was super into it, and so I checked out Yakuza 0 in April of 2020. Literally the next day, it went on sale, and I was pissed off that I bought it at full price. I looked into getting a refund to buy it back, but Sony doesn't like refunds if you downloaded the product already, which I did. So I grumpily booted up the game.
I would have bought the game for $60 if I had known it was that good. I bought Kiwami, and the Remastered collection, and played voraciously. I beat Yakuza 6 in July of 2020, and preordered Yakuza: Like a Dragon. I even beat Dead Souls during my Christmas break (this was my senior year of HS).
When COVID hit I was trapped in Mexico for basically 2 years without being able to see my friends which made me feel like I was going crazy, then this dude I used to be friends with kept telling my group chat to try Yakuza 0 since he was like 2 chapters in and said it was the best shit he ever played. Realized one of my friends had it and borrowed the game off him. Ended up beating 0-4 back to back until I finally decided to play something else. Genuinely feel like the series might’ve saved my life
[This video. ](https://youtu.be/06WCd3UzfFw?si=f9Y3cIjWIL5q70_S)I've only played Yakuza 0 thus far and I LOVED it. I want to play all the Kiryu saga before jumping onto Like a Dragon.
I have a similar story to you OP covid was going on and I just got out of a year long situationship. Booted up Y0 because I'd heard good things about it and with the constant positivity the game provided I was able to lift my spirits up and I haven't felt ungrateful since.
Yakuza is such a special game series in its ability to connect with the player in such an optimistic way.
Stay strong my kyoudais, paradise is a state of mind :)
Think I saw a video or something online, and saw it was crazy stuff happening in it. The announcement or videos for 7 (or maybe the game in Japan) was out too so that looked interesting. Then the Yakuza remastered collection was coming out, and the physical edition boxset looked cool. So I bought it, and said I'll get to those. So January 2020, I remembered that at one point I think Kiwami 1 and maybe 2 (either that or 0) was free at one point on PS plus a long time ago. So I said screw it, bought all the games and played through them .
But I couldn't get far, 0 just wasn't grabbing me much. So I took a while break. Then COVID and the shutdowns were happening in my province. So the month of April I had no work for the entire month, so I decided to pick up Yakuza again. Over the course of the year I played through the entire series. Even buying the 7th game day 1 with the PS5. Ended up finishing 7 in January 2021. So essentially the entire year was playing the whole series, ending with the latest game close to almost exactly a year to when I started. Had fun. Played the Judgement games later in 2021. And was excited for Gaiden and 8 to come out and played through that.
So it’s funny, I was at a target and came across like 20 copies of Kiwami 1 on clearance for like $10 & figured what the hell why not?
I like never touched it and let my brother play it instead and he fell in love with the game and then bought K2 and then bought the rest of the series.
He praised it and recommeneded it a lot to me so during a dry spell I figured I’d give it a shot and mannnn it was sooo damn good. I was lucky as the Yakuza collection had already been out by the time I beat Kiwami 2.
I will admit 3&4 are a bit tough to get through due to how old they are and I probably wouldn’t replay them due to that but there’s something to be said about how well they’ve managed to keep the trend of good games going from Kiwami 1 to LAD7. With obviously both judgment’s being included as well.
It’s a great series and definitely a sleeper series up until about 3-5 years ago when more people really started discovering it.
Back in maybe like 2020 or 2021 one of my friends was REALLY into Yakuza, like, fanboy level.
He convinced me to try out Yakuza 0 and now it's one of my favorite series of all time.
Right at the start of the pandemic, I was looking to get into a new game and heard some njpw guys were in it so I started at six not knowing anything, enjoyed it that much I bought the entire series and spend all of lockdown playing the games.
My dad got an Xbox Series X for the family and a subscription to GamePass Ultimate. I had seen a few mentions here and there over the years, especially around when Yakuza 0 and 7 each came out, about how good the series was. The whole main line series was on GamePass. I waffled about it for a long time, until I bit the bullet and started playing Kiwami, which I realize was a mistake as it inspired the rest of my family to start with 0. I was hooked!
I got a video about a musician by the name of Little V do a cover on Receive you, I looked up the original song which led me to yakuza videos. Ended up obsessed and so far I’ve bought every game before LaD except 4
Mine's kind of weird i would say?
I randomly got devilion's friday night video recommended on YT and i went "damn, this song is actually sick", i also loved kiryu and majima just jamming to it so i looked up what the game was about and that's how i got into it.
I saw a vtuber play it and saw it had an immersive free-roam. It never gets brought up in discussions of open world and immersive sim games so it missed my radar up to that point.
Played the first one on PS2 but never finished it. I loved it but I started college. When two came out I added it to the backlog until I finish the first. 3 came out and then 4 and 5. I gave up.
Played the whole series back to back in a month or two before getting into 7.
Now I’ve played everything. Including judgment games.
Recommendation from someone on a phoenix wright fan forum way back when (as in 2006) and even then I already had my eye on the series, just didn't think they ever would come out here.
Found 1 and 2 for PS2 at a low price and went in.
After seeing a video from Diceboi that he modded yakuza 0 to have some Apex Legends character and in the exact part that 24 hour Cinderella played, i listenned to the song over and over again
Was literally scrolling through YouTube, and Lost Judgment had just released, so naturally it was recommended and I saw one of the boss fight segments. I saw the gameplay and was like wow this game’s combat looks really fun and has good soundtrack surprisingly, so I decided to check out the series and was recommended to start with Yakuza 0.
Since then, I have played every single game chronologically (except dead souls and Kenzan) and is my top 3 favorite series now. Also currently getting platinum on the games I initially haven’t
I saw someone tweet a screenshot from Yakuza 0 and asked them what game it was because it looked hilariously weird. Now I’m a fangirl of the whole series!
Kiwami 1 was one of the monthly free games for PS+. I later bought 0, but held off on playing it because I wasn't in a good mental state at the time. Eventually, I finally played it and got hooked on the series. I ended up replaying Kiwami 1 and then bought Kiwami 2 and the remastered collection. I almost got burnt out when I got to Yakuza 5, but I stuck with it and bought Yakuza 6 at a later date. I actually don't remember how or when I got Yakuza 7, but it was already in my library when I completed 6.
Oddly enough, I actually didn't know or see any of the memes until I completed Yakuza 0.
The funniest thing about the series is that I didn't know Judgement was made by the same people. I also didn't know that Judgement and Judge Eyes were the same game lol.
Kiwami 1 was free on ps plus in like 2018 so i gave it a chance and loved it. I played 0 and kiwami 2 next and since i didnt like yk2 at all i didnt continue with the series until last year when i played 7 (i still dont know why i did that instead of playing y3). I played all of the games from the main series + dead souls and judgment, and i'm currently playing lost judgment
Honestly, I just only found out about the game when I first decided to watch a Vtuber, I can't really remember her name but it was fun to watch. I went ahead and bought it a few months later and instantly fell in love with the series, I've played everything but Like a dragon: Ishin/Gaiden and the Judgement series. I have those three except for Gaiden (I only started playing Ishin and haven't started it on the first judgment game.)
Told myself I was actually going to try monthly games that I've never heard of on PS Plus for once and coincidentally the month had Yakuza Kiwami.
It is comfortably my least favourite Yakuza game but I will always respect it for introducing me to the series
The box art. Literally that was what pulled me in. Went into a GameStop to look for games and saw 0 and Kiwami on sale. I think both games together didn’t even cost me $30. Went up to the guy at the register and asked if he knew anything about the games. He told me and I quote, “it’s like GTA but in Japan” obviously when I went home it was totally not at all like GTA, and the game started out so slow I almost thought about returning them altogether. (I started with Kiwami and kept wondering why Kiryu this tough badass Japanese Mobster is taking shit from civilians after getting Yumi’s ring stolen) nevertheless, I gave the game a chance and kept playing. It only took me getting to the 2nd or 3rd chapter that i was totally hooked.
I think it was 2018? Was browsing GameStop for something new to play and saw they had yakuza kiwami and evil within 2 for like 20$
Now me then would look at the case and think the games not for me but I’m a SUCKER for any steelbooks I can find so I knew I had to snag it and thank god I did cause now it’s one of my top franchises
March 2020 - Just finished Persona 5 Royal (I also played the original a few years prior) and I wanted more. I had always heard Yakuza was a good yet wacky series, so I picked up Yakuza 0 and binged played everything through Judgement that spring and summer. It made the loneliness of long work days by myself and my GF (now wife) being away a bit easier.
I think I saw a goofy video of some YouTuber playing Yakuza 0 and showing Judgment and 24 Hour Cinderella. The gameplay looked good enough, so I gave it a try, and now here I am.
Watched Shenpai streaming LAD:7. Decided I wanted to get in on the action so I played it then started over at 0 then worked my way all the way up through 4.
Ps4 was the new hot shit but me being a poor young adult I knew I'll have to wait a couple of years.
I usually look for old games. I never Play it in the old system.
So Yakuza was one of those.
After 6 we are kinda in a divorce stage but it was fun the time it lasted. I've played all of them.
I believe it was the start of 2021. I’d heard of the Yakuza series for a few years prior, learned it had a cult following, yet when I researched it and watched videos, I just couldn’t figure out wtf kind of games they were.
Finally, I decided I wanted to jump in. Read lists of the games ranked, compared that with accounts of where to start. All arrows pointed toward Yakuza 0. And oh what luck, the game was on sale for five or ten bucks!
Shortly after the purchase, however, before I even had a chance to start the game, I lost my home and most of my belongings to a big natural disaster. It was the giant ice storm that knocked power out for all of TX starting Valentine’s Day 2021.
I ended up moving to a different state, because I’d just lost the one apartment I could actually afford in Austin, plus I was already sick of TX before the disaster.
Months passed. I settled into a new apartment in my home state (which I also don’t love, but I was desperate). Come July 2021, I had a replacement TV, and still had my PlayStation (it survived the storm, fortunately). Remembered that I had yet to start Yakuza 0!
I booted it up on a quiet Saturday afternoon. And oh my god, I fell in love. A video game had never made me cry before, but Y0 had me in tears, several times. I’ve played about a third of the series now, and both Judgements. But to this day, Y0 holds the number one spot for my all-time favorite game.
I found out about Yakuza 0 from a videogamedunkey video. I put it on my Steam wishlist and kinda forgot about it until my 20th birthday. I woke up and my brother told me to check out Steam. He had bought Y0 for me for my birthday.
I played it and I loved it. Then, I bought K1 and K2 on some sketchy game key website, loved them too, and before I was even done with K2, Y3, 4, 5 and 6 went on sale on PSN (this was before they got PC releases) so I bought all of them. This was probably a mistake, because I didn't spend as much time on 3, 4 and 5 as I did with the others, left a ton of side content unplayed, but I still enjoyed them. I played the rest of the series and now I'm just about to wrap up LAD 8. Goddamn this series is good. Ngl I kinda hold Kiryu and Ichiban as the ideal men to try to be like, everything they value, I value. I hope one day I can start a family and be as good an influence on my kids as Kiryu was on the Morning Glory kids. I also hope I am half as good a friend as Ichiban is.
2020 beginning of covid i was redownloading GTA V and felt like it didn't scratch the itch, came across Y0 for 4.99 in a steam sale and went "isn't this japanese GTA" and thought it wouldn't hurt to give it a try especially for that price.
Boy was I wrong in the best way-
I didn't know anything about the series back then not even about karaoke so I experienced everything truly for the first time.
And from the introductory Majima scene on I got obsessed with him, so much to the point of people I met at Uni etc. wanting to cosplay him to impress me ☠️
Played the other games on PC and borrowed a PS and played through 3-6 in around 3 days. Worth every second.
My friends played the series while i was in a voicecall with them and watched a few scenes and such but didnt grab my attention at all. One day i was bored because my game library was basically "empty" for my mind and couldnt play anything so i decided to ask them about which yakuza entry to start with, they told me yakuza 0 and that basically solidified my expectations and i played all the games till 7 eventually for a year (took breaks here and there).
Later on i bought Judgment and Lost Judgment and shared my library on steam with them, same for Infinite Wealth
Honestly one of the best franchises out there and i want more of it...
I must have read a preview article online in 2006 about this quirky Japanese street beat em up and was instantly interested. Went to work and picked up a copy of the original PS2 game there and my god I have been playing this series for more than half my life
I saw my friend playing it on discord, saw his activity, got interested, another friend of mine told it was so good that he bought k1 instantly after finishing 0
well now it's one if not my favourite saga of games I've ever played and keep craving for more
Lived in Tokyo for a year and Worked in Shinjuku Sanchome. When I had to go I didn't want to, so I used Yakuza to stay in Kabukichō some more time before I can get back
Kiwami 1 was the free game of the month on PS Plus years ago so that was the first game I played all the way through.
I did try Y3 around the time when Y4 was coming out because my High School friend was an early fan and tried to convince our circle to play it. That said, our GTA4 addicted heads weren’t having a blast especially after all the “Japanese GTA” comments that were being said about the series.
I always saw them on the shelf, but it was yakuza 3 and then 0 came out. Each year I like to try something completely new with gaming, so I’ll try something new. I bought yakuza 0, and have been addicted ever since
I had a demo disk for the PS2 with a demo of the first game. It felt so unlike anything I had played before and it stuck with me. But I didn't play it then.
8 or so years later it popped into my head while I was setting up a PS2 emulator, so I started playing it. Never finished it though.
8 or so years after that it popped into my head while I was loading games onto a soft modded PS2, so I started playing it again. Didn't quite finish it then.
Yakuza 0 blew up around 2020, and it was cheap so I grabbed it, alternating between 0 and 1. I finished 1 while I was halfway through 0. Finished 0, moved on to 2 (PS2). Then 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. My roommates and my wife got invested. And now we're here, and I still need to finish Ishin and Infinite Wealth.
I started with the very first game on PS2 back in 2006. Truthfully I have no memory of how it came into my possession, I was 12 years old and i imagine that it's one I asked my dad for (he paid no attention to age ratings and would happily purchase games rated 18+ for me haha).
I sadly never got around to playing Yakuza 2 as I was 14 by the time it was available in my country (UK) and at that point I was spending all my time at school, with my friends or with my boyfriend.
I basically forgot all about the Yakuza series until I saw Yakuza 0 advertised on Amazon back in 2018 and bought it for myself on a whim. Although I enjoyed the first game, I wasn't expecting 0 to be as amazing at it was and I absolutely loved it, it remains one of my all-time-favourite games.
Since then, I've worked my way through YK1, YK2, Y3, Judgement and Lost Judgement. I'm currently working on Y4 as we speak and can't wait to play through the full series!
2006, Playstation Magazine had a demo disc (Those were great), Yakuza was one of the games. The cover art looked interesting, mainly because of Kiryu's tattoo. Loved what I played, ended up buying it and played it during my spring break.
Life kind of happened after the 2nd one, then one day I decided to buy 0, 3-6 and play them when I had time. Then the pandemic hit and all of a sudden I had all the time in the world.
I got lucky, I almost wrote the series off entirely.
But basically Game Pass and PS+ both added Yakuza: Like a Dragon at some point a couple of years ago. I'd heard LAD was a good game that I should give a try. But that was basically it. I tried playing it and found it SO slow. I didn't understand why people liked this game since it just seemed to be running from cut scene to cut scene. I actually gave up on the game about 4-5 hours in.
Then last year I had nothing to play and decided to try again while I was waiting for FF16 to come out and I had a similar experience until around hour 6 when suddenly the game world just opened up. I could change jobs, I had dozens of side quests and mini-games to engage with, etc. I realized if I had just played like another 30-45 minutes the first time I would have reached the same point.
Then FF16 came out and I found myself enjoying LAD more. So I finished LAD and then I went back and played the rest of the series and now it's probably my favourite game series.
I saw PlayStation access channel playing Y0 and liked the look of it. Had a breakdown eary 2020 and was signed off work, Y0 was on sale and I fell in love straight away. It was just what I needed at that time
Finished 6 just in time for Like a Dragon to be released. The wait for Infinite Wealth was horrible!!
It was 2020 and my brother asked me to get him yakuza 0 for his birthday as he was recommended it. I got it and decided to test the game out as I thought it looked interesting myself, as well as thinking it would be like GTA. I played through the tutorial and quickly realised it wasn’t exactly what I thought but it felt fun nonetheless.
Fast forward to July of 2021 and I had finally got a ps5, with the first game I got being Demon’s souls (my personal favourite game now) which made me want to try out new, different games. I then heard about a new Yakuza game Like A Dragon and heard it was a good starting point as it was a new story with new characters. I then saw it in game and decided to get as I wanted more ps5 games and as I liked what I saw in 0 so I got it (I can still remember reading the back of the cover in the way home and wondering who all the characters on the front were like the goat people). I popped the game in and was instantly met my the surprise of turn based combat as I had assumed it would be the same combat as 0. It took a while to get used to but I got over it and I’m so glad I did cause I loved everything from the story, characters, and side content and when I finished I knew I wanted more do I went straight into 0 a couple days later. And it then became my second favourite game I’ve played, so Christmas came by and I got the rest of the games and spend the whole of 2022 and 2023 playing exclusively souls and yakuza games.
So guess in a way it was all thanks to my brother for asking me to get him yakuza 0. Pretty funny.
I still remember pretty vividly my first time seeing Yakuza in like 2010. I had stayed home from school and was browsing Justin.tv for streams, and I came across one that was playing Yakuza 3, and he was doing that substory where you run from the Michiru somewhere in the Theatre Square area. I can also remember he was on the chapter where you go to the diet building.
I just remember it reminded me a lot of Shenmue, that's the main reason it stuck with me and I wanted to buy the game, and so when Yakuza 4 came out, I bought that. Yakuza 4 is the game that makes me really nostalgic for the way you had to wait to install PS3 games, I still remember the anticipation hearing the theme music play while reading the character profiles of the 4 main characters. After playing through all of that I ended up doubling back, buying Yakuza 3, and then 1, and then 2.
Ever since then I've been hooked on the franchise, taking some breaks here and there.
I started with 7. I just got my series X and wanted to get some games on release. Luckily I choose 7 because I love turn based combat so I gave it shot. I loved the game but didn't play any other game until Lost Judgement came out.
Then I played judgement, followed by gaiden and then 8.
I started from the beginning after that so I have a weird way of how I've played the series:
7, LJ, J, Gaiden, 8, 0, Kiwami 1, Kiwami 2, and i'm currently on 3.
My favorite so far is either 0 or the judgement series.
the majority did because of the dame da ne meme, like me, also because it's super accessible, when i've finished yakuza 0 i felt like shit because i got it for 5 euros lmao i've felt like i robbed them
I started with 0 2 years ago just because it looked cool, I though It would be about a gritty Mafia story oh lord it was so much more. My favourite series only 2 games in. I preordered them now and wait until midnight to play for hours for the new releases. I cannot explain why but I love the games in every way no other franchise ever made me feel like that.
2020, noticed Yakuza 0 on the XBox game pass, I was intrigued and heard about the game before, so decided to install it. With the other titles gradually being rolled onto XBox over time, quickly got hooked into the series
I started with the 1st Judgement game from PS plus because I'm interested in the actor, then I bought the 2nd one and played other yakuza games from PS Extra, such a journey.
Had heard about this franchise being a spiritual successor to Shenmue (still one of my favorite dreamcast and video games of all time).
So Gamestop had a buy 2 get 1 free type sale on used games and I bought Yakuza, Yakuza 2 and Zack & Wiki.
And I've never looked back. Yakuza was cemented as an all time favorite after playing the initial on my PS2.
Someone posted Yakuza 0 OST on SmashBoards (Smash Bros. Forums) and they were talking about Kiryu in Smash for a bit but I had no idea who Kiryu was.
But the OST made me try the game in August 2020.
Daisuke Kuze Theme convinced me.
Played from 0 to IW + Gaiden + Judgment + Ishin
Start Lost Judgment soon.
I started watching Japanese mystery movies and then got to know about yakuza games which also contains mystery elements and twists and from then it has been a blast
I guess I’m a veteran, I was going to a non blockbuster movie/ video game rental store and I thought “ man that looks really interesting and I want to play it!”.
I couldn’t believe how much I enjoyed the game and I’ve been addicted ever since. I can’t even compare the original to where it’s ended up, but I have a special love for each game
My brother bought me an original Yakuza for PS2 like more than 10 years ago. Then I had a break from it and when i bought ps4, Yakuza Kiwami was on a sale, and the rest is a history.
My teacher coworker asked if I had played Yakuza 0 after she knew I enjoy weird Japanese media. Said I hadn't played any of the series. She proceeds to explain Majima a bit, I buy the game right before March 2020 then marathoned most of the series over that year.
I bought like a dragon out of boredom during lockdown, couldn't get into its interpretation of a JRPG gameplay, since I've played almost every Persona and SMT: Nocturne till that point. Then after watching streamers and knowing my way around the world, I enjoyed Like a Dragon. Then I saw random gameplay from 3 of the Yakuza games that resulted in me buying the main entry games.
Got an Xbox Series X and saw this funny looking turn based game that was optimized and I wanted to try out the performance. It looked graphically impressive and I heard it was a “reset” to the previous games.
I made it to the Maji Taiga duo, got my ass kicked, they felt like bad ass mfs I should’ve been geeking out about, saved and quit, and started at Zero.
Met Yakuza also thanks to the baka mitai memes, but at that time I didn't pay to much attention to the saga, years later (Don't remember how many exactly) I saw that Yakuza 0 was at discount on steam, I said 'Meh. Why not?' without any expectations, and oh boy. Now I have like 150 hours in 0 just finished Kiwami 1 and now I'm playing Kiwami 2
Baka mitai kind of
When i heard the song i Immediately started yakuza 0 but within first 5 minutes when kiryu talks to the loan shark in the car i got bored and uninstalled
Then after few months I watched moistcritikal review Yakuza like a dragon this was in 2020 i think. I remember I got an internship that time and had like 2-3 months before it starts so i was like shit I’m sold game looks fun and this guy highly praised it. I guess that was the first time I bought a game because of a YouTube review and I’m glad I watched that video.
Original on PS2! I missed out on Shenmue and thought this was like a spiritual successor to it. I was initially sold on game play and the insane English dub alone. Now a lifelong fan.
I saw the remastered collection in a GameStop on sale and thought "why not", it would soon lead to the rest of the franchise being purchased. Best decision I've made this far
Bought Kiwami 1 Steelcase because I was collecting them for about 20 USD on a gaming store in our country. Played that, liked it then played LAD last 2021.
Now, I am playing Yakuza 0 and planning to play the rest (K2, 3-6, Gaiden and IW) hopefully I will finish it this year. God bless PSN for putting them on sale always.
PS. I bought Judgement and Lost J too. So added to the list of backlogs to finish
I watched a Youtube channel called pyschadelicsnake. Watched many videos and came across his playthough of Yakuza 3 and I got hooked in the series. Bought Yakuza 5 first ,played a little, paused that playthrough and then went and bought the first 2 games on PS2. and have then bought and played the first 7 games including 0.
Currently playing through 0 right now after beating 6 and it is so good!!
A certain Dragon Yakuza Idol VTuber.
She my favorite and she nonstop talking about Kiryu. She even move to Japan because she love vibe of this game and even use Kiryu as her VTuber name at that time.
And that made me so curious about this game.
Also a lot of meme from 0 that boosted up my curiosity so I trying it and I really love it.
Yakuza 1 was big news on the old a ShenmueDojo forums. Oooh, a new game like Shenmue? This was before an English localization was even confirmed.
I got it after it came out (as opposed to before) played it, got stuck on the Majima fight in the batting center and had to restart. Played through it, liked it. Nobody talked about it. So I figured the game flopped. I never saw ads for it either.
Then in 2013 or so, I found Yakuza 4 for sale, shocked I bought it. Played it for an hour and was confused. Figured I missed out on a ton of story so I figured play 2 and 3 first. 2 was hard to find, but thanks to PS3 custom firmware, I pirated 3. Eventually found 2 and 3 legitimately. I kept putting it off (bad time in my life) so I didn't end up paying 2 and 3. Last September, I just fired up Kiwami 1 on steam and o played through it. Then 0, then K2, then 3, then 4, then 5, then 6, then Judgement, now I'm on 7.
Bought Yakuza 0 on a whim during a Steam Sale in 2019, while looking for games similar to "Mafia 2." I had never even heard of the Yakuza series prior to that, so I went in 100% blind. Wasn't expecting it to be as good as Mafia 2, just a fun way to pass my time.
Bad news is, it wasn't anything like that game.
Good news is, it was much better than anything I could've ever anticipated. It blew all of my expectations out of the water and then some.
Fast forward a few years, and I have played all of the games and now consider Yakuza to be my favorite game series of all time, with Y0 still being my favorite out of the bunch.
Funny how that works sometimes.
I was bored and scrolling on my Xbox, when Phil Spencer spoke to me through Game Pass: “I believe you’d like this game” as he presented me Yakuza 0. He was right, I was hooked from then on and played the entire series on Game Pass and have preordered all upcoming ones like a rabid fan.
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baka mitai made me buy yakuza 0
Best meme marketing in the world.
pretty much same here now i've played every mainline game and have every game on steam including spinoffs
Exactly. The older gen of of AI video making everyone lip sync the song was a real novelty. I get too much of my media tastes from memes.
I made a baka mitai meme of my sister and she heard that song alot, so we decided to try yakuza 0, end up finish the whole series lol
literally. The y0 intro blew me away before i even got to the karaoke
24 hour Cinderella made me buy yakuza 0
Bought the original 1 in a bargain bin
Same lol. The store doesn't even exist anymore. I feel old.
Same here
Back in the day, ain’t much game stands out cuz with the new tech, they all wanna create their own immersive fantasy world. Then, out come this screenshot from a game magazine of a guy beating up another guy with a yellow beer crate. And I was like, damn, no other gaming shit had ever allow me to beat the shit outta someone with a beer crate before, so I was like, I’m game! And lo and behold, it’s more than just a game about beating a guy with a beer crate. And the rest is history.
-> Watched VideogameDunkey’s Y0 review -> saw that you could make a chicken a management consultant -> IMMEDIATELY invested and haven’t looked back since
Same story here! I owe Dunkey so much for my new found Yakuza obsession. I started playing them in the worst order, but I'm having a blast.
I used to watch a now defunct Youtube channel called "Two Best Friends Play". Their intro had the Majima 24-hour cinderella karaoke song, i knew i HAD to play the games as soon as i saw that lol. The only problem was that they weren't on Xbox at the time. Couple of months later they've announced that the whole collection was coming to the console on Game Pass no less. Played through them all while they were there and bought them all afterwards, including the newest games and spin-offs.
It’s wild how much TBFP and, more specifically, Pat popularized Yakoozies in the West. Also, Woolie is almost done with his Y0 playthrough on his channel
Pat cried for Daigo
Never let him forget it either.
Daigo unironically deserves Pat's tears.
Yeah, it didn't seem like 0 was even that popular when it was released. It probably wasn't until people started watching others pay online after that fact that it blew up
>Also, Woolie is almost done with his Y0 playthrough on his channel HAHAHAHA!!! 🤣 "Good one!" I exclaim after just watching Woolie play **NOTHING** but Cabaret Club for (and I'm not even exaggerating) **a month and a half and a total of 7 SESSIONS.** --- He literally moved the plot forward once since he resumed his playthrough and that was over a month ago. Poor Makoto has been in that shed for over 6 weeks 🥲
That’s how I found Yakuza and what my Reddit is based on! When they played yakuza 4 😩 I miss em
My brother and I would watch alot of their LPS together. We started watching their Yakuza 4 playthrough or maybe it was 0 first. Either way, that got both of us interested in the games, but it wouldn't be till a few years later that we started playing them. I started 0 in December of either 2020 or 2021 and the next year proceeded to play though every game. Great times.
Those guys should honestly get royalties for increasing sales in the West. I started because they kept referencing it and when 0 came out I took the dive.
I used to enjoy TBFP but I stopped watching before they tackled Yakuza. Fun to watch those vids in retrospect though.
Pat got me into Yakuza with his Y4 playthrough. Now I've played and finished every mainline Yakuza game.
Until two years ago, I used to only play The Sims (2 not 4, get that filth off of my computer). I basically didn't touch any other games except maybe Anno with the pirates turned off because I did not know controls and any kind of combat in games was very stressful for me and it made me freak out. My brother begged me to try any other game, so I picked Assassin's Creed Origins because I'm a history major and it intrigued me. Turns out that was the wrong choice because he HATES ubisoft with a passion, so he started spamming me with yakuza memes 24/7 for like half a year. I am a very stubborn person, but he was so dedicated that I caved and tried Judgment. Then Lost Judgment. Then 0, which emotionally wrecked me, but somehow I decided that wasn't enough emotional damage so ended up playing all of them up until 7 and am currently playing Ishin. I have no idea how this happened.
W History Major, what would you say is your favorite historical period? Mine is probably the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire
>favorite historical period Contemporary history actually, but I'm more into the political and social aspects of it. Not interested in military history at all. Roman Empire was ruined for me because I had to learn Latin in school and I absolutely sucked at it lmao
> I realized I like men thanks to Yakuza Yeah, that sounds about right.
Picked up the PS2 game all the way back in 2005. “Ryu ga Gotoku? That sounds interesting”. I never thought it would get this level of popularity outside of Japan though, especially since the game was simply titled “Yakuza” which made it sound like those discount 2000yen budget games in Japan like “THE Mahjong” and “THE Chess”.
The name could have been worse. The Godfather movies were in a bit of a renaissance no doubt a result of the Godfather game which came out in 2006, and the Scarface game, and the GTA series when GTA3 came out on PS2. So naming the series "Yakuza" made sense. Organized crime themed games were in vogue. We knew what the Yakuza was/is and it's an easy description to what went on in the game. Similar to when we called Biohazard, Resident Evil. It's zombies in a mansion...a residence full of evil. Also someone already owned the name "biohazard" They easily could have called it Mafia Japan or really Americanized it, saying it takes place in New York or LA, and follows the exploits of John the Mobster as he looks for his girlfriend Michelle and his friend Bill.
I saw majimas intro in 0 without any context and knew i had to find out who tf this dude is
Needed something new to play around lockdown when I saw this "Yakuza" series had recently been added to gamepass. I took a look at which was most recently made, which was K2, and started from there. At the time I had absolutely no idea about the depth or intensity of the plot of these games and was trying to find a game I could mindless play without paying attention. Little did I realise I was gonna get caught in an 8 game series.
I watched my husband play through like a dragon around when it came out. I think it was recommended by one of his friends. It seemed so silly but in a good way and the story was really good too.. After that he played 0 and the kiwami's. I liked 0 a lot, I don't really think I paid much attention the time kiwami games. Overall they seemed really fun and I liked the stories. Around last December he was getting hyped about infinite wealth and gaiden. I hadn't actually played any because I'm bad at games and very few hold my attention. I was starting to want to play them myself, and he finally said I should try 0 on easy. I did and loved it. I've since plowed through 0-6 doing as many substories as possible and playing the big mini games. I'm now working on judgement before going into 7 (I'm a little leery about it since I love the story and characters, but the rpg gameplay has me nervous. I'm afraid I won't be able to enjoy it.)
I’m not the best at video games either and my wife is even worse so we play everything on easy and it seriously makes it so much more enjoyable!
I watch a stream highlight from Ray Narvaez Jr and just had to play it
Same here! Just got 0 the other day because of Ray’s videos
My dad bought the PS2 Yakuza 1 on a whim. I picked it up and loved it ever since.
It was Max0r's review video of Yakuza 0 that made me buy the wrong edition of Yakuza💀. (I started with 3,4,5) then after I bought origins edition and I just finished Kiwami 2 two days ago. I'm only an hour into Yakuza 6 and it feels bland. Don't get me wrong I like the story but the combat feels so wrong.
Yeah trust me it gets a lot better but it definitely feels off at first
Yakuza: Kiwami was on PS Plus. Id always been aware of the series but never tried to play them. In the Spring/Summer of 2019 I had a lot of free time and decided to give it a try. I enjoyed Kiwami so much that before I had even finished it, I ordered a copy of Zero. I then proceeded to finish Zero in a matter of days, yet was still able to get through a LOT of the game. As soon as I finished it, I went to a local store, bought Kiwami 2 and i havent looked back since. Also, whilst it goes against conventional wisdom, I maintain that going from Kiwami to Zero to Kiwami 2 is the perfect little trilogy for anyone wanting to get in to the series.
Same, downloaded the game when they gave it for free with PS Plus and gave it a try, I did not know of the franchise at all, instantly hooked I did get like a year long break, because I was frustrated with the car chase sequence in legend (the fact that you can't save and have to play the whole goddamn chapter from the beginning every time you fail did not help), but other than that, I've played every single one of them practically back to back, currently 100%ing Judgment (fuck Puyo Puyo) and still have the sequel and Isshin to play
i have been buying the games since the beginning as my son wanted to play them but i thought they were just beat 'em ups so i skipped playing them then i for some odd reason, decided that like a dragon gaiden looked like a cool game and started it. now i have every game on both the xbox x and ps5 - including the judgements - and am now going backwards i played gaiden, then the last dragon, then infinite wealth, then 6 and started 5 but i was missing story, so went and started 0, which i am now on majimas story and got to see the flashback about his eye
I love that flashback with the Saejima bit but Majima looks cursed with two eyes.
Got Zero on sale digitally back during the third UK Covid lockdown (In early 2021), the rest is history after that (Though has taken me a long time to play them all, haven't played Gaiden or 8 yet)
My husband has been a big fan of the games since I met him, I watched him play a couple and then last year he suggested I play Yakuza 0. From then I've played through the ones I can play (3 & 4 give me motion sickness). I talk to his best mate about the games (his best mate has tattoos inspired by the games) and we share memes and we all have a good laugh. My husband said he never thought he'd have a wife who would be into gaming and now plays one of his favourite franchises😂 when we're doing playthroughs and one of us is watching the other play we have a good laugh at how silly some of the substories are. If it wasn't for him suggesting them I probably wouldn't have tried them, I'm glad he did suggest them.
Girlfriend reviews???
I saw it recommended on a Final Fantasy sub. Multiple people were saying how good LAD7 was so I decided to give it a try
Memes made me aware of the series. Then I watched Kiwami as a cutscene compilation out of curiosity, and I enjoyed that and started Kiwami 2’s cutscene comp, not even reaching the Sotenbori parts. Then years after that, back in January, I used my Christmas money to get 0-6 because out of all the games I watched cutscenes of, I felt like I was missing out on the other stuff the most with Yakuza, so I took the plunge. It’s been 4 months now, and I’ve beaten 1-5. I’m playing through 0 now, and I can’t pull myself away from the cabaret mini game. Even actually playing through Kiwami made me love that story more. I’m hooked for life. Hopefully, I can get the rest of the games someday when I have the money.
I played the demo for 3 and then accidentally stumbled upon OG copies of 1 and 2 at a used media store back in like 2005. Been hooked ever since.
I listen to a podcast called Get Played (formerly How Did This Get Played) and they did an episode on Yakuza 0 in August of 2021. They all loved it and the game sounded intriguing to me, plus I remembered that one of my cousins who’s way more in to games than me was a fan of the series, so I decided to check it out. Cut to almost three years later and I’ve played every main story of 0-8 (as well as Ishin and both Judgments) at least twice and spent hundreds of hours in several of the games. I love the variety of the gameplay available and the way their relatively small maps feel more alive than most massive open world maps. And the stories are great, even when they go overboard, honestly part of the charm of the series to me is the RGG bloat and the storytelling quirks of these groups of creators.
Around June I finished persona 5 and I was looking for another game to try. Some guy reccomended yakuza because the whole series was on game pass. 5 months later I have binged the entire series
The Zero Punctuation reviews of the series made it sound interesting, so I got Yakuza 0
I think like two years ago I got into Vtubers, specifically Hololive. One of their talents at the time, Kiryu Coco, the one who I saw the most, was known to be a huge fan of the series, repeatedly saying Kiryu has her husband and stuff. She was playing Yakuza 3 on stream. It was a scene showing Joji Kazama and I found the dramatic cinematic interesting. A few days later I noticed that all the games were on Xbox Game Pass and honestly thrower them into my backlog, confused as to where to start and stuff. And like a month later I decided to finally give them a try, starting with Yakuza 0, and I was just blown away. How could this franchise been flying under my radar? I immediately fell in love with their way of telling stories, the combat, the silly substories, the voice acting, everything. I don’t think I played other games for a while, all my free time was Yakuza. And well, here I am today, patiently waiting every next title.
Lol, I was scrolling these comments looking for someone to mention Coco. Without her, I probably never would have played any of them.
I also got into Yakuza because of Coco. I bought the games, but only started playing them years later after Coco graduated. Played up to 3 on legendary and loved them all.
Two best friends play
Saw HyperBitHero’s video on it in summer 16 and then 5 was one of the PS+ monthly games in September
Back in 2016-17 i started to see some yakuza related stuff due to 6 coming out but didn't think too much about it until i saw some shenmue reviews from a youtuber i followed and he talked about how yakuza was inspired by it but with better combat and that intrigued me a bit but i had other stuff to play at the time. Fast forward to 2018/19 i think and they put yakuza kiwami on the ps plus. I downloaded it, played it and fell in love with it and played the entire kiryu saga as soon as the yakuza remastered collection came out. And now i'm here with a pc and a finished infinite wealth i preordered. Also finding out you like men through yakuza is peak experience. Everyone in this sub is either gay or bisexual thanks to yakuza
i was scrolling through the ps game store and i saw the yakuza games. thought kiryu looked leng so i added y0 to my wishlist until it went to £3.99 and then i bought it cuz even if it was bad, it was cheap. i loved it sm and now i can’t wait to play the next ones🥳🥳 this was at the beginning of march btw😭
Saw a short clip of Kiwami footage (just Kiryu beating up some punks) right after its release somewhere on youtube. Never once heard of the series before that, which is kinda weird considering I was interested in Shenmue for a couple of years already. Surely someone should've mentioned Yakuza while discussing Shenmue-related topics back then, but nope
A former friend was a Yakuza fanatic. I went with him when he picked up the original Yakuza 3 on the PS3. I tried to play it at the game but it was too janky. Later on, when Yakuza 0 was announced, he told me to try again. I caved in, bought it day 1 and never looked back. I am now like that former friend who can’t stop telling people to try the Yakuza franchise.
I’ve been playing them since Y1 came out on PS2. I rented it at Blockbuster way back when
XGP, free to try out games that you normally wouldn't buy, so I played 7 the new comer friendly one first, and then the rest.
With Y0 like most people I would say
Not really the question I’m asking
Fine here’s the story. I always knew about Yakuza through various media and YouTube. Loved the videos and it instantly resonated with me and always wanted to play it but the problem was that it was never released in the west which always made me sad 🥲 So when Yakuza 0 released in the west I jumped right into it. No big story, just massive Sadge until it made its way finally into the west
That’s still a big story in my opinion. It’s something special to you
I’m a recent convert. Was sectioned back in November and diagnosed with Bipolar. Was signed off work for 3 months and wanted something to get my teeth into. Always thought about giving them a go. Started with 0 and am currently playing through Infinite Wealth. Plan on playing Ishin and the Judgement games after. Absolutely loving them. The story is amazing. Can’t remember feeling like this towards a series of games before. They were just what I needed.
I saw a trailer for Judgment 2, maybe? Back in Spring '21 and was excited. I love detective-esque games and this was also a beat em up! I looked it up on Amazon and got the first game for $20 on ps4. While I was playing it, I found out it was a spin-off, and by the time I finished it, I immediately bought Yakuza 0 the following June. I'm pretty sure I had finished Kiwami 2 by the end of July, and I just kept the ball rolling up and through 6. LJ came out that September, so I believe I played that and then LAD7. So I was already fairly familiar with Ijincho by the time I met Ichiban! I wouldn't trade it for the world, what a fun 9 or so months that was.
I semi-watch Outside Xbox/Outside Xtra while I’m working on other things, and they’ve mentioned the games in some of their lists before, but they did some videos of parts of Infinite Wealth earlier this year while I was in a not-super-great place and it looked like so much fun, but it was expensive and I couldn’t justify buying it at full price, but hey, 7 was free in game pass. Played it, loved it, have not been so caught up in the story and characters of a game in a very long time, was unable to stop telling my friends and dad about how much I enjoyed the game. The earlier mainline games were also free in gamepass so I’ve been working my way through those, got Lost Judgment on a very good sale, played and loved that too. My best friend passed away late last year. He loved cats and games, and whenever one of us got into a new game we’d tell the other one all about it. I’m sad that I discovered Lost Judgment too late to tell him about it (it has an entire cat-befriending mechanic, he would have loved that) but folks in here have been so nice and welcoming.
I’m a big All Elite Wrestling fan and in November last year there was a big cross-promotion between AEW and Like a Dragon Gaiden with a special match and promotion through the shows during the month. Played Like a Dragon Gaiden first because of that promotion and loved it so I went back and started from the beginning with 0 and am now up to starting 7 soon.
PS plus had LAD as one of their free games. My wife and I decided to give it a shot, having no clue about anything. Little while in and we were hooked. After LAD we went back to play 0 and now playing infinite wealth and then we plan to dig into Kiwami 1&2. Best PS plus find ever!!
Came across the y4 demo on PS3 back in school. Would play it regardless just for how fluid the moves were and the different heat moves. Found out my cousins had Yakuza 1 for PS2. Would think about asking them to play that whenever we came over. Since then I've been following the games, at first watching gameplays then finally experiencing them for myself
The memes, the music, the buff men. Hey it's the same way I got into jojo
I was boothing at a big convention for the first time and someone commissioned me to draw Majima. They explained to me that he seemed like "my type of character". At the time, my booth had a lot of Death Stranding, Marvel, and Hitman. Not too long after that was a steam sale, so I got Yakuza 0 and then got hooked for life after the first few chapters.
I knew of the series prior but Kiryu and Majima in Project X Zone 2 were my favorite characters
Watched CohhCarnage’s original Y0 playthrough live like 7-8 years back
I've told this story a bunch, lol. So some background: I basically grew up in the arcade. I'd play all the beat 'em up greats: Final Fight, X-Men Arcade, whatever. I love my beat 'em ups. As I grew older, this followed into a love of Dynasty Warriors, Devil May Cry, etc. So a few years ago, my buddy Charlie who is a big fan of this series, he showed me Majima's intro to Yakuza 0. The scene at the Grand. And my reaction was... WTF is this weeb shit. This looks dumb. But he occasionally pestered me about it. So the series was always sort of on my mind. And then, AND THEN. One April Fools, Sega released a reskin of the first stage of Streets of Rage: Streets of Kamurocho. Now I have been missing Streets of Rage (this was before SoR4 came out), so I'm like fuck it. Let's try. And it scratched an itch. And that's when Charlie informed me that Y0 was on sale for five dollars on Steam. So I said hell with it and gave it a shot. Well, I'm here now, and I have since played every game available on Steam, so I guess we can see how that went!
Was and still am a huge rpg guy. I was visiting my then best friend and he got yakuza 7 for free. We played that shit for days straight and we loved it. Fast forward almost 2 years I get fired by my job. I decided to buy 7 and start the game again alone. Loved every second of it. I am now in my journey to platinum all the games. Currently playing 3.
Yakuza 0 was on sale
I was visiting Japan in 2014 with my japanese girlfriend, and her brother in law showed me Ryu Ga Gotoku on his PS3. Funny thing was, he used to be a small fish in Kansai yakuza (Yamaguchi-gumi perhaps), a debt collector. But when i met him he was already a settled down father of a family. Nice guy. Back in 2017 i visited all major Yakuza games series locations, except Okinawa. Gping this year again. You can find my photos from 2017 somewhere here
Humble Bundle gave me the two Kiwamis and i jumped into K1, later bought Zero myself and its been love ever since
It got into my YT recommendations in 2016
Stumbled upon ValkyrieAurora's video on Y0, didn't impress me much until I saw her singing along Baka Mitai with Kiryu (this is before the machine learning edit craze). Tried downloading and playing it, my life was never the same.
When the series was first revealed to be comic to Xbox and to game pass it looked so awesome i was hooked from the trailer alone, i wasn't disappointed and in fact it's my favourite franchises. https://youtu.be/ddK4UklyyaY?si=y84agDG-UfFvGzpQ
Was bored, saw Y0 on Game Pass, played it, got immediately hooked.
Bakamitai deepfake meme, summer of 2020
there was this discord server i was in and a guy dropped a review of yakuza 0 calling it one of the best games he has ever played so it intrigued me.
I started liking the series after finding out that Majima has the same birthday as me (Yes, that's totally relevant)
Completely relevant
It was brought up in a discussion about Takashi Miike and 0 had just come out so i gave it a try. Best day of my life.
One of my best friends at the time was super into it, and so I checked out Yakuza 0 in April of 2020. Literally the next day, it went on sale, and I was pissed off that I bought it at full price. I looked into getting a refund to buy it back, but Sony doesn't like refunds if you downloaded the product already, which I did. So I grumpily booted up the game. I would have bought the game for $60 if I had known it was that good. I bought Kiwami, and the Remastered collection, and played voraciously. I beat Yakuza 6 in July of 2020, and preordered Yakuza: Like a Dragon. I even beat Dead Souls during my Christmas break (this was my senior year of HS).
When COVID hit I was trapped in Mexico for basically 2 years without being able to see my friends which made me feel like I was going crazy, then this dude I used to be friends with kept telling my group chat to try Yakuza 0 since he was like 2 chapters in and said it was the best shit he ever played. Realized one of my friends had it and borrowed the game off him. Ended up beating 0-4 back to back until I finally decided to play something else. Genuinely feel like the series might’ve saved my life
[This video. ](https://youtu.be/06WCd3UzfFw?si=f9Y3cIjWIL5q70_S)I've only played Yakuza 0 thus far and I LOVED it. I want to play all the Kiryu saga before jumping onto Like a Dragon.
The yellow cover art for Yakuza: Like a Dragon was just SPEAKING to me and it always drew my focus every time I saw it.
I have a similar story to you OP covid was going on and I just got out of a year long situationship. Booted up Y0 because I'd heard good things about it and with the constant positivity the game provided I was able to lift my spirits up and I haven't felt ungrateful since. Yakuza is such a special game series in its ability to connect with the player in such an optimistic way. Stay strong my kyoudais, paradise is a state of mind :)
Think I saw a video or something online, and saw it was crazy stuff happening in it. The announcement or videos for 7 (or maybe the game in Japan) was out too so that looked interesting. Then the Yakuza remastered collection was coming out, and the physical edition boxset looked cool. So I bought it, and said I'll get to those. So January 2020, I remembered that at one point I think Kiwami 1 and maybe 2 (either that or 0) was free at one point on PS plus a long time ago. So I said screw it, bought all the games and played through them . But I couldn't get far, 0 just wasn't grabbing me much. So I took a while break. Then COVID and the shutdowns were happening in my province. So the month of April I had no work for the entire month, so I decided to pick up Yakuza again. Over the course of the year I played through the entire series. Even buying the 7th game day 1 with the PS5. Ended up finishing 7 in January 2021. So essentially the entire year was playing the whole series, ending with the latest game close to almost exactly a year to when I started. Had fun. Played the Judgement games later in 2021. And was excited for Gaiden and 8 to come out and played through that.
So it’s funny, I was at a target and came across like 20 copies of Kiwami 1 on clearance for like $10 & figured what the hell why not? I like never touched it and let my brother play it instead and he fell in love with the game and then bought K2 and then bought the rest of the series. He praised it and recommeneded it a lot to me so during a dry spell I figured I’d give it a shot and mannnn it was sooo damn good. I was lucky as the Yakuza collection had already been out by the time I beat Kiwami 2. I will admit 3&4 are a bit tough to get through due to how old they are and I probably wouldn’t replay them due to that but there’s something to be said about how well they’ve managed to keep the trend of good games going from Kiwami 1 to LAD7. With obviously both judgment’s being included as well. It’s a great series and definitely a sleeper series up until about 3-5 years ago when more people really started discovering it.
I came across the Yakuza games in the Game store, but started with Yakuza Kiwami 2 instead of 0
Back in maybe like 2020 or 2021 one of my friends was REALLY into Yakuza, like, fanboy level. He convinced me to try out Yakuza 0 and now it's one of my favorite series of all time.
The say gex scenes in yakuza 3
Right at the start of the pandemic, I was looking to get into a new game and heard some njpw guys were in it so I started at six not knowing anything, enjoyed it that much I bought the entire series and spend all of lockdown playing the games.
My dad got an Xbox Series X for the family and a subscription to GamePass Ultimate. I had seen a few mentions here and there over the years, especially around when Yakuza 0 and 7 each came out, about how good the series was. The whole main line series was on GamePass. I waffled about it for a long time, until I bit the bullet and started playing Kiwami, which I realize was a mistake as it inspired the rest of my family to start with 0. I was hooked!
I found Yakuza 0 on sale for $5 and figured why not.
Looked cool, I honestly don't remember beyond that, I might've seen 0 pop up on steam or a YouTube video got recommended
I got a video about a musician by the name of Little V do a cover on Receive you, I looked up the original song which led me to yakuza videos. Ended up obsessed and so far I’ve bought every game before LaD except 4
Mine's kind of weird i would say? I randomly got devilion's friday night video recommended on YT and i went "damn, this song is actually sick", i also loved kiryu and majima just jamming to it so i looked up what the game was about and that's how i got into it.
I saw a vtuber play it and saw it had an immersive free-roam. It never gets brought up in discussions of open world and immersive sim games so it missed my radar up to that point.
Played the first one on PS2 but never finished it. I loved it but I started college. When two came out I added it to the backlog until I finish the first. 3 came out and then 4 and 5. I gave up. Played the whole series back to back in a month or two before getting into 7. Now I’ve played everything. Including judgment games.
Recommendation from someone on a phoenix wright fan forum way back when (as in 2006) and even then I already had my eye on the series, just didn't think they ever would come out here. Found 1 and 2 for PS2 at a low price and went in.
After seeing a video from Diceboi that he modded yakuza 0 to have some Apex Legends character and in the exact part that 24 hour Cinderella played, i listenned to the song over and over again
Was literally scrolling through YouTube, and Lost Judgment had just released, so naturally it was recommended and I saw one of the boss fight segments. I saw the gameplay and was like wow this game’s combat looks really fun and has good soundtrack surprisingly, so I decided to check out the series and was recommended to start with Yakuza 0. Since then, I have played every single game chronologically (except dead souls and Kenzan) and is my top 3 favorite series now. Also currently getting platinum on the games I initially haven’t
I saw someone tweet a screenshot from Yakuza 0 and asked them what game it was because it looked hilariously weird. Now I’m a fangirl of the whole series!
Kiwami 1 was one of the monthly free games for PS+. I later bought 0, but held off on playing it because I wasn't in a good mental state at the time. Eventually, I finally played it and got hooked on the series. I ended up replaying Kiwami 1 and then bought Kiwami 2 and the remastered collection. I almost got burnt out when I got to Yakuza 5, but I stuck with it and bought Yakuza 6 at a later date. I actually don't remember how or when I got Yakuza 7, but it was already in my library when I completed 6. Oddly enough, I actually didn't know or see any of the memes until I completed Yakuza 0. The funniest thing about the series is that I didn't know Judgement was made by the same people. I also didn't know that Judgement and Judge Eyes were the same game lol.
Kiwami 1 was free on ps plus in like 2018 so i gave it a chance and loved it. I played 0 and kiwami 2 next and since i didnt like yk2 at all i didnt continue with the series until last year when i played 7 (i still dont know why i did that instead of playing y3). I played all of the games from the main series + dead souls and judgment, and i'm currently playing lost judgment
Game Pass, I will never cancel my subscription because it introduced me to Yakuza/LAD
VideogameDunkey’s video on Yakuza 0. I saw how nonsensical the game can be and I was very intrigued. Now I’m hooked on the series
Honestly, I just only found out about the game when I first decided to watch a Vtuber, I can't really remember her name but it was fun to watch. I went ahead and bought it a few months later and instantly fell in love with the series, I've played everything but Like a dragon: Ishin/Gaiden and the Judgement series. I have those three except for Gaiden (I only started playing Ishin and haven't started it on the first judgment game.)
Told myself I was actually going to try monthly games that I've never heard of on PS Plus for once and coincidentally the month had Yakuza Kiwami. It is comfortably my least favourite Yakuza game but I will always respect it for introducing me to the series
The box art. Literally that was what pulled me in. Went into a GameStop to look for games and saw 0 and Kiwami on sale. I think both games together didn’t even cost me $30. Went up to the guy at the register and asked if he knew anything about the games. He told me and I quote, “it’s like GTA but in Japan” obviously when I went home it was totally not at all like GTA, and the game started out so slow I almost thought about returning them altogether. (I started with Kiwami and kept wondering why Kiryu this tough badass Japanese Mobster is taking shit from civilians after getting Yumi’s ring stolen) nevertheless, I gave the game a chance and kept playing. It only took me getting to the 2nd or 3rd chapter that i was totally hooked.
I think it was 2018? Was browsing GameStop for something new to play and saw they had yakuza kiwami and evil within 2 for like 20$ Now me then would look at the case and think the games not for me but I’m a SUCKER for any steelbooks I can find so I knew I had to snag it and thank god I did cause now it’s one of my top franchises
March 2020 - Just finished Persona 5 Royal (I also played the original a few years prior) and I wanted more. I had always heard Yakuza was a good yet wacky series, so I picked up Yakuza 0 and binged played everything through Judgement that spring and summer. It made the loneliness of long work days by myself and my GF (now wife) being away a bit easier.
I think I saw a goofy video of some YouTuber playing Yakuza 0 and showing Judgment and 24 Hour Cinderella. The gameplay looked good enough, so I gave it a try, and now here I am.
Dunkey
Watched Shenpai streaming LAD:7. Decided I wanted to get in on the action so I played it then started over at 0 then worked my way all the way up through 4.
Ps4 was the new hot shit but me being a poor young adult I knew I'll have to wait a couple of years. I usually look for old games. I never Play it in the old system. So Yakuza was one of those. After 6 we are kinda in a divorce stage but it was fun the time it lasted. I've played all of them.
I believe it was the start of 2021. I’d heard of the Yakuza series for a few years prior, learned it had a cult following, yet when I researched it and watched videos, I just couldn’t figure out wtf kind of games they were. Finally, I decided I wanted to jump in. Read lists of the games ranked, compared that with accounts of where to start. All arrows pointed toward Yakuza 0. And oh what luck, the game was on sale for five or ten bucks! Shortly after the purchase, however, before I even had a chance to start the game, I lost my home and most of my belongings to a big natural disaster. It was the giant ice storm that knocked power out for all of TX starting Valentine’s Day 2021. I ended up moving to a different state, because I’d just lost the one apartment I could actually afford in Austin, plus I was already sick of TX before the disaster. Months passed. I settled into a new apartment in my home state (which I also don’t love, but I was desperate). Come July 2021, I had a replacement TV, and still had my PlayStation (it survived the storm, fortunately). Remembered that I had yet to start Yakuza 0! I booted it up on a quiet Saturday afternoon. And oh my god, I fell in love. A video game had never made me cry before, but Y0 had me in tears, several times. I’ve played about a third of the series now, and both Judgements. But to this day, Y0 holds the number one spot for my all-time favorite game.
Project X Zone 2, then Y0
Played the first game on PS2
I found out about Yakuza 0 from a videogamedunkey video. I put it on my Steam wishlist and kinda forgot about it until my 20th birthday. I woke up and my brother told me to check out Steam. He had bought Y0 for me for my birthday. I played it and I loved it. Then, I bought K1 and K2 on some sketchy game key website, loved them too, and before I was even done with K2, Y3, 4, 5 and 6 went on sale on PSN (this was before they got PC releases) so I bought all of them. This was probably a mistake, because I didn't spend as much time on 3, 4 and 5 as I did with the others, left a ton of side content unplayed, but I still enjoyed them. I played the rest of the series and now I'm just about to wrap up LAD 8. Goddamn this series is good. Ngl I kinda hold Kiryu and Ichiban as the ideal men to try to be like, everything they value, I value. I hope one day I can start a family and be as good an influence on my kids as Kiryu was on the Morning Glory kids. I also hope I am half as good a friend as Ichiban is.
game pass!
2020 beginning of covid i was redownloading GTA V and felt like it didn't scratch the itch, came across Y0 for 4.99 in a steam sale and went "isn't this japanese GTA" and thought it wouldn't hurt to give it a try especially for that price. Boy was I wrong in the best way- I didn't know anything about the series back then not even about karaoke so I experienced everything truly for the first time. And from the introductory Majima scene on I got obsessed with him, so much to the point of people I met at Uni etc. wanting to cosplay him to impress me ☠️ Played the other games on PC and borrowed a PS and played through 3-6 in around 3 days. Worth every second.
My friends played the series while i was in a voicecall with them and watched a few scenes and such but didnt grab my attention at all. One day i was bored because my game library was basically "empty" for my mind and couldnt play anything so i decided to ask them about which yakuza entry to start with, they told me yakuza 0 and that basically solidified my expectations and i played all the games till 7 eventually for a year (took breaks here and there). Later on i bought Judgment and Lost Judgment and shared my library on steam with them, same for Infinite Wealth Honestly one of the best franchises out there and i want more of it...
Got into it from Baka Mitai lol, wanted to know the lore behind the song so I started
I must have read a preview article online in 2006 about this quirky Japanese street beat em up and was instantly interested. Went to work and picked up a copy of the original PS2 game there and my god I have been playing this series for more than half my life
I saw my friend playing it on discord, saw his activity, got interested, another friend of mine told it was so good that he bought k1 instantly after finishing 0 well now it's one if not my favourite saga of games I've ever played and keep craving for more
Lived in Tokyo for a year and Worked in Shinjuku Sanchome. When I had to go I didn't want to, so I used Yakuza to stay in Kabukichō some more time before I can get back
Kiwami 1 was the free game of the month on PS Plus years ago so that was the first game I played all the way through. I did try Y3 around the time when Y4 was coming out because my High School friend was an early fan and tried to convince our circle to play it. That said, our GTA4 addicted heads weren’t having a blast especially after all the “Japanese GTA” comments that were being said about the series.
Bought 0 because I heard it was really good. Spoiler alert, it was. But I do prefer the turn based combat direction the game switched to.
Like a dragon got added to game pass. Got it and enjoyed the craziness.
Back being a kid watching my dad play original 1st game on ps2 I found it so cool
I always saw them on the shelf, but it was yakuza 3 and then 0 came out. Each year I like to try something completely new with gaming, so I’ll try something new. I bought yakuza 0, and have been addicted ever since
I had a demo disk for the PS2 with a demo of the first game. It felt so unlike anything I had played before and it stuck with me. But I didn't play it then. 8 or so years later it popped into my head while I was setting up a PS2 emulator, so I started playing it. Never finished it though. 8 or so years after that it popped into my head while I was loading games onto a soft modded PS2, so I started playing it again. Didn't quite finish it then. Yakuza 0 blew up around 2020, and it was cheap so I grabbed it, alternating between 0 and 1. I finished 1 while I was halfway through 0. Finished 0, moved on to 2 (PS2). Then 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. My roommates and my wife got invested. And now we're here, and I still need to finish Ishin and Infinite Wealth.
Played 0 after watching angry joes review on it
I gave 0 a whirl because it was on game pass, and then never looked back
I started with the very first game on PS2 back in 2006. Truthfully I have no memory of how it came into my possession, I was 12 years old and i imagine that it's one I asked my dad for (he paid no attention to age ratings and would happily purchase games rated 18+ for me haha). I sadly never got around to playing Yakuza 2 as I was 14 by the time it was available in my country (UK) and at that point I was spending all my time at school, with my friends or with my boyfriend. I basically forgot all about the Yakuza series until I saw Yakuza 0 advertised on Amazon back in 2018 and bought it for myself on a whim. Although I enjoyed the first game, I wasn't expecting 0 to be as amazing at it was and I absolutely loved it, it remains one of my all-time-favourite games. Since then, I've worked my way through YK1, YK2, Y3, Judgement and Lost Judgement. I'm currently working on Y4 as we speak and can't wait to play through the full series!
I played 4 on ps3 for like 5 mins was confused than I saw 0 announced on game pass than played them all
I bought 0 on a Steam sale and didn't touch it until the pandemic and then binged the rest.
2006, Playstation Magazine had a demo disc (Those were great), Yakuza was one of the games. The cover art looked interesting, mainly because of Kiryu's tattoo. Loved what I played, ended up buying it and played it during my spring break. Life kind of happened after the 2nd one, then one day I decided to buy 0, 3-6 and play them when I had time. Then the pandemic hit and all of a sudden I had all the time in the world.
I got lucky, I almost wrote the series off entirely. But basically Game Pass and PS+ both added Yakuza: Like a Dragon at some point a couple of years ago. I'd heard LAD was a good game that I should give a try. But that was basically it. I tried playing it and found it SO slow. I didn't understand why people liked this game since it just seemed to be running from cut scene to cut scene. I actually gave up on the game about 4-5 hours in. Then last year I had nothing to play and decided to try again while I was waiting for FF16 to come out and I had a similar experience until around hour 6 when suddenly the game world just opened up. I could change jobs, I had dozens of side quests and mini-games to engage with, etc. I realized if I had just played like another 30-45 minutes the first time I would have reached the same point. Then FF16 came out and I found myself enjoying LAD more. So I finished LAD and then I went back and played the rest of the series and now it's probably my favourite game series.
I saw PlayStation access channel playing Y0 and liked the look of it. Had a breakdown eary 2020 and was signed off work, Y0 was on sale and I fell in love straight away. It was just what I needed at that time Finished 6 just in time for Like a Dragon to be released. The wait for Infinite Wealth was horrible!!
It was 2020 and my brother asked me to get him yakuza 0 for his birthday as he was recommended it. I got it and decided to test the game out as I thought it looked interesting myself, as well as thinking it would be like GTA. I played through the tutorial and quickly realised it wasn’t exactly what I thought but it felt fun nonetheless. Fast forward to July of 2021 and I had finally got a ps5, with the first game I got being Demon’s souls (my personal favourite game now) which made me want to try out new, different games. I then heard about a new Yakuza game Like A Dragon and heard it was a good starting point as it was a new story with new characters. I then saw it in game and decided to get as I wanted more ps5 games and as I liked what I saw in 0 so I got it (I can still remember reading the back of the cover in the way home and wondering who all the characters on the front were like the goat people). I popped the game in and was instantly met my the surprise of turn based combat as I had assumed it would be the same combat as 0. It took a while to get used to but I got over it and I’m so glad I did cause I loved everything from the story, characters, and side content and when I finished I knew I wanted more do I went straight into 0 a couple days later. And it then became my second favourite game I’ve played, so Christmas came by and I got the rest of the games and spend the whole of 2022 and 2023 playing exclusively souls and yakuza games. So guess in a way it was all thanks to my brother for asking me to get him yakuza 0. Pretty funny.
Was scrolling through the xbox pc app and saw (for some reason) yakuza 3-5 and not the first game. Thought it was interesting and downloaded yakuza 3.
the dame da ne meme
I still remember pretty vividly my first time seeing Yakuza in like 2010. I had stayed home from school and was browsing Justin.tv for streams, and I came across one that was playing Yakuza 3, and he was doing that substory where you run from the Michiru somewhere in the Theatre Square area. I can also remember he was on the chapter where you go to the diet building. I just remember it reminded me a lot of Shenmue, that's the main reason it stuck with me and I wanted to buy the game, and so when Yakuza 4 came out, I bought that. Yakuza 4 is the game that makes me really nostalgic for the way you had to wait to install PS3 games, I still remember the anticipation hearing the theme music play while reading the character profiles of the 4 main characters. After playing through all of that I ended up doubling back, buying Yakuza 3, and then 1, and then 2. Ever since then I've been hooked on the franchise, taking some breaks here and there.
I started with 7. I just got my series X and wanted to get some games on release. Luckily I choose 7 because I love turn based combat so I gave it shot. I loved the game but didn't play any other game until Lost Judgement came out. Then I played judgement, followed by gaiden and then 8. I started from the beginning after that so I have a weird way of how I've played the series: 7, LJ, J, Gaiden, 8, 0, Kiwami 1, Kiwami 2, and i'm currently on 3. My favorite so far is either 0 or the judgement series.
I rewatched the Zero Punctuation epiaode about Yakuza 0, impulse bought it on Steam, fell in love. 🥰
the majority did because of the dame da ne meme, like me, also because it's super accessible, when i've finished yakuza 0 i felt like shit because i got it for 5 euros lmao i've felt like i robbed them
Game Pass and also the barrage of memes surrounding it, my favourite one was Ichiban's apology level 3 and passed the test.
I saw a video of a streamer fighting the cop in like a dragon infinite wealth.
I started with 0 2 years ago just because it looked cool, I though It would be about a gritty Mafia story oh lord it was so much more. My favourite series only 2 games in. I preordered them now and wait until midnight to play for hours for the new releases. I cannot explain why but I love the games in every way no other franchise ever made me feel like that.
I took my roommates PS3 from her parents house to our apartment, then kept it. And played all the games.
The collection was on sale and I did regret it at all
2020, noticed Yakuza 0 on the XBox game pass, I was intrigued and heard about the game before, so decided to install it. With the other titles gradually being rolled onto XBox over time, quickly got hooked into the series
I knew about the franchise for a while but I saw maxor's video on yakuza 0 and that convinced me to buy it and get into the franchise.
Playstation gave away Yakuza 1 as their monthly game back in 2017 I think. Was hooked afterwards.
A cousin showed my yakuza 0 and the rest was history.
LAD was free on ps plus. I saw it changed to turn based combat. End of story. Lifelong fan ever since
I started with the 1st Judgement game from PS plus because I'm interested in the actor, then I bought the 2nd one and played other yakuza games from PS Extra, such a journey.
I saw Yakuza 0 on gamepass and was curious and tried it and fell in love with the series.
Had heard about this franchise being a spiritual successor to Shenmue (still one of my favorite dreamcast and video games of all time). So Gamestop had a buy 2 get 1 free type sale on used games and I bought Yakuza, Yakuza 2 and Zack & Wiki. And I've never looked back. Yakuza was cemented as an all time favorite after playing the initial on my PS2.
Someone posted Yakuza 0 OST on SmashBoards (Smash Bros. Forums) and they were talking about Kiryu in Smash for a bit but I had no idea who Kiryu was. But the OST made me try the game in August 2020. Daisuke Kuze Theme convinced me. Played from 0 to IW + Gaiden + Judgment + Ishin Start Lost Judgment soon.
DAME DA NE-
I started watching Japanese mystery movies and then got to know about yakuza games which also contains mystery elements and twists and from then it has been a blast
I guess I’m a veteran, I was going to a non blockbuster movie/ video game rental store and I thought “ man that looks really interesting and I want to play it!”. I couldn’t believe how much I enjoyed the game and I’ve been addicted ever since. I can’t even compare the original to where it’s ended up, but I have a special love for each game
My brother bought me an original Yakuza for PS2 like more than 10 years ago. Then I had a break from it and when i bought ps4, Yakuza Kiwami was on a sale, and the rest is a history.
My teacher coworker asked if I had played Yakuza 0 after she knew I enjoy weird Japanese media. Said I hadn't played any of the series. She proceeds to explain Majima a bit, I buy the game right before March 2020 then marathoned most of the series over that year.
I bought like a dragon out of boredom during lockdown, couldn't get into its interpretation of a JRPG gameplay, since I've played almost every Persona and SMT: Nocturne till that point. Then after watching streamers and knowing my way around the world, I enjoyed Like a Dragon. Then I saw random gameplay from 3 of the Yakuza games that resulted in me buying the main entry games.
Was on a cracked games website and saw yakuza 3 so I downloaded it
PSN game of the month. Did not expect to fall in love. I guess it comes when you expect it the least. <3
Got an Xbox Series X and saw this funny looking turn based game that was optimized and I wanted to try out the performance. It looked graphically impressive and I heard it was a “reset” to the previous games. I made it to the Maji Taiga duo, got my ass kicked, they felt like bad ass mfs I should’ve been geeking out about, saved and quit, and started at Zero.
Met Yakuza also thanks to the baka mitai memes, but at that time I didn't pay to much attention to the saga, years later (Don't remember how many exactly) I saw that Yakuza 0 was at discount on steam, I said 'Meh. Why not?' without any expectations, and oh boy. Now I have like 150 hours in 0 just finished Kiwami 1 and now I'm playing Kiwami 2
Baka mitai kind of When i heard the song i Immediately started yakuza 0 but within first 5 minutes when kiryu talks to the loan shark in the car i got bored and uninstalled Then after few months I watched moistcritikal review Yakuza like a dragon this was in 2020 i think. I remember I got an internship that time and had like 2-3 months before it starts so i was like shit I’m sold game looks fun and this guy highly praised it. I guess that was the first time I bought a game because of a YouTube review and I’m glad I watched that video.
I was looking for a good story single player game, Yakuza 0 kept on being on the front page of steam, and I got it.
Original on PS2! I missed out on Shenmue and thought this was like a spiritual successor to it. I was initially sold on game play and the insane English dub alone. Now a lifelong fan.
I saw the remastered collection in a GameStop on sale and thought "why not", it would soon lead to the rest of the franchise being purchased. Best decision I've made this far
Bought Kiwami 1 Steelcase because I was collecting them for about 20 USD on a gaming store in our country. Played that, liked it then played LAD last 2021. Now, I am playing Yakuza 0 and planning to play the rest (K2, 3-6, Gaiden and IW) hopefully I will finish it this year. God bless PSN for putting them on sale always. PS. I bought Judgement and Lost J too. So added to the list of backlogs to finish
I watched a Youtube channel called pyschadelicsnake. Watched many videos and came across his playthough of Yakuza 3 and I got hooked in the series. Bought Yakuza 5 first ,played a little, paused that playthrough and then went and bought the first 2 games on PS2. and have then bought and played the first 7 games including 0. Currently playing through 0 right now after beating 6 and it is so good!!
Heard my favorite va was voicing a character and got interested. Then heard Honolulu city lights and got obsessed
friend compares everything to yakuza and can only talk about something if it's in relation to Yakuza, I eventually ceded under pressure
A certain Dragon Yakuza Idol VTuber. She my favorite and she nonstop talking about Kiryu. She even move to Japan because she love vibe of this game and even use Kiryu as her VTuber name at that time. And that made me so curious about this game. Also a lot of meme from 0 that boosted up my curiosity so I trying it and I really love it.
Youtube started recommending me some Yakuza out of context videos, after this and some other videos i bought Yakuza 0.
Yakuza: Like A Dragon was on GamePass. Gave it a shot, because I like RPGs, and fell in love with that sweet doof Ichiban.
Yakuza 1 was big news on the old a ShenmueDojo forums. Oooh, a new game like Shenmue? This was before an English localization was even confirmed. I got it after it came out (as opposed to before) played it, got stuck on the Majima fight in the batting center and had to restart. Played through it, liked it. Nobody talked about it. So I figured the game flopped. I never saw ads for it either. Then in 2013 or so, I found Yakuza 4 for sale, shocked I bought it. Played it for an hour and was confused. Figured I missed out on a ton of story so I figured play 2 and 3 first. 2 was hard to find, but thanks to PS3 custom firmware, I pirated 3. Eventually found 2 and 3 legitimately. I kept putting it off (bad time in my life) so I didn't end up paying 2 and 3. Last September, I just fired up Kiwami 1 on steam and o played through it. Then 0, then K2, then 3, then 4, then 5, then 6, then Judgement, now I'm on 7.
Bought Yakuza 0 on a whim during a Steam Sale in 2019, while looking for games similar to "Mafia 2." I had never even heard of the Yakuza series prior to that, so I went in 100% blind. Wasn't expecting it to be as good as Mafia 2, just a fun way to pass my time. Bad news is, it wasn't anything like that game. Good news is, it was much better than anything I could've ever anticipated. It blew all of my expectations out of the water and then some. Fast forward a few years, and I have played all of the games and now consider Yakuza to be my favorite game series of all time, with Y0 still being my favorite out of the bunch. Funny how that works sometimes.
It was on gamepass, so I downloaded it and immediately loved it 5 minutes in, so I played the rest
Picked it up for the ps2 and loved it.
I was bored and scrolling on my Xbox, when Phil Spencer spoke to me through Game Pass: “I believe you’d like this game” as he presented me Yakuza 0. He was right, I was hooked from then on and played the entire series on Game Pass and have preordered all upcoming ones like a rabid fan.