Too much for my liking. I love the series, but I wish it would have a rest and the team work in new IP's and make a sequel to Binary Domain.
They seem to be reluctant as of late to go down the "totally new" franchise route, but there's a fair number of semi-new attempts (Yakuza 7 is an RPG!). I'm hestitant do crticise too much - it was unimaginable that Ishin would get a Western release back in 2013/2014. I want to see brand new things - that's what made the company endearing, but I think they're trying to set up a second pillar to define themselves as a company: Yakuza is to Sonic as Zelda is to Mario. Or something.
It's been that way since 2005. It was then when it was decided to double down Sonic and bank on the fresh hit of Yakuza. Sonic and Yakuza have a constant presence (so has Phantasy Star as an MMO), the rest? Flip flops, dies, comes back again, is something new etc. In a way Sonic and Yakuza are a cool playground, they have had many different flavour over the years. Sonic moreso (for the worse)
* Judgment came out suddenly and unexpectedly yaaaaaaay wooooooo * its denuvo reeeeee not unexpected but reeeeee definitely conflicted on whether or not to hit that buy button
I've bought 3 Yakuza games in the last 24 hours to better understand how the game handles it's minigames and well I think I've wasted $100 but supported Sega so it's not a total loss. I don't play this genre anymore so oops oh well.
For me it's just like Assassin's Creed, they're all very good games, but they look and play pretty much the same, at least with AC you do get new maps and new countries to explore, you don't even get that in Yakuza, but like with AC I'll buy them all LOL And to me, Ishin coming to the west is just trying to cash in on Ghost of Tsushima. I much rather SEGA make a brand new action game based in Japan, than remaking an old PS3 game, which for me wasn't that great, to begin with... I was hoping with Nagoshi gone, some creativity would be back, I guess I have to hope it will come from the other teams
These games are made and lead by more than one man, but even so they were likely already decided upon before he left. It was only the start of this year that he left SEGA. You'll have to give it more time before finding this "creativity" you seek.
Nagoshi-san was the head of SEGA creative centre or whatever it went by. Any new game had to be greenlight by him and I that to me spelt the end of other games getting the go-ahead, with no doubt Nagoshis-san just saying we'll make yet another new Yakuza game at the game submitting process. Was hoping we start to see the change, but maybe not.
Yakuza game production is a well oiled machine by this point. Hard to break ol' habits The "Super Game" style game, aka live service with former mobile and arcade devs (Masayoshi Kikuchi returning to console yay) will be a new direction for Sega of Japan at last. A Battle Royale Crazy Taxi is something very differnet than what Sega of Japan console teams have been making for a long time now. And IMO might take more place to breath and shine with no Nagoshi (he also wanted to make a online game with Yakuza...)
Kikuchi-San is IMO the best producer in Japan, never mind SEGA . So it be great to have him back on the AAA game side of things. I get that like with AC, Yakuza is a well established development routine, but it's just a sure fire way to kill creativity, more so with giving the team a little over a year and half for each new instalment and having the team in charge of the remasters too Would have liked to seen the Yakuza IP rested for a few years.
Every game that was shown off would've had to be in development while Nagoshi himself was still there. Others have said it well enough, that there simply hasn't been enough time since his departure for any significant change yet. Games take years to make, potentially years to be greenlit, planned out, produced and developed. This is all his leftovers of the next generation to head the series, to the point that Ishin is on Unreal Engine 4 specifically to test RGG internally if keeping the Dragon Engine is worthwhile or not. You want to see if new heads equals more creativity, wait 2-3 years. That's just how the cookie crumbles.
I get all that, but Nagoshi-san wasn't looking to leave SEGA last year. Sure games take years to make, unless you are the Yakuza team how have a year and a half to make each new game and are also expected to handle any remaster In-House too. Its also kind of depressing to see the team use Unreal for the remaster, rather that update their own In-House Dargon engine. I really don't get it, when the Dragon engine is now an established multi-format game engine. I hope its just a easy short term fix, while the team are making a new engine The team is great and to be fair the games are great too, but I think SEGA are just milking the Yakuza brand too much and really like Team Ninja are doing, they should be making a brand IP based in Japan and trying to cash in on Ghost, rather than look to remake a old PS3 game. Well thats my rant done for the day
Yeah, I’m a bit surprised they’re using the Unreal engine for Ishin. It looks like it’s because Dragon Engine is getting old so they’re potentially planning to move the series to Unreal 5: https://nordic.ign.com/yakuza-8/600...boss-weighing-merits-of-unreal-engine-5-shift I like the idea of them using their own engine, but this would ultimately be cheaper and better allow multi platform development I guess. It’s always odd to see JP games using these third party engines since documentation being in English has been a major hurdle for them in the past. I guess Unreal and Unity have made some advances in that regard since I’ve been seeing it more frequently.
The circumstances are completely different, but it's kinda funny how the series ended up going full Rambo ("First Blood"->"Rambo: First Blood Part 2"->"Rambo 3") Either way I think it was time for the series to change its name yeah. I don't hate the Yakuza name, and it definitely made sense to call the games this way in the early 2000s. But now that the series is releasing like 5 games yearly, most of them having barely anything to do with yakuzas anymore, unifying the brand is the best option in my opinion.
