Yakuza 4: Finally Started It!

So, I've done Yakuza 3 now and got straight into Yakuza 4.
I must say I was a little bit tired after 3 because of just how that game played, but after giving 4 a few days to settle in my mind, I found it to be the first truly good non-Dragon Engine RGG (Ryu ga Gotoku) game.

I'm here to just share my experiences playing through it from the first few chapters.

If you remember from my Yakuza 3 post, I talked about Mack. A guy who's always on his phone looking for cool things to post around Kamurocho and other spots.

Mack is back baby! He's here again to reintroduce the revelations system to Yakuza 4, wherein you can learn new moves by watching them unfold. And the reason why I'm starting with Mack today is because of just how utterly ridiculous and funny the first revelation is.

I couldn't record the whole thing, but here's how it ends:

Anyway, how's the gameplay?

This is Shun Akiyama, the first of FOUR protagonists this game has. That blew my mind, and it blows my mind even more to know that Yakuza 5 has 5 protagonists, with Akiyama seemingly coming back there (although I'm not sure).

Akiyama plays a lot with his feet, he's a footie fighter and is insanely fun to control. If we got a Yakuza game dedicated to Akiyama himself I'd be happy already, but I've already went past Akiyama's part.

(This interaction is just way too funny)

So, this game is structured into 4 parts with 4 chapters each, each part is a character.
The second part is about the legendary Saejima Taiga. The one who carried out the hit in 1985, the same hit that is shown in Yakuza 0.

The beginning to his story in this game is just absolutely incredible with even Kiryu showing up, but I won't spoil too much about Saejima, just know that he's an absolute unit and his story is insane, great way to end it too.

Unfortunately his gameplay wasn't too fun. It felt like the Dragon fighting style but a bit paired back. Sure, he's strong af and packs quite a punch, but he's also really really slow.
Still, better than what we got on Yakuza 3.

It's funny to see that Hamazaki from Yakuza 3 somehow ends up in this penitentiary in Okinawa but... okay? lmao and he plays quite an integral part to the story too, and then even manages to escape jail somehow and nobody bats an eye because nobody cares about him. I feel ya my dude lololol.

After that we get up to some shenanigans in Kamurocho whilst actively avoiding the police, even helping Hide Ko- Sugiyama, sorry, become a better fighter.

I even spotted this ad for NicoNicoDouga on the rooftops. It's funny because I've spent so much time on this website as a pre-teen, now it's just here, as sort of a time capsule from when it was truly relevant.

And after getting through the story a bit more...

I've still yet to see how the new character properly plays, I've even forgotten his name already, but I'm absolutely loving Yakuza 4. It doesn't even come close to the Kiwami titles, but it's such a huge massive upgrade over 3 that I honestly don't care.
This is a great game and I hope it continues being so.
I still can't wait to beat it though (I'm only not playing right now because my brother is on the Xbox), along with 5, so I can go to 6 and get back on the Dragon Engine, where I feel Yakuza just plays the best.

Anyway, that's it from me for today, thanks for reading!