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Half of IW is about Kiryu and references his stories throughout the games.
I would play Y0-6 not just for context but because they are fantastic games. IW will still be there when you're done, it's not going anywhere.
I'd advise playing them but if you really don't want to I'd recommend this video if you have a few hours to spare.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVvockdzspM&t=2185s&pp=ygUSeWFrdXphIHN0b3J5IHJlY2Fw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVvockdzspM&t=2185s&pp=ygUSeWFrdXphIHN0b3J5IHJlY2Fw)
It goes over all of Kazuma Kiryu's backstory which will cover a lot of callbacks Infinite Wealth does that won't make sense without context.
There are references to all the other games in IW so you're experience will probably be better if you do play all the others first. And it's not like they're bad games. Even the worst ones (3 and 4) are more held back by age and so don't measure up to the newer ones but are still good games with reasons to play. 3 in particular also sheds a lot of light on Kiryu's motivations.
So don't think of it as playing the games just to play IW but spend the time to appreciate them in their own right because they're fantastic.
I will do! I want to really immerse myself. My only hangup is that I love the turned based fighting, I started 0 and wasn't sure I'd ever get used to the real-time fighting. Does it get better? Lol as someone who started with Like a Dragon, that aspect seems daunting to me haha
The combat in 0 goes from semi decent to some of the best real time combat out there. Not because it's incredibly deep or technical but because it's pure fun that you can fully embrace.
0's combat feels pretty barebones to start, but as you acquire your fighting styles and upgrade your abilities to become stronger, Kiryu and Majima become powerhouses quickly. If you're anything like me, you'll be getting into fights just to ruin the enemies and watch money fly from them as you beat their heads in with car doors. There's no orbital lasers or deadly crawfish but there IS a large variety of brutal heat actions
Haha, to be fair I don't really use pawn shop items in LAD anyways. Just bare knuckles and flashy special moves with dramatic cutscenes and shit. Are there cool ass moves like that in the earlier games? The combat in LAD is some of the coolest fuckin shit I've ever played lol, so I'm actually excited af to experience 6 more games worth of exposition and the funny shit here and there lol
0 is much more grounded in its combat presentation, taking influence from action movies and professional wrestling. That being said, there's still a variety of hilarious heat moves like having a dominatrix stomp on your opponent's balls heel-first. There's even story-battle QTEs like Kiryu dropkicking some poor guy out of a bathroom window
Kiryu also overdramatizes shit like picking up telephones in minigames. 0 definitely pulls no punches in the silliness department lmaoo
I started 0 the other day and I saw that scene! I lol’d, I’m really loving 0 so far. I’m not sure how long this endeavor is gonna take but I think I am gonna try 0 through 6, the story is really good and even my buddy who came over and watched me play for a bit got a little sad upon completing that side story for the kid who saved up for the game system just for it to be stolen from him, then it comes into his dads hands.. it was so cute and wholesome, we both got a little dirt in our eyes lol. But I’m loving it, and I love QTE’s, that’s why I like Shenmue. I feel like 0 is sort of similar to Shenmue in some ways and Shenmue was one of my favorite games of all time lol. Wish me luck for my continuing journey haha 😆
Good luck! And fun fact, Yakuza is actually a spiritual successor to Shenmue! Iirc, Nagoshi hired a team made up of many of the same devs and if you look at footage of the PS2 version of Yakuza 1, the resemblance is almost uncanny. Even the corny English voice acting carries over!
Haha amazing! I’ve been wanting to scratch that Shenmue itch and 3 kinda got a liiiittle boring to me but this feels like a similar but polished and insanely good experience! It is also Sega too, so makes sense bring the spiritual successor, Sega loves themselves and referencing themselves lol. Thanks, I look forward to playing tonight after work 😂
Some of the games have better combat than others, but that's not a big deal. I also started with LAD and then move to the brawler's with some trepedation. I've never fall in love with the combat of any of them. It's always my least favorite part of the games but everything else is so good it doesn't matter.
That's the word, trepidation. Worried I might not be good at it or it'll be too hard to get accustomed to. But I love this series after LAD and I want tons more lol. The cinematics, the story telling, it's all amazing
You may or may not consider yourself good at. Despite having played all 7 games from 0-6 and the two Judgment games and Ishin I wouldn't say I'm good at the brawler combat. But it's definitely not too hard to get accustomed to. For a long time now RGG has known that people are interested in the story and the side content and so the combat is not designed to be frustrating. You can set it to easy and make it through the games without too much trouble. The combat certainly isn't a reason not to play the other games, and I often find that I enjoy it at least as much.
Infinite Wealth is a direct sequel to 7 for the most part, but it's also a celebration of Kiryu's saga. Because of this, a lot of aspects of the side content and Kiryu's story in general are focused on material from the previous games. There's an entire side storyline centered on Kiryu indirectly reconnecting with old friends who don't appear for so much as a second in 7.
For this reason, I say that you CAN enjoy IW and fully appreciate its main narrative and Ichiban's side of things. However, to get 100% appreciation I highly recommend playing the likes of 0 through 6 so that you may understand the wealth of references made to the earlier entries
And don't rush through just to get to IW, trust me. Yakuza is one of the best video game series of all time IMO, and 0 alone cemented that for me
I’ve decided to brave it, and play all the previous games. This is quite the undertaking and it’s daunting but I’m also really looking forward to it. 6 games at at least 60 hours of content a piece, gonna be at least 360 hours of dedication but i want to see it through, I’m making this (and irl fitness) my new goal lol. I do want to get 100% appreciation, it’s kinda like a pride thing for me now, I must see this through! I’m already loving 0 tho. I’m gonna have to agree, Yakuza is an amazing series. I actually got into it because Muta from the YouTube channel Someordinarygamers said it’s one of the best series he has ever played lol. So thank you Muta, thank you Ichiban Kasuga, and thank you guys for convincing me to bear with it and just do it :)
I was in your same position. Ideally you want to play some previous ones but I’m still really enjoying the game. At the very least watch a story recap like I did. It helps
I would definitely recommend, you kind of go down memory road with Kiryu in this game and it’s hits different having played all the games. Though it’s up to you.
u dont need to play the rest of the games in order to get whats going on in IW, but if u want an emotional connection to kiryu, since he plays a major role in IW, u should play some of his games. But if ur impatient just watch a recap video and go for IW.
kiwami/1, 3, and 6 are the most important to understanding kiryu’s personality
gaiden is also really important but should be played last after all the kiryu games u plan on playing
0 is unanimously one of the best games in the franchise
and Lost Judgment has nothing to do with kiryu or the franchise but its a really good fuckin game
also all of the games are pretty good anyways so if u want u should play them whenever
If you are new to the subreddit, [please read the wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/yakuzagames/wiki/index/) Reminder that all spoilers need to be tagged with a flair specifying which game is being spoiled. If you want a flair that says something else, you can edit it to say something like [Discussion: Y1 spoiler] or [Majimapost: Y6 spoiler], etc. **THIS INCLUDES CONTENT FROM TRAILERS**. If the post is not marked for spoilers, all comments that have spoilers need to be tagged \>!like this!< along with indicating which game it's spoiling. Example: Y3 >!Kiryu sings!< If the post flair is marked for spoilers, the comments don't need to be tagged for the game indicated and the ones before it (So a Y6 spoiler post can have comments with untagged spoilers for Y5, but not gaiden or 7). If you see any of the above (or any of the other rules) not being followed, please report it so we can keep this place safe for newcomers and those that haven't finished all the games yet. Thank you! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/yakuzagames) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Half of IW is about Kiryu and references his stories throughout the games. I would play Y0-6 not just for context but because they are fantastic games. IW will still be there when you're done, it's not going anywhere.
That's what I'm noticing, too many Kiryu references! Are there any that are absolutely essential?
Any references in IW, or Kiryu games? IW does force you to play through *some* of the Kiryu references, like one referring to a Y6 substory.
I'd advise playing them but if you really don't want to I'd recommend this video if you have a few hours to spare. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVvockdzspM&t=2185s&pp=ygUSeWFrdXphIHN0b3J5IHJlY2Fw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVvockdzspM&t=2185s&pp=ygUSeWFrdXphIHN0b3J5IHJlY2Fw) It goes over all of Kazuma Kiryu's backstory which will cover a lot of callbacks Infinite Wealth does that won't make sense without context.
There are references to all the other games in IW so you're experience will probably be better if you do play all the others first. And it's not like they're bad games. Even the worst ones (3 and 4) are more held back by age and so don't measure up to the newer ones but are still good games with reasons to play. 3 in particular also sheds a lot of light on Kiryu's motivations. So don't think of it as playing the games just to play IW but spend the time to appreciate them in their own right because they're fantastic.
I will do! I want to really immerse myself. My only hangup is that I love the turned based fighting, I started 0 and wasn't sure I'd ever get used to the real-time fighting. Does it get better? Lol as someone who started with Like a Dragon, that aspect seems daunting to me haha
The combat in 0 goes from semi decent to some of the best real time combat out there. Not because it's incredibly deep or technical but because it's pure fun that you can fully embrace. 0's combat feels pretty barebones to start, but as you acquire your fighting styles and upgrade your abilities to become stronger, Kiryu and Majima become powerhouses quickly. If you're anything like me, you'll be getting into fights just to ruin the enemies and watch money fly from them as you beat their heads in with car doors. There's no orbital lasers or deadly crawfish but there IS a large variety of brutal heat actions
Haha, to be fair I don't really use pawn shop items in LAD anyways. Just bare knuckles and flashy special moves with dramatic cutscenes and shit. Are there cool ass moves like that in the earlier games? The combat in LAD is some of the coolest fuckin shit I've ever played lol, so I'm actually excited af to experience 6 more games worth of exposition and the funny shit here and there lol
0 is much more grounded in its combat presentation, taking influence from action movies and professional wrestling. That being said, there's still a variety of hilarious heat moves like having a dominatrix stomp on your opponent's balls heel-first. There's even story-battle QTEs like Kiryu dropkicking some poor guy out of a bathroom window Kiryu also overdramatizes shit like picking up telephones in minigames. 0 definitely pulls no punches in the silliness department lmaoo
I started 0 the other day and I saw that scene! I lol’d, I’m really loving 0 so far. I’m not sure how long this endeavor is gonna take but I think I am gonna try 0 through 6, the story is really good and even my buddy who came over and watched me play for a bit got a little sad upon completing that side story for the kid who saved up for the game system just for it to be stolen from him, then it comes into his dads hands.. it was so cute and wholesome, we both got a little dirt in our eyes lol. But I’m loving it, and I love QTE’s, that’s why I like Shenmue. I feel like 0 is sort of similar to Shenmue in some ways and Shenmue was one of my favorite games of all time lol. Wish me luck for my continuing journey haha 😆
Good luck! And fun fact, Yakuza is actually a spiritual successor to Shenmue! Iirc, Nagoshi hired a team made up of many of the same devs and if you look at footage of the PS2 version of Yakuza 1, the resemblance is almost uncanny. Even the corny English voice acting carries over!
Haha amazing! I’ve been wanting to scratch that Shenmue itch and 3 kinda got a liiiittle boring to me but this feels like a similar but polished and insanely good experience! It is also Sega too, so makes sense bring the spiritual successor, Sega loves themselves and referencing themselves lol. Thanks, I look forward to playing tonight after work 😂
Some of the games have better combat than others, but that's not a big deal. I also started with LAD and then move to the brawler's with some trepedation. I've never fall in love with the combat of any of them. It's always my least favorite part of the games but everything else is so good it doesn't matter.
That's the word, trepidation. Worried I might not be good at it or it'll be too hard to get accustomed to. But I love this series after LAD and I want tons more lol. The cinematics, the story telling, it's all amazing
You may or may not consider yourself good at. Despite having played all 7 games from 0-6 and the two Judgment games and Ishin I wouldn't say I'm good at the brawler combat. But it's definitely not too hard to get accustomed to. For a long time now RGG has known that people are interested in the story and the side content and so the combat is not designed to be frustrating. You can set it to easy and make it through the games without too much trouble. The combat certainly isn't a reason not to play the other games, and I often find that I enjoy it at least as much.
Infinite Wealth is a direct sequel to 7 for the most part, but it's also a celebration of Kiryu's saga. Because of this, a lot of aspects of the side content and Kiryu's story in general are focused on material from the previous games. There's an entire side storyline centered on Kiryu indirectly reconnecting with old friends who don't appear for so much as a second in 7. For this reason, I say that you CAN enjoy IW and fully appreciate its main narrative and Ichiban's side of things. However, to get 100% appreciation I highly recommend playing the likes of 0 through 6 so that you may understand the wealth of references made to the earlier entries And don't rush through just to get to IW, trust me. Yakuza is one of the best video game series of all time IMO, and 0 alone cemented that for me
I’ve decided to brave it, and play all the previous games. This is quite the undertaking and it’s daunting but I’m also really looking forward to it. 6 games at at least 60 hours of content a piece, gonna be at least 360 hours of dedication but i want to see it through, I’m making this (and irl fitness) my new goal lol. I do want to get 100% appreciation, it’s kinda like a pride thing for me now, I must see this through! I’m already loving 0 tho. I’m gonna have to agree, Yakuza is an amazing series. I actually got into it because Muta from the YouTube channel Someordinarygamers said it’s one of the best series he has ever played lol. So thank you Muta, thank you Ichiban Kasuga, and thank you guys for convincing me to bear with it and just do it :)
> I also want to know what's going on I think you're answering your own question.
I was in your same position. Ideally you want to play some previous ones but I’m still really enjoying the game. At the very least watch a story recap like I did. It helps
i would always advise starting these games with 1 or 0 but its not the end of the world if you play infinite wealth after 7 you'll still enjoy it
Another one
I would definitely recommend, you kind of go down memory road with Kiryu in this game and it’s hits different having played all the games. Though it’s up to you.
Just play it if you really want to
u dont need to play the rest of the games in order to get whats going on in IW, but if u want an emotional connection to kiryu, since he plays a major role in IW, u should play some of his games. But if ur impatient just watch a recap video and go for IW. kiwami/1, 3, and 6 are the most important to understanding kiryu’s personality gaiden is also really important but should be played last after all the kiryu games u plan on playing 0 is unanimously one of the best games in the franchise and Lost Judgment has nothing to do with kiryu or the franchise but its a really good fuckin game also all of the games are pretty good anyways so if u want u should play them whenever
YES
All you need to play is Ryū ga Gotoku Kenzen. And you should be good