Highlights
- Yakuza games constantly update gameplay mechanics, requiring players to adapt and strategize for a fun yet challenging experience.
- Must learn new techniques early in Yakuza titles like the Tiger Drop for an easier time progressing through the game.
- Despite being manageable, Yakuza games like Yakuza 0 can be tough due to lack of explanation and clunky combat controls.
Many people know the Yakuza/Like A Dragon series for its captivating story and large cast of lovable characters, but the games are also consistently top-notch when it comes to their gameplay. Whether it’s the beat ’em up style of Kiryu’s Yakuza titles, or the turn-based battle system introduced with Yakuza: Like A Dragon, the games are constantly updating and evolving their core mechanics and systems to ensure that they always feel as fun as possible to play. Nevertheless, they still pose a pretty formidable challenge.
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Although none of the games are considered to be brutally arduous to complete, there’s a handful that feels as though they were purposefully made to be just a little harder than their predecessors. This can be achieved through the enemy types, new mechanics, or simply just how much grinding is required to become stronger throughout the game, but needless to say, there are plenty of ways that Ryu Ga Gotoku has managed to dial up the difficulty in their Yakuza/Like A Dragon games, with the following titles being the hardest of the bunch.
7 Yakuza 5
GameFAQs Difficulty Rating: 2.97
All in all, Yakuza 5 provides a pretty manageable experience so long as the player makes use of all the tools and resources at their disposal, but if they don’t take the time to seek out extra abilities and buffs, then it can end up being much more difficult. In the first few hours of the game, Kiryu can feel pretty underpowered and vulnerable, so it’s heavily advised to learn new techniques by speaking to other NPCs as quickly as possible, especially the Tiger Drop, which essentially acts as the game’s parry.
Because random encounters occur so frequently in Yakuza 5, it’s also always a good idea to stock up on as much food as possible, since having a quick snack will grant Kiryu and the other playable characters unique buffs and stat enhancements that can be helpful, especially against the boss enemies. The Coliseum thankfully offers a way for players to games-that-punish-you-grinding/”>grind out some extra EXP if they need to, but if they dedicate just a little bit of time to honing their combat abilities rather than rushing head-first to the next objective, it will ensure that the overall experience never becomes too overwhelming.
6 Yakuza 4
GameFAQs Difficulty Rating: 3
Yakuza 4 features some pretty intense difficulty spikes that can be incredibly tricky to overcome without the right equipment and resources. A few examples of this include the chaotic prison break sequence with Saejima, where a relentless swarm of enemies will attack him all at once, making it very hard to strike back without getting hit in the process. The game also includes some of the series’ most brutal boss encounters, with Saito being a prime example of an enemy who will require an incredible amount of patience and strategy to overcome.
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Although the enemies aren’t quite as block-happy as they were in Yakuza 3, they are still able to brush off even the most powerful attacks so long as they have their guard up, which makes button mashing much less useful than it once was. To see Yakuza 4 through to the very end in one piece, keeping a few health drinks handy and taking a smart and strategic approach to combat encounters is more or less necessary.
5 Yakuza 0
GameFAQs Difficulty Rating: 3
Yakuza 0
- Released
- January 24, 2017
The game that introduced many Western fans to the series, Yakuza 0, is mostly admired for its wacky yet incredibly emotional story, but when it comes to combat, this beloved title is far from a pushover. Because the game admittedly doesn’t do a great job of explaining its many systems and mechanics to players, it can make that first hour or two pretty stressful, especially with how many enemies are thrown Kiryu’s way. Because Ryu Ga Gotoku was still trying to nail down the brawler combat of Yakuza, it can also feel a little clunky and unresponsive at times, especially in its movement, which can make it pretty easy to get hit while trying to dodge certain attacks.
Once players learn the tricks of the trade though, such as using environmental objects as weapons and acquiring powerful side-weapons like the zap gun, these encounters become far easier and a lot more enjoyable to be a part of. As is expected from the Yakuza series, 0 also has plenty of side activities, though many of them, such as Mahjong and even the karaoke rhythm mini-game, can take a lot of time and practice to fully master.
4 Yakuza: Like A Dragon
GameFAQs Difficulty Rating: 3.05
Yakuza: Like A Dragon
- Released
- November 10, 2020
- Genre(s)
- JRPG
Yakuza: Like A Dragon is a game that is heavily inspired by classic JRPGs of old, not just in its adventurous story and turn-based combat, but also regarding its overall challenge, which remains pretty formidable from start to finish. Although spamming basic attacks can easily take out some of the weaker thugs in the first few hours, as the enemies become more durable and aggressive, it forces players to utilize buffs, debuffs, and other spells to try and overcome some of the game’s biggest hurdles.
The combat also features a Perfect Guard system which, while incredibly useful, is extremely hard to pull off, requiring the player to tap the block button the moment that an enemy hits the character, though the timing window for pulling this off successfully is incredibly short. Just like classic JRPGs, each character will also need to be geared up with appropriate equipment and weapons, otherwise, they can easily end up being severely underpowered for the many dangerous boss encounters and dungeons that are featured throughout the story.
3 Yakuza 3
GameFAQs Difficulty Rating: 3.09
In an attempt to prevent players from simply mashing every button on their controller during combat encounters, Ryu Ga Gotoku decided to make the games-unpredictable-ai/”>enemy AI in Yakuza 3 much more defensive, to the point where landing an attack on them becomes a challenge in and of itself. When they’re not blocking to save their lives, enemies in Yakuza 3 will always be looking for an opportunity to sidestep Kiryu’s attacks so that they can get the drop on him.
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As a result of this, hunting down special weapons and Heat Moves becomes essential for taking down large groups of enemies at once. Thankfully, these can often be acquired through fun activities, such as playing the Inner Fighter minigame to unlock the Cigarette Mastery attack, for example. It’s clear that Ryu Ga Gotoku went just a little overboard when designing the enemy behavior for Yakuza 3, and although it doesn’t ruin the game, it does make even the weakest enemies feel much more formidable than they realistically deserve to be.
2 Yakuza Kiwami
GameFAQs Difficulty Rating: 3.14
Considering Yakuza Kiwami is one of the earliest games in the timeline, it makes sense that Kiryu wouldn’t feel quite as powerful as he would eventually become, but throughout much of the game, it feels as though he’s always on the back foot. Although the Heat Action upgrades do go a long way in helping out with some of the more challenging sections, these can take quite a while to unlock, making those first few areas of the game pretty unforgiving as a result.
While the Beast style was the strongest to use in Yakuza 0, in Kiwami, every one of Kiryu’s stances serves a particular purpose, and so it becomes necessary to constantly switch between them on the fly during a fight since relying too heavily on one will simply result in a Game Over screen. Weapons are luckily still absurdly powerful, which can help to even the odds of an intense fight, but there’s still no doubt that Yazkua Kiwami pulls no punches in terms of overall difficulty.
1 Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name
GameFAQs Difficulty Rating: 3.17
Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name
- Released
- November 9, 2023
- Genre(s)
- Action-Adventure
Because of the sheer amount of skills, techniques, and brand-new abilities that Kiryu gets in The Man Who Erased His Name, the developers decided to beef up pretty much every enemy type to compensate for this. This means that even the forgettable thugs that Kiryu could make quick work of in his previous adventures now felt like a legitimate threat who could deal a pretty substantial amount of damage with just a single attack. This isn’t even mentioning the bosses, all of whom are far more merciless and aggressive than they ever have been before, and since breaking their grabs is now virtually impossible, it means that they can melt Kiryu’s health bar with little to no effort.
As mentioned earlier, Kiryu is given a few new tools to help him in his journey, such as the drones for example, which can be used to provide a temporary wall of defense against oncoming attacks, but knowing how and when to use these abilities effectively is much easier said than done. Since The Man Who Erased His Name is a little shorter than most mainline entries, it seems as though the developers tried to ensure that the game still provided enough of a challenge for the player to overcome to make sure it doesn’t end too quickly, and while they succeeded, it also ends up feeling quite a bit harder than any games that came before it as a result.
#Hardest #Yakuza #games #Ranked
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