At the start of the year, a few of us at TheG🌸amer made some gaming resolutions. Mine was that I would finally play a Kiryu-led Yakuza game, having only ever played 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Like a Dragon before. I know these days we’re meant to call them all ‘Like a Dragon’, but you know what I mean. The one with Ichiban. Anyway, eager to keep my promise, I have already started my campaign in e💙arnest, but things weren’t going so well until one magical plate of spaghetti.
There’s quite the debate over which Yakuza game is best to start with. Techni𒉰cally I already started with Like a Dragon, but Kiryu’s story is his own thing. The three candidates that I heard when talking to people are: Kiwami, the remake of the first game; 0, a prequel which is the first chronologically; and 3, which is when the series sorted out its teething problems. Like a Dragon is in the mix for complete newcomers, but it d♐oesn’t offer anywhere to go from there, so even from a running start I’m left with three options.
In the end, I decided to go for Kiwami. People often talk about the narrative of the Yakuza games as a core selling point, especially how the character develops over time. Ichiban’s story was surprisingly moving,🍸 so I want to experience Kiryu’s to the full. Jumping to 3 feels like a cheat just because the gameplay is a little smoother, and while 0 is technically the start, a prequel written after so much of the journey seems like I will have needed to taken that journey to appreciate it. So, I started with Kiwami. At first, I felt I had made a horrible mistake.
I knew the move to action combat from the turn-based play I was used to in Like a Dragon would take some getting used to, but it’s not like I hadn’t played a game with action combat before. The problem was everything was too clunky and stilted. There was something of a compelling story (although it seemed to be setting up a slow burn rather than exploding out the gates), but actually playing the game felt like a chore. In Chapter three, things finally warmed up as the plot started moving and Kiryu too🌟k on swarming gangs in fast-paced action, but then it ended with an irritating punch-sponge of a boss who just kept on trucking no matter what happened. He was easy enough to dodge or block, it just took forever.
I was tempted to give up. Even if I wasn’t going to turn my back on the series entirely, maybe I could read a plot summary and skip to 3, or dive into 0 and hope it would prepare me for ꦿanother go at Kiwami in the future. Enter the spaghetti. Or, more specifically, the spaghetti carbonara.
A carbonara done 𓃲well is one of my favourite dishes, so I already had some affection seeing it pop up on the screen. But I&rs🐻quo;d also heard Yakuza was weird and wonderful in all sorts of ways, and, while I had experienced that with Ichiban, I was yet to see it in Kiwami. In chapter four, the game opens up and allows you to wander the city a little more, and Kiryu is forced to attend a hostess club . In one of these, I was paired with a woman named Yui, and while talking with her, could order a carbonara. It seems silly, but it made me connect with the smaller stories for the first time, because it was grounded. I wasn’t just fighting or following along with (to this point) fairly trite mafia stories. It felt like I was deciding Kiryu’s favourite food, and adding depth.
The longer we ꦕtalked, the more Kiryu’s personality poured out. He’s blunt but respectful, he’s loyal, and has a firm commitment to always doing what is right, he makes no judgements of people, and is considerate despite being stoic. He seems like a regular, unfeeling ꧋video game protagonist at first, but over spaghetti, the real Kiryu pours out.
I’ve kept going with the game, and I’m currently trying to find some water and a dish for a hungry puppy, which is a lot mor𝕴e like I expected my time with Kiryu to be. I’m hoping I fall in love and blast through the entire series. If I do, it will all be because of spaghetti carbonara.