Yakuza 3, 4, 5, And 6 Coming To Xbox Game Pass - Game Informer

Yeah, I spent a while trying to make this but here goes. I kind of made it like a speech presentation so please excuse the more dramatic tone to it.
Another user - u/Villainous-Lightning made a similar post a while ago which gives more depth to certain aspects. https://www.reddit.com/OnePiece/comments/k728ti/ideal_one_piece_videogame/
I also made this in video format so you can check that out. https://youtu.be/QYNxfN7Tiqg
Over the decades we have been slowly following the grand epic that is One Piece. One Piece is the best anime that I’ve ever seen. And in every single type of media that we see One Piece in, it's always been solid. Except for... the games. Like when was the last time we actually got a good long-lasting One Piece game. Sure we have the pirate warriors series but that is far too stale and it never brings the recognition that One Piece gets and deserves. From 2012 to 2020 Bandai Namco has been consistently publishing a new One Piece game.
2012 - Pirate Warriors for the PS3 and that was an average game that did bring a new side to the One Piece gaming aspect. The Mouso.
2013 - Unlimited World Red for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, PC, Wii U, Nintendo 3DS. Just what were they thinking with this game? This singular game made us One Piece fans a laughing stock. We also got Pirate Warriors 2 for the PS3 and Vita but that was so stale that there's not much to say other than the fact that the Bandai felt that this was the series to continue developing One Piece Games in.
2014 - Treasure Cruise for Mobile. And while this game is still running, it's a gacha game that has very lacklustre gameplay and an extremely expensive gambling aspect. This really only exists today because a bunch of people that like One Piece and are prone to gambling exist.
2015 - Pirate Warriors 3 for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PC and PlayStation 3 comes out and once again it is mid.
2016 - Bandai decides to switch it up and bring us a new approach to the One Piece games. The battle arena fighting game. One Piece Burning Blood releases in 2016 for the PS4 and PC and while there were some good aspects that were in this game, overall Burning Blood ended up being a game that was another generic anime fighting game that lacked depth or any meaningful sense of balance.
2017 - actually was a year that we did not get any new One Piece game. So yeah.
2018 - however Bandai Namco decided that it was time for One Piece to make a return into the gaming industry in which Bounty Rush was released. Yeah, it's a mobile game but it does have better gameplay aspects which are consequently limited by the gacha system. Again it repeats the shortcomings of Treasure Cruise.
2019 - Now this was the year where in my opinion, One Piece was delivered in a genre that was perfect for it. The open-world genre. One Piece World Seeker was released for the PS4, Xbox One and PC and while it had the foundations of a decent game, the combat, story and open-world lacked enough content to make the game meaningful as a whole.
2020 - To make sure this year was thoroughly shit Bandai Namco published One Piece Pirate Warriors 4 for the PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC. Another iteration of Pirate Warriors that built on the foundations of its predecessors but it still kept its original flaws.
As you can see that there is no One Piece game that still has any ounce of life aside from Pirate Warriors 4 but give it a couple of months it follows the others in a comfortable coffin.
Okay, there's no point complaining about an issue if I don’t present any solutions. So I present to you, The Dream One Piece Game
Genre
If there was any genre that would fit One Piece it is obviously the open-world adventure RPG. For me and a lot of viewers and readers, one of the biggest aspects that drew people into One Piece was the sense of this grand adventure that the straw hats will go on. It was never about the cool fight scenes or other more shallow aspects. Although we do love a good fight scene. So how we do this is we have a One Piece open-world game where we start in Foosha village with Luffy setting out on his adventures to become the pirate king. He hops from island to island progressing the original narrative. These islands must be massive, Alabasta, Fishman Island, Dressrosa these were considered countries with their own regions and towns and surrounding these large islands must be larger waters. The Straw hats are going on a journey. A journey that they have no idea of what will happen.
Structure
We want the players to be at a point where with each island that they play through, they can look back and reminisce on the journey that they have had. The idea is that they gotta be thinking “We really did that shit”. This means that we should fill each main island with plenty of meaningful content. Main missions, side missions and other systems that we get into later. The game is structured where there are primarily two types of mission, canon and non - canon. Players are not allowed to travel to the next island without completing the canon missions that replicate the manga and the anime to an extent. The non-canon missions are optional of course. These optional non-canon missions could retell the filler stories like Luffy, Zoro and Chopper getting lost in Alabasta and finding a poneglyph or Sanji meeting the old chef that uses ingredients from the All Blue. Even the inclusion of movie content would be welcomed. The developers could include some exclusive missions that somewhat replicate what we see in the sub-stories from the Yakuza series. I also have an idea that there are certain tasks on islands that are exclusive to each of the strawhats. They could come in the form of minigames or just missions that are relevant to each straw hat which can reoccur in each island.
Luffy could have a mission where he could visit all the restaurants on the island and test out their food. Sort of a completion list. He could even have a coliseum mode where he fights as Afro Luffy or Lucy where he dukes it out with the antagonists of each arc in an exhibition match.
For Zoro, we can have him return to his past life as a bounty hunter where he can go around and hunt for wanted criminals and maybe even set him out on treasure hunts so that he could improve on his sense of direction. Johnny and Yosaku can even make an appearance. These bounties could have their own storyline that somewhat is reminiscent of the contracts from The Witcher series.
Nami could have a simple exploration objective so on completion she could be one step closer to drawing a map of the world. She could also have a business enterprise mode where she can run certain establishments that generate revenue for her and even get into competition with other businesses.
When it comes to Usopp we can have a minigames section where we play as Usopp in certain accuracy based modes. Darts, Duck Shooting, Sniping or even duels. Even a mode where you play as Sogeking could be a lot of fun.
One of Sanji’s most apparent qualities aside from his lust is his speed. Because of this, we can do some time trial events or some races where Sanji goes up against other well-known speedsters from the series. We could have some minigames where Sanji can go on dates with other people trying to find love and some action.
Chopper could have some minigames where we could have him take part in the surgery. Kind of a surgeon simulator. Honestly, I can't really think of any ideas for Chopper. He is quite one note with the cute doctor aspect. Maybe you guys can leave some ideas.
With Robin, we could go on pseudo story investigation missions where we learn more exclusive history about certain islands. I'm not entirely sure how these missions could go. It could be like scavenger hunts and it might not even have to be canon history but it's there to help build more character to her character. Elements from the Ace Attorney series may prove to be a solid inspiration.
Franky could have an entire minigame section where we use the Battle Franky Battleships and go on a full warfare mode and battling other Pirate and Marine ship. The pirate ship battle features that were present in Assassins Creed Black Flag are easily some of the best single-player pirate ship experiences so that has to be a muse.
For Brook, it's very obvious that there has to be some level of music involved. So the most fitting feature for Brook would be a rhythm minigame. Like a karaoke or a guitar hero mode. Maybe even a dance mode that we see in the tap tap revolution series.
If we include Jinbei then it is only right as the helmsman of the crew, we could bring in a ship racing game mode where there could be a progression system of upgrading the Thousand Sunny to challenge other ships.
There could even be missions of cover stories that tell the journey of other characters. For example, we get the Lola and Chiffon in Dressrosa cover story while the manga is in Wano so when the player gets into Wano they unlock the Lola and Chiffon cover story back in Dressrosa. That way the player is still incentivized to revisit the previous islands for more content.
These are just ideas that would be some fun content for the players while not taking the focus too far away from the story. Of course, there should be missions that are incorporated into the minigames so there is some level of progression and a goal to achieve for the perfectionists. A mini-story to be exact. And while they are missions exclusive to each character, there is no reason why other Straw Hats won’t get involved with each other's missions. The reason why we need things like this is not just for the sake of content in video games. The Straw Hats, while still a pirate crew, are a family. They fight, mock and protect each other. They have certain dynamics that when they are visible to the players it can really bring in a level of familiarity and depth to the crew.
Gameplay
Since this is an open-world game, there has to be an incentive to explore the environment. This allows there to be beautiful environments that when paired with landmarks and other types of points of interest the player will be drawn to explore environments of the islands that they visit rather than doing the main missions and moving on. Characters such as Luffy, Sanji and Robin are able to fly in their own unconventional ways means that there has to be a level of verticality that’s filled with some depth. Side missions should push the players to embark on these areas that the story would otherwise avoid. A game like Genshin Impact - while flawed in certain areas really hit the mark when it came to exploration.
Most of One Piece’s combat is melee but there are some mid-range and a few long-range combat scenes. I believe that the best type of combat for One Piece already exists in another game. Once again the Yakuza series especially Yakuza Kiwami has a combat system where the main character Kiryu has multiple stances that can be utilised for many different situations. They have the rush stance which delivers very quick strikes that do not deal high burst damage but small amounts of damage over a certain period of time. They also have the beast stance which delivers slow but hard hitting strikes that can deal big bursts of damage. This can be implemented to the Straw hat pirates. For Luffy, we can see him switch between gears that each has its own pros and cons. Or for Zoro we can see him decide how many of his three swords will he use to fight and each number has its own fairly large moveset. Sanji can have a trigger function where he can switch into diable Jambe and maybe Usopp can prioritize ranged combat but occasionally bring in the Usopp hammer to switch it up. Those are just some of the examples. There also has to be a direction in the development of the game that the player is rewarded to use most of the moveset and make sure it is straightforward to execute. To continue from the Yakuza combat system - the player has to fight a set of enemies that can range from just one to a whole army. The Straw Hats are often in these types of situations and we see them use their combined strength to progress. This means that there has to be a party system that corresponds to the story or a free play mode. When we are fighting Mr. 4 and Miss Merry Christmas we should be playing as Usopp and Chopper as a party kind of like how it is in Final Fantasy 7 remake or How it is in Genshin Impact single-player mode where the only character on the field is the playable character and the other characters in the party are on standby waiting to switch in.
There shouldn't be a requirement for the player to execute Tekken level combos just to defeat the opponent the most effective way but the player must use their skills and logic to beat enemies. This means that the enemies have to be capable of defeating us but give the player a way to beat them. A weakness. There should be more of a focus on a balance between offence and defence - if Luffy gets hit during an attack animation then Luffy should be hit out of the animation and enter a recovery phase and maybe not be invulnerable. This kind of rule shouldn’t be set in stone when we get into a moment where we are Gear 4th Luffy fighting mob enemies. Frame data that we see in fighting games should be implemented, but of course, the Straw Hats should be outputting faster attacks than the NPC’s that they fight. This is not a balanced fighting game. Devil May Cry 5 is the standard that this game should be aiming for. That game has one primary way of fighting depending on the character that you play as but there are other methods of combat that are not as fleshed out but are there to supplement the primary mode of combat just to give more freedom to the player.
One Piece has a way of writing the story into its fight scenes. Each of the Straw Hats undergoes their own mini character arc when they do their main fight for the arc. They only “win” their fight if their arc leads them to the desired state. Zoro may have lost to Mihawk in the Baratie Arc but in the end, he turned out better so while he lost the battle you can't say that this is an L on Zoro. Characters like Luffy are put through hell when they have to fight the main antagonist of the arc so that must be replicated in the combat.
Customisation
Personally, I think customisation could be quite straightforward. The Straw Hats get new clothes as they go from arc to arc so I think we can just have a clothing store where they can buy them or just reward them for completing the arc prior with the clothes they would wear for the next arc. There are even clothing brands like Doskoi Panda or Criminal that can have their own stores on each island which can have products to buy. We could even add comical clothing like what we see in other fighting games as a form of monetisation.
Conclusion
Of course, I didn't go as in-depth as I wanted to for these aspects because the post would have been too long but the point is to throw out my idea to the internet because I don’t think I’m wrong in saying that there has to be a growing number of people that are tired of the mediocre output that we have been getting. Now let's be honest, the game I’m envisioning requires a lot of money to be made. I certainly don't have the money to make a game like this but all this is a letter to the developers that Bandai Namco hires saying that what they have right now is average at best it's not what it could be. One Piece has so much potential in gaming that has gone unnoticed because people haven't given it a full-on venture in the right direction. But I know for a fact that something that I said even just one can spark a project that could be legendary.

Feeling conflicted about the way Atlus (and some other companies) handle ports, remakes and remasters

Warning: wall of text
I apologise if this comes off as a little ranty, but these are some thoughts I've wanted to get off my chest for a long time. There's a lot I want to say and I've realised that I just can't cut it down to three or four paragraphs, so it's going to be really long. If I knew how to make videos I would do that but I don't. I was going to post this to one of the Persona subreddits but any time I've even hinted at these opinions it's been negative received. But I realise now that I just really need to get it out there because it's bugging the shit out of me.
I like remasters, ports and (sometimes) remakes - when done tastefully, they can be a great way to keep older games relevant and introduce them to new audiences. Sometimes an underlooked gem is stuck on old hardware and is hard to obtain so it'll eventually be forgotten and near-impossible for anyone to play legitimately - this is especially true in the case of some JRPGs and other Japanese games, that have only managed to break into the mainstream in more recent years, the Persona franchise being a prime example of such a franchise. However, there's something about the way Atlus handles these ports, remasters and rehashes that really rubs me the wrong way. There are other companies I'm going to bring up as well, but Atlus games are the ones I want to focus on.
For the record, I won't be talking so much about the way Atlus handles pricing and DLC, believe me there's plenty I could rant about there but that's a post for another day.
1. The inclusion of new story content
Surely a game known for its story getting more story can't be a bad thing? On paper, you'd be right. When you're invested in a story and its characters, it's only natural that you'd want to spend more time in that world and get as much out of it as you can. It's why some people prefer watching the extended editions of movies over the original cuts, for example. But what's going on here isn't exactly the same.
Atlus re-releases typically contain brand new characters and plot threads. Which again, isn't a bad thing in theory, but it's how these things are incorporated into these already existing narratives that doesn't gel with me. In addition to inserting new things into the game, they also often significantly change what's already there, whether it be creating holes and inconsistencies where there were previously none, altering the flow and pacing of the story for the worse, or sometimes even straight-up retcons. Sometimes these things may not even be intentional and happen simply through the nature of taking an existing story that was already complete and trying to jam stuff in after the fact.
A couple of months ago I finished Persona 5 Royal and for the most part, I actually had a good time playing it (please remember this because it's going to sound like I despised it which isn't true). I thought a lot of the new gameplay mechanics were really cool and some of the tweaks were for the better, but the entire time I had to keep asking myself why it really needed to exist at all. For many reasons, one being that the OG game is only three years old, but the biggest point of contention being the new story material.
To just jump right into it, all of the 'twists' in Royal were extremely predictable simply by virtue of them even existing. If you've played the original game, any new scene or line of dialogue will stick out like a sore thumb. In one of the game's first sequences you're in the car with Sojiro where a newsreader on the radio talks about the accidents that would form a big part of the game's story. Right after, he mentions that a 15 year-old girl was killed in one of these accidents. Oh gee, I wonder who that's about.
With that single line I managed to piece together the game's big twist, that Kasumi is not really Kasumi, the real Kasumi is that car crash victim and the one we interact with is someone different. If you're still unsure by that point, it's made even more obvious during one of the first interactions with her where it's revealed that she has a twin sister. They ain't even trying to hide this stuff. And yes, I was right, that's the big twist.
Had this been a completely original story, I might not have figured it out so incredibly quickly, because a 15 year old girl killed in a car accident could have been anyone, there's not enough context to make that connection right away. I didn't call all of the original P5's twists because everything was new to me. But when you have a game that you've already played before and has new stuff added into it, it's only natural to assume that anything that's new is linked and meant to build up the new characters. That's how it's been in these other Atlus rehashes. They wouldn't mention something so specific if it wasn't going to be important later.
The same goes for Maruki - when the game was first shown off they released a series of teaser trailers that showed the original game's cast in impossible situations, hinting at some kind of alternate reality where their dead loved ones return to life and their general lifestyles are much happier. Their wishes have come true, in other words. These little teasers were effective in that they were surprising for returning players and showed that the new semester wasn't going to simply a time extension. But as soon you first sit down with Maruki in the game and he talks about wanting to make people's wishes come true, it's simply a matter of putting two and two together in your head to realise that he's the one behind it. I mean, who else could the new villain be?
It kind of takes away the fun of watching the story unfold because you can see all of the twists and reveals from a mile away, while the game thinks it's being clever by dropping 'hints' about what's to come, but they're so blatant they might as well have neon lights on them. Yes, game, I noticed that Kasumi is always referred to by her surname when in the presence of people besides the MC, very clever of you.
To be honest, there were only two things that actually surprised me in my playthrough of the game, the first being Maruki having a Persona, because it directly goes against what's established in the original game - that Palace owners can't have Personas because they effectively cancel each other out - so naturally I wasn't expecting the game to break it's own lore. The second being Morgana turning into a helicopter during the climax, because well I never had any reason to think he could turn into any other vehicle. I'm not complaining about that one, I don't really care that much. To be fair, in Persona 5 the Animation, Ryuji has one line where he says "Can't you turn into a helicopter or something?" so maybe it does have some basis, I don't know.
So your response might be, "What about people who never played the original game?" I can't speak for Persona 5 Royal, obviously. I can't possibly say what the experience was like for newcomers. But I can speak for my experience with a few other Atlus titles that received expanded editions, that I played over their original versions.
First of all: Persona 4 Golden - this was actually my first Persona game and I fell in love instantly. But even as someone going into it blind, I could tell that all of the stuff with Marie (the new character) was completely superflous and tacked on. Everything about her felt out of place, from her design (which isn't bad when taken on its own) and her story which reads like something out of a schlocky young adult novel. All interactions with her feel like the devs are trying really hard to convince you that she's extremely important, but it falls flat because you know she can't be that important if she was never part of the original story. And yes, when her true significance is revealed, it's contrived and corny.
She feels like a character from a completely different game, and personally I found her a pretty poorly written character to begin with, an amalgamation of some of my least favourite anime tropes (an amnesiac tsundere who turns out to have god-like powers... yikes). She basically has no involvement in the main plot (solving the murders) and it's only until the 95% completion point of the main story (if you fulfilled certain conditions) that her arc really has any significance. If you read the manga or watch the anime, she's not present at all and the story hardly changes at all.
All that being said though, at least most interactions with her are optional and you can just ignore her if you want to have an experience that is closer to the original game while still enjoying the new gameplay benefits. Additionally, the end of her story takes place just before the final arc of the game, rather than after the story has already reached its climax and given you that cathartic feeling of reaching the end. In a lot of these rehashes you have no choice to engage with the new story material and it's mandatory to reach the end credits.
As another example, currently I'm playing through Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux, my first SMT game outside of Persona, so I haven't really been able to predict where the story is going to go exactly.
As is typical for an Atlus port, there's a new character and a new dungeon to go through. You meet her (it's always a girl - but at least this one isn't simping over the MC at every opportunity) in the second dungeon and she's hostile to you, wiping your team easily. She also has her own robot companion just like you. You encounter her again in the third dungeon, the same happens, and after that, you never encounter her again in the main story, only in the new dungeon, and even then it's once in a blue moon. There's one instance where you have to avoid her while getting to a certain point, but that's it. I've put nearly 70 hours into the game and I'm on the final dungeon, and yet I know barely anything about this person. I can count the times she's appeared on one hand.
So you can imagine me feeling confused when she's the biggest character on the front cover but is barely part of the story. That entire part might as well be an elaborate side mission, and I'm treating it as such, however I fully expect that I will have to complete all of that stuff to reach the game's "true ending", even though the actual story is reaching its grand finale and I'm looking forward to seeing the end.
It's also confusing how this powerful, hostile woman is roaming the same uncharted land that your military operation is, that no humans have ever entered, has an AI helping her just like you, and yet no one ever mentions her? Why does no one acknowledge the existence of an additional dungeon that's completely different from the rest and I've been going to on the regular? It seems like a pretty significant oversight to just never bring that up. When you do eventually encounter other humans besides your team, it's a big deal and a major turning point in the story. The characters are shocked that someone else is here, as if we didn't just get our asses kicked by this woman 10 gameplay hours ago?
At this point it's obvious that the story wasn't written around her, she's just been added into this version because apparently people won't buy a remaster if it doesn't have a new character on the box?
P5 Royal does the same - the game is desperate to want you to feel attached to Kasumi and Maruki and think they're super important, but it just doesn't really work when their entire characters have to be written around a narrative that was already pretty air tight, linear and doesn't offer a lot of room for shuffling things about. It's not often that a story of any kind literally has certain events pinpointed onto specific dates, but Persona games do that. They have to shove scenes in here and there, but without directly contradicting important plot events, while still trying to develop them alongside the rest of the crew.
This leads to a lot of awkward parts where the game basically has to remind you that she exists in between the major story beats because even though her story doesn't really happen until after the original game's ending, they still have to develop her and try and endear her to the player. But for me, it just didn't really work. She rarely interacts with any characters besides the MC and she has zero chemistry with any other party members (they will still talk about her, though) and she simps over him so hard it's embarrassing to watch. They only have her talk to the MC for 90% of the game because he doesn't have any written dialogue so there's less chance of them creating some kind of plot hole or big continuity error.
It also leads to some seriously head-scratching moments where they insert important scenes for her that end up affecting the main story at large. For example, during October we discover the new Palace and Kasumi gets her Persona. It's insanely obvious that the Palace is Maruki's, but the game doesn't officially reveal it until the third semester. The only people to enter the Palace are Kasumi, the MC and Morgana. Afterwards Morgana tells MC that they shouldn't tell the rest of the team because "it would worry them". The fuck, mate? Are you telling me that my character is purposely withholding big information from the rest of the team for a flimsy-ass reason as that? And that we're just never going to investigate who the Palace belongs to? Get out of here with that bullshit.
It actually reflects badly on the characters, because I don't believe for a second they would have done that. It makes absolutely no sense that they would just never look into that until January. The game tries to dodge this by making the name hidden, but it's information that could be figured out pretty easily (simply ask Kasumi if she mentioned anyone's name before entering? Which she did) and it feels a little insulting that the game would think the player couldn't work that out. And when it is revealed, everyone's shocked and also no one cares that the MC and Morgana knew about its existence for 2+ months and elected to keep it to themselves. It's so dumb, and there are a bunch more instances like that that I'm not going to get into because this post will go way over the word limit.
Does this mean to say that I hate Kasumi and Maruki? That's the thing - I don't hate them at all. I think Kasumi's a little annoying, but she has a cute design and a fairly likeable personality. Maruki is actually great - his story is sad and sympathetic, he's entertaining and his motivations are understandable. But it's not their story, they're out of place.
Really, Maruki is a good enough character to be the star of his own game. If they'd saved him for a future Persona title and had him be the central antagonist in a story that was written with him in mind and really explored the themes of dreams and wishes a lot deeper, it could have been something really special. Don't you think he deserves that? I just can't understand why shoehorning new characters into the same game we played three years ago is more preferable to getting something brand new. For the devs, I get it - lower time and effort for a bigger payout. But the fans all love it, and it's just so bizarre to me.
Catherine was a game I really enjoyed on the PS3 so naturally I was really excited when they announced they were remastering it for the PS4. But the hype deflated almost immediately when they revealed that in addition to a series of gameplay additions, the game was going to feature a third love interest, when it was previously about a guy having to choose between two women (to put it extremely simply).
Adding a third love interest to a game like that significantly alters the narrative and arguably even makes it worse overall. Previously Vincent was a guy who fucked up and got himself into a bad situation, but now he apparently does it again with another woman? I'm just sitting here scratching my head, wondering why exactly was this necessary? That's not the game I played a few years back. This is some weird bizarro world version. I never bought it, because if you're going to mess about with the story like that in a game with a strong narrative focus, I'm not interested any more. You've fundamentally changed the experience.
From what I've heard from people who have played the game, she's just as poorly written, superfluous and awkwardly shoehorned in as I expected. There's probably some corny twist where she reveals her true identity, or that she's not actually real at all, or she's the key to the game's central mystery - whatever. It's always the same crap. The fact that such an addition to the story exists at all is enough to steer me away. It's funny reading about the devs bringing back the original voice cast so they could "preserve the integrity of the game", but the original game didn't have three fricking love interests.
This kind of thing makes the most sense when a game was clearly unfinished, or its story was lacking clarity in some areas or just generally felt uneven. Persona games are typically not like that. Their stories are usually pretty solid and well-thought out from start to finish. If I look at P5's narrative as a whole, I wouldn't change a thing. No, not even the fifth Palace arc. I'm not going to say it's perfect, but it's pretty damn good, and most importantly it's complete. There are no obvious unsolved plot threads or weird filler arcs, everything is wrapped up neatly and concisely, which is really impressive considering how long it is. I didn't finish the game thinking it was missing anything, put it that way.
By this point you must be thinking that I really hate the whole idea of expanding the story of a given work and adding things where there were previously none, but that isn't necessarily true. I think it's possible to do, just difficult.
Take Dragon Quest XI for example. About a 1/3 of the way through the story, something big happens and the team gets split up. You're separated from your trusted party and forced into an uneasy alliance with spoiler while you spend the next chunk of the game getting the band back together one at a time. However, when you meet back up with your crew, they've undergone drastic changes and you have to get them back to their senses. For a lot of them this is a big part of their respective arcs.
If you play the original version of the game, this part of the game might have you feeling confused because you only get a short explanation as to how they all got to that point, usually after the fact. Clearly a lot happened during that time but the game only really shows you the MC's perspective. The Switch version of the game fills in these blanks by actually letting you play as those characters for a few brief chapters (lasting around 1-2 hours each, though I think Sylvando's was longer) and really just adds some extra context to a part of the game that was a little vague. You don't return to playing as the hero until you've completed them all, so it reframes the original game's question of "what happened to my team?" into "what happened to the MC?".
Is it a finely crafted bit of narrative? Not really, but it's a neat little extra and there is an innate appeal in getting to control other members of your team for a while and see things from an alternate perspective. I mean shit, I wish the game did what the Tales games do and let us play as those characters in the overworld all the time. There aren't any retcons, no new characters who are somehow now the most important person in the world, and (in my opinion) they don't fuck the game's flow significantly.
All of them simply explain what happened during a mysterious period in the story and provide additional character development that actually makes sense. I mean, the events during this time are a big part of Sylvando's arc but in the original version they are skipped completely, you would think that he wasn't affected at all by what happened at the end of the first act.
The new chapters are short and have enough unique things going on that they feel fresh. Jade's chapter is essentially a series of arena battles while Erik traverses a dungeon, and Rab's is mostly cutscene-driven. Even if they were total garbage, they'd be over in a few hours and you'd get back to the game proper without any new crap forced in there.
Yakuza Kiwami is a remake of the PS2 original which added some new cutscenes throughout the game which attempt to develop Nishiki as a character. It's debatable how effective these scenes are, but it makes sense to include them because he was supposed to be the main villain of the original game but he only appeared in about five cutscenes. His betrayal didn't really make a ton of sense and it was hard to take it so personally when we barely knew him. You see him in one scene, he's apparently your best friend, you take the fall for him and next time you see him he's an evil mastermind. The remake attempts to fill in those gaps a little and illustrate his descent into evil. This doesn't mean I'm going to throw the PS2 original under the bus, to be clear, but the remake offers a bit of story expansion that doesn't feel completely hamfisted.
Let's take another Persona game as an example - Persona 3 and its expanded version Persona 3 FES. The main game's story had a powerful but also kind of strange ending, and FES includes a new epilogue chapter called The Answer that takes place afterwards and sheds light on what happened and how the characters deal with it.
Now, I don't particularly like The Answer that much in terms of gameplay or story, but at the very least, it is completely seperate from the main campaign and totally optional. You can even access it immediately if you want. And yeah, say whatever you want about the actual content, but at least it takes place after the original game is over, acting as a lite-sequel of sorts, and isn't 'replacing' the original game's story with some awkward-ass retelling full of changes and retcons. If you do want to ignore it completely, you can. How shit would it be if they tacked it onto the end of the game and made you play through it if you wanted to reach the credits?
2. Why not make a sequel instead?
Instead of creating a completely unnecessary divide between two games that are essentially the same thing at their core, why not make something new using the existing framework? It doesn't necessarily have to be Persona 6. I'm sure that game is going to be a huge update to the current formula like Persona 5 was to Persona 4, both in terms of mechanics and aesthetics. It's probably gonna be a few years away but I don't mind, I can wait. But if they're going to milk P5 in the years leading up to that, why not make a direct sequel as something to tide us over until the next big thing?
Direct sequels to JRPGs aren't super common, but they exist and they can work. Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy XIII, Tales of Symphonia, Tales of Xillia, Pokemon Black & White, Bravely Default and even Persona 2 are examples of games that received sequels that continue the story instead of basically doing a soft reboot every time. There are like ten Kingdom Hearts games if you count those. Shin Megami Tensei IV got an alternate timeline kinda-sequel in the form of SMT IV: Apocalypse and Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth got a side-quel with Hacker's Memory. So it's not like it can't be done. Call it Persona 5-II, Persona 5.5, Persona Subtitle, the name isn't important.
Think about it, wouldn't it be awesome to really explore what the world is like following the aftermath of P5? I wasn't a huge fan of FFX-2 overall but I loved revisiting those old locations and seeing how they've changed following the first game's events, and catching up with all my old friends. Most JRPGs throw you into a brand new world which is great but having that continuity can be really interesting.
It's one of the reasons I'm actually really excited to play Persona 5 Scramble when/if they ever localise it, because it explores events happening months after the original game instead of rehashing them or doing some kind of alternate dimension shenanigans like the Q games. We're getting to see the characters grow further and go on new adventures, and yes I know it's only set a few months later and I don't even expect it to be the best story ever but at least it's NEW.
Doing a sequel would be a brilliant opportunity to get experimental and try out new ideas before returning 'back on track' for the next main entry, and they could still write a story that's both original and compelling in its own right, while enhancing the lore and characters of the first game. Maybe this time they could finally give us another female MC? They could bring back characters from previous games as cameos or even team mates. Maybe we could have a Pokemon-esque rival who has the same powers as us and is trying to stop us but isn't necessarily a villain, and we fight them multiple times throughout the game? The possibilities for experimentation are endless.
Wait a sec, remember in the original teaser for Royal where Kasumi says she doesn't support the Phantom Thieves and she believes that people should sort out their own problems? Remember when they did nothing with that in the actual game? There you go, there's your rival. That little personality trait only existed because they wanted to introduce her early on, but realised that putting her in the party at any point in the main story would create way too many plot divergences and they needed a reason for her to not be in the team until after the original ending.
Reusing assets and mechanics surely wouldn't be an issue, either. Persona 4 was made very quickly after the surprise success of Persona 3, and they did it by reusing a lot of stuff from that game. Sure, those are PS2 games and things were different back then, so maybe not the fairest comparison, but it's not like it doesn't still happen today.
Even outside of JRPGs, there are tons of sequels that do the same thing over reinventing the wheel and doing everything again from scratch because it's just so much more cost-effective and there's no need to fix what's not broken.
The Yakuza series has managed to sustain itself for years by reusing stuff to keep costs down and put games out faster. They've kept the same city in every game, not changed the core gameplay a great deal (until now) and they've even been reusing a lot of the same canned animations dating back to Yakuza 3 at least. The fans are fine with it, the games sell decently well and they use the budget to focus on the set pieces and big story moments where it really matters. I don't deny that I would like to see a Yakuza game where everything looks as polished and detailed as any Western AAA game, I agree that Kamurocho has gotten a little stale but the newest one looks like they've put some money into it.
Put it this way, wouldn't you rather that Kasumi and Maruki could be part of a game where the story is written with them in mind first and foremost, rather than being awkwardly pushed into one that had nothing to do with them? A story where they can really explore the themes of dreams, wishes and wanting to escape one's traumas on a much deeper level, with characters, stages, music and aesthetics that reflect that? Eight or nine new Palaces instead of one? I know I would, that's for sure.
Yes, it would take a little longer to release and be a bit more expensive to make, but as a consumer, don't you think that would be worth so much more than just replaying the same game with new bells and whistles?
3. The idea that the original version is "obsolete", "outdated" or "not worth playing"
A common sentiment I see regarding remakes in general, not just the Atlus ones, is that their existence essentially negates the original version and renders it obsolete if not worthless. This is something I have complicated feelings about and I don't want to make big blanket statements like "it's wrong" because there are plenty of instances where it makes perfect sense to retire an older version of a game.
For instance, a few months ago I played through the PS4 remaster of Yakuza 3. It now runs at 60fps instead of 25-30, all of the cut/censored content from the original Western release has been restored, and the localisation has been given a refresh to make it more faithful and consistent with the rest of the series. While I had a lot of fun playing the original game, I don't feel bad about letting it go because the core of the game is still exactly the same, it's just been given a sorely-needed refresh, and it feels so much better to play.
There are tons of older games that are no longer easily accessible and games that are in dire need of cleaning up, so it's always great when they return on modern hardware with said improvements. I'm still waiting for the day they port Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door because I never got to play it and I'm not paying those eBay prices.
There are plenty of other examples, but you get the point. Generally speaking, I'm not against replacing an older version of a game. I could even potentially get over the Atlus method if the only additions were strictly gameplay and accessibility based, but when you're messing about with the story and putting in weird and unnecessary stuff, I find that pill a little harder to swallow.
I see a lot of people denouncing the original versions of a lot of these games now that they've seen these expanded versions, and it makes me sad. I frequently see people saying that the original Persona 5 is no longer worth playing, using words like "negated", "obsolete" and "irrelevant". Saying things like the OG game is "missing" stuff. Instead of being happy that Persona 5 is being included in the PS+ Collection on PS5, they're annoyed that it isn't the Royal version. I've seen people saying they feel ripped off for buying "the crappy one" or that they should have waited the three years to get "the true experience". (!!!)
It even extends beyond just the one game too. I've read some comments saying they're not going to play the upcoming Persona 5 Scramble spin-off because it doesn't have any of the new Royal characters (it was developed around the same time). I've seen others saying the same thing about the anime and manga adaptations - to be fair, you wouldn't be missing much by skipping those, but that's not the point. It's like the original version is no longer being considered canon anymore, it's complete madness.
A while back it was announced that Catherine Classic was being included in Humble Bundle on PC and I was seeing a lot of comments saying that it's not worth the time and you should just play Full Body instead, even if it means waiting for a PC port that might not even happen. Breaks my heart, man. These great games should just be thrown in the bin now? Remember when Persona 5 came out just three years ago and it was universally acclaimed and won a bunch of awards? Guess it's just a paperweight now, huh? Nah, that doesn't sit right with me at all.
But apparently I'm in the wrong for suggesting that it's still worth playing, at the very least as a first time experience. At least right now I have price on my side, since OG is way cheaper and if you're getting a PS5 it will be essentially free. But once the price of both versions become nearly identical, it will be a lot harder to argue in defence of vanilla.
If they ever do decide to port the game to additional platforms like PC, Switch or Xbox, it's only natural they will port the Royal version, meaning that will be many people's first experience of the game and the OG will become more and more forgotten over time. I hate to see a great game getting left in the dust like that.
4. Why I'm so conflicted about it
What I'm feeling here though stems from the fact that story additions aside, these newer versions typically ARE better in a more objective, general sense. Like, if you simply put them side by side and compare them in a bullet point kind of way, the newer versions usually include a bunch of helpful and convenient changes that do make the experience a lot more fun. New mechanics, new music, new areas, new items, minigames, rebalanced gameplay, a plethora of accessibility features like new difficulty options, improved localisations, additional language support, and so on. Stuff that surely anyone would appreciate seeing. That SMT game I'm currently playing was apparently infamous for its difficulty back in 2010 and this new version made things a lot more fair and player-friendly, which I can certainly agree with from my experience which is challenging but (mostly) reasonable.
A while back my sister told me she was interested in playing Persona 5 and asked me which version she should borrow from me, money wasn't an issue but she was only interested in a single playthrough. I can't realistically expect someone to play through a 90+ hour game twice. I honestly didn't really know what to say. My gut wanted to say original because it's the "true experience", but as a game, Royal is undoubtedly better. Even now, when I think about doing another playthrough, I'm unsure which one I would play. I don't like Royal's story changes very much (when taken in the grand scheme of things), but at the same time some of those new features were actually really cool and I would probably miss them.
5. The precedent that it sets for future titles
I remember when Persona 5 was still relatively new, I was seeing tons of discussions throughout the various Persona subreddits compiling wishlists of changes and additions they all want for the "inevitable re-release" like it was some kind of guaranteed thing. The game was barely months old and fans are already talking about the enhanced edition. To be honest, I thought this was crazy talk and I couldn't get my head around it.
Perhaps naively, I didn't think they would actually make a rehashed version of Persona 5, because what would have been the point in today's digital age? At least with Persona 3, you could argue that DLC expansions weren't possible on the PS2, and if they were going to add a new chapter they might as well tweak some things in the main game too. Made sense. And Persona 4 was being ported to a brand new platform, which is something I always like. But when the game was already on PS4, it wouldn't really make sense to just release it again... also on the PS4? Perhaps I was a fool to assume they wouldn't do something so... greedy?
When you look at the success of all of these, it all makes sense. P5R broke series sales records and reviewed extremely well, pretty much all of the other ports did well too. If you were the company, why wouldn't you do that every time? Takes less time than an entirely new game, the fans are happy to buy it again for full price, you make a killing.
From this point onward though, I'm fully expecting almost every Atlus release to get an expanded version not long after its original release. When Persona 6 comes out in 2024 or whenever, they'll probably have Persona 6 Platinum waiting to go two years later. New waifu, new story arc, new features, everyone's gonna love it. As for me? I couldn't really say. I'm sure it probably would be a better game than its original version. I just wish it didn't have to be this way. I say all of this because I love these games and I respect the creators' original visions first and foremost.
TL;DR: Bringing back older games is great, but do really we need to mess about with the story while doing it?

A list of every JRPG coming out/potentially coming out for 2020 that I could find

Hello y'all. I was looking up the jrpg releases for 2020 last week and holy hell this year is a juggernaut for jrpgs. I have compiled a list with dates of release or TBA, a video link, and a brief description of what they are if I know anything about the game. Given how long this will be, I'm not going to be editing it for grammar so apologies in advance. Now, let's get on with this shall we.
January: Well, we are already mid way thru Jan and a few titles have already dropped but lets just list them out right now.

Super Robot War X (Jan. 10) (Switch/PC) (SRPG). Visually its not very impressive but the series has always had solid gameplay, not inferior to FE imo on that particular aspect. Its basically a gundam mashup, tho this one has lelouch and guren lagunn in it as well. Basically its what happens if all those gundams and gundam pilots from all those gundam animes got put into one game with some original characters and a original story. And somehow, the series have always made it work. I haven;t played this one yet, but from previous experience you dont really need to know the original anime of these characters and the series can be played standalone with each game as its own.

Original Gematsu JP announcement trailer from 2 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlW-hAwJ9ZE
2) Atelier Dust Trilogy (PC/Switch/PS4). So this one doesn't require much explanation. It's atelier dusk. It's already out I believe. Some people would argue that it is the best or second best trilogy of the series. Cute characters doing cute stuff. Pretty intense time/resource simulator if you are trying to go above and beyond but if you just want to do as much as you need/want and pass the game then it can be a casual but enjoyable experience. Light hearted story as all ateliers are mostly (cough cough iris), tho this trilogy does have a slightly gloomier setting/story. Nice place to start if you are new to the series.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9hWacAkAAA
3) Orangeblood (PC) (Jan.14). So this is a game that almost no one has heard about lol. Seems like a japanese INDIE. Retro styled turn base. Seems really interesting. I've tried looking up the devs grayfax software but I haven't really found anything substantial. It seems like this might actually be a one man job or at least that of a very small team tho I can't be sure.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNhaaJgPCD8
4) Ephemeral Tale (Jan. 14) (EARLY ACCESS). Honestly, I know nothing about this one. Its a retro style turn base game for sure, but it's just entered early access so who knows how it will turn out.
Steam Page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1204320/Ephemeral_Tale/
5) Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls (PC) (Jan 15). This is a straight up dungeon crawler, the classic kind. Nothing groundbreaking but if you want a classic styled relatively difficult dungeon crawler this may be for you. Developed by Acquire and localized by Xseed. Funny enough, gamespot had a review which said that this game lacked an automap feature. They were wrong lol. That being said, it needs to be unlocked first. The process can require some effort so I can see how they may have missed it if they were just rushing thru it for a review. Thus, some pen and paper may be necessary. Like I said, this is of that old school design choice. Just one word of advice, make sure you pay attention where you are going, its super easy to get turned around in this game.
Gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5xKt_M8zGQ
6) The Alliance Alive HD Remaster (PC) (Jan 16). This is honestly a good game. It started out as a 3ds title and it definitely shows in the visuals. The super oversimplified version of the story is, the world is fucked, lets try and fix it. I know, I know, but honestly its a good story, with good characters. The battle system is interesting. Rather than focusing on getting levels for the characters, you get levels for your skills, and some skills are tied to your weapon usage. There's other stuff too like awakening talents. You basically have to do character building manually. It can be a bit jarring at first and the game can get difficult in the 2nd half but if you put in the time to learn the system there can be a lot of fun to be had.
Gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSx2nEKCrQE
7) Tokyo Mirage Session FE Encore. (Switch) (Jan 17). I don't know much about this game except its a FE x SMT with a slice of persona? Honestly, you are better off asking some other redditor than me, but I do plan on getting it cause from what I've been told the gameplay is actually good and the story is satisfactory.
8) Utwarerumono Trilogy (Jan 23 and TBA) (PC): This is a very, very dialogue heavy series. Did I mention it was very dialogue heavy? Its basically a visual novel, but every chapter ends on a srpg combat map. There's also free battles. The battles aren't really that hard, and you can always grind it out on the free maps but my experience is that in the hard maps you can definitely strategize it. It's definitely a story focused, story first type of game. It has a interconnected story, politics, romance, war, some really interesting mix of fantasy and a little bit of scifi. Utawarerumono, mask of deception, and mask of truth will be ported to PC on Jan. 23, tho they have already been available in the west on ps4 for a couple of years. the two games are direct sequels of each other. Deception moves at a fairly slow pace, with a lot more slice of life moments than truth. It definitely has its high pace moments, but for the most part the game establishes the characters and the empire which the game takes place in. Truth, the sequel, builds off the set up from the first game, and goes full force. It also has more combat maps than deception, if memory serves. Is it anime as fuck, hell yeah. Is it epic as hell if you like anime and are okay with a slow paced, slice of life set up? hell yeah. Now, this a trilogy, and the two mask games are actually the 2nd and 3rd games. The first game will be releasing in the west for the first time in a remake called the Utawarerumono: Prelude to the fallen. It has a mid 2000 anime adaptation as well, if anyone's interested. This will be released for ps4 and pc. The release date is TBA but it's likely to be in early to mid 2020. There is also a full fan made eng patch for the original on pc. Prelude to the fallen happens in a different kingdom, under a different protagonist. But in game timeline wise it is contemporary to the mask games, and there is a direct relation to them. You can play the two mask w/o doing to prelude, there's no issue with that if you just want the two mask game's MC's story. Despite the amount of cute girls in the game its actually not a harem lol. You have a main female interest, and other female characters get matched off with with other male characters. Whether that's good or bad will depend on your tastes lol. Personally, I love the chemistry in the relationships whether they be friends or lovers.
Mask of Deception: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tv8qY9wAI8
9) Arc of Alchemist (Jan 30) (PS4/Switch). I don't know how I feel about this game. It sounds like it could be interesting, but that gameplay has me hesitant. Its a post apocalyptic setting, action jrpg. The western release is a expanded version with a bunch of new playable characters, a better UI, and more stuff in your base camp. I think those are there to help you get exp faster? Its not exactly something I'm hyped about but who knows, it might have a unique charm that you have to play to feel for certain people. I'm keeping my eyes on it, maybe during a sale.
Gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auFS1zz1bWQ
Well, that's it for January. Now, the next few months don't have a lot of confirmed releases, so we'll get thru them pretty quickly. After that tho, we will get to the TBA category, which is going to be a LOT of titles. Some of them are more than likely to release in 2020, some are mere rumors, and others, nothing more than a glimmer of hope (cough cough SMT V), but I've included them regardless.
February

The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Tactics (Feb 4th) (PS4/Xbox One/Switch/PC). Some of you might remember this as that random srpg reveal in e3 2019. Well, we got a release date. The jury is still out on this one. It could be a solid srpg or it could just be a cheap imitation of a storied genre. I didn't find much detail on it overall.

E3 2019 trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qx48r-xqVg4
2) Yakuza Remastered Collection (Feb 11) (PS4). Yes, I know. Me putting this here is asking for a jrpg genre debate once more. That being said, I'm trying to be inclusive as possible and I've seen people on this thread arguing that yakuza series are all jrpgs. This brings yakuza 3-5 remastered to the ps4, with all the cut content that were not available for the original ps3 releases in the west. They are not full remakes tho, so the games definitely show their age compared to the kiwami stuff.
Yakuza: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6lT28S9zM8&t=9s
3) Kingdom hearts 3 DLC (Jan for ps4 and feb for xbox). Well, here we are again. From what i've read its more of a full expansion than a dlc. 13 bosses, a full story that occurs sometime before the final battle? extra episodes and some UI adjustments? also more difficulty mods? and new playable characters. Apparently kairi will be playable at least.
March

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon (Switch) (March 6). Its pokemon.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nh9lNsUB4yY
2) Langrisser I & II (ps4/switch/pc). (March 10). Oh I'm hyped for this. I think this will be the first time langrisser 1 is getting a western release too. There was a fan patch attempt that never fully materialized. You can switch between the older and new artstyle.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahzjI9NeLTc
3) Nioh 2 (ps4) (March 14). It's Nioh. With character creation, and a few more gameplay additions. There was a demo. Its not open anymore but here's some footage.
demo clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-A13OHXzK38
4) Fairy Tail (PC/PS4/Switch) (March 19-20). Honestly, for an anime game, this looks like it has actual effort put into it. It actually looks good. Shudders in tokyo ghoul tie in game, oh the horror. Any way, it seems to start at around the time skip in the original story, and has a few arcs from the anime plus an original story.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9TpEohmt7E
5) Persona 5 royale (March 31). Self explanatory.
April

FF7 remake - Self explanatory
Trials of Mana (PC/PS4/Switch) (April 24) - i think this is also another case of an old game being localized for the first time. I quite like what i saw from the trailer. Seems like a good action jrpg.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLjUkBlmKNs
May

Sword Art Online: Alicilization lycoris (May 22) (ps4/xbox one/switch/pc): All your waifus belong to me - kirito 2020. But honestly, again, the trailer actually looks kinda good. I am so on the fence for this. I didnt like hollow delux and fatal bullet but i had some mindless fun with holy song or whatever that one's called. I'm going to wait for a deep, deep steam sale, a few years from now.

trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJR_FJk1twc
TBA - I'm just going to do a list here, definitely missed some titles, but the major projects in dev should be on here.
Phantasy star online 2, Cold steel 3 switch and likely pc port, Cold steel 4 (ha i wish lol), SMT V (one should not lose hope after all), Sakura Wars, Azure lane Crosswave, rune factory 4 special, crystal chronicles remaster, banner of the maid, bravely default II, Cris Tales, CrossCode port to the consoles, Digimon Survive, Genshin Impact (not sure if this counts as a jrpg), is it wrong to pick up a girl in a dungeon - infinite combate, some more KH and yakuza ports to the xbone, tales of arise, tales of crestoria (mobile), xenoblade chronicle definitive edition, gran blue fantasy relink, rune factory 5, Unsung story (could be a sleeper hit or a mess, started by the creator of ff tactics and vagrant story, but it seemed to have had development issues), edge of eternity (an indie in early access but has constant updates and improves and have decent to good reviews in their later builds).
Edit: Utawarerumono Prelude to the fallen is for PS4, PC and vita, not yet ps5
Edit: Yakuza 7 TBA

The Official /r/YakuzaGames series playthrough guide for Newcomers.

My "End of Year" recap for 2019 + my 12in12 list for 2020

Starting with Yakuza Kiwami (The Yakuza 1 remake)	Starting Fresh with Yakuza 1
Available on PS4 and PC	Available on PS2 (or emulation)
20 Dollars or cheaper	Can be found for around 20-25 dollars
Modern Graphics par to Yakuza 0	Dated visuals
Japanese Voice Acting	English Dub Only
More faithful localization	Much more liberal localization (Often resulting in hilariously bad lines)
Uses the Combat of Yakuza 0 to a fault, copied and in some ways, inferior and stilted	Original combat with one refined style, combat can feel stilted at times, unrefined
Story is expanded upon in new "Nishiki" cutscenes, but copies the exact animations to a new engine, causing many scenes to appear awkward and stilted. Cinematography is identical to a fault	Smooth and fluid animations that look great in the world they appear in
Often unfocused in tone and presentation, fails to recapture the gritty, more depressing atmosphere of the original game. Story and general presentation suffer	Gritty atmosphere unique to the game
More easy to get into following Yakuza 0	Jarring to go back in series evolution
You will play Kiwami 2, which while in it's own right is a very fun and enjoyable game, but (in this writer's opinion) butchers the story and presentation of the original Yakuza 2, removing story related content, completely changing the OST, and mishandling many story elements with sheer laziness. You will then have to move back in series evolution, because Yakuza 3 Kiwami does not exist.	You will be able to enjoy a smooth series evolution back to Yakuza 0 and onwards.

Welcome to my 2019 "End of Year" recap and awards post. Like last year, this is going to be a huge post. I'll be recapping my gaming experiences in 2019, I will give out a bunch of awards and then talk about my plans for the next year. I do hope you enjoy reading through this and maybe I will manage to inspire you to try some of these games out. Let's get to it then!
Table of Contents

End of Year Stats / A look back at 2019

2. Interesting Facts
3. Top 5 Best Games
4. Top 3 Worst Games
5. Award Ceremony
6. 12in12 list for 2020 + Other Goals

_____________________

End of Year Stats / A look back on 2019's 12in12 list
How fast another year has gone by. 2019 was a somewhat successful year for me. I've had a few months where I barely played any games at all (April-June; August-September; December) and therefore finished the fewest games in a year since I've started tracking back in 2016. Here are a few stats on the year, with the numbers in brackets representing my stats at the end of 2018.

Games purchased/acquired: 95 (42)

This number grew a bit, as I re-added 29 games that I had removed from my backlog in the previous year or two. Still better than in 2017, where I purchased/acquired 100+ games. Also, a lot of games were given away for free this year.

Total price paid: 90 € (229 €)

This is obviously a big improvement. Two reasons for that.

I counted Madden NFL 19 last year (80 €) because I played through that games story mode. I purchased Madden NFL 20 this year but didn't add it to the total because there is not a real singleplayer component this time around that I could play and beat.
I purchased newly released games last year (e.g. Red Dead Redemption 2), which is something I haven't done in 2019. The release of games such as Cyberpunk 2077 and The Last of Us 2 (and a better financial situation towards the end of 2020) will undoubtedly lead to me paying a lot of money for games next year.

Avg. price paid per game: 0.95 € (5.87 €)

Not really a number that anyone cares about I'm sure but it's actually quite amazing I feel like. Consider this: I added Yakuza 0, Mario+Rabbids: Kingdom Battle, Tyranny, Diablo III, Doom, Uncharted 4, Detroit: Become Human, Celeste, Darksiders III, Pokémon Sword, Marvel's Spider-Man and The Outer Worlds to my backlog. Most of these thanks to PS Plus (my brother subscribes to that), Xbox Game Pass, Twitch Prime, Epic and Humble Monthly. Crazy times we live in. And even if you remove the 27 games I've "re-added", the number is still at 1.36 €.

Games removed/abandoned: 35 (64)

Much better number but that's mostly due to the fact that I haven't started as many games as last year.

Games beaten: 29 (46)

This number has decreased a lot because I didn't really spend much time on gaming for about half the year. I do hope to have more time in the coming year but we'll see.

Total time spent on beaten games: 356 (491)

That's an average of 12.29 hours per game, which is actually quite a lot. Adds another reason why my completion amount was a bit lower, as the average last year was only 10.67 hours. But that would probably only add up to be a couple more completions, so yeah. Still interesting to compare.

Current unfinished games total: 87 (55)

Still below 100, which is good I guess. Yet I didn't expect the number to jump as much as it did.

Original 12in12 List for 2019 (5/12 completed)

Batman Arkham City
Beyond Good & Evil - DONE
Bioshock Infinite
Deponia Doomsday
DmC: Devil May Cry - DONE
Orwell: Ignorance is Strength
Persona 5
Red Dead Redemption 2 - DONE
Resident Evil 5 - DONE
SOMA
The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine
Yakuza Kiwami - DONE

Well this was unsuccessful. Only 5 of 12 completions is pretty poor. And all of these games are either sequels to series I enjoy or critically acclaimed, so I don't understand why I didn't play these.

Other Goals for 2019

Beat 24 games total √
~~Finish more games than I buy~~ X
Stick to a gaming budget of 250€ √ (even if you add the purchase of Madden NFL 20 to my total)
~~If it’s at a reasonable price, buy a used Nintendo 3DS XL~~ I didn't really play games enough to justify purchasing another gaming device.

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2. Interesting (or maybe not so interesting) Facts

The first game I've finished this year was the story mode of Mortal Kombat XL on January 3rd
Beaten Game #25 was Celeste on October 28th. Last year, I had my 25th completion in April
I reached the 250 games beaten (total) milestone on July 15th by beating Manual Samuel
I've only played and finished 2 games that came out in 2019. Guildmaster Story on Android and The Outer Worlds on PC
The oldest game I've finished is Beyond Good and Evil, with an initial release on Nov 11th, 2003. Runner-up was Mass Effect (November 16th, 2007)
These are also the two games that were in my backlog for the longest time. Beyond Good and Evil was in my backlog since October 2016, while Mass Effect was in my backlog since December 2016
My most played games (total hours) was Red Dead Redemption 2 (70 hours), followed by The Outer Worlds (38 hours)
Beaten games between January and June in 2018: 34 | in 2019: 17
Beaten games between July and December in 2018: 12 | in 2019: 12. Well, at least here I've been consistent.
I've given out an average rating of 6.8/10. This is the same avg. rating as in 2018. Hmm, interesting.
After changing my ratings system a bit, there is only 1 game that has received a 10/10 rating this year, compared to four such games in 2018. Check out the Top 5 Games list for the recipient of the best possible rating.
Completions by console:- Android: 3- Nintendo Switch: 2- PC: 16- Playstation 4: 4- Xbox One: 4
I have a total of 404 games in my backlog (including the abandoned ones), 260 of those beaten. That's a completion percentage of 64.36 %.
Gaming franchises that I've newly developed an interest in:

- Devil May Cry
- Diablo
- Doom
- Mass Effect
- Shadow Warrior
- Yakuza
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Top 5 Best Games

Here we go. The best games out of a grand total of... 29 games. Not a whole lot, but I feel like the games listed here could be enjoyed by many of you, so I'll try to do them justice by recapping what left me so impressed by these games.
Honorable mentions go out to Battle Chef Brigade, Deltarune, Doom, Mario+Rabbids: Kingdom Battle and Shadow Warrior.
Also, I had written something before presenting last year's top 10. Chuckled a bit when I re-read that.

I’m also currently playing Red Dead Redemption II and Yakuza Kiwami. Those games would’ve made the list but I haven’t yet beaten them, so next year it is.

Sometimes you just know that you're playing something special. Anyway, here we go!

#5
Game: DmC: Devil May Cry
Platform: PC
Rating: 8/10
Date Finished: January 8th
Playtime: 9.5 hours

As someone who had not played a Devil May Cry prior to playing this reboot, I might have a "false" opinion on this game for some fans but on its own, DmC: Devil May Cry impressed on just about every level. I'm not supposed to like the new-look (or by now the "old-look" again) Dante because that's not how he looks like. I'm not supposed to like the gameplay because it's easier.
I don't care about what I'm supposed or not supposed to do, though and this game offered great, fast-paced action, a surprisingly fine story (and one gruesome scene that I still remember to this day), a superb soundtrack and just a fun time, pure and simple.
That said, I still look forward to playing the other games in the series and I hope everyone is right by saying the other games are much better (except for DmC2).

#4
Game: Yakuza Kiwami
Platform: Playstation 4
Rating: 9/10
Date Finished: January 7th
Playtime: 25 hours

I'd been interested in this game for years before finally deciding to check it out once it was offered as one of the PS Plus games.
I guess most of you have seen gameplay or played a game in this series yourself, so I won't delve into describing it. What I can say though is that the game does a tremendous job balancing the serious story sequences with all the over the top ridiculous side stories. I love it when games don't take themselves too seriously and this game is a perfect example of that being executed very well.
One unique thing about this series that I really appreciate is how small the world it plays in is. The devs went "uno-reverse card" on all the other "open world" games by giving the players a small map with a ton of content everywhere you go instead of putting little content into a world that is kilometers wide. Good decision, better execution.

#3
Game: Celeste
Platform: PC
Rating: 9/10
Date Finished: October 28th
Playtime: 10 hours

Going into this with all the hype surrounding this game, I was worried. Mostly because of the hype but also because I'm not really much into these kinds of platformers. What I really appreciated about Celeste in terms of gameplay was the fact that the difficulty was absolutely perfect, at least to me. Every new obstacle turned out to be a challenge, which is how it is supposed to be. I died ridiculous amounts of times, which is also how it is supposed to be. And after all those deaths, I always managed to beat a level or get past that one annoying obstacle. That's a sign of great level design in my opinion, when you start getting used to the controls of a game and improve in order to beat a level. The controls are tight and the game never cheats you. If you die, it's because you, the player, messed up.
The soundtrack is great and the characters you meet along the way work well within what the game is about and what message the game tries to convey with those characters. I'm guessing the topics of depression and anxiety really struck a chord with some players, though I personally didn't really "feel" anything when those scenes and dialogues took place. It did give me good insight into how people who suffer from depression and/or anxiety might feel, so I gotta give credit to the game for dealing with the topic in a sensitive manner and portraying those feelings well.
The game was given away for free twice on the Epic Store this year, so if you managed to grab it, definitely give it a try.

#2
Game: The Outer Worlds
Platform: PC
Rating: 9/10
Date Finished: November 30th
Playtime: 38 hours

I guess it would only be right to start this off by saying that I love the Fallout series. [SKIP THIS PART IF YOU'D LIKE, AS I WILL TALK ABOUT FALLOUT 3, 4 and NV] While the games aren't nowhere near 10/10 status, the Fallout series is (was) unique and offers (offered) a gaming experience unlike anything else. Fallout 3 was my first time experiencing an open world game that would just drop you off somewhere and allow you to just experience this huge open world with all its mysteries (these weren't games I played when I was younger). Fallout New Vegas offered just about the same experience, though I may have played that too soon after 3, so the same effects of awe weren't there. Still, it improved immensely on giving players freedom of choice by introducing a lot of different factions with different goals and multiple routes to play and beat the game.
Fallout 4, in my opinion, was a huge step backwards for the series, as the dialogue ended up being easily the worst part of the game, with the dialogue tree of "Yes, No, Question, Sarcasm" becoming a meme all-round. The game rather focused on settlement building and repetitive quests to "allow" players to engage with never-ending gameplay features. The gun play was much improved, the companions were a fun addition and yeah, settlement building wasn't all that bad but I feel like Bethesda had their priorities in the wrong places, which has since worsened with the release of Fallout 76. With that, I thought, the chance of playing another Fallout game like F3 or F:NV was close to zero.
That's where The Outer Worlds comes in. Developed by the creators of the original Fallout games, The Outer Worlds reminded me of Fallout throughout, while being unique enough to stand on its own. The Outer Worlds offers solid shooting combat, in-depth character development options, a ton of interesting main and side quests, unique companions (especially Parvati) and most importantly, incredible dialogue. The soundtrack very much reminded me of Fallout New Vegas (anyone else??), but again, was unique enough to stand on its own.
No single world within the game felt like filler to me, every mission and location had its purpose within the story of the game. Can't wait for a sequel.

#1
Game: Red Dead Redemption 2
Platform: Playstation 4
Rating: 10/10
Date Finished: January 28th
Playtime: 70 hours

This game is universally praised but I feel like I read more negative things about this game on Reddit than positive. While I do understand the criticism (slow pace, bad and repetitive mission design), I personally really didn't mind. Is it slow paced? Yes, but I wanted to take my time with the game. The animations are clean and realistic and added to the type of immersive experience I wanted. Seeing this as a "waste of time" is fair, if you're not looking for these things in your gaming experience but if you then play a walking simulator or an online game that expects you to spend hours to unlock a single item, is that criticism warranted?
One part of my inital review I feel like captures the type of immersion I am talking about.

I don't really want to touch on the story too much, so that you can go into it as blind as possible but it really was amazing. Every single character is unique and so well written. You learn more and more about them as the story progresses and build up relationships with each of them. Some you will like, some you will hate. You all live in camps together. Whenever you return to the camp, you'll be able to listen to conversations between the characters. Characters will approach you and talk to you, reacting to recent events. Sometimes you'll have parties together. You can talk while playing poker together. You can have little talk sessions with the women, where Arthur just lets out what is bothering him. There is hours and hours and hours of this side content where you can just learn more about Arthur and the other gang members.

The amount of these world and character-building set pieces are sheer incredible. The attention to detail is really fascinating, which is why I cringe whenever I read "the game is really in love with itself." In my opinion, it just shows how much love the developers put into this game. Did they overdo it here and there? You be the judge. To me, these small details really added up to having me engaged and connected to the game and its characters throughout.
Arthur Morgan as a character immediately clicked with me, way more than the character of John Marston even, and his story was one that will stick with me for years and years to come. The characters of Dutch van der Linde, Micah Bell and Sadie Adler were really well written and developed as well, whether it was through main story missions or just those little conversations that I mentioned.
There are set pieces in this game that will blow you away. A gigantic open world to explore, which, while not crammed with content everywhere, is just so well created that I found myself riding my horse aimlessly just to soak the atmosphere in. This game can easily take 100+ hours, if you do every single thing this game has to offer and it's one I can't recommend enough to anyone who wants to immerse and lose himself in a game, for which there aren't many options out there as detailed and lovingly crafted as Red Dead Redemption 2.
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4. Top 3 Worst Games
This year, I had a goal of not wasting my time with games I didn't enjoy. This means that there aren't as many "Worst Game of the Year" contenders as in previous years. Yet, a few games distinguished themselves from the rest, so here are the Top 3 Worst Games I've played in 2019.

#3
Game: Thimbleweed Park
Platform: PC
Rating: DNF
Date Finished: DNF
Playtime: 2 hours

I really only finished two games I would call bad enough to be worthy of being in this Top 3 list. Which is why my #3 is a game I have not actually beaten. Thinking back on playing this game, I remember very well what I didn't like about it.
Humor is subjective of course. Which is why my criticism of this game should probably be taken with a grain of salt. I found Thimbleweed Park to easily be the "unfunniest game that tried to be funny" I have ever played. Some of you who have read my progress reports before maybe know that I love humorous games. South Park, Deponia, Broforce (every game's humor might not align with yours either) are some of the games I really like, South Park and Broforce are especially hilarious in my opinion. Thimbleweed Park had potential for this very reason but I quickly realized that I had grown way past this kind of humor.
Watch a walkthrough of the beginning stages and tell me if this is funny to you: The story is about two detectives investigating a murder. Nothing unusual there. While investigating, you meet a police officer. His unique trait is that he adds "a-reno" to a lot of words he says. "I apologize-a-reno...", just to give you an example. That's not really my humor but OK, cool, there seem to be weird characters in this game. Maybe the next guy will be funnier. So you meet a scientist, who looks JUST LIKE the police officer. That's funny, because he looks like him but he always adds "a-who" at the end of a word. "I'm happy to explain-a-who". This is one of the many times the game tried to be funny in the two hours I've played this. I just don't know what's supposed to be funny about this but hey, everyone has their own sense of humor. Anyway, this was hard to bear, especially since nothing else about the game excited me either, so I had to abandon this game rather quickly.

#2
Game: A Way Out
Platform: Playstation 4
Rating: 4/10
Date Finished: November 23rd
Playtime: 6 hours

I don't like Hazelight Studios games. I've tried but both this game and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons now found themselves on my "Worst Game of the Year" lists. And it's not like I would say "hey, I get why others enjoy this" because I really don't. :D It might sound like I'm petty or whatever because both games were highly regarded by players and critics alike but really, I like Josef Fares (the dev) from what I've seen about him. He genuinely seems to care about developing good games and I can't fault that. Yet, when I read all those positive reviews, I can't help but think "Did I play a different game than all these people?"
Because whenever I read that the cinematics in A Way Out where amazing, that the story is good enough for this game to be a movie and that the characters are amazing, I really don't understand at all. It feels very much like a game in that "cinematics" look very cringy because of weird movement animations and facial expressions by the characters. You see the main characters for example take a weapon out of an enemies hands and it just looks so slow and weird and funny that I can't help but laugh. I've played this in coop with my brother and we can make fun of everything, so this worsened the effects.
Another example. The two main characters needed to exit the prison through a door. The problem: The door is locked and there are two guards nearby. So if they try to kick the door open, the guards will hear that and they will be caught. Leo Caruso, one of the characters, comes up with a brilliant idea. There is a blizzard going on, so let's try to kick the door open every time we hear a lightning strike, so the guards don't hear us. I mean, yeah, that might work, but how is that logical or even remotely clever?
Here's another example. It's not much of a spoiler but just making sure: Once you escape the prison, Leo Caruso wants to go home to see his wife. Isn't this the first place police would expect you at, should you escape a prison? So you go this home. Police actually just arrived and talk to Leo's wife and tell her to let them know, should Leo show up. AND THEN THEY LEAVE. I MEAN, WHAT?? That makes no sense. And then Leo shows up and of course his wife won't tell the police. Why don't they watch the house 24/7? And you might ask: "So what if not everything makes sense?" But these kinds of things happen all the time. It's ridiculous how illogical the story is at times. Then there is this pacing issue where you need to escape some place because police will show up in a matter of minutes but the guys find a mini game, so they play around for as long as you want. Minigames are nice, sure, but it doesn't work within the context of the game's story. And also, the characters have ZERO chemistry from beginning to end. All those talks in the helicopter feel contrived and the relationship feels forced on the player, which I expected everyone to see right through. My brother and I don't always have the same opinions on these things but we looked at each other and had the same thought on all of these issues.
Then again, I find The Walking Dead Telltale Games to be just as bad, so maybe don't read too much into my thoughts. One positive thought: The cinematics during the hospital scene were actually fantastic and one of the very few highlights of this game. Also, Leo Caruso can sometimes be absolutely hilarious, especially when he talks to some random NPC and just roasts them for no reason.

#1
Game: Resident Evil 5
Platform: PC
Rating: 3/10
Date Finished: February 23rd
Playtime: 14 1/2 hours

Another disappointing coop game. I've started this with my brother back in 2018 and it took us 7 months to play through this, so my memory really isn't that fresh in order to give you many details about this game.
Chris and Sheva are the two main characters and they're easily some of the worst characters I've ever had the displeasure to use in a game. Chris is your bog-standard, wannabe badass soldier who uses one-liners all the time to make you cringe uncontrollably. And then Sheva has to save his ass because he is close to death by being shot once. Then he gets up, shoots a guy, triggers a cutscene and saves the day. He personifies everything I dislike about a character in a game but at least his antics where hilarious, so my brother and I had a lot of fun with that. Did you see the gif where he punches a boulder that is blocking his way? Who even thinks of something like that?
Sheva is just as bog-standard. She's just there as eye-candy, doesn't contribute anything to the story and most of the time is the character that acts clueless and surprised about everything. These two as a pair made for one of the dumbest hero pairings of all time. How they manage to survive even the first hour of this game is beyond me.
The boss fights are absolutely ridiculous, the QTEs are cheap and kill you unnecessarily most of the time and some enemies are just bullet sponges. The very core Resident Evil gameplay works, yes but everything else about this game really doesn't.
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5. Award Ceremony
So far, the two "winners" are Red Dead Redemption 2 as my GOTY and Resident Evil 5 as the Worst Game of the Year. Here are the winners of all the other awards.

Best Boss Fight: Mario+Rabbids: Kingdom Battle - Phantom

[Previous Winner: God of War: Kratos v Baldur]
Almost none of the boss battles I've encountered this year were noteworthy. Nonetheless, that doesn't change the fact that the Phantom in Mario+Rabbids is really nicely done. In this game, there is a Rabbid that got his hands on a device that can combine multiple items with each other and create a totally new one. He combined another Rabbid with a phonograph and created an opera singer. Before the boss fight, the rabbid performs easily the funniest bit in the entire game, a song created for the purpose of roasting the hell out of Mario. Beautiful!
The fight itself is nothing worth talking about but this sequence was hilarious.
RUNNER UP: Doom: Hell Guards

Best Character: Red Dead Redemption 2: Arthur Morgan

[Previous Winner: Deponia: Rufus]
As I've mentioned in the "Top 5 Games" section, Arthur Morgan resonated with me almost immediately. His cool, calm demeanor and take no bullshit attitude coupled with his smarts to know which of Dutch's ideas are stupid and which aren't. His loyalty. And his ability to get shit done. All great traits.
At the same time, his character's dilemma throughout the game about whether he's a good or a bad guy is fascinating. I love how his character is developed not only through the main storyline but also through stranger missions and random encounters and how those allow the player to really decide which way his character arc will go.
I'm pretty bad at describing his character, so I won't say much more but the time spent with him still sticks with me to this day, definitely one of the best video game characters I eve r played.
RUNNER UP: The Outer Worlds: Parvati

Worst Character: Resident Evil 5: Chris and Sheva

[Previous Loser: The Darkness II: Jackie Estacado]
I already talked about these two in the "Top 3 Worst Games" section but yeah, this "award" belongs to both of them because these two idiots come in one package. It's obvious that Resident Evil 5 was supposed to be a cash grab after the success of RE4 and the evidence can be found in the design of these two characters. These two characters lack any kind of personality, purpose and unique trait. They're bland, boring and annoying. As vanilla as the game itself.
RUNNER UP: Mortal Kombat XL: Johnny Cage

Best Coop Game: NO WINNER

[Previous Winner: Cuphead]
A damn shame but out of the coop games I've played (A Way Out, Resident Evil 5 and Borderlands 2) none emerged as a game I'd feel comfortable giving this award to. Which means there is no winner this year. I hope to play way better coop games in 2020.
RUNNER UP: /

NEW AWARD
Best Song: D'Angelo: Unshaken / Red Dead Redemption 2

This song is just amazing. The horse ride where this song plays is just as amazing as the first ride in Mexico in the original game. Considering everything that happens in the story when this music plays in RDR2, this was very emotional and excellently timed. Have listened to this long after beating the game. Gotta give an honorable mention to the Runner Up though, because listening to that song during that battle in Hellblade was such an epic and badass moment.
RUNNER UP: Passarella Death Squad: Just Like Sleep / Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

Most Disappointing Game: GTA IV

[Previous Loser: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild]
I love GTA V, GTA San Andreas and GTA Vice City. San Andreas is probably more nostalgia than anything, while Vice City actually held up when I replayed it back in 2016. GTA III sucked because I've played it in 2016 for the first time and there was no nostalgia attached to it.
But because GTA V was so good and GTA IV introduced a lot of the features found in V, I was looking forward to the game, having never played it before. At the end, the uninteresting characters (Niko is meh, everyone else is forgettable), the horrible driving mechanics and repetitive and poor mission design led to me quitting the game after 23 hours. 23 hours! Can't say I didn't try with this game but it never really got better in my opinion. Very disappointing!
RUNNER UP: A Way Out

Best Game Released in 2019: The Outer Worlds

[Previous Winner: God of War]
This game didn't really have any competition (as mentioned, I only played two games that were released in 2019) but as already explained in the "Top 5 Games" section, there probably weren't many games that could have beaten The Outer Worlds as my favorite game in 2019. Amazing game, definitely scratched that Fallout itch (and then some) and got me hyped for a potential sequel.
RUNNER UP: Guildmaster Story

Best Sounds/Music: Red Dead Redemption 2

[Previous Winner: Cuphead]
RDR2, Celeste and Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice all deserve this spot but RDR2's sound design and amazing soundtrack ultimately wins this award.
RUNNER UP: Celeste

Most Surprising Game: Mass Effect

[Previous Winner: Steins;Gate]
The fact that Mass Effect might surprise you just as much as this game surprised me. Let me explain.
I first played Mass Effect in 2016 on my PC. While I didn't hate it, the shooting mechanics, the horrible Mako controls and ultimately a bug that made my character turn completely dark made me uninstall it after 10 hours or so. I got myself the Xbox Game Pass and tried this out on my Xbox One that was otherwise collecting dust and surprisingly, not only did I finish this game, but I actually really enjoyed it this time around. This is an amazing world that Bioware has created and I definitely can't wait to delve deeper into the lore with ME2 and ME3. Shame that Andromeda was received so poorly but maybe they'll get back on track with a possible sequel in the next few years.
RUNNER UP: Diablo III

Best Storytelling: Red Dead Redemption 2

[Previous Winner: God of War]
No surprise here. As I've mentioned, not only is the main storyline in this game amazing but also the stranger missions, random encounters and all those small conversations that you can have with everyone in your group. The attention to detail, writing and character development were all on point in this one.
RUNNER UP: The Outer Worlds

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6. 12in12 List for 2019 + Other Goals
I did a really poor job with my 12in12 list in 2019, which is something I plan to correct for 2020. So here goes my list.

Batman Arkham City
Blair Witch
Bioshock Infinite
Deponia Doomsday
Detroit: Become Human
Half-Life 2
Mass Effect 2
Minit
Orwell: Ignorance is Strength
Pokémon Sword
SOMA
The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine

A bunch of games from my original list reappear for this year. I've added Blair Witch, Half-Life 2, Detroit: Become Human and Pokémon Sword, because these are all games I'm currently playing. I also added Mass Effect 2 because that is another sequel that I want to check out in 2020. All in all, I'm pretty happy with this list and will definitely prioritize it this time around.

Some other goals:

Beat 24 games total
Finish more games than I buy
Stick to a gaming budget of 300 €

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That's it! I hope you enjoyed reading through this long post and will give a few games I've talked positively about a try some time. Keep your own Year in Review posts coming because I loved reading every single one so far and happy new year, everyone! Best of luck to you all for 2020! :)

[E3 2018] Yakuza 0 / Yakuza Kiwami PC EDITION

My ranking of the Yakuza games

EVERYTHING FROM X019 INSIDE XBOX INCL. VOD LINKS! (Thu. Nov. 14, 2019)

Possible next big announcement could be western remasters

Finally back [March, April, May Report '19]

After a long while, I'm finally back and it's good to be back.. I haven't been gaming a lot in the past few months for many reasons. The big one is that I've had my final exams a couple of weeks ago (went well thankfully), so I've been studying for those a lot. Other than that, work, family, friends and a bunch of other things kept me so occupied that I only managed to play games on a casual basis. That meant a lot of Football Manager, some mobile games and a little bit of Madden NFL.
With the exams done, I hope to get back into playing some more single player games, as my backlog has increased quite a lot (I'll get into the why shortly). So let's get into my progress over the past two months. A lot to report.
----------
Games I've Added - 54 (!)

Axiom Verge [EPIC]
Cultist Simulator [Twitch Prime]
Deltarune: Chapter 1 [Switch]
Late Shift [Humble]
Mario+Rabbids: Kingdom Battle [Switch]
Thimbleweed Park [EPIC]
3 Mobile Games
45 Other Games

Yep, read that right. Out of the first six, Mario+Rabbids is obviously the highlight. Started it already, reached World 2 and can definitely recommend it to Switch owners.
The 3 mobile games are Score! Hero, Bacon: The Game (yes, seriously) and Guildmaster Story. The last of which was recommended by another sub member and I am looking forward to talking about it in this post later on.
Now to the main event. Some of the 45 games are owned by my brother on Steam, which I have access to thanks to Steam Family Sharing. About a dozen of these games are from my Twitch Library, which I've decided to add to my backlog count, some games are from PS Plus (Game of Thrones TT, Bloodborne) and some are Deep Silver games, which I've previously removed due to Koch Media being a bunch of pricks. As that's an issue in the past and I can now think clearly on the matter, I've realized that not playing a bunch of games I already owned was pretty dumb. So yeah, that's how I ended up with a total of 54, just adding everything I own. I wouldn't know what to do when my backlog would reach 0 anyway...
..is what I tell myself to make myself feel better about this. :D
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Games I’ve Quit/Abandoned – 4

Axiom Verge
Kona
Tom Clancy's The Division
Thimbleweed Park

I've said it many times but Axiom Verge all but confirmed it. I don't like Metroidvanias. A damn shame. I guess I don't like old school Point and Click adventures either or it may be that Thimbleweed Park is just so unfunny, I don't know. Kona was alright but ultimately too much time spent driving around looking for small items you missed and The Division is a game with a forgettable story and repetitive gameplay that I couldn't bear to play any longer. Coop might have helped maybe but nah, didn't like the game.
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Games I've Beaten - 6

Mass Effect

Beaten: March 3rd
Platform: Xbox One S
Playtime: 35 hours
A little backstory on my experience with Mass Effect. I played the game for the first time back in 2016 (on PC) and quit after about 10 hours of playing time. Back then, I liked reading through the codex to get myself immersed in the game's world, I've talked to everyone I could to see which characters I would like and despise and I'd do any side quest possible to experience as much about the game as I could.
Ultimately, the horrible driving sequences with the Mako, poor gunplay and a glitch in Noveria were some of the main reasons why I decided to call it quits early.
Fast forward 2+ years and I specifically purchased Xbox Game Pass to play Mass Effect on console. One of the better decisions I've made this year for sure. I've done the exact same thing as the first time, doing as many things as possible, getting immersed and all that. My approach didn't change. The results did. First, the bad:
My god, the FPS drops were ridiculous on console. Any time more than a couple enemies would show up, the FPS dropped to <20 FPS. The gunplay is still bad and a lot of the areas were just copied and pasted on each planet, which kind of felt cheap (but hey, this was released in 2007).
I won't be able to go into detail about my experience anymore, as I've played this two months ago now but I remember the time when the world map opened up for the first time and I realized that there was so much exploring I could do. And I did. I went to each planet, collected material, did some side quests, followed the main storyline and really enjoyed myself. The amount of detail that went into the lore of this game is impressive and the main draw to the game for me. Fighting enemies always ended up being bland, boring even but the bits of story at the end of those gun fights were always worth it.
I liked the amount of backstory to each character, I liked that your decisions made a difference, I liked the twists, the villains, the ending. After it was over, I had two thoughts pop into my mind: "Damn, this game is cringy as hell" and "Damn, I want to play Mass Effect 2!". Mass Effect is a sci-fi nerds dream come true! While I'm not into the setting usually, Mass Effect has done a great job of drawing me in. I hope Mass Effect 2 can build on the original while improving on the shooting elements a bit.
Rating: 7/10

Guildmaster Story

Beaten: March 8th
Platform: Android
Playtime: Unknown
Reading the review of this game on u/Pahlan's report, I knew I had to check it out. I can appreciate a game with a dumb and funny main character, Rufus in Deponia being one of my favorite characters of all the games I've played last year (I know, I'm a child).
To everyone who doesn't know about the game. you play the role of Ganyo, a spoiled brat, whose father's passed away. He inherits his dads company and things quickly go to shit. This is a Match 3 puzzle game with a total of 40 levels (tbc). In between every level, you'll be treated with hilarious interactions between Ganyo and the other characters in the game. I was well entertained during my daily commutes to work and am looking forward to future levels.
No more to say about this, check it out, it's free for iOS and Android.
Rating: 7/10

Beyond Good & Evil

Beaten: March 10th
Platform: PC
Playtime: 10 hours
I had so much to say about this game, had I written this review, when I beat the game. Don't remember many details anymore though. Alas, here is a shorter review.
The game definitely aged well. I was immediately drawn in by the atmosphere, the characters, the music and the environments, which did look dated for sure, just had so much charm to them, that I definitely wanted to see this game through.
The story, in the end, was solid enough, nothing too exciting to make me fall off my chair. The characters didn't end up having the depth to them that I hoped for but were sympathetic enough, so that I could genuinely root for them. Jade is a cool main character at least.
Beyond Good and Evil was a cool experience overall, taking pictures of newly discovered creatures for extra money and of evidence to advance missions felt like a fresh experience and was definitely a nice idea. The game didn't get me majorly excited for the sequel yet and the fact that the sequel will be multiplayeonline only or whatever definitely puts me off from the game quite a bit, so I'll wait for the reviews once the game releases.
Rating: 7/10

Bacon: The Game

Beaten: March 10th
Platform: Android
Playtime: Unknown
I don't have much to say about this game. You throw a piece of bacon on a bunch of things. On the Eiffel tower for example. Or on Mona Lisa. A plane. An open mouth. On Kevin Bacon. On tweets. In level 17, you literally throw it on the number 17. It's not my proudest waste of time but it was funny. For a bit. Don't judge me, ok? And fuck food pyramids.
Rating: 5/10

Deltarune: Chapter I

Beaten: March 15th
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Playtime: 3 1/2 hours
I didn't own many games on Switch, so I've added this game for free next to my purchase of Mario+Rabbids. Having played Undertale years ago, I was looking forward to a potential sequel since. Deltarune ended up being a spinoff but that's close enough.
I love games - just like any other media - that is funny and, to me, Toby Fox is hilarious. His humor really resonates with me and made for two very enjoyable games in Undertale and Deltarune. I also like how the game is designed. It's up to the player to kill or spare your enemies and depending on these choices, your experience will differ. It just works really well for me. I had a good time with the game and, while it might take a few years, I'm really looking forward to the second chapter to Deltarune.
Rating: 8/10

Score! Hero

Beaten: May 19th
Platform: Android
Playtime: Countless hours
I've been playing this game on my phone casually for about two years. 463 levels in I had to stop unfortunately. The FPS drops got really bad at this point, which made it difficult to really enjoy this, even on a casual basis. If the game runs fluidly, it's actually a pretty fun and unique experience for the first few hundred levels out of a total 800 I believe.
Rating: 6/10
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What I'm Playing in June
With my playing time due to increase over the next few months, here are the games I'm planning on playing.
PC

GTA IV: I've been playing this for 10 hours so far. It's still fun but you can tell that the game released a while ago. It's a mix between older GTA games and GTA V in that you have a bunch of annoyances that were in the older games (having to fully re-do missions, bad driving for example) and a few new features that remained in GTA V (phone, stranger missions, internet..). Hope the story picks up soon, don't really care about almost any of the characters I've been doing missions for.
The Witcher 3 - Blood and Wine: I think I'll get back to this masterpiece to finish off the last expansion.

Playstation 4

Persona 5 - Started this up recently for the first time in about a year. Not sure, if I'm feeling a JRPG at the moment.

Nintendo Switch

Mario+Rabbids: Kingdom Battle: World 1 complete, will start playing World 2 soon.

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12in12 original list - Progress: (5/12)

Batman Arkham City
Beyond Good & Evil - DONE
Bioshock Infinite
Deponia Doomsday
DmC: Devil May Cry - DONE
Orwell: Ignorance is Strength
Persona 5
Red Dead Redemption 2 - DONE
Resident Evil 5 - DONE
SOMA
The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine
Yakuza Kiwami - DONE

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My Yearly Stats:

Games Added: 61
Total Price: 31 €
Games Removed: 7
Games Finished: 15
Games Left in the Backlog: 99

Adding all those games will all but ensure that I will end the year on a negative but as I've previously mentioned, not having a backlog isn't really the ultimate place to be in anyway (for me). I have a nice collection going on that will last me a few years on it's own, so I'm looking forward to delve back into the pile on a more regular basis now. Best of luck for the coming months. Stay tuned, we got a giveaway coming within the next month or so.

All The Big Game Release Dates (2019): Xbox One, PC, PS4, Switch

ARTICLE: GAMESPOT
We're near the end of 2019's fall release season, but there's still several games scheduled to round out the year. Despite the looming next-generation consoles like Sony's PS5 and Microsoft's Project Scarlett, you won't have to worry about any shortage of exciting new games to look forward to and play.
This year has already been an exciting time to play games. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and Resident Evil 2 Remake started the year off well, but there's far more on the horizon. And the most recent Death Stranding and Disco Elysium make up some of the best this year, too. To help you keep track of all the games coming out, we've compiled a list of all the noteworthy release dates for the biggest ones confirmed to come out in 2019 so far.
More release dates are likely to be confirmed as the year goes on, so be sure to check back often as we update this article with new additions or potential changes. Though, if you're curious about next year, then check out our feature compiling the biggest release dates of 2020. Which games are you looking forward to? Let us know in the comments below.
Table of Contents
January February March April May June July August September October November December January
Game Platform Release Date
Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story + Bowser Jr.'s Journey 3DS January 11 New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe Switch January 11 Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch January 11 Onimusha: Warlords PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch January 15 The Walking Dead: The Final Season Episode 3 PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch January 15 YIIK: A Postmodern RPG PS4, PC, Switch January 18 Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown PS4, Xbox One January 18 Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes Switch January 18 Life is Strange 2: Episode 2 PS4, Xbox One, PC January 24 Resident Evil 2 Remake PS4, Xbox One, PC January 25 Kingdom Hearts III PS4, Xbox One January 29
February
Game Platform Release Date
Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown PC February 1 Wargroove Switch February 1 Apex Legends PS4, Xbox One, PC February 4 Etrian Odyssey: Nexus 3DS February 5 The Occupation PS4, Xbox One, PC February 5 God Eater 3 PS4, PC February 8 The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince PS4, Switch February 12 Final Fantasy IX Xbox One, Switch February 13 Crackdown 3 Xbox One, PC February 15 Far Cry: New Dawn PS4, Xbox One, PC February 15 Jump Force PS4, Xbox One, PC February 15 Metro Exodus PS4, Xbox One, PC February 15 Yakuza Kiwami PC February 19 Anthem PS4, Xbox One, PC February 22 Dirt Rally 2.0 PS4, Xbox One, PC February 26 The Lego Movie 2 PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch February 26 Trials Rising PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch February 26 Deltarune: Chapter 1 Switch February 28
March
Game Platform Release Date
Dead or Alive 6 PS4, Xbox One, PC March 1 ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch March 1 Left Alive PS4, PC March 5 Devil May Cry 5 PS4, Xbox One, PC March 8 Kirby's Extra Epic Yarn 3DS March 8 The Caligula Effect: Overdose PS4, Switch, PC March 12 Tom Clancy's The Division 2 PS4, Xbox One, PC March 15 One Piece: World Seeker PS4, Xbox One, PC March 16 Chocobo's Mystery Dungeon: Every Buddy PS4, Switch March 20 The Sinking City PS4, Xbox One, PC March 21 Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice PS4, Xbox One, PC March 22 Final Fantasy VII Xbox One, Switch March 26 Assassin's Creed III Remastered PS4, Xbox One, PC March 29 Danganronpa Trilogy PS4 March 29 Tropico 6 PS4, Xbox One, PC March 29 Yoshi's Crafted World Switch March 29
April
Game Platform Release Date
Bomber Crew: Complete Edition PS4, Switch April 2 Darksiders: Warmastered Edition Switch April 2 Super Dragon Ball Heroes: World Mission PC, Switch April 5 Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch April 9 Dangerous Driving PS4, Xbox One April 9 Neo Atlas 1469 Switch April 9 Zanki Zero: Last Beginning PS4, PC April 9 Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain PS4 April 11 Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice Switch April 11 Konami Anniversary Collection: Arcade Classics Switch April 18 Anno 1800 PC April 16 Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster Xbox One, Switch April 16 World War Z PS4, Xbox One, PC April 16 Cuphead Switch April 18 Katana Zero Switch April 18 Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen Switch April 23 Mortal Kombat 11 PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch April 23 SteamWorld Quest: Hand of the Gilgamech Switch April 25 Boxboy + Boxgirl Switch April 26 Days Gone PS4 April 26 Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age Xbox One, Switch April 30
May
Game Platform Release Date
The Legend of Heroes: Trials of Cold Steel II PS4 May 7 Life is Strange 2: Episode 3 PS4, Xbox One, PC May 9 Yakuza Kiwami 2 PC May 9 A Plague Tale: Innocence PS4, Xbox One, PC May 14 Rage 2 PS4, Xbox One, PC May 14 Bubsy: Paws on Fire! PS4, Switch, PC May 19 Assassin's Creed III Remastered Switch May 21 Everybody's Golf VR PSVR May 21 Resident Evil 0 Switch May 21 Resident Evil Switch May 21 Resident Evil 4 Switch May 21 Team Sonic Racing PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch May 21 Total War: Three Kingdoms PC May 23 Trover Saves The Universe PSVR May 31
June
Game Platform Release Date
The Elder Scrolls Online: Elsweyr PS4, Xbox One, PC June 4 The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II PS4 June 4 Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth 3DS June 4 Trover Saves The Universe PC June 4 Octopath Traveler PC June 7 Cadence of Hyrule Switch June 13 Blaster Master Zero PC June 14 Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night PS4, Xbox One, PC June 18 Crash Team Racing Nitro Fueled PS4, Xbox One, Switch June 21 Heavy Rain PC June 24 Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night Switch June 25 Judgment PS4 June 25 Samurai Shodown (2019) PS4, Xbox One June 25 The Sinking City PS4, Xbox One, PC June 27 F1 2019 PS4, Xbox One, PC June 28 Super Mario Maker 2 Switch June 28
July
Game Platform Release Date
Apex Legends Season 2 PS4, Xbox One, PC July 2 Final Fantasy XIV: Shadow Bringers PS4, PC July 2 Stranger Things 3: The Game PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch July 4 Sea of Solitude PS4, Xbox One, PC July 5 Senran Kagura: Peach Ball Switch July 9 Umihara Kawase Fresh! Switch July 9 Dr. Mario World iOS, Android July 10 Blazing Chrome PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch July 11 Dragon Quest Builders 2 Switch July 12 God Eater 3 Switch July 12 Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order Switch July 19 Beyond: Two Souls PC July 22 The Ninja Saviors: Return of the Warriors PS4, Switch July 25 Raiden V: Director's Cut Switch July 25 Doom Switch July 26 Doom II Switch July 26 Doom III Switch July 26 Fire Emblem: Three Houses Switch July 26 Kill la Kill: If PS4, PC, Switch July 26 Wolfenstein: Youngblood PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch July 26 Mutant Year Zero Road to Eden: Deluxe Edition Switch July 30
August
Game Platform Release Date
Madden NFL 20 PS4, Xbox One, PC August 2 The Church in the Darkness PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch August 2 Age of Wonders: Planetfall PC August 6 Metal Wolf Chaos XD PS4, Xbox One, PC August 6 Pillars of Eternity Switch August 8 Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet Complete Edition Switch August 9 Friday the 13th: The Game Switch August 13 Rebel Galaxy Outlaw PC August 13 No Man's Sky Beyond (Expansion) PS4, Xbox One, PC Augusts 14 Grandia HD Collection Switch August 16 Erica PS4 August 19 Hotline Miami Collection Switch August 19 Superhot Switch August 19 Rad PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch August 20 Remnant: From the Ashes PS4, Xbox One, PC August 20 Yakuza 3 PS4 August 20 Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution Switch August 20 Life is Strange 2: Episode 4 PS4, Xbox One, PC August 22 Oninaki PS4, PC, Switch August 22 Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey PC August 27 The Bard’s Tale IV: Director's Cut PS4, Xbox One, PC August 27 Crystar PS4, PC August 27 Control PS4, Xbox One, PC August 27 World of Warcraft: Classic PC August 27 Azur Lane: Crosswave PS4 August 29 Pokémon Masters iOS, Android August 29 Astral Chain Switch August 30 Blair Witch Xbox One, PC August 30 The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan PS4, Xbox One, PC August 30 The Ninja Saviors: Return of the Warriors PS4, Switch August 30
September
Game Platform Release Date
Catherine: Full Body PS4 September 3 Phoenix Point PC September 3 Final Fantasy VIII Remastered PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch September 3 Spyro Reignited Trilogy PC, Switch September 3 Monster Hunter World: Iceborne (Expansion) PS4, Xbox One September 6 NBA 2K20 PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch Septeber 8 eFootball Pro Evolution Soccer 2020 PS4, Xbox One, PC September 10 Gears 5 Xbox One, PC September 10 Greedfall PS4, Xbox One, PC September 10 Borderlands 3 PS4, Xbox One, PC September 13 Daemon X Machina Switch September 13 NHL 20 PS4, Xbox One September 13 AI: The Somnium Files PS4, PC, Switch September 17 Lego Jurassic World Switch September 17 The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening Switch September 20 Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch (Remaster) PS4, PC, Switch September 20 Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition PS4, Xbox One, Switch September 24 Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition PS4, Xbox One, Switch September 24 Contra: Rogue Corps PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch September 24 Planescape: Torment: Enhanced Edition PS4, Xbox One, Switch September 24 The Surge 2 PS4, Xbox One, Switch September 24 Darksiders II: Deathinitive Edition Switch September 26 Gunvolt Chronicles: Luminous Avenger iX Switch September 26 Code Vein PS4, Xbox One, PC September 27 Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age - Definitive Edition Switch September 27 FIFA 20 PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch September 27 Ori and the Blind Forest Switch September 27 Tropico 6 PS4, Xbox One September 27
October
Game Platform Release Date
Destiny 2: Shadowkeep (Expansion) PS4, Xbox One, PC October 1 Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint PS4, Xbox One, PC October 4 The Alliance Alive HD Remastered PS4, Switch October 8 Concrete Genie PS4 October 8 Indivisible PS4, Xbox One, PC October 8 Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch October 8 Grid PS4, Xbox One, PC October 8 Doraemon: Nobita's Story of Seasons Switch October 11 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Complete Edition Switch October 15 Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth Complete Edition Switch, PC October 18 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare PS4, Xbox One, PC October 25 MediEvil PS4 October 25 The Outer Worlds PS4, Xbox One, PC October 25 Resident Evil 5 Switch October 29 Resident Evil 6 Switch October 29 Yakuza 4 PS4 October 29 Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout PS4, Switch, PC October 31 Luigi's Mansion 3 Switch October 31
November
Game Platform Release Date
Just Dance 2020 PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch November 5 Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 Switch November 5 Planet Zoo PC November 5 Red Dead Redemption 2 PC November 5 Death Stranding PS4 November 8 Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaire's Conspiracy Switch November 8 Need for Speed Heat PS4, Xbox One, PC November 8 New Super Lucky's Tale Switch November 8 Romancing SaGa 3 PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch November 11 Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition PC November 14 Pokemon Sword & Shield Switch November 15 Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order PS4, Xbox One, PC November 15 Shenmue III PS4, PC November 19 Sniper: Ghost Warrior Contracts PS4, Xbox One, PC November 22
December
Game Platform Release Date
Life is Strange 2: Episode 5 PS4, Xbox One, PC December 3 Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition PS4, Xbox One, Switch December 3 SaGa: Scarlet Grace - Ambitions PS4, Switch, PC December 3 Terminator: Resistance PS4, Xbox One, PC December 3 Darksiders Genesis PC, Stadia December 5 Star Ocean: First Departure R PS4, Switch December 5 MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries PC December 10 Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey PS4, Xbox One December TBA Phoenix Point Xbox One, PC December TBA Wattam PS4, PC December TBA
ARTICLE: GAMESPOT
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/all-the-big-game-release-dates-2019-xbox-one-pc-ps/1100-6460070/

yakuza kiwami 3 release date pc video

Yakuza Kiwami was recreated from the ground up. That means every visual element was optimized for the 1080p/60fps environment, every line of the script was re-recorded by series actors and for the first time in the West, gamers will be able to hear the original Japanese language track. A new generation of players will be able to experience the incomparable action and drama of the Yakuza series with the rebuilt-from scratch HD remake exclusive to PlayStation 4, Yakuza Kiwami. From 28th January, however, Yakuza 3, 4, and 5 will also be getting their long-awaited release on the platform, and will be available individually or as part of the Yakuza Remastered Collection ... It has been confirmed that the Yakuza Remastered Collection will be available on Game Pass across all platforms when it launches on January 28th. This includes Xbox One, Xbox Series XS, PC via ... Yakuza 0, Kiwami, and Kiwami 2 have already made their way to Xbox and PC, while Yakuza: Like a Dragon released last month on Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. Now, players will be able to experience the entire Kiryu saga on Xbox and PC as The Yakuza Remastered Collection arrives on Xbox Game Pass, Xbox Game Pass for PC, Windows 10, and Steam on January 28. Yakuza 3’s mechanics are a far cry from the blistering perfection of Yakuza 0 and Kiwami, or the physics-based chaos of Song of Life and Kiwami 2, but that doesn’t mean they’re bad at all.This game established the template that the next few games would follow, on a mechanical level, and that speaks a lot to how rock solid they are. How to play the Yakuza games in order: release date, chronological order and ranked. ... Yakuza Kiwami (2016, PS4, Xbox One, PC) Yakuza Kiwami 2 (2018, PS4, Xbox One, PC) Yakuza: The Remastered Collection will release on PC and Xbox on January 28, 2021, with Yakuza 6 arriving on PC and Xbox on March 25, 2021. Yakuza 3 on PC is pretty much contingent on the recent PS4 port getting a Western localised release since the English-language PS3 release is a mess of cut content, name changes & awkward translations which Sega now regard as an embarrassment (there's a substory in Kiwami 2 alluding to this, where in the English version a character, nominally talking about a film series called 'Yakuza Sunset ... The Yakuza 3 remaster has already received a release date, where it is slated to be released in Japan on August 9th, 2018.

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Top 10 BEST Upcoming Games [2019-2020] Cinematic ... - YouTube

Watch the incredible Baldur's Gate 3 opening cinematic and see how the story of Larian's upcoming Dungeons & Dragons RPG kicks off!#ign #gaming #baldursgate3 #Wasteland3 #Wasteland3gameplay #Wasteland3letsplayWasteland 3 is a squad-based roleplaying game from inXile entertainment, featuring challenging tactical co... https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/god-of-war-ps4/From Santa Monica Studio and creative director Cory Barlog comes a new beginning for one of gaming’s m... Total War: Three Kingdoms reviewed by TJ Hafer on PC.11 Minutes of Total War: Three Kingdoms Gameplay:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVeTrWPQByUTotal War: T... 10 BEST Upcoming Video Game Cinematic Trailers: The Elder Scrolls Online: Elsweyr, Mortal Kombat 11, Warcraft 3: Refoged, Anthem, The Last of Us 2, Cyberpun...

Yakuza 3, 4, 5, And 6 Coming To Xbox Game Pass - Game Informer

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YAKUZA SERIES PLAY ORDER FOR NEWCOMERS - PS4/5 - XB1/SX/SX - PC

The Dream One Piece Game