Yakuza 4 | A Complete History and Retrospective 

How do you feel about Yakuza 4 Dad?

I love how kiryu is the scary white suit guy that comes every year and beats up the try and hit me guy. Stressed him out so much he had to find something to take his mind off it.

Yakuza 4 had probably the most amount of plot twists in the entire series... Just when you think somebody dies, its just either a cop out, bullet proof vests, or rubber bullets.

Akiyama won me over immediately, wish we got to see more of him in 5. Cant help but love a dude that’s completely unfazed and chill all the time.

Leading cause of death in a Yakuza Game: Jumping in front of a bullet to save Kiryu or one of his friends.

The entire plot of Yakuza 4 can be summed up with two words: rubber bullets.

I love the rubber bullets stuff no matter how silly people think it is. Mostly because Munakata calls out the whole thing as a dumb plan.

Yakuza 4 had in my opinion, the best leveling and upgrade system, it's what the leveling system always should have been, incremental health and heat upgrades with each level, while you get orbs which function as skill points allowing you to select which skills to buy, each requiring a different amount, some you can and eventually will have to save up for. So your getting stronger each level but also have control over which abilities you can have at the start. I'd go as far to say it's the best leveling system in any game period, it's both linear and non-linear at the same time.

I haven’t made a RU-vid comment since like 2006 it feels like, but i just wanted to say from Kain, to dogma, to Yakuza you’ve covered games I love deeply that I’ve never been able to properly express how much I actually think about them. You’ve become one of my favorite content creators honestly.

I am glad you mentioned Saejima's wood carving revelations, it is such a crazy but perfect for yakuza little touch the series does

While I agree about the combat system being “cluttered,” the 4 other panels other than “All”, “Soul” “Tech” “body” “Heat,” it sorts them by cost, so the 2 panel only has 2 orb skills

I want to add a thing about that controversy scene. I think that it is also important to think about the circumstance lead up to that moment. Saejima didn't shove Haruka down on purpose. Haruka was about to call for Kiryu, and Saejima, being startled, held her hand back. However, being tired from all the fighting and malnourish, he didn't have enough strength to do so, result in both of them fall down. Of course, it still very dangerous for Saejima to took quite a while to calm himself down in front of a child, but I'm sure that it wasn't his intention to do harm. In my opinion, if a lot of people feel unsettling by the scene (rightfully so), then I think it also somewhat work. 25 years waiting for deathrow in a hellhole prison really do mess with people mentality, whether they deserve it or not

My favorite Yakuza game. The one that shows that Yakuza can live with Kiryu not being the only main character. Yes there are problems but this story is the best for some of our characters. Kiryu is the legend and see how that legend is shown when not playing as him. Still can't wait to see the rest of the video.

I think we can all agree on this statement: SAEJIMA'S HEAT MOVES ARE SO DAMN BRUTAL!

"I have no shame" "And I fucking hate the oil section" ~Son, 2022 Man I loved 4. While I think that it has more combat-related annoyances than the previous entries the various narratives more than make up for it. Also, damn Son, you got this one up quick! You're a machine.

1:42:35 I’m proud of you son. I’m proud that you took my childhood hero’s(Cave Johnson) quote “When life gives you lemons, you make life take those lemons back” to heart. Except it’s an engagement ring instead of lemons. And instead of giving those lemons to the engineers , you sold the ring.

I really love Yakuza and you’re doing a damn good job pushing these videos out each week. Thanks for the great content!

Great vid as always, really loving your Yakuza retrospective series. Yakuza 4 is tied for my second favorite game in the series along with Kiwami 2. Probably my greatest feeling in gaming when I was stuck on Munakata and had no heals because I forgot to buy some before hand and had to do the fight almost hitless. I nearly cried when I finally beat it.

Majima's change of attitude was indeed down to a major paradigm shift I feel. His past was coming back, the persona he adopted now feels like a coping mechanism but now with Saejima out and face to face with him again, he becomes his old self once again.

Son, how did you know I was going to unexpectedly be up all evening and need a new retrospective to watch? This is crazy, and don't tell your siblings, but this is why you're my favorite. You just get it.

im of the belief that there isnt a single bad entry to this series, i love the yakuza series so much, and am so happy that you're giving it the time of day. thank you for your hard work

Kiryu's final boss theme seems a bit heroic to me, which is fine. I think that in the end, he IS a hero. He is the one who causes the situation to turn out for the best in the end. Also, I totally agree with your assessment about the bad guys, son. All they seem to want is some form of power and thus are always in it for themselves. They scheme. They betray. They kill. However, no matter how many enemies they make. No matter how many enemies they kill, they always have one last one to face. Themselves. In the end, they are their own worst enemy and they are taken down by themselves just as much as by Kiryu or any other protagonist.

Yakuza 4 is probably in my top 3 mainline Yakuza games. I love the combat, every character is fun to play as. I love the playable characters, every one of them is a cool new edition and awesome characters for their own reasons. I love the different perspectives and getting accustomed to their stomping grounds (or in Saejima's case, his lack of stomping ground). And the ending was incredible, a four way brawl with the best final boss theme in the series with its incredible amount of hype. Part of me likes to think the ending was to reveal who would "succeed the legend" given the title in japan. And when the final fight is with Tanimura, that was our answer, and we got it in a roundabout way with Judgment.

I don't know what you're talking about most of the time, son, but I'll always listen.

Saejima taking out the Ueno clan just smacks of Boondock Saints, and I love it

Thanks sob for getting me into another game series I hadn't been interested in before first dmc now yakuza your perspective on them just gets me really invested keep it up proud of you son

This was the game which got me Into Yakuza! Very excited to watch this video !

The thing that makes the final fight bearable is that theres a combination of gear that just negates bullet damage entirely, they dont even stagger you. With that gear on Tanimura the final fight is bearable, otherwise it really isnt fun

For the combat peeps, Akiyama: 9:24 Saejima: 31:55 Tanimura: 53:56 Kiryu: 1:06:56

I had the exact same reaction to the Saejima scene with Haruka. It's a blemish on an otherwise strong entry, though it wasn't one of my favorites. I struggled with some difficulty spikes early on; all the stuff from the prison for one, and the VERY last boss was infuriating as shit. Left a bad taste. But it's still a good game. Feels like a warm up for Yakuza 5, which executes similar ideas much, MUCH, better

Great video man. Yakuza 4 to me is one of my favorites in the whole series but I never understood why fans of the series never talked about it much. Yakuza 4 is also the first game in the series I wanted to play again after I finished and I couldn't explain why this game struck me like it did but your retrospective definitly helped me figure alot of it out. Still hoping to see these characters in newer games, Akiyama is amazing, Saejima needs a game where he dosen't have to be in prison for once and I would love to see Tanimura back but with a fixed up fighting style, like perhaps Yagami's snake style since the two combat styles are related. Loved the video and I absolutely agree that this game isn't talked about enough and deserves to be high up in the rankings of great Yakuza games

Oh my goodness thank you for pointing out that Diago fight! Nobody really talks about it, so I thought it was just me that was struggling. It's just not a well designed fight, you either have to spam tiger drop or slowly plink away at his health with no more than 2 light attacks at a time, neither of which is a fun way to play

Great video! Saejima is my fav character from the Yakuza series besides Ichiban. He is such a gentle giant

Time to put on your suits. New Yakuza video! Thank you Son ❤️

Today's forecast, Sonny with a cool breeze.

52:10 "Little China is a safe HASIAN..." My slightly racially charged (but still fav) son.

one time I was scheduled to be executed by beheading, but I cleverly replaced the executioner’s blade with a rubber one :^)

The 1-4 panels on the upgrade UI aren't random, they are skills that need X amount of ability points. It's actually quite intuitive. You can look at all the 3 point skills regardless of what type of ability they are, or you can look at a list of just soul abilities.

I'm proud of you son.

I just wanna be Majima when I grow up.

I don’t mind the rubber bullets for the main plot and maybe smaller things here and there But after a while, it’s like the only things that gets brought up To the point when akiyama gets shot and it’s not a rubber bullet, I was more confused than actually shocked lol

I was just looking for some to watch! :D

You skimmed past Hamazaki's character development

12:04 I like to refer to Akiyama as Loan Shark Sanji.

Some of your criticisms seem a bit silly since you downplayed those supposed issues when it came to 3 for the sake of defending the game and overblew them here for the opposite reason. Other than that, pretty good retrospective.

We need more Akiyama, baby

Very good review bro but I found few mistakes here and there. Also, my only major complaint is that the fights you complained about are mostly skill/knowledge issue.

Are you doing other games by RGG Studio like Fist of the North Star Lost Paradise & Binary Domain? The parry gets better when you upgrade it, the oil section you can walk through by strafing during targeting.

Saejima gameplay enjoyer, opinion validated

If you hold R1 while in the oil section you can move over the oil without slipping.

The Munakata fight with Tanimura reminds me of Jingus fight in Yakuza 1, just with a lot more special forces and of course, Tanimura.

Yakuza 4 was my first game in the franchise. It was awesome.

This has definitely been the most rage-inducing game in my Yakuza journey so far

While I do like this game, there are two things that bugged me, the story and the bosses, for the story there are some scenes that just really kill the mood, the amount of betrayals and idiotic decisions characters make during cutscenes can be unintentionally funny at times, while I think they’re an improvement over 3 it feels like each character could’ve had more bosses to them since most of them were given to saejima, and they generally don’t last long anyway, these are just small nitpicks I had with the game, solid overall

Great work, son.

Glad I’m not the only one that wasn’t weirded out with e Saejima and Haruka scene bruh

Sugiuchi is such an underrated character and performance

Minor mistake but I noticed at 53 minutes you said Akiyama instead of Tanimura when describing that he glows to parry.

Great video son, excited to see the Yakuza 5 video will be 4 hours long.

That was fast son

I love coming back to these to remind myself what happened at certain bits. I got thinking though, would you not consider doing a Dead Souls retrospective?

You can ignore the oil section completely by walking.

This was great, not as good as the first three storywise atleast imo, but still a top notch game. Honestly whatever happened to Akiyama? I've always thought he made a great juxtaposition to the intense Yakuza types we see throughout the game, and he could have made for a more down to earth viewpoint on some of the games. Still, thanks for the video son, I know it will be great!

Thank you for the commentary.

In the “oil section” you can use the lock on button to walk, that way you will not slip

thank you, son. keep up the good work

I agree with you about tanimura and his style. I thought it would be very interesting, but I realized just how flawed he is. I just beat this game last night and tanimura was the ONLY protag I had to change the difficulty on during the boss fights. It was absolutely ridiculous all I had to do for his fight, fighting off those knife wielders and elite soldiers.....on top of that ass hat munakata or whatever his name is popping shots at you every two seconds.

Another excellent video son!!

For every boss fight you have to complain about something, that's more frustrating that the fight itself.

(1:20:03 akiyama’s track four face ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-i8tP60N5E4Q.html ) (1:20:36 saejima’s track four faith ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-gYxRVIVUwVM.html ) (1:21:03 kiryu’s track for face ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-L69xET3PTjU.html ) (1:21:49 tanimura’s track for faith ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-sJboAXTKK0Y.html )

Also a joy to see a new video from this channel. Great work as usual. And thank you for not including offputting, disturbingly bigoted jokes or takes in these videos. I really respect the way you spoke about the weird scene w Haruka, other gaming-centered RU-vid channels might have been gross or made misogynistic comments. Basically, it’s just nice to be confident that when I see a new video from this channel, I know it’s going to be thoroughly enjoyable start to finish. Cheers

You can hold r1 to go in fighting stance and walk on the oil without slipping.

Akiyama, my MVP.. the "Sanji" of Yakuza games

I remember thinking the twists in this Yakuza game were so stupid at the time

Hi Son, would you ever consider doing a video series on either the Siren series or the Dishonored series? Please let me know since you're my favorite channel here on YT and I'd donate a lot of money if you'd do either!

Beautiful recap.

34:29 he was in Yakuza 3. He was the Kamiyama in Okinawa

11:40 In case nobody else said this, The 1 2 3 and all tabs are separated by Spirit orb cost 🙏❤️

1:45:22 four tickets minions rise of gru please.

For some reason this game just didn't click with me like the others did, don't know why

Hey Son. Will you be Covering Yakuza: Dead Souls?

this is my favorite Yakuza game

42:18 the true face of terror

Do you use weapons much during your playthroughs? Honestly can't be bothered fist fighting late game bosses anymore because they get insanely tedious. I just pull out the trusty knife or bat and get these fights done and over with.

Am I the only one who had more trouble fighting Arai than Daigo?

I know it’s been a while since you did these but I wonder if your going to Like a Dragon Gaiden and Infinite Wealth games to complete the set… maybe if we’re lucky Ishin 😂

37:38 Because JAPAN, that's why.

I just finished this game yesterday! Is our timing uncanny or what?

this might be a bit of a hot take but it certainly feels as if the fights in this series where you have to battle a whole horde of bad guys are just painful to endure and are just really annoying to trudge through. having to deal with large swathes of enemies while playing as a character that's better suited to 1v1 fights is incredibly frustrating.

Yakuza 4 is in a weird spot for me. It has the least memorable plot of all the mainline games. Something something, rubber bullets, soemthing something, balls out. The highlight for me was Tanimura, the disposable playable character of 4. His moveset was the most fun. I played the PC version with the restored content mod, and I cannot imagine playing that game again without OG Tanimura. In addition to him being pretty cute, I felt bad for his actor's life being ruined over false allegations, so I thought it best to do him justice by restoring Tanimura to his original counterpart.

Just finished Y4 for the first time. That final level where you play as the cop taking down all the bodyguards and gunman was legit one of the worst experinces Ive had so far in these games and I seriously hated every moment of that part. Legit not excited to replay that scene on hard mode.

Watching Tanimura without mod seems unusual

You are right. Daigo is a little cheap. Good thing I know how to be cheap too. Daigo can block and counter well, but can he block and counter a Tiger Drop? I didn't think so.

Tanimura is trained in Taiho Jutsu. Remember, he is a cop. Japanese police are trained in Taiho Jutsu.

I would play this game but my PS3 copy keeps getting the “the black screen of death” after I finish the chase segment in chapter 2, any one know how I fix this problem?

“Safe Hasian,” 😂 52:17

Played for the first time last year and I thoroughly enjoyed the story. Until the rubber bullets reveal.

Saejima make people uncomfortable not by have determination to kill 18 man but by being isolated in jail for 25 years do to a mf is kinda funny. But now I wondering if have a opposite sex sibling would affect sexual crime or not

Bro i love these videos but the fact that literally noone can say Sugiuchis name right is fucking hilarious to me lmao

Hi son it's me, your favourite Dad