Raveniteh's Road to Yakuza series platinum

[Raveniteh]

Hello and welcome! 

I am Raven and I like games and trophies. They go well together and make inspire me to try playing a game in different ways I wouldn't usually try otherwise or tackle a multiplayer I would most likely just ignore (like BioShock 2-love that one) or just force myself to go through hardest difficulties improving my skill. My first proper experience with collecting achievements was in World of Warcraft and when I got PS Vita 8 years ago and I knew I was lost when I saw and heard my first trophy pop. I have been trophy hunting almost non-stop ever since with slight slow down last year and continuing this year to tackle my ever growing backlog of games, because you know, trophies do take time. I plated games easy, I plated games hard, I completed for fastest platinum completion and even chalked up one world first platinum. I always had some goal I wanted to do and now the goal is Yakuza series platinum. Like all of them, double dip it if necessary. 

 

But now onwards to the main dish of evening! The one, the only

                                                                                               

 

This series first started way back on PS2 during year 2005 with two games, continued on PS3 with Yakuza 3-5 (+ Japanese only Yakuza Ishin and Kenzan) and one spin off called Dead Souls and ended up on PS4 with Yakuza 6 followed by Yakuza 0 and remasters of pretty much rest of the series so now you can play whole series on PlayStation 4. And now we're waiting for sequel to the series to be released on November. Yakuza series features main protagonist called Kiryu Kazama, a handsome, inhumanly strong yakuza member on his journey through life and strife as we see him grow and age through the series, tackling personal life tragedies, yakuza clan wars or government conspiracies. I highly recommend giving this series a spin, it's absolutely worth it. It takes place in Kamurucho, a Tokyo district inspired by real life Kabukicho. It's a small map but densely packed with activities, sub-stories, restaurants and mini-games. Like a lot. Main story is generally pretty serious story with plot twists and unexpected events, but everything else is just silly fun. As described by one of the developers, it's a game where you can do silly things seriously.

 

My plan was to play through the whole series for the story and just enjoying the ride with all the content I felt like doing. Which was most of it. So I started with 0 and all the way up to 6. Then I went back and started trophy hunting the series. Not a simple task, mind you, due to dozens of minigames and side activities ranging from simple bowling, casino games and pool to old SEGA arcade games, Japanese MahJong or Shogi and plethora others. But dedication goes long way. At the time of writing this post I have plats from several games and I will talk about those in separate posts because I have things to say. Oh all the things.

 

Plated games:

Spoiler

Yakuza 0, Yakuza 1 Kiwami, Yakuza 2 Kiwami, Yakuza 3 (PS3), Judgment

 

Currently playing: Yakuza 3 (PS4)

 

Rest of the series: Yakuza 4(PS3+PS4), Yakuza 5(PS3+PS4), Yakuza 6, Yakuza: Dead Souls and bonus: Fist of North Star: Paradise Lost

 

The hunt is on!

Edited July 27, 2020 by Raveniteh

[Raveniteh]

My first platinum in this series was:

Released as second to last Yakuza game (just before Yakuza 6) as a prequel to the series taking place before Yakuza 1. I think this just might be best Yakuza game in the series. There might be conflicting ideas as when to play this game - either start with it or play the series from Kiwami 1 and then get back to Zero. One way or another, it's excellent game whether it's an entry point or otherwise. I don't regret starting with it and it might be reason why I love this series so much. 

 

Time wise nearly 133 hours for the 100% completion list (and some miscellaneous trophies like the damn JCC). About 5-10 hours for Climax battles. And ending it up with close to 37 hours for Legend difficulty run (skipped nearly everything except business of each character). For some odd reason, this is the only one in the series which does not allow NG+. 

 

I figured the Legend(highest difficulty setting) would be the most difficult thing in the platinum, but it was very much doable with the Kiryu Beast mode (especially with some key upgrades) and Majima breaker style (spin moves for the win). I was aware of the roadblock the car chase could become, but I lucked out and it took me only two tries. The challenging part, however, were the Climax battles. Two of them, specifically- first was poisoned Majima one where you're switching styles at random and taking damage over time, second was Ultimate battle 2 (also with Majima). Other than that I enjoyed doing the 100% of Completion list- managed to get my dance on, defeated Amons, couldn't stop playing MahJong, cheesed the Shogi, chilled with Blackjack, trained a dominatrix. I find advantage that plenty minigames are shared through the series so learning MahJong, Koi-Koi, Cho-han (and other side activities) comes in handy for rest of the games, getting down the batting basics helps as well even tho batting is slightly different in future settings.

 

And what was the thing I did after the platinum? Backed up the saves, slapped that bad boy Yakuza 1 Kiwami in the machine and let's freaking go!

Second and obvious step in my road to Yakuza series platinum:

 

This game was considerably shorter (obviously) and easier than Yakuza 0 in some aspects and slightly more difficult in others. The platinum trophy itself has couple hurdles one needs to overcome, requiring a little different skills to complete. First one is, of course, the 100% completion list. This task might have been easier than in Zero, but overall it's very similar when it comes to the things you need to do for minigames. Majima Everywhere was easier than I thought it would be as most of the spawns you need to get are location specific so hunting him down was less time consuming than expected.

 

A trophy which might prevent players from getting the platinum is the infamous Haruka's Otometal request, asking you to hit 950+ on the song, which isn't really that simple, but rest of her tasks are more time consuming than anything else.

 

Next stop for others would be Climax battles. A series of more or less challenging fights separated across 4 categories. I remember struggling with couple Proving Grounds and Melee Battles. The Mad Dog and Ultimate battles were much easier compared to the previous two categories. And they reward you with pretty strong amulets. I'd say is about the same difficulty as Zero, but much more rewarding due to amulets you get for clearing the full category.

 

Last up would be Legend run. If you take Zero and Kiwami Legends, side by side, Kiwami is a simple task as you can use NG+ (game clear data) for the difficulty and if you have maxed out Kiryu, you just waltz through the game and Tiger Drop everyone to oblivion. However, wild car chase scene happens. If you fail that one, you have to go through whole chapter 9 again, means that restaurant set piece battles and Lau Ka Long boss battle. By the time I completed it (two hours later), I was able to go through those battles with ease and no effort.

 

Here are the times:

95h 30min - Story and 100% CP run (including about 22hr AFK Ebisu socks money farm and 5 hour of trying to get last mangan in MahJong)

~9h - Climax Battles

~10hrs - Legend run (got stuck on the car chase scene for about two hours, but still did the Legend run in one sitting)

All in all it was still about 75 hours shorter than Yakuza 0 because of only single playable character and ability to use NG+ for Legend run so I didn't need to level up characters

Feel free to hit me up if you have some questions regarding the trophy/achievement hunt, I will be happy to help.

 

Next up was always going to be: Yakuza Kawaii 2

 

[Raveniteh]

 

This game was much easier than the previous two because Kiwami 2 is missing several difficulty hurdles that Y0 and K1 offers: Major ones being lack of Climax battles, ability to use NG+ for Legend run, different car chase scene and Haruka's requests being more tame (for the most parts). Besides, once you purchase Photon Blade after beating the game, you wont need to use anything else.

 

There were couple grindy parts as usual like the batting points to purchase two skill books or the 30 mahjong 'go out'. You don't really need to go out of your way to complete most of the challenges as they keep popping as you play through the base game, but you are required to complete most of Cabaret and Majima Construction events, all the bouncer missions, all the street bosses and plenty of other 'do all stuff'. But nothing that would overstay it's welcome, with exception of few bouncers but it shouldn't be an issue if yo don't do them all at one lump.

 

Time wise it goes something like:

62hrs 57min for the Story run + 100% Completion points and misc trophies

4hrs 8min for the Legend run

about 1hr for Majima Saga run

the time is way lower compared to Y0 and K1 given this game/engine does not track the ingame/pause menu time while previous two games do, so that might be another several hours extra and challenge list is way more lenient than it's predecessors (i.e. winning just 1000 chips in casino games instead of 10/20/50k, etc.)

 

Overall? I really like this game for plenty of great characters, plottwists and nutty story. If I would have to point out dislikes... well I miss different combat styles, plenty minigames are missing too (but new ones appear).

Next up I did: Yakuza 3 on PS3- I will wait a bit with post about this game as I don't have my notes with me and not to wall of text as much

 

Stay awesome people!

[Intoner_Zero]

Good luck on your conquest!

I'm pretty shitty at gambling and doing Climax Battles, so most of the RGG plats will be out of my reach lol.

[Raveniteh]

8 hours ago, Bittersweet said:

Good luck on your conquest!

I'm pretty shitty at gambling and doing Climax Battles, so most of the RGG plats will be out of my reach lol.

 

Thank you! 

Hang in there, man! I think gambling comes down to repetition until you get down the game down and luck to get the cards, dice or other - except MahJong, that one requires patience to learn the basics at least. And if you learn it once, you can use it in other games as well. Climax Battles are whole different ball game tho. It's a grind and there were some times where I wasn't sure that I will complete it as some arenas/battles are really challenging. But it's a way to get good at the combat system as well.

[Grotz99]

12 hours ago, Raveniteh said:

 

Thank you! 

Hang in there, man! I think gambling comes down to repetition until you get down the game down and luck to get the cards, dice or other - except MahJong, that one requires patience to learn the basics at least. And if you learn it once, you can use it in other games as well. Climax Battles are whole different ball game tho. It's a grind and there were some times where I wasn't sure that I will complete it as some arenas/battles are really challenging. But it's a way to get good at the combat system as well.

I'm going to play Kiwami 2 later this year then decided after I finish that play through, going back and attempting the first 2 game's climax battles since I'll be warmed up. If I can complete those, I'm going to marathon the legendary play throughs and do some clean up.

[Raveniteh]

11 hours ago, Grotz99 said:

I'm going to play Kiwami 2 later this year then decided after I finish that play through, going back and attempting the first 2 game's climax battles since I'll be warmed up. If I can complete those, I'm going to marathon the legendary play throughs and do some clean up.

 

I found legendary runs easier than Climax Battles, honestly. With couple exceptions of those pesky highway chase parts. And Kiwami going forward you can use NG+ for legendary making it even easier. I can also recommend learning timing for Tiger Drop as it makes boss battles much easier because it can just melt anything.

[Champion_Trophy]

For me Yakuza Kiwami was easy except mahjong which stopped me from plat (anyway i know i have to do it someday...) and it is the only reason i didnt start zero and kiwami 2.

[Raveniteh]

57 minutes ago, Champion_Trophy said:

For me Yakuza Kiwami was easy except mahjong which stopped me from plat (anyway i know i have to do it someday...) and it is the only reason i didnt start zero and kiwami 2.

 

I kinda understand why. It took me about 10 hours of trial and error to get the basics of MahJong down. I think I used this guide to get the basics down, trying to go only for 'riichi' hand and slowly made my way through understanding the game. Now after about 50 hours of combined experience through several Yakuza games (and Judgment) it's much better. But you only need to learn it once to use it through the whole series as the game remains the same in every Yakuza game.

[Raveniteh]

 

Jumping back to PS3 Yakuza from beautiful PS4 games was slightly rough from both graphical and gameplay point of view, but pretty solid experience. While I do believe that this is the worst game from Yakuza series, it's not a bad game by all means. Story is very straightforward compared to other games as well and it's visible that game was quite early in PS3 generation - especially if you take a look at Y4-5. But Y3 brought new features to the table, including a way to learn new moves and skills called revelations which are pretty hilarious most of the time. And we have an actual golf this time. And boy can Kiryu send a ball flying far. And prepare to play lot of hide and seek with kids. Like, all the time. Which makes first part of the game quite slow to play.

 

Trophies are similar to other games as well, but mini-games are somewhat easier most of the time even if you have to complete all minigame challenges which can be grind in some casino games (winning certain amount of chips in one sitting) as well as pool and darts requires you to beat all difficulties and all modes. Other than that pretty standard trophy experience if you know your way around Yakuza games.

 

Game allows you to NG+ to EX Hard difficulty so you can Tiger Drop your way through bosses and I do recommend doing that as they keep guarding like 95% of the time which makes it a tad annoying and cheap. I can't really write anything about climax battles as I don't really remember much as I completed it over a year ago.

 

Time splits goes something like:

37hrs for hard difficulty playthrough (story run with most of sub-stories and some screwing around with minigames)

5.5hrs for Ultimate challenger (climax battles of this game)

45hrs for cleanup (all sub-stories, all minigames, pretty much everything except Ex Hard)

~3hrs Ex Hard difficulty

 

total time should be something like 85:14hrs

 

next up I wanted to do Yakuza 4, but I got distracted by other games and now playing Yakuza 3 remaster so I am doing that again. Oh yeah I did platinum Judgment in the meantime so I will whip up a post about it too.

[Golem25]

Posting in a based & redpilled thread, Godspeed you magnificent man for completing these amazing (and challenging) games and allowing us to follow you on your journey. I will take another stab at Platting 3 (PS3) myself soon, so reading your last post has given me a little more hope.

[Raveniteh]

12 minutes ago, Golem25 said:

Posting in a based & redpilled thread, Godspeed you magnificent man for completing these amazing (and challenging) games and allowing us to follow you on your journey. I will take another stab at Platting 3 (PS3) myself soon, so reading your last post has given me a little more hope.

 

I very much thank you kindly for your words! I am glad they could inspire you to some extent to give this journey another shot. 

 

It can be difficult task at first but I feel like it has become easier and easier with every Yakuza game done. It is a challenge each time, but kind of challenge that can be done with repetition and a bit of grind so I believe a skilled person like yourself will be able to tackle this head-on, especially with couple Yakuza plats under the belt. 

[Draps-1337]

This is awesome Raven, I only just stumble upon your thread and I wish you luck with the rest! This year I've been focused on just finishing the Yakuza series because I've put it off for so many years. Once I beat them all I'm planning to go back and plat them! Hopefully, I still feel like it haha!

[Raveniteh]

14 minutes ago, Draps-1337 said:

This is awesome Raven, I only just stumble upon your thread and I wish you luck with the rest! This year I've been focused on just finishing the Yakuza series because I've put it off for so many years. Once I beat them all I'm planning to go back and plat them! Hopefully, I still feel like it haha!

 

Thank you! I appreciate it. 

 

That's how I went about the series as well - finished all the games for story/fun first and then went back to attempt platinum trophies. If anything doing it this way made me want those shiny platinum trophies way more, because I became attached to the series so much. And what you learn in one Yakuza game (minigames and such) is useful for pretty much other Yakuza games as well.

Edited August 14, 2020 by Raveniteh

[Maahniac]

That's awesome! Good luck! 3 and 5 should be the most difficult ones, right?

I love the Yakuza series so much, my only complaint is all the stuff you need to do over and over again, with every game. Like, I really love Mahjong and all the other mini-games, but starting from scratch with every game can be a bit of a chore, after 3 games. I've plat'd 0, Kiwami and Kiwami 2, and I'm currently working my way through 6. I actually feel bad about skipping 3-5, but on the other hand my backlog is constantly growing, so I don't really feel like I can put hundreds of more hours into Yakuza right now, when there are SOOOO many other games I need to find the time for.

[Raveniteh]

11 minutes ago, Maahniac said:

That's awesome! Good luck! 3 and 5 should be the most difficult ones, right?

 

I'm gonna be honest with you - I am not really sure. I kinda feel like every Yakuza game has a part which is harder or easier than rest of the series, making each game a bit unique in that sense. It is true that Yakuza 3 might feel tougher due to being a bit rough around the edges, especially on PS3 but I found it quite doable. 

 

12 minutes ago, Maahniac said:

I love the Yakuza series so much, my only complaint is all the stuff you need to do over and over again, with every game. Like, I really love Mahjong and all the other mini-games, but starting from scratch with every game can be a bit of a chore, after 3 games. I've plat'd 0, Kiwami and Kiwami 2, and I'm currently working my way through 6. I actually feel bad about skipping 3-5, but on the other hand my backlog is constantly growing, so I don't really feel like I can put hundreds of more hours into Yakuza right now, when there are SOOOO many other games I need to find the time for.

 

I know what you mean. Trophy hunting Yakuza games can be time consuming task so plenty games can get away in the meantime. I am actually going through backlog reduction times where I play games just for completion and trophy hunt just the ones I really like and want to have plated. However I do recommend playing Y3-5 for the story at least, especially when you can get them on PS4 nowdays on every other sale. I found Y4 to be really good from story point of view and Y5 has refreshing gameplay mechanics and mini-games.

[Max_Level_Nerd]

Hello 

 

Did you manage to complete the challenge?

 

I've already platinum for 0-7 plus Lost Judgement. 

 

I was Googling to see if anyone else if the world was insane as I was? 

 

 

[Raveniteh]

On 4/26/2022 at 10:02 PM, Max_Level_Nerd said:

Hello 

 

Did you manage to complete the challenge?

 

I've already platinum for 0-7 plus Lost Judgement. 

 

I was Googling to see if anyone else if the world was insane as I was? 

 

 

 

Hello ^^ Big congratulations.

I didn't do it yet, no. My interest dropped a little and I got sidetracked by other games but I dip in and out here and there. I am currently working on second Yakuza 3 platinum and Lost Judgment. Other then that I have 0-3 + Judgment.