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Should Yakuza be in the RPG timeslot? (Patreon)

Published:
2020-02-27 19:59:37
Imported:
2023-05

Content

So hear me out.  I don't think Yakuza is an RPG.  You don't really make story or character decisions, and even the extent to which the protagonist can be customized can be pretty limited.

But should we treat it like one anyway, for logistical reasons?  For starters, these games are loooooong.  Part of the reason for the shift over to the 1-hour RPG timeslot was so that something like Pillars of Eternity could be played through in four months instead of eight (it still took 107 double-length episodes).

Right now we have the double-length RPG slot, the Let's Try slot, the Patreon slot, the miscellaneous slot (Yakuza currently lives here), and then the Puzzle/Indie slot.  Here's the lengths of the four Yakuza playthroughs so far:

Yakuza 0: 79 episodes

Yakuza Kiwami: 71 episodes

Yakuza Kiwami 2: 90 episodes

Judgment: 122 (!!!) episodes

There games are, uh, girthy.  And I've still got Yakuza 3, 4, 5, Dead Souls, 6, the samurai spin-offs if they ever get translated, and the upcoming Yakuza 7.  They certainly seem like they would benefit from taking half as long to finish.

And I can't help but notice how similar a Yakuza playthrough is, functionally, to an RPG playthrough.  There's a main quest and side quests, and most of the playthrough is spent with me exploring an open area to engage in the text-heavy stories of random NPCs on the street.  A Yakuza playthrough has a lot in common with, for example, the current Outer Worlds playthrough.  The moment to moment gameplay is so similar because they contain 80% of the same structural DNA, missing only the bit that's most crucial to their respective genre classification.

So maybe Yakuza is better served by the RPG slot.  But are RPG fans in the audience served by this kind of change?

After all, there's a long line of very long games that are all waiting for their chance at that timeslot.  There's the more recent games like Greedfall, the Wasteland 1 Remake and the upcoming Wasteland 3, but then there's the to-do list of the Witcher, Dragon Age, Baldur's Gate, Fallout, Planescape, Pillars of Eternity, KOTOR, etc franchises.  Then again, in the miscellaneous timeslot the Yakuza games offer the same opportunity cost, only for twice as long.

(I still need to decide whether souls-likes like The Surge 2, Blasphemous, and Code Vein fit the RPG slot.  I'm inclined to think that their faster pace works fine for 30 minute episodes)

This is why I'm making a poll.  I want to know whether viewers view Yakuza as an acceptable substitute for RPGs in the hour-long 11:00 AM PST timeslot.  Is it a similar enough viewing experience?  Or should it stay in miscellaneous, where the games last 2-4 months and probably be played about once a year as a result?

Comments

Guy McPerson

Hum, what would it "block", so to speak, in the Misc timeslot? (Full disclosure: I ask this as someone who is not interested in the Yakuza series and am as a result primarily interested in "damage reduction" here.)

SebastianSB
>>32999467

Previous games in that slot have been Link's Awakening, Luigi's Mansion, Pokemon Sword & Shield, Control, Monster Hunter World, Sinking City, Sekiro, A Plague Tale: Innocence, Ashen, Super Smash Bros Campaign, Call of Cthulhu Resident Evil 2, etc. It's basically where the AAA and AA games go, so all of those.

Morridini

I voted for keeping them away from the RPGs as I would much, much more be interested in seeing some real RPG playthroughs. However, I also realize by reading your description that I no idea what Yakuza games are like, I thought they were GTA clones, but doesn't sound like it. Might take a look at your other videos, which I expect to find far removed from the RPG list :p

Calliope Rannis
>>32999711

I thought they were a GTA clone too, and the first episode of Yakuza 0 was already enough to suprise me on that front.

Ryan Scheel

Alternatively, you could keep Yakuza in the misc. timeslot, but make it an hour long and make the RPG slot half an hour while doing it. Or swap each day which one gets an hour slot. Different tradeoffs each way, each having part of the downsides of both.

Terry Lee

Well the new one coming out called Yakuza Like a Dragon is definitely a turn-based JRPG. I think the others in the series it's debatable. I mean they could be technically action-adventure with RPG qualities. It's a mixed bag

ReidFever

Do what you want

Anonymous

I don't think it should, purely because it is way more third-person adventure (I will die on this hill), than RPG. Like a Dragon, on the other hand, seems to be as much RPG as the Valkyrie games.

SebastianSB
>>33047020

Like I said in the post, I don't consider Yakuza to be an RPG, but that isn't the point.

Anonymous
>>33047020

Right on. The answer is that I’d rather it not be in that slot, because I would like to have a continuous feed of actual RPG games to watch. Since Yakuza isn’t, I don’t want it in that slot until you get to the release that actually is.

SebastianSB
>>33047020

I find it strange that you define Yakuza 7 as being a "real" RPG while the rest of the series is not. Is the simple change to turn-based combat all that it takes to redefine the genre? Unless I've missed something I'm fairly sure that Y7 will still be a game with basically zero roleplaying. It'll likely be just like all of the other games, where 80% of the game is you walking around the same city and engaging in borderline VN extended dialog sequences that are entirely linear and devoid of choice, punctuated by a fight here and there along the way. In both you level up, and in both you don't roleplay, so I wouldn't really call either an RPG. And if you count Y7 to be a JRPG and you count JRPGs as RPGs (I do not), then how is Yakuza 1-6 not a JRPG? It's combat is as in-depth as stuff like recent Tales of games or FFXV, both of which aren't turn-based, and you level up and engage in very lengthy story bits. Is it just the lack of fantasy trappings that makes it feel different on the surface level?

Anonymous
>>33047020

My reasoning comes from a mixture of what we've seen so far, and conjecture based on industry sources (I am for all intents and purposes a "games journalist"). The turn-based combat itself is not the only reason for my assuming it will be an RPG. Rather, it is the mixture of the combat system, and how it will tie into the party-based combat where the developers themselves told media how each member would partially be based on fantasy RPG-type classes; and how the game will feature summon attacks. This post: https://www.dualshockers.com/yakuza-7-party-summons-mario-kart/ is a decent and very direct write-up of what little we have all been told.

Anonymous
>>33047020

You are also correct in thinking the game will still very much look and feel like previous games. I am simply saying that I think it will be way more of an RPG than the previous ones thanks to the reasoning above. I guess I was a bit brash in stating that it will be like Valkyrie - that was just an exaggeration on my part.

SebastianSB
>>33047020

Why does a change in combat style make a game more of an RPG when there is no standard RPG combat system? As far as I can tell combat is in no way a defining attribute of what makes a game an RPG or JRPG to begin with. I'm currently playing an RPG where you just shoot people in the face or talk to them. My previous game was entirely dialog. The most recent Final Fantasy was entirely real-time and could largely be beaten by just holding down one button.

Anonymous
>>33047020

That is a very good question. It brings to light the fact that I may be basing my own genre labelling on trivial things. The truth of the matter is that I prefer playing turn-based RPGs above all else. The gameplay previews we managed to play a little while ago gave off intense Final fantasy XII vibes, with the way combat worked; ie. the combination of roaming the battle area - running up to foes, while also managing turns-based movesets. Similarly, it reminds me a heck of a lot of games like I Am Setsuna, and its spiritual successor, Lost Sphear. In the latter titles, the enemy's placement on the battlefield directly affects how and what you can do to them. This initial preview, coupled with the new party system where they also bring back the ability tree from previous titles just made me think the game would essentially be an RPG. Now, ofcourse there is the question of the actual Roleplaying element. I cannot say anything to this regard, since I literally know nothing about it. As far as I can tell, however, this will follow the same structure as previous Yakuza titles, meaning the R in RPG means about as much for Y7 as it does for FFXIII - not a lot. I suppose - and to actually answer your question from before - my categorising it as an RPG comes down to the fact that it really seems to be similar to the likes of semi-recent Final Fantasy titles, moreso than a Yakuza title... without actually losing any initial charm the previous Yakuza titles had. Simply, I am basing my opinions off a little bit of hands-on time, and a whole lot of conjecture. This also begs the question on how twisted the RPG genre has become: studios simply need to add a skill tree, and suddenly everyone (myself included) calls it an RPG. A failing, perhaps, of the industry? Or more so, the gamers who enjoy its games...

SebastianSB
>>33047020

This is why I don't consider JRPGs to be RPGs to begin with. Sure, they also have their roots in western tabletop RPGs, but they lost the point along the way. Last night we played D&D for four hours and the entirety of that time was spent with characters interacting with each other and making decisions. No one leveled up, and there was not a single round of combat. And yet no one would dare claim Dungeons & Dragons to not be an RPG. Disco Elysium is shockingly similar to this concept, and most western RPGs (setting aside dungeon crawler loot grinders like Diablo) continue to pursue this concept: the seemingly impossible but admirable goal of freedom of choice in a pre-programmed world where every choice has to be implemented manually and expensively. The template example of a JRPG simply doesn't feature roleplaying. You proceed through linear dungeons in a linear order, you fight whatever the game makes you fight, and then VN segments or movies play to tell you the story. The most choice you have is how you customize your character, or which ones you use, and that's about it. The same level of customization you find in your average western open world game: skill trees and a leveling system. No one calls Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor an RPG, but its structure and moment to moment gameplay has more in common with the likes of Tales of Berseria or Final Fantasy XV than either of those games have with, say, Pillars of Eternity. They all have similarly complex leveling, and they're all a linear story grafted over an open world. People just got used to calling JRPGs “role-playing games” out of habit and don't question it. And I get it, it makes the labeling confusing. The term “JRPG” does refer to a semi-useful (but decreasingly so) series of recognizable traits that can be used to refer to a concept. It's just unfortunate that the entire genre's name seems to be a misnomer. That's not unusual, though. I've had to repeatedly correct people that, no, Death Stranding is not a “Walking Simulator.” Yes, it is a game that simulates walking, perhaps more than virtually anything before (aside from QWOP), but the term “Walking Simulator” is already taken. It refers to games that are somewhat passive narrative affairs where the player's primary role is to walk through it, even though they don't actually simulate walking in any meaningful mechanical way. And since that term is so heavily used we now can't call a game that simulates walking a “Walking Simulator” because that would cause undue confusion in the pursuit of technically being correct but no one understanding what you're saying. That's the struggle of people who are sure that JRPGs aren't RPGs but also know it's not useful to refuse the term “JRPG.” Based on the previous points however, I would argue that Yakuza has always been a JRPG. There are basically no mechanical arguments to be made that separate it from other modern games whose JRPG status is not commonly disputed. They all share the same emphasis on lengthy storytelling, the same back and forth between pre-rendered cutscenes and lengthy, economical text sequences. They all have an ever-present leveling system, and often take it upon themselves to reinvent the wheel with some new weird type of skill tree, a common trait of JRPGs (sphere grids and whatnot). I would argue that Yakuza has largely been excluded for entirely aesthetic reasons: it doesn't look anime, and it's set in a grounded, modern, non-fantasy setting. People see a screenshot and just assume it's not a JRPG by default, but they're mechanically identical. I think this is highlighted all the more by the fact that a simple shift in combat style, with everything else kept exactly the same, suddenly leads to a fundamental category shift in some people's eyes. Even though the combat format is arguably not what makes a Yakuza game a Yakuza game and definitely not what makes a JRPG a JRPG.

Toksyuryel
>>33047020

Agreed with everything in this post. One of the things I always liked about the Persona series, it tries to put the RPG back in JRPG as much as it can while still telling its story. Yahtzee referred to Death Stranding as a "hiking simulator" which to me feels very accurate and isn't already taken.