I think you’re right about that, and the very slow opening compounded that, I feel. Even so, I had a good deal of fun with it once things opened up a bit and my combat options expanded. I also think that, even though the plot is pretty silly, the lunacy of 4’s story made it seem better in retrospect 
Haven’t played all the games yet but I’d rank them like this:
Judgment, LAD, 0, K2, 3, K1
Honestly I can interchange the top 4 and it would still work. I have a hard time ranking those 4 since I love them all.
This I agree with. Both those games had some annoying boss fights. But they’re still great games. My favorite part of 3 is actually the orphanage stuff, despite how controversial that may be.
I would think that most of the people playing would be interested in the crimes and machinations, so the slow beginning is intolerable to them 
I’m with you though, it was really nice seeing a different side of Kiryu. I wonder how much of my tolerance for it was that I was coming right off of Kiwami 2. I can see being a bit more testy if you waited a while for a new release and the super fight man is playing golf with a city councillor because one of his kids is being bullied.
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I agree with what you said. I didn’t come off of Kiwami 2 (about 3 months in between) so perhaps that’s why I didn’t mind the slow start.
Club Mercury is mine as well now.
It started off bad, or I thought it did because the fever bar or the Mercury club right off the bat started filling up. But it’s clearly not a sign to give up at all.
Apparently this is not the “right” order, I should have went against Jupiter first. But now I have the lady from Mercury to help out even more. Progress!
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It’s so addicting going through the various clubs and unlocking new girls for your club. Sega needs to go all in on this mini game for the next mainline Yakuza game.
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Yeah it’s addicting as hell and I’m surprised because usually I don’t bother at all with management kind of stuff in games. The whole thing with training the platinum ladies and getting to know them is really cool too, it’s in these parts where you really see character development and I love that.
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Now try explaining that to someone who’s only ever heard of Yakuza as “Japanese GTA”
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Before I played the Yakuza series i had that impression too. It’s honestly not even remotely similar to GTA.
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I actually hate it now whenever I hear Yakuza being compared to GTA nowadays. It gives people the wrong impression, and I always see some people complaining about how you can’t drive a car or shoot people like in GTA, which actually makes me want to gouge my eyes out. They have no idea what this series is about. The two series are so different from each other.
I have to imagine it was a journalist or something who made the comparison originally and that idea just kind of crystallized. Like how that guy shat all over Nier because he was bad at the fishing.
Doesn’t look like it 
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If anything it’s way more like Shenmue, but has plenty,plenty things of its own.
Yeah, sad when i just looked it up and seen it’s not on sale. I might cave in if its not on sale by mid july since I want to beat it over the summer and also beat it in time for the sequel which is day one for me
Daaaaaaamn
The way I always off him is with filling my inventory with the slim gun and blasting away at him, easy money for sure! If I tried to play like upper video…man I’d get demolished within seconds.
Daaamn, Mr. Shakedown, meet Mr. Beatdown. Slime Guns is how I did it too!
I think Yakuza/Judgment is going to be part of the very rare Day 1 purchase club for me too. Here’s hoping a code goes on sale on Newegg or something! (Just got both South Park games for $9.59 this morning)
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Wait, what?!? That’s ridiculous.
It’s almost like a spiritual successor. Very different of course, but it retains the spirit (kinda).
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It’s obviously impossible to gauge how much of an effect this had on the game’s reception but it certainly didn’t help.
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Holy shit, he spent an hour on that? And it was all because he was fishing in the wrong spot? Wow.
Decided to buy judgement physical since it’s on sale, and I guess I can use it to trade towards sequel
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I heard it’s good from my good buddy who burned out on Yakuza games halfway through 5 and decided to pick up Judgment for some reason
Curious to know how Judgment ranks for you. I saw that @PhantomFox put it pretty high up. I hope it’s a good successor to the series, if the mainline games are going to be RPGs 
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