#lad8 gaiden

[gamerism]

Majima Goro in the Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii Reveal Trailer

[zaddyazula]

some people love opening their mouths

[oceanicoleander]

[bitternace]

the father, the son, the end of the world (x)

[ID: two digital drawings of three iterations of kiryu kazuma that are intertwined in a downwards sequence. the background is a night sky with two framing clouds, and city lights, moon backlightning the three figures. the colors are tinted blue, and the image is held in a frame that is transparent on the outer part.

on top, kiryu is shown in his yakuza 3 okinawa outfit, in the middle in his yakuza 0 pinstrip suit and at the bottom, in a black shirt as he appears in infinite wealth.

y3 kiryu curls his right arm around y0 kiryu's neck, hand in a fist, his right hand comfortably lying on top of lad8 kiryu's head. his expression is a deep frown, as he stares at the audience.

y0 kiryu is turned to the left side of the image, as if running away, his left arm resting over y3's left forearm, hand slightly curled into a fist. his right arm curls forward over lad8 kiryu's shoulder protectively, palm held upwards. he is frowning at something off-frame, mouth slightly open.

lad8 kiryu has his right hand in a fist over his stomach and the left one reaching up to hold y0's left forearm. his expression is blank, as he stares at nothing, mouth slightly agape.

The second image is the same, only slightly less dark for visibility. /End ID.]

(ref) (edited)

[todayisafridaynight]

you probably won't even care about yakuza by the time the plushies are out if we go by your track record

i cant even deny this cause my interests do tend to have a shelf life of one year and it'll be one year come june

[bellsliturgy]

ragdoll physics are the highlight of our current era of gaming

[eli-artsblog]

LaD8 Kiryu (i'm not ok after gaiden and the demo 😭)

I accept commissions in this style btw (charcoal drawing, A5 format) - message me here or check out my Ko-fi comm. page <3

[kronim195]

I am currently playing through every mainline Yakuza game - main story, all substories and major sidequests included - before I get to Gaiden and LaD8. Feels like this could be Kiryu's last adventure (for real this time) so I wanna see all of his story to make that feel even more rewarding.

I'm gonna be at this for like 6 months lol

[gensokyogarden]

Beat LAD8. Gonna briefly ramble about my feelings on it now, since this is a place where I ramble at my friends. I am not going to talk about the plot in any great detail so consider this to be spoiler free (unless you consider me saying that content was in the game to be a spoiler in which case some spoilers).

Throughout the vast majority of the game I greatly enjoyed it, feeling it was a great sendoff to a lot of things in the franchise. To some extent it also addressed some of the qualms I had to Y6. In particular I found the Memoirs of the Dragon side objective taking you through a walk down memory lane of the entire Kiryu saga (non canon spinoff games included) to be really touching. I personally have played every mainline game and what side content I could get a hold of so I felt quite nostalgic and rewarded over this.

In general I feel that it managed to hit many emotional high points. Being honest though, I do feel that the very last segment of LAD Gaiden set the bar so high that this game never touched it, but standing on its own I think they managed to jam a lot of pathos into the game.

I found the final boss and, to some extent, the ending to be a bit underwhelming. The final speech that he gave really did not seem to be much in line with his motivations up to that point at all and instead of adding some sympathy I felt that it only made the plot of the game make less sense. I am not really some sorta expert on narrative design and character motivation though so maybe I'm just being foolish. In prior games whenever I felt the main antagonist didn't quite have the energy, I felt that the intensity of the final boss battles did a lot to bring me around to them. After the swap to turn base (a choice that outside of this issue I'm fine with) though I feel there's been a bit of a final boss problem. If anyone's interested in what I mean I could probably ramble on that separately but suffice to say that I think that the turn base final bosses have less oompth (though I still have a lot of positive feelings about the ones from LAD7).

But I do think that they vastly improved the turn based mechanics from 7. I thought they did a lot to make this game really fun and I had a great time with it. Outside of the above mentioned qualms, I did enjoy both the story and gameplay quite a lot. Often in my first playthrough of one of these games I primarily focus on just the main story and hardly touch side stories, saving them for the post game or a second playthrough. This time, however, I was so drawn in by the writing that I just had to stop and do them all. Plus Hawaii is just a really fun setting.

All in all I would say it's a great game and encourage fans of the series to play it. Given much of the game, however, is rooted in nostalgia for the whole Kiryu saga I don't think I'd do the same for someone that hasn't played most of the games.

[chainreh]

no gaiden no lad8 who even cares

[cominy-kiwami]

kiryu is gonna be a dual protagonist with ichiban in lad8. gotta say i dont like that! 100% ichiban is gonna be gradually pushed to the sidelines and they're just gonna do Kiryu Again. fuck off!

these trailers show one thing above anything else to me. the studio is SO afraid to let go of their established material. unless kiryu dies in lad8 theyre just gonna continue to stagnate until theyre making the same game every year.

[gamerism]

Majima Goro • Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii

[zaddyazula]

as this is now actually real/mostly proven, let’s look at it

the key to regaining his memory is through yakuza tattoos (where are we gonna see them??? how are they gonna come up?)

i think it’s safe to say we’ll most likely see kiryu’s and saejima’s (due to how closely linked they are to majima’s story) but who else? (ryuji… mine…) maybe daigo or even shimano (? reaching a bit here) but i can’t think of anyone else. i’m guessing this is gonna work like the memories/memoirs of a dragon in lad8.

we’re gonna see parts of the story FROM MAJIMA’s POV

the fucking POSSIBILITIES here. imagine if we get a pov of 1995 from him. insane. 3 could also be an interesting one, as well as 5 (considering how little his side is shown in it) or 7/gaiden, or even pre-7, with how him and the other two left the tojo. or maybe even more on the company they had after the dissolution. there’s so many points in the story that could really be expanded on here. i’m not actually sure when the game is gonna be set, this says after 8, but at the start of the summit he said to go back 6 months, so we might have to wait a bit for definite confirmation.

obviously i’m just going off everything else being true, it could totally turn out to be wrong here. these are just very early on predictions.

[zaddyazula]

the return of goromi is making me so happy

[zaddyazula]

akiyama… ryuji? yeah guys this is another sign

[zaddyazula]

my thesis on how nishiki, ryuji and mine are alive with basically no evidence other than my memory

nishiki is sort of on tender hooks here. my main reason for thinking he’s alive is that kiryu and haruka survived the fucking bomb blast while only being a few couple of metres away from nishiki. koi boy himself was still quite a few metres away from the bomb when he shot it. it’s possible he survived with some serious injuries (though somehow kiryu and haruka got out unscathed??? 😭😭😭); we don’t actually see nishiki afterwards - no dead body, only the sort of word that he’s dead. was he fatally shot… erm… that’s not important. police showed up straight afterwards anyways so if he was still alive he could’ve gotten medical help. does it make narrative sense for nishiki to die? yes. does it make narrative sense to bring him back? no. the daidoji could’ve got to him and recruited him i guess. they did it with hanawa/morinaga, who was also offscreened like nishiki (who technically was). we sort of just assume nishiki’s dead, considering he’s never been alluded to be alive, when technically we don’t really know if he truly is dead. kiryu and haruka surviving is the main point here, and seeing as how they miraculously sustained no injuries when being 10m at best away from the bomb, it’s possible that nishiki miraculously survived while being 5m at the most away from it. unlike ryuji and mine, there’s really no other hints at him possibly being alive. in reality, i don’t think nishiki will ever be brought back. as much i want him to, considering the position kiryu’s in now, it doesn’t really make much sense. it doesn’t make much sense anyways; nishiki’s death is a large part of his [kiryu’s] character, and alongside both yumi and kazama’s deaths, it marks the separation of kiryu from not only his youth but also the yakuza (or at least the start of it).

now, ryuji. my goat. my queen. the reason i am this insane over these comeback theories. unlike nishiki, ryuji has been hinted many, many a time to be alive, from as early as fucking dead souls (2011! FUCKING FIVE YEARS AFTER 2!) dead souls basically fucking proves he could be alive, because he literally is, and is just missing an arm (binding vow? 😭 it’s been too long since i’ve seen dead souls i can’t remember what the deal with his arm is). this is damning evidence, if i do say so myself. and he’s just living life, working at a food stand (my goat). dead souls confirms that he could’ve survived. ryuji’s death itself is slightly more damning for this thesis (😪). does he die on screen, unlike the other two (nishiki is on tender hooks for this as i said earlier)? maybe. so what, maybe he technically dies on screen? the important thing is, two seconds after he fucking “dies”, sayama and kiryu just start lipsing each other and don’t really pay attention to him. he got shot twice yeah, then got beat to hell by kiryu, but kiryu survived the same injuries (it’s not like ryuji just stood there and let himself get ragged by kiryu) so. it cancels out. you don’t hear anything about ryuji’s death after this basically (from what i can remember). BUT! because of dead souls, that immediately throws his on screen “death” into question. even if dead souls isn’t canon because it literally is a zombie invasion game, that possibility of ryuji being alive in canon is very much there. if it’s possible in the ridiculous zombie spin off, it’s possible in the main line. so, next port of call, and also the most recent damning evidence. gaiden and 8. i remember there being a tweet from rgg about ryuji in gaiden (as in the coliseum) but i literally went through the western rgg’s whole account and couldn’t find it, so i might just be making that up.

this is from a gaiden trailer (most likely; i couldn’t find it myself), but i found it from here:(https://blog.ja.playstation.com/2023/11/06/20231106-ryu7gaiden/) the article is from the 6th nov last year, so three days before gaiden’s official release.

this is what two translations say from the picture (i can’t translate it myself). the second one makes more sense to me but i don’t really trust google translate. just thought i’d mention this as it was from before gaiden’s release.

anyways, onto gaiden itself. this fucking game oh my god. this is where most of the baiting for ryuji comes from.

exhibit a

genuine piss take. obviously this isn’t ryuji who you fight, but the game is explicitly hinting at the possibility he’s still alive.

exhibit b

INCLUDING ME! even though in december it’ll be 18 years since yakuza 2 came out and ryuji’s death, hope has not been lost ✊😪. rgg is dangling ryuji in front of us. i’m fairly sure this is from the akame mission about ryuji (ghost of sotenbori), and i did boot up gaiden to see if i could replay it, but i didn’t have a save where i hadn’t done it. well ryuji doesn’t actually turn up so 🤷‍♂️ there’s two fakes you have to deal with in the mission (if my memory serves), and with the one in the coliseum that makes it three times ryuji was baited in gaiden. then of course, infinite wealth. there isn’t as much here, but it’s still quite a big bait.

i mean what the fuck kiryu. do you know something we don’t.

yeah i booted up a save of 8 too. ‘…any moment now. if only that were possible.’ kiryu knows something… that’s pretty much it for ryuji bait, from what i can remember and think of. another thing though is that rgg do clearly love ryuji, so it wouldn’t surprise me if they did bring him back. and considering how much they’ve baited us with a possible comeback in recent games, i think it’s safe to assume they’re up to something.

(also just want to mention the leaks awhile ago about a ryuji game. i’m pretty sure it’s based on his rgg online story which is set before 2 (1999 i think), so i’m not gonna talk about it here.)

now, finally, mine!!! he’s the most straightforward out of all three of them now because of 8. if we cast our minds back to yakuza 3, mine throws himself off a building along with richardson. and who makes an appearance in 8? richardson, alive. richardson being alive effectively confirms mine has at least a pretty big chance of being so too. one thing i do find funny is that mine wasn’t mentioned once in kiryu’s memoirs of a dragon (from what i could see), but nishiki and ryuji are. i actually don’t think mine is referenced other than in kiryu’s essence of remembrance, but he might’ve been and i’m just not aware of it. i actually don’t know how if richardson survived mine didn’t, because the latter would not save the former from death if they hit the ground (that hospital is ridiculously fucking tall). it’s been 15 and a half years (exactly to the day!) since yakuza 3 released, aka mine’s death, and out of the three he’s the most likely to be alive. considering how richardson survived, i don’t even know if you can count mine falling off the building as an off screen, because now we don’t actually know if he did in fact die. before 8, it seemed pretty improbable that mine would be alive, but it was the same situation as nishiki. also it’s not the most ridiculous death that someone’s come back from from yakuza 3. lau ka long got shot in the forehead ON SCREEN and kashiwagi got ragged by a fucking helicopter minigun ON SCREEN and they both fucking survived 😭 so mine taking a tumble off the top of a hospital isn’t the most extreme thing to survive. rgg also seem to like mine too, but we don’t see nearly as much hinting to him as we do with ryuji. i had a little look on youtube and:

THINGS WERE TOUCH AND GO??? 😭 what is this now the rubber floor??? i don’t even know. would they bring mine back though??? i don’t really know again. i mean i just take richardson being alive to mine also being out there so. make of it what you will.

but there you go. my extensive knowledge and research on how the goats of rgg are still alive. on everyone else’s lives but mine the three of them are gonna come back!