#CONVINCE ME RGGS

[kulemii]

me, watching yall lose your minds after kiryu snatches off his party city wig at the end of y8

[teisubrainrot]

my first thought when I saw the infinite wealth trailer and kiryu met the 3jimbos was that they went to the north because Saejima wanted to fight a fucking bear again

[himemina02]

Yuta's favorite color

[shoccolat]

thinking about,, how sega managed to unintentionally make a character that is so Autistic and Gay

[todayisafridaynight]

they‘re exes your honor

[zaddyazula]

RYUJI WILL LIVE ✊

[skrunksthatwunk]

ryUTI ga gotoku

[tekitothemagpie]

Majima : wtf people actually tell their crushes they like them?

Saejima : what the hell do YOU do?

Majima : I die? LMAO what kinda question...

[passports-pls]

Hey guys, not to be THAT person but I find it very interesting that the whole of Gaiden is surrounding Kiryu and the orphanage and yet… it’s barely mentioned in the infinite wealth trailer..

Guys I think Mine’s about to have the last laugh fr

[overdevelopedglasses]

Oh my christ Sunday Six snuck up on me.

Despite wanting to write RGG this week.... that didn't happen. Whoops. Anyway take one of my favorite interactions I wrote from that Star Wars OC/story/whatever the hell it is now.

Got tagged by @four-white-trees @passthroughtime @skysquid22 AND @jichanxo (wow!)

And I'm tagging @mike----wazowski @fire-tempers-steel @woundedheartwithin with no pressures to participate :3

"What do you think of Spike Place, Fekami?" Bouxe asks, approaching the pair.

"Honestly? It's really neat. I haven't really seen many areas like this." Fekami muses, shifting his weight between feet. JE-367 looks around, climbing around Fekami's shoulders.

"Ok, now I'm convinced you have a hard-on, Orzin." Bouxe teases. He gets a glare in return.

"Ooooo, you wanna see the backroads, Fekami?" Orzin asks, bouncing on his tip-toes.

It isn't long before JE beeps, in a curious tone. Fekami understands it as: *What does it mean to be hard?*

Fekami bonks JE on the head. It spins like a top, not hurting the droid, but dazing it slightly. The twins laugh at the show.

*What? I’m just asking a question.* JE beeps in a teasing tone once he recovers.

[maskedpeach]

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth Rant

Warning. This article contains spoilers. Alas, this post is an enormous wall of text and consists purely from me complaining. Get the children away from the screen.

Okay, I’ll probably regret this later, but I’ll post this anyway. Years ago I used to be pretty vocal about my opinion, but these days I prefer to keep most of the negative opinions to myself. But I believe if I’d keep everything bottled up on this one particular matter I’ll simply explode.

I’m currently enthusiastically playing Like a Dragon/Yakuza series, which is now one of my favorite game series. Back at high school used to play first two games on PS2, and later there was Kurohyo on PSP, but didn’t get too far in any of them, decided save it for later, and this “later” has finally happened several months ago after listening to one pretty entertaining podcast about JPRGs. One of the hosts has totally sold me Yakuza: Like a Dragon (I’ve literally ran and bought it after listening the podcast). I’ve played it, loved it and almost cried my eyes out on the ending (seriously, if someone asks me how my ideal JRPG should look like, I’d say that’s the one).

After that I’ve beaten Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. I’ve really enjoyed this game in general, but comparing to its predecessor, while most of the gameplay issues were fixed, some story issues did arise. Story itself is far more simple and lacks memorable antagonists (Ebina was okay and Bryce was outright lame). Still, there were a plenty of interesting moments to keep me going, and I really liked the ending, which was extremely moving, the part before the ending credits I mean. And then this stupid love confession scene happened and completely ruined the mood for me. Seriously, it wasn’t funny, it was tasteless like in the worst romcoms.

And, well, here lies the main issue with Infinite Wealth for me - this poorly-written romance subplot between Ichi and Saeko, and how Saeko character is handled in this game in general. So, if you are the fan of her I suggest you to stop reading right here, right now.

First, I would like to point that, when Saeko was just an optional romantic interest in LaD it was perfectly fine, but in IW, where she became the designated love interest, the whole romance plotline became very forced and uncalled-for. In LaD they were simply on friendly terms with no indication of evident romantic interest, and in IW the whole “Ichi falling for Saeko” thing looks extremely out of nowhere. All interactions between them look artificial without real chemistry between characters. Seriously, every time Ichi says, that he loves her or have feelings for her, it sounds hardly believable, like he is trying to convince himself and the players. At moments like this I could almost imagine something like this:

RGG Studio staff: *gives Ichi the script* Start reading.

Ichi: But that’s a bunch of bullshit!

RGG Studio staff: *points a gun on Ichi* Start reading. Now.

To be honest, I’m not the fan of romance genre at all and I mostly view romance sublots in various media as a nuisance. Still I won’t deny that there are some romantic storylines I genuinely enjoyed and was rooting for the characters till the very end (like Alphen and Shionne from Tales of Arise or Oswald and Gwendolyn from Odin Sphere for example), but there are still very few of the quality romantic stories to my liking comparing to those, which are either okay or boring at the best, and unbelievably stupid or outright unhealthy (and stupid) at the worst.

Worst of all, that RGG Studio actually can write a decent romance subplot. And I believe that Yakuza 0  is a good example of this. There we have Goro Majima (who is my second most favorite character in the series, after Ichi) and Makoto Makimura (who belongs to one of my least favorite character archetypes-“damsel-in-distress”, but considering her condition and the fact that everyone is after her, she really does need help and protection). In their story there wouldn’t be a single “I love you” or “I have feelings for you” or any other needless words, they just go through many shit together and slowly develop feeling for each other, which is shown very subtly through finely directed cutscenes. They don’t get together in the end (which is pretty logical, considering everything, that’s happened), but this plotline gets pretty heartwarming conclusion in Kiwami 2. But if they actually did get together I wouldn’t mind at all, even though Makoto isn’t one of my favorites, simply because their story is well-written and makes sense.

Alright, back to Ichi and Saeko. Let’s start with the infamous “proposal-on-the-first-date” scene, I won’t deny that it was awkward as hell (I was like: “Ichi, please, just shut up.”), but Saeko’s reaction wasn’t one of the mature woman either. I would’ve understood her reaction if they’d barely knew each other, in that case it would’ve been perfectly natural. But they know each other pretty well by this point (three years, no less) and she knows that he tends to speak his mind and has zero experience with women. I believe, she could’ve always say something like:”Hold on, let’s not rush things.”, I’m sure he would’ve understand. But no, she just runs away and leaves him hanging. And when, thanks to Adachi and Nanba, Ichi realizes, what he did wrong, he goes and apologizes. Saeko seemingly accepts the apology, says that they are still friends, and that as a friend she will support him no matter what. And what Saeko does next? She ignores Ichi for a whole year. And when he loses his job and becomes pariah thanks to Tatara Channel, only Adachi and Nanba go and check up on him. When she finds out, she doesn’t even bother to send something like: “Are you okay?” or whatever. And that’s after all the crap they’ve went through in LaD. A “true friend”, nuff said.

Oh, and you know what’s rich? In her Drink Link (I did it only for the achievement and to see whether she actually expresses any remorse at all, spoiler-no) it is revealed that, the whole year she was ghosting Ichi, she was dating some obvious bastard, who was manipulating her into marrying him to get her money and business. Funny, how she didn’t see that until he went and said it himself. Another fun fact, that in some random dialogues she actually asks Kiryu and Nanba how Ichi is doing, only to add something like: “Not that I care.”. Seriously, her whole attitude towards Ichi is so fucked up and can easily be described as emotional abuse. If I were him I would’ve dismissed her after that year of ghosting and just forgot about her. And the last, but not the least, everyone either criticizes or mocks Ichi because of this stupid proposal, but no one criticizes Saeko for her craptastic treatment of him.

Also putting romance aside, I believe Saeko has nothing to offer as a character. In LaD she was an okay character, albeit with the little to zero relevance to the main plot. I believe RGG Studio has added her only for the sake of adding at least one playable girl in the party full of dudes to expand the audience, since Eri is an optional character and you can beat the game without even getting her in the team. Speaking of Eri, while she is totally unimportant to the main storyline, she is still much more likeable and fleshed out character than Saeko, and more useful in battles too.

In IW Saeko became much worse. As I see it, her portrayal is something of a strong and independent woman. And it does not withstand any criticism. Even in LaD there were some optional dialogues, were she is mocking other party members in a form of a joke. In IW she is even more immature. For example, remember how in LaD she refused to go with you in cabaret club ( I mean, where you can order a hostesses)? In IW Seonhee tags along with the guys in the same club (because, why not?), and Saeko decides that she is going too, even though she is not interested in the stuff. And there is more instances (all optional dialogues though), where someone does something, she clearly disapproves, but everyone else in party does, and she decides to do it too. I believe, that being strong and independent actually means having an opinion of your own and not caring about what others would think about you. While both Seonhee and Chitose really can be described as strong women, Saeko only seems like one, but in reality she is just pathetic. When it comes to main story in IW-she can be easily removed from all cutscenes, because most of the time she either all bark no bite (strong and independent woman, uh-huh) or just stands there. Looks like RGG Studio simply didn’t know what to do with her after LaD and wrote all this pseudo-romantic crap simply to justify her presence in IW. For me it sure didn’t work, I felt utterly disgusted with her the whole game. I wish they would just wrote her out entirely from the story. While in LaD she was only one non-optional girl in the party, in IW we have two more well-developed female characters, who, unlike Saeko, are actually important to the plot.

I’ve read somewhere that RGG Studio is currently working on the next installment in the series. I have no idea, what it’ll be about, but I really wish that they’d just drop the idea of getting Ichi and Saeko together for the sake of it. It seriously looks like the cupid on drugs is garroting the poor guy with the red string. To be honest, I’m not exactly excited about new installment at all. Saeko stuff aside, for me IW is the fitting conclusion to the series. I seriously don’t see what else could be added to the main story, since all the major storylines got a closure by that point. I only wish for Kiryu to heal his cancer and for Ichi to get his job back (and the same goes for Majima, Saejima and Dojima, since I don’t remember anything said about it in the ending), and for both of them to live in peace for the rest of the days. They’ve had enough shit in their lives already.

[blind3dbylight]

RGG Studio must be watching my socials because I’m thoroughly convinced that Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth was made for me specifically

[viirium]

im still convinced rgg studios knew what they were doing for infinite wealth naming one of the fight themes 'impregnable triangle'. like nuh uh besties when im around these old men are incredibly pregnable. just watch me try!

[itswashington17]

About the SEGA Pass in Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble.

I'm not happy about it. They literally advertise it having 6 "SEGA All-stars", but the first 4 are Sonic characters, including Sonic and Tails, who were used to be base game unlockables in Banana Mania. Now this leaves room for only two characters left and I feel like that they're going to be Kiryu and Beat, who also appeared previously in Banana Mania as base game unlockables. If they do appear, then I question the point of the SEGA pass, as it now feels like an excuse to put characters previously available for free behind a paywall and that's so scummy.

If you ask me, they should've put the Sonic cast in a separate pass. That way it leaves plenty of room for more Sega IPs to join the Rumble.

Now to give RGG Studio credit, while Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy's models were taken from Sonic Superstars, they seem to have new and unique animations for Banana Rumble. Like Sonic now compresses onto the ball when going too fast instead of curling into one. Nice to see that the amount of effort and passion they put into the game also applies to the DLC characters.

Overall, the handling of the SEGA pass is disappointing. It doesn't affect my excitement for the game considering I'll be playing mainly as the monkeys or even the Gala family, but it's sad that Sega dropped the monkey ball on the DLC. Still though, I hope it convinces more Sonic fans to play Monkey Ball if they haven't already.

[todayisafridaynight]

jo the second he finds out masato's a little zesty

[vertigoambrosia]

we all demanded an rgg pinup calendar the second that majima hosedown card was revealed (or possibly when the wet tshirt mine was?)

but lbr, majima is a shrewd enough businessman to figure out that people would buy majima construction pinup calendars

and participation is mandatory

majima also knows kiryu would be a huge draw, but after the poison mitsuo incident there's no way he'd agree to it. so instead he convinces kiryu to help out on site one day, and casually mentions that they're taking some on the job pictures for the company blog or twitter or something and would it be ok if kiryu was in a few? and poor trusting kiryu is like 'hmmm i suppose standing out on the internet is an important way to build a business nowadays' so he agrees

meanwhile majima bullies the photographer (the best pinup photographer in kanto, found after countless research by the family) into taking sexy candids of kiryu and using those

kiryu doesnt find out until majima sends him a sample from a test print of the entire calendar; majima guilts him into letting it go out because kiryu-chan we don't have a backup we'd have to do a whole new shoot and the photographer is afraid of me so it'd cost even more money and the boys worked so hard they'll be disappointed if we have to delay it

unsurprisingly, the calendar sells out immediately