I thought I'd relieve the "What have you been playing?" thread of the burden of sheltering such an awesome game and make it it's very own thread to dance and play in. In essence this is an action rpg set during 1855 Japan in a town that is starting to be heavily influenced by the British (there is an entire subset of town called Little Britain) and you are just some random ronin who shows up. From there on you can choose to ally with the English, the xenophobic local rebels, the shogunate, or just be whatever you want. You live out each day doing quests, story missions, or pretty much whatever you want with the caveat that doing some things will close off other story paths (a flowchart showing your progression is always at hand so you can see where to choose differently to alter the course of the story on subsequent playthroughs.) The game is somewhat short if you just burn through a story path but there's plenty to do (I've put in 20 hours and am only 3 proper completions in) and the story/environment can vary wildly depending on how you act. You can go do missions for a thief or be a murderous thug but on your next playthrough you may find that the shops barely sell anything at all and there are far more guards wandering about. The flipside is that sometimes you want to kill someone in a playthrough because that's how you get the truly fun thing in the game - stances and weapons. There are around 90 different fighting stances in the game and each one has a unique selection of moves (with some overlap) that you unlock new attacks in by fighting people. Easily the most fun thing in the game to me is the brutal quick unyielding nature of the combat; you will often enemies with moves that if not blocked will kill you or bring you to near death in a single strike Bushido Blade style. You also have to manage your swords durability level, if you take too many swings or block too many strikes you may find yourself holding a broken blade instead of your personally constructed sword that you've taken great care in leveling up over the course of a playthrough. Writing this I find I'm explaining the gameplay too much and not the most important thing: THIS GAME IS HILARIOUS AND INSANE. It doesn't take itself seriously at all, it will break the fourth wall whenever it damned well pleases and the soba shop bodyguard is only wearing underpants. If you have a PS3 and love the Yakuza games as much as I do you should seriously think about dropping $40 in the PSN store and having some delicious time.
You forgot to mention the best part, the name of the British general or whatever is named, wait for it... Melina Megamelons!
She's just the captain of the guard. Also she's a total bitch of a fight and one path makes you fight her much earlier than you might have expected. Here's me being assaulted by about 20 sumo wrestlers as a treat
It's pretty lousy of you not to make this a full fledged let's play. Because then someone who doesn't deserve to be beaten up by sumo wrestlers as much is going to have to do it, and it won't be as tonally appropriate.
Fun fact, her original Japanese name was actually more of a pun on the whole 'big boobs' thing. In the Japanese version, Melinda's last name was the much more sensible sounding 'deCameron'... however, it was written the same as 'deka meron'... which means something along the lines of 'Big Melons'. So, XSEED tried to be as accurate to the original joke as they could, which was basically only achievable by translating it literally.
AGH managed to get 2 out of 3 styles in one run because I didn't bank the extra styles I'd picked up. Don't be a fool like me and think you can fill 3 pages of styles folks!
I think I mentioned that in the other thread.... yeah, that's kind of a pain. Funnily enough, I think your style list does in fact fill 3 pages... if you count the ones you have equipped in there as well. It's a bit of an interface screw, to be honest. Also, I finally got Samurai-to Iai style... it's not much to look at yet, though. Once I get the hidden move, it should get better. Fun fact about hidden moves (ones that require you to use a specific sword with a specific style): once you've learned the move, it will show up on any style of the same type, as long as you're using the same sword that you used to unlock the move. For example, Gan style (the style Sensei uses) requires you to use the sword New World in order to get its special move (Divine Wind) which replaces the guard breaker. From then on, any Chu-Dan style will also have Divine Wind replacing the guard break, as long as you use New World. (Divine Wind, by the way, is awesome. It's a 5-hit guardbreaker that will usually kill anyone it hits... and if used in Spring Harvest mode to kill an opponent, the next hit will track to the next poor sap in range, possibly killing him as well.)
I think I've seen that move, if it's what I think it is yesss I wants it. I'm amused that you get some new dialogue options if you play as female, not so amused that female starts off in her underwear until you go buy clothes.
Oh... fun thing you can do on the magistrate path, if you're playing as female (and this may very well be the option you're referring to), when Kotobuki asks if you want to engage in some "manly fun" (read: killing xenophobes), you can tell him that you're a woman (though you'd think he'd figure it out himself...). You fail the quest, but Kotobuki's reaction is priceless.
Yep that's what I did :D Poor Kotobuki, in a game filled with cartoonish characters he manages to be the goofiest.
To be fair to Kotobuki, he does become less cartoonish in the paths where he's directly involved... and honestly, the award for goofiest character has to go to J.J. And he's totally awesome because of it. I'm curious... which Magistrate ending did you get?
The endings I've gotten so far: Win tournament - bad ending Win tournament - good? ending Moro becomes duke
Was trying to take a picture of these dojo challengers but they were too damned fidgety and as the immediate aftermath of that shot proved, way too deadly to be fucking around with. Suffice to say whether it's a little girl armed with a butcher knife or two ninjas in lingerie you really never know what's going to be waiting for you when you go to defend your dojo.
Oooh... and you had a steamed bun right by your feet, too. I haven't done that much with the dojo yet, though I really should.
Well I may have embellished a bit, I survived that attack but was then pushed into a corner and I foolishly was worried more about killing all my students with my attacks as she darted around the room rather than just finishing her off and she hit me with a chu-dan that I saw coming a mile away. It sucks you have to fight challengers with Tokyu Style to level it, I find I thrash people with the Lai styles.
And I just lost a battle against my former playthrough. (Does it only do this once you've gotten a real ending or does it happen because I changed body types to female?) Excellent. I think I'll just avoid skilling up styles on real opponents.
Iai Style does indeed tear opponents up... its only problem is its short range... which can be mitigated with a longer blade. The main antagonist of Way of the Samurai 2 used this fact to devastating effect, in fact. Once you get an ending, your previous character does indeed show up as a possible combatant... and as you keep playing, you'll end up with more of 'em. They don't keep their old swords, thankfully... Try killing one of 'em. It's nifty.
Yeah I killed myself twice before, handily. Not sure what happened this time but my doppelganger was much stronger. Yeah having a shorter blade is rough, I made my current sword because it had two Life&Death charms and I've been making/deconstructing my better blades in hopes of creating something better but I've been really unlucky. Did take down a player's phantom though, his sword was pretty terrible sadly. Need to find someone with like a 9 way charmed sword and just get a lucky spam of spring harvest in.
Oh, just so you know, there's a hidden set of missions that you'll get if you manage to finish all four broker paths in one playthrough... but they are hard as hell, and well hidden. I'm being intentionally vague (other than letting you know the hidden missions exist) as I'm not sure if you want me to spoil ya outright, but if you want to know, just ask.
Oh yes. This game. I played through the Japanese version many months ago, and loved every bit. Its goofiness is pretty much in line with the previous games, which made me very glad indeed. To keep you guys invested in the game, if you aren't committed enough already: this game isn't just some kind of replayable sandbox where you replay and recreate scenarios from (well it is, but there's more). This game has an 'ultimate' ending, and the path to that ending is long indeed (without walkthroughs. Best don't spoil yourself, half the fun is playing through with some conditions unfulfilled and discovering what they are through eventual failure). You need good swords! (Play on higher difficulty levels and deconstruct your blades then, you'll get better ores) You need good skillz! (Look for trouble, have general fun, learn styles, steal techniques) You need to be awesome! (Be awesome, start to finish. Really.) Have fun y'all. I'm not sure if phantoms from the Japanese versions can invade the localised versions, but have fun with me if you see me. (in Kanji) Kogami Ichiro, bearing flattop hair, wearing a white navy uniform and bearing the twin swords "Shintou Mekkyaku" and "Reiken Arataka" ;)
Oh? Well damn that's another reason to replay then. I have discovered that you can do whatever you want in the day that Kinugawa arrives barring any missions that require use of the town square which makes doing some stuff like thief-taking and building up the dojo much easier than trying to cram it in during the story. The thieving set I got to what I assume was the last mission but was way too weak to deal with it but that was my first playthrough and I can cut down constables with ease now. What are the other two?
The other two are Kai Kotoro/the Gambling Den Mistress in town (ask her for work, and then tell her "it will be fun killing you"... and she'll direct you to Kotoro for work) and Gramps, the 'leader' of the homeless in Little Britain. You'll want to make sure you have two onigiri on hand for his first quest, btw... will save ya a bit of irritation. Another problem is that those two questines require the Main Square to be open.. and Gramps' quest-line also requires the Magistrate's Office be open near the end. The easiest way to satisfy all these conditions is to open up the Light of Hope storyline... which takes some doing if you don't want to end in failure. I'll spoiler tag this, though... I'll leave the rest of the Light of Hope line for you to discover, as it's a really cool questline... but it can be frustrating. As usual, if ya need help, just ask.
I wish Acquires will port more of their games like way of samurai over to US, I remember playing Kamiwaza like 5 years back, that game was awesome, but now it's impossible even to import a copy..
I do believe I've acquired that very same custom sword before from an invader. Agreed. Acquire developed games, while they might not be the prettiest or best coded things around, are almost always fun.
The only downside to that sword is that I can't upgrade its damage from earning titles or I'll lose the unbreakable perk but it's still on par with what I already had plus 6x regen.
Actually, I think you still can... you can toggle titles to some extent... it just cost money at Dojima's. You may want to save first, as I'm not entirely sure of this. I know, right? I can't find the article for this, but I seem to recall that one of the ideas that got cut was the possibility for Night-Crawling to have consequences... there was a chance you'd run into your child born from your one night stand... who would attempt to kill you.
Nah one of my swords has had 3 titles and he doesn't ask if you want to switch. Haha childbirth in a game that only occurs over a little over a week? Perfect.
So apparently I need to recruit an all women dojo to get the pervert challenger to show up but I can't think of any female enemies that aren't major characters or katana-thieves so who do I recruit?
Non-Combat female NPC's seem to give the biggest bonuses (with the exception of Maids), but you could probably get by with hiring tons of Blondie Soldiers from the British Consulate. Also, you can actually hire Demonscales, and while I haven't managed to do this, you can even hire Black Masks - which, if you haven't encountered them yet, they're ninjas in awesome looking armor that only show up in a handful of storylines.
Yeah I have some demonscales in my dojo, they are easy to recruit because since they are guard npcs they tend to summon more of themselves to the battle.
Haven't even finished my first playthrough, but I already killed Dojima. Whoops. So am I right that the "instant kill" mechanic of the earlier games is gone?
Don't remember it being there anymore. But get a good enough sword and you'll end up 'instant killing' anyway.
Yep, it's been replaced by Spring Harvest mode, which actually, I think I prefer... the instant kill mechanic could get pretty crazy at times, especially in WotS 2. Like Pheriannath said, a good enough sword is usually enough to instant kill flunkies... though as you get up there in difficulty, even a max-power sword won't one-shot enemies.
Ok... Finally, FINALLY finished that final side mission, got all the swords and styles I could, and now I can work on getting them mastered... Wait... there's three swords I'm missing, one of which I can only get by going through that mission on Normal or Higher, as it's a rare drop from an NPC that's only able to be killed in that specific mission? I have to do it again? Including all the broker missions? DARK SOULS WAY OF THE SAMURAI 4
On a side note... seeing they made the bad (for me) decision to make this PS3 exclusive only.... I've had WATS 3 showing up a lot in my "Recomended for you!" list from my Xbox. Is it worth getting? I like Faux-Sandboxy open world actiony games like Just Cause 2 and Saints Row (all 3) which this series seems to be like.
Is the combat in this game particularly hard? My definition of too hard is Ninja Gaiden if that helps.
