Mine… My Xbox 360 slim only costed 129 euro back in 2012 and to this day still work like brand new, you would think that the disc drive would stop working but no. Never had the need of open it or clean it’s insides. Still great, I just don’t use it anymore since I feel it’s outdated and loading speeds are better nowadays.
For me, it was probably the Yakuza games series on sale at the PlayStation store. I don’t game very much, so I wait to get things until I find them near free, and during the start of Covid I went looking for a game and got Yakuza 0 for $5. Got probably 100 hours in that game, and I picked up all the others (1-7) all for about the same price, so I’ve gotten hundreds of hours of gameplay for less than $50.
It’s sort of GTA-like, but the protagonist is actually a good person, so I enjoy it more for that, and it’s more minigame centric. There’s some great story, and lots of funny gags throughout.
Hit up 8 yet, or waiting for a price cut? I played it subbed cuz man that Kiryu dub was not it.
Also, gave Ishin or Man Who Erased his Name a shot? The former is its own thing but the latter ties in with 7, does the boss fight from 5 right, and has a peak ending.
Oh and if you haven’t messed with them, Judgment and Lost Judgment are both great, their own protag and crew, but set in the same universe. Highly recommend and on sale fairly regularly. I know their on half off ish on Steam atm.
I’ve done 0-7, Like a Dragon, and Judgement. I have Lost Judgement installed, but haven’t gotten to start it yet. I’ve been meaning to finish Persona 4’s bonus content first, but haven’t touched it in a couple months. Very much looking forward to Ishin, though I hear it’s a bit slow on PS4. I don’t know much about Infinite Wealth or Gaiden, as I’ve been trying to stay spoiler free as much as possible.
The dubs of Kiryu and Majima took me right out of Like a Dragon! I didn’t know they were going to appear, and when they did, it felt like “Fake Kiryu” from the other games showing up with that voice. That’s not my Kiryu! 😅
It does everything Judgment did, but better. Drone racing still kinda trash tho ngl.
I know that feel. Like 2/3 done with Ghost of Tsushima and it just feels like a slog at this point.
Gaiden happens during 7, so play it first. Other then that, recommend subs over dubs, as noted previously.
I wanted to like the go karts in LAD and the drone racing in in Judgement, but I’m so bad at both!
I enjoyed Tsushima a lot. I still think about how it ended, some of the paths the characters took, and how beautiful all the scenery is.
I tried Yakuza 1 once but I just couldn’t enjoy it. Is too weird and there’s too much standing around taking. Too much pauses.
Nothing wrong with that. It’s not as constant action of a thing for sure, the real fights being spread out after the exposition is what makes them more impactful to me, the regular street fights are mainly just grinding while you get used to the combos and are kinda boring. The varied minigames give you a break, and I like the comedy bits to swing the mood back and forth from serious to funny. I enjoy the GTA games, but find them much darker and the protagonists aren’t as likeable to me. Yakuza has Kiryu as a relatively good guy, and the games are all mostly in the same city over the years, so you see the city grow, businesses come and go, and you see your NPC friends change jobs over the years, so it is a really organic experience, but it’s not all fresh and brand new, so people could get bored of being in the same places a lot of the time. It’s more of a book experience than an action movie.
I can’t see it as GTA-like because GTA-like to me sounds more like “the ability to cause open-world chaos if the story’s not doing it for me at the moment”. Kiryu’s actually too good of a guy; I will never knock his series, but I do not see it as competing with GTA, and that’s how one of the homies jumped me into it. (Really, it feels more like a fleshed-out Tekken Force game.) I’m still looking for a GTA-like ever since Saints Row died an ignominious death.