Recent reviews by AndreyZh

The game made me cry in the very end of last DLC. Mostly because I spent some time in it, watched as it was developing since 2022, and because I listened to Interview of Luca.
He did a very good job and achieved his dreams.

Yes, yes, and Y E S, I totally recommend taking this one. This is the peak DLC for this game, and I am really happy for Poncle.

There are two major things that may hesitate some from buying the game:
1. Constant online connection. I understand why it was made, in the same time, constant matchmaking errors, matchmaking when creating a heist in private and you can still get a matchmaking error. Most of those errors were fixed, and not as tedious as they were on first couple of days post launch, but they still exist, and sometimes they are constant. Sometimes they are not there, so who knows.
2. Graphical user interface, or GUI in short. Perhaps you have the other name for it, but interface in main menu and in "lobbies" feels really raw. I can't press "not ready" because is doesn't exists as the button, even when ready I still can't change stuff(Just sit there and wait, instead of browsing in inventory, checking Vendor if I want to get something, and such), I do have to click on specific button to customize weapon, instead of double click, HUD in heists sometimes doesn't update properly (the objective vise.)

Those are major things that I think that will be fixed soon, granting there will be more content as well. By now I have played every heist stealthy, and I gotta say, I have had the most fun with it, seriously it is biggest improvment since Payday 2, and it is better with friends, obviously. The loud phase of each mission feels good as well, though, thinking of music, I feel more of Cyberpunk in it. (In my opinion, some music can be rated highly subjective, there can be tracks that you like a lot but others don't, and vise versa.)
Gunplay is good, for now I am getting used to it slowly.
There's also a problem with EXP gain, you get it through in game challenges you complete (like in PD:TH), but in the first game of the series you still get the needed EXP after completing the heist, and it wasn't just 100 points or something.
Skills, however, they feel good, the system with GRIT RUSH and EDGE surely has a potential, and I am sure there are fun builds already, depending on the style people love to use (A lot of ways to build your stealth or loud loadout).

With how game industry tends to be today, releasing raw product seems to be a common thing now, which I don't like, but I understand that the publisher sometimes wants to get those dosh, and as developer you barely have a choice. Regardless of major things I have listed above, I still recommend the game, Payday still has its style, and it can bring lots of fun, alone, with public or with friends.

Yes, it is worth it. More to come later.
Update for the nomination.

Old review was about SBMM, which was removed, because who would have knew, it would be a bad idea, eh? Simply because how awful connection was.
Anyways, I like the game so far, costs a lot though, but I am enjoying it.

Here will be review, it will be mostly positive, but it will have some negative words.
I did this only for steam nominating.

I finished Kiwami 1 2 weeks ago, so after that long time I finally decided to write a review about it.
“Kiwami” means extreme.
To start off, from what I understand is that Yakuza Kiwami is remaster of original Yakuza 1 from Playstation 2, that now is avaliable to play on Ps4 or PC. I did some comparison between original and remaster, and I can say Kiwami does it job as a remaster. Graphic was changed, some things also changed after Yakuza 0 came out and some things were added to the game.
If for some reasons you decided to play Kiwami or you got it first, play Yakuza 0 first, or you might miss some things in the game.
Enough of "Some things", let's go to why I can recommend this game.

Some years passed after Yakuza 0 actions, Kiryu became dragon of Dojima family and doing his normal job as an Yakuza. During conversation with his foster father about Kiryu starting his own family, his oath brother Nishkiyama and friend Yumi got in trouble with Patriarch of Dojima family, that died after accident. To protect both of them, Kiryu took a guilt in his hands and ended up in 10 years sentence.
After the sentence, Kiryu got in the new world for himself. A lot of things changed and some strange thing happened, and now it's on the protagonist to find out what happened and how, with help of other characters that will follow him through whole game.

As I said, Kiwami is remaster of Yakuza 1, and of course gameplay has changed a bit. We still walk in almost open world of Yakuza, and as in any other Yakuza games, you can: Fight with different people, helping some in substories, drinking, singing karaoke, train and play some minigames. And yes, Premium adventure is available after you complete the main story, so you can complete 100% of the game.
The most inportant thing that is new to this game - Majima everywhere. Yes, Majima is still crazy one, and now he has odd obsession in following Kiryu literally everywhere, involving protagonist in different situations and, of course, fighting.

Characters are still memorable, as in main story, as in substories. And of course, some characters from Yakuza 0 are still in Yakuza Kiwami.

I compared a bit music from Y0 and from YK, and I can say that even if Kiwami still has good music, fitting situations, Yakuza 0 has better soundtracks in my opinion. Anyway, some tracks remastered from original Yakuza, and some of them got in my playlist. It's 8.5/10.

Nothing is perfect anyway, and game has some cons. I won't speak of battle system, it's the same, just adapt to it, but still:
Most bosses are fine, but there's some exceptions. Enemies with breaker style(I counted only two of them) are kinda hard, and for casual players they might cause some problems. Specially it might happen because of breaker style hitting and even knocking player down, if enemy is knocked himself. Waiting might not help, so you need to be careful about it. It's my personal thing I didn't like, so it's not that serious problem.
Jingu - the hardest boss I've ever met and probably the hardest in Yakuza series. To get to the boss fight itself - you have to go through many armed with knifes and guns enemies, and yes, sometimes it's hard to avoid all of ther shots, so you will fall, a lot. If you think after long battle you will face Jingu himself in 1v1 fight - you won't, as he will come with two swats that also counts as bosses. Good tactic to take care of them, yeah, but they have guns, Jingu also has gun and he will shoot you time by time and you have to watch him also, even if you defeated both swats, they will get up to fight you again.
Probably this is the only problem I had in this game, that did drive me mad a bit.

Game is not that long as Yakuza 0, specially because "Kiwami doesn't have something 0 has", but still it's a good adventure that I really liked, as it still touched most emotions. Guess, when I will have a chance to play Kiwami 2 I will write review of it too.
(Thank you, friend, who gave me this game.)

Fresh from finishing the game I decided to write a review for it.
So...
IT'S SHOWTIME
Let's get started from a little backstory. I know that Yakuza title is popular since PS2 age, and it actually was hit for it's time for console players. At 2015, after many good yakuza games, yakuza 0 came out telling backstory of all things that happened before 6 other games, and at 2018 it finally hit PC, attracting new players to the title, making it even more popular. It happened that I got some interest to the game only when Kiwami 2 came out, I kinda like Japanese culture, so why not at least add it in wishlist. Later I got yakuza 0 from my friend(if you read it, I'm really grateful) for my birthday, and as I was recommended, I started from 0.

Yakuza 0 is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ awesome game, as I can say, one of the least that has touched whole human's range of emotions(from serious to craziness for example) and it actually made me cry.

As I said, story itself is prequel to Yakuza 1, tells us about how Kiryu Kazuma (main protagonist) became dragon for his family, what he had to face for it and how he actually became the dragon we all know for now. The most important thing that the story tells us about Majima Goro (also main protagonist), the craziest and the funniest character in the title; his story tells us about how he climbed back to yakuza family where he was before and how he was transformed into the mad dog we all know for now.

Well, it's a little complicated. Walking in the open world of Yakuza you can do many different things in two different places: fighting with different people, helping some in substories, become friends with someone, dancing disco, drinking, singing karaoke, manage business, meet some odd people and many other things. Of course, when you end main story and you want to 100% everything - you can do it freely in "free mode" as I call it. Seek challenge and maybe find something new - Legend difficulty is for you.

Most characters there are memorizable, to some you might feel hate and anger, to some else - confusion and happiness. Some of them you might meet during substories and later they will help you, after you help them in odd situation.

Can say it's 10 out of 10, it's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ good. Karaoke, disco, special battles or situations, all of them fits theme and they get in your head with situations you faced.

Well, I only talk about pros of the game, does it have any cons? Nothing is perfect so, yeah.
As I said, is slow and at the start it might be a little boring for some, but it can't be actions all the time, wouldn't you agree? I was the same at first, but maybe it was because I had troubles irl or had other games to play during that period when I started.
Another one is itself. If you don't adapt to your enemies - they will pin you to the ground. Simple rule, but when it comes to first boss, you can see how it's a little unfair. The thing Kuze was the first...and maybe the only boss who caused much troubles to someone who never played games like this. Practice makes perfect, as they say. I also found some battle style being more viable over others in...most situations (Beast style of Kiryu fits almost all battles and Majima himself is actually easy mode, if you are not play Thug style), but probably it's just me.

Game is long, as well as story, but as I said, it can get deep in your mind. It was my first time I played Yakuza game, and I actually liked it a lot and looking forward to play all 6 games (without any spin-offs honestly) of this title. Hope they will hit PC fast.

Kinda boring, but still good game. Don't pay much attention to this review.

Review will rewritten once the player plays updated Legion.

I will try to say things as objectively as possible about this chapter. It’s not bad overall, but not really good. It’s decent one with survivor and killer we got. I like both of them, even understanding that survivor abilities not really good, and killer...Well, I will say about it a little later.

In short about Survivor(because all survivors are just skins): Jeff Johansen. “Jesus” in world of entity. Quite artist came with situational perks, that might have good work in some perk builds, which I find fine to use. Aftercare - see every your teammate on the map, as well as they can see you...until you are hooked. Of course to make it work you have to help your team.
Breakdown - preventing from coming straight to the same hook, if teammate farmed you. And good in sabo builds.
Distortion - good for stealth build and good counter of bbq.
To the lovely Killer we go.
Legion. Reputation of this killer is mixed since everyone saw him on PTB. He seems to be decent killer, but on ptb he was kinda weak, as he had double cooldown(3-5 seconds cooldown before making next hit after victim under deep wound got another hit), movement speed was poor and he was only reliable on his ability, which wasn’t good and killer was already weak.
Moving on, on his release he got...somewhat I can call buff and he was pretty interesting for me and my friends. But since he was released, some people found out how to play unfairly(moonwalking to the victim while you have bloodhound on or exploit with infinite mending) and for most survivors he was annoying because of that(well, also ‘tunneling’ and things, can’t mention full list). 7th of May was the day when Legion was re-worked, and most people buried this character alive, calling him low-tier, even those, who were crying a lot about how he was annoying. Now we have what we have, and if some people found decent builds and found how to play this character decently, the rest of community haven’t their opinion changed.
What I can say about this killer. He is mid-tier(In my opinion) and if you have actual brains and hands to use properly, you will have some joy killing survivors and just running around.
Feral frenzy was reworked in better side, even tho killer is slower(didn’t notice much difference in speed) now while using it(and he is vaulting slowly and cooldown duration ridiculously long, seriously), than he was before, he got a nice buff in walking speed(From 4.4 to 4.6) and actual duration of ability is longer now. Before you say “But it’s useless to put survivors in deep wound state” I will say “No, it’s not”. Deep wound is something that makes survivors busy from gens, and with proper use of your perks, ability itself and, of course, luck, you can put everyone in this state and actually slow the game down just a little bit, as well as keep pressure around.
In short about perks:
Discordance - If two survivors work on gen, you gain notification.
Mad grip - no cooldown on hitting if you carry survivor. Works fine if team is too altruistic and blocking every hook.
Iron Maiden - checking locker faster and survivors gaining exposed effect, if survivors coming out from lockers. Working good against locker Dwights and some people with Head On perk. Also it’s really good for Huntress
In conclusion: it is sad when people calling character low-tier, lower than even Freddy, and keep harassing him around, I find him fun to play, and, at the current state(imo again) balanced.

Btw every killer is bad if survivors play really good, yes.