Suffer. Just spam Grabs and throws into other enemies, it's your best bet right now, forget anything you've learned from 0 or the Kiwamis because this game is way older than those and you start far weaker. For the majima fight try getting behind him with a dodge and get a full rush combo off.

As a tip, prioritize investing first in tech and body, they'll give you some neat abilities and a bigger health pool, which will be vital for later strategies, however, don't put all your eggs in one basket, try investing in all trees to have a balanced Kiryu and not lacking in combat areas.

The Rikiya fight is mostly the same as Majima's, just get behind him and get full rush combos off. Use bikes and tables when possible to block and counterattack him, these will do massive damage to him.

This fight is super tedious in Hard if you are playing on that difficulty, you mostly do chip damage to him, but if you keep your cool and wait for openings you'll have no trouble beating him.

BUY any weapons you can get your hands on, I recommend selling the free staff you get to buy better weapons, GET defensive equipment and healing items before entering the fight, Staminan XX and Toughness ZZ are the best items to fill your inventory with. Tamashiro is one of the worst fights of the early game, especially on hard. Since you don't have many moves to fend him off, save the environmental items on this fight for his final form with the brass knuckles and try dodging backwards instead of around, since his attacks are very quick and can easily hit you when you dodge behind him. Just try to cheese him, he is super frustrating because of your lack of moves at this moment.

You should meet Mack in this chapter, he will teach you revelations, do ALL of them, although they unlock throughout the whole game, they're not long to do and they're pretty funny, you should have a blast doing them. Revelations teach you new heat moves and finishers for bosses. Mack will send you E-mails with locations and characters when an opportunity presents itself, use these clues to find the revelation opportunity.

To start a revelation event you have to go into first person, look at the direction of the characters in the event and interact with them, a "look" prompt should appear and Kiryu will zoom in. If You can't find the location for them you can use CyricZ's [gamefaqs.gamespot.com]fantastic guide on revelations for exact locations and the chapters where they're available.

If you are planning on skipping the game's substories to get to 4 like many players do, FINISH "Return to the dragon palace". This substory will unlock komaki's training which makes the combat way easier and adds a bunch of fun to the whole aspect. Return to the dragon palace is done by Going to the east of the batting center near west park. You will see some Punks attacking a homeless man. Help the homeless dude by beating up the punks. The punks' leader will come out of a building and you'll have to beat him up too. Some time after completion, a hobo will message you about the palace's casino being unlocked.

Go to the Stardust club on Tenkaichi Street, a man will give you a letter from komaki telling you his dojo has reopened in the Dragon Palace, go to the dojo so komaki gives you the quest to beat up his pupils to re-learn moves. This is the fun part, you will learn these moves by beating them up:

• Komaki knockback, he is at sushi gin.

• Komaki Tigerdrop, he is at Smile Burger.

• Komaki Parry, he is south of the batting center on Shichifuku.

Return to komaki's dojo after finishing the three fights, you will fight yet another pupil with a new move, defeating him will give you one of the best defensive moves, komaki daruma tumbler, which is basically a second, longer dodge to quickly escape sticky situations.


The moves are fairly easy to execute, the only thing you have to master is the timing, komaki parry is much more forgiving than Tigerdrop when it comes to window of execution, but it does less damage and doesn't have knockback like Tigerdrop has. Komaki knockback is used when you are getting blockchained, or are surrounded by a mob of attacking enemies.

• Komaki Knockback: Press heavy attack when being hit in a block, you can execute it when your guard is glowing from an attack

• Komaki Tigerdrop: If you played Kiwami 1 it's mostly the same. You have to be in a fighting stance and press heavy attack when an attack is about to land on you.

• Komaki Parry: It's also similar to Kiwami 1's Parry and almost the exact same as tigerdrop, albeit much safer to use. You have to be in a fighting stance and press grab when an attack is about to land on you.

With revelation heat moves and Komaki's training you should have no trouble finishing up the game easily. MASTER the skill to knockback enemies into walls, you can either use a finishing blow, a grab + heavy hit into a wall, or a Tigerdrop to bounce enemies into walls, when an enemy bounces of a wall they become stunlocked and can't block nor get out of a full rush combo, use a heat move after you finish the knockback combo for maximum damage. This works against bosses too! If for example you are having trouble with Lau Ka Long you can knock him back against a wall with tigerdrop to get a full combo on him and generate heat quickly. Daruma tumbler's heat action does an insane amount of damage even to bosses, so try using it whenever possible.

For timing, think about Tigerdrop activating when you are about to receive damage, parry and knockback activate when an enemy executes an attack, so that's why they're safer to use than tigerdrop. There's no going wrong with any, so just abuse the hell out of them when possible.

IF tigerdrop is too hard for you, use parry, it has a much more forgiving time window and stuns enemies for a short while. Parry can be used to kick enemies into a wall if they're close to one or for an easy grab. I also reccomend using parry over tigerdrop when you are about to finish an enemy off since it still does a fair amount of damage and it's super safe to use.

Play with your tools! you'll discover combos as you are mastering these moves.

Side Note: If you haven't invested into the tech tree do it inmediately, at 35 exp points (6th level of the tree) you will have unlocked "Double finishing blow" and "Komaki dodge shot" these moves add a bunch of versatiliy to combat.
A Dodge forward + a heavy attack makes a shoulder bash that can break guards.
If you are having trouble with a blocking enemy, finishing blow attacks (Light + heavy) can be delayed for a bit. When an enemy opens up while you are finishing a rush combo, a delayed finishing blow will hit them for easy damage.

There are no bad skills. but if you have to choose one skill tree to invest in over another, i'd recommend choosing tech, body and heat over soul, since the soul passives only become active in heat mode, you're better off having a bigger arsenal of actives than of passives.

Also, if you knock an enemy into the ground and don't have heat to use a move, grab them by the legs and press heavy attack, you'll kick them hard and they'll remain on the ground for more time, giving you the opportunity to fight other enemies. (Note that this doesn't work on bosses since they'll break your grab, in that case just stomp em')

Most of my substory and locations tips came from CyricZ[gamefaqs.gamespot.com] he's somewhat of a legend for his extensive and useful guides on the Yakuza series, but credit where credit is due.I hope you enjoy Yakuza 3! It's not a bad game but certainly many people didn't enjoy it and want to come back later after finishing 5. If you have questions or suggestions for this guide feel free to ask!