Yakuza 5 (XSX Game Pass)
Well that finishes up what people describe as the PS3 era Yakuza games, in this case the remastered versions. On a technical level you can really tell these are PS3 games simply bumped up in resolution, compared to the totally remade Kiwami games. Yakuza 5 was okay, but I'd still rate it my least favorite of the series so far- just a bit too much padding to the story using things that would normally be side quests and mini games that could be skipped in other games. Having said that I did actually do pretty much all side missions and side activities for all 5 characters with the exception of the baseball batting stuff...because I just could not get the hang of the batting controls if truth be told. Easily my favorite side activities were the taxi racing in Kiryu's part of the story. I always like racing side missions.
Like most Yakuza stories, this one contains approximately ten or so "Luke, I'm your father" style plot twists, maybe 5 or 6 too many. But that's Yakuza for you, it's part of the charm. What isn't part of the charm still, especially for these PS3 era games, is the over proliferation of blocking and grabbing enemies that slow the pace of fights down. Also bosses that are so fast to block that the only viable tactic ends up being running circles around them until they commit to an attack and launching one single kick, rinse, repeat for 15 minutes until the bosses health bars finally run out...the final boss had something like 8 health bars! So boss fights are just a battle between the health bars and your recovery drinks to see which runs out first. It's not hard, just long and drawn out. This is why I like the latest game, Like a Dragon, so much better- despite being turn based the fights actually feel faster.
Anyway, one game left in the series, number 6. I'm expecting that one to be more like Yakuza 0, since they are both PS4 era games.
AnimalMother117: Yesterday I finished off Rayman Origins on the Wii.
Have you played Rayman Legends yet? I liked that game even more than Origins. I'm not really a big platform game fan, but I totally 100 percent completed that one (all stars, all tweenies- everything unlocked). Probably about time there was a new Rayman game.