Lost Judgment is the game with the best infodumps, in my opinion, because they help recontextualize previous scenes and add clarifying information to the ongoing mysteries of the main plot.
I was surprised you didn't mention the Kurusu/Hirose infodump taking place after *THAT* reveal in Yakuza 6, which was around 30 minutes long. It's the most memorable example for me after Tamiya's.
@@indolentlard8612 Thank you very much for the comment, i almost died laughing think about the title card with a dun dun, i might even edit this thing if there is not one around already
I think Tamiya"s big DOOMP is special because in all other info dumps in the franchise the characters react, theorize and talk amongst themselves while something is always happening be with shot composition or anything else. With this one Tamiya overloads the player with info and kIryu his responses are really just "uh huh" and ",I understand"
I honestly didn't mind Tamiya's yapping, hell, I didn't even realize it ran for 26 minutes because I found the plot genuinely interesting and enjoyed the game. Is it funny in retrospect? Yeah, kinda, and we know how much this community loves memes, but I feel it works when you play the game itself and it's largely skippable on repeat runs so there's really no harm in it, in my opinion.
I honestly can’t imagine hating this scene solely because it’s really, really funny. Not in a so bad it’s good way. It made me laugh and is a great bit so it’s good automatically. I love it. Not my favorite chapter name/plot combo though. Sequence Of Betrayals in yakuza 4 having like, Shia lebouf whatcha say type shooting each other at the end is LEGENDARY
i actually didn't have that much of an issue with yakuza 3's info dump by the point i reached there i was already heavily invested in the storyline and luckily rgg gave me a badass fight outside after too
When you try to mash through, and it immediately highlights the same option you've already listened to, and he goes "what's that you say? You want to hear me say it again???" and starts over...
Not entirely related, but criticizing Yakuza 3 for its slow pacing is always a bit weird to me. Yes, the Orphanage segment is quite long, but it is one of the best bits of the game. You get to know the kids, get attached to them and see how Kiryu would live his ideal quiet life. That's the most this man ever gets out of serenity in his life, cut him some slack! Getting to know Kiryu's gentle, loving and fatherly side is such a lovely change of pace. We wouldn't care for the kids and cry at the end of Gaiden if it wasn't for that part of Yakuza 3!
My issue with the orphanage sections is partially how it was spliced in with the more pressing stuff(not a big issue though its just jarring once or twice) and it really kills any mood for me to replay the game, its not exactly the fault of the devs or anything but since its 100% mandatory you need to sit through it every single time you want to replay the game. Again i doubt I was like the target player in mind but those are both still issues with the segments
Lmao MGS4 reference at the end was so unexpected, yet so accurate. Yeah, we shouldn't be so harsh to The Plot chapter knowing that this infodump is an average MGS4 cutscene. Great vid as always.
Great video as always. If I were to make a humble suggestion for a future video, it would be on topic of RGG's weird association with guns. Typically the use and portrayal of firearms in the Yakuza requires a lot of suspension of disbelief from the usual tropes: shots in legs, non-fatal abdomen injuries, accuracy over great distances... etc, you get the idea.
Info Dumps are an unfortunate part of the Mystery Genre. For Mysteries to work, you need to withhold or obscure information. The more information you need to withhold to maintain the mystery, the larger the inevitable info dump will be. Good Mysteries will space out the info dumping or diegetically answer questions, but until the mystery is solved, there will be those loose threads that need to be tied up. While Yakuza 3's info dump is lengthy and very on the nose of being an info dump, it's not as egregious as people make it out to be.
Was i the only one who did not notice the infodump? I just watched it and didnt think anything about it. If you had asked me about the yakuza 3 infodump without me seeing the memes, i would not have known what it was.
I think that the tamiya infodump is so infamous also just because of it's meme status kinda how rubber bullets it's so infamous when mirror face is a thing snd it's not as talked about, hell i think ogasawara from 7 has a worse infodump
Tamiya in Yakuza 3, Ogasawara in Yakuza 7 and everyone in Judgment (chapter 9) are all huge info dumps. The only improvement RGG has done in later games was dividing the info dump in sections, making it feel less long (even though it isn’t).
I think the main issue with this info dump is that unlike others in the series, in this one, the person giving the information is some guy we have no familiarity with and briefly seen once, maybe twice beforehand. (Haven’t played Y3 since the remaster came out so my memeory of that game’s story is a little spotty. Also having the most boring and forgettable crime drama story of the series in my opinion certainly doesn’t help matters. I honestly preferred the Okinawa half.) In other LAD games, these info dumps are usually given by the villain, supporting antagonist, or a close ally of the protagonist. Giving players a lot of extra context for the situation at hand by explaining the oppositions point of view. Offering us an opportunity to get a peek at the mental state or world view of the opposing forces within the story. Because the audience has no familiarity with Tamiya, it comes across more as him talking at us as opposed to having a proper conversation with the characters. Y3 was the last mainline game Nagoshi had some involvement in story wise. I’m not sure if his involvement might have contributed to the atrocious pacing. Because at times it feels like two different writers fighting each other over what type of story Y3 would tell. At the very least, we know Nagoshi came up with the story concept for that game. Which likely included an outline of the overarching narrative at the very least. Comparing the pacing of this scene to the first Judgement game, which was entirely written by Nagoshi, I think I see a similar trend. Don’t get me wrong, I think the first Judgement game is great! (Thinks it over.) I think it’s good! My main issue was that I felt the story for that game just kept dragging its feet. It honestly felt like an 8-10 chapter story that was stretched to 13. I had figured out the mystery by chapter 4. Once the ADDC gets involved the plot is easy to guess. But I was forced to wait what felt like thirty years for the characters to slowly figure it out for themselves. If Yagami used his brain and not been gaslit into thinking he lost his Judgement, he might have realized sooner that there was established link between Emi and ADDC. Also, if Okubo was apparently heavily intoxicated, how exactly would the fire have started? Shono’s plan for framing Okubo actually falls apart if you think about it for any extended period of time. Certain side cases be mandatory certainly did not help. At least in Lost Judgement, the mandatory side cases were pseudo-tutorials for an addition to gameplay, or were otherwise completely optional. The Y3 info dump was so boring I got sidetracked into discussing Judgement.😅
Considering that MGS4 came out a year prior, it’s possible that they wanted that kind of story telling in their own way, that’s how I see it. It never really bothered me since I had a feeling there was gonna be a lot of exposition given the chapter name lol
I think The Plot is so infamous because it’s from 3, an incredibly divisive game. People generally praise 7 and Judgement’s stories so their infodumps are seen as not that bad or just ignored. 5’s story is so complicated as is, so infodumps specifically don’t really set off anyone’s radars much worse than other aspects of the story. But 3’s pacing is often maligned for being so slow, and I think The Plot is seen as the apex of that sluggishness
Nice video, I think the LaD infodump is not as talked about because there are some pauses between, like in lost judgment, so you can do other stuff, but it did not annoy me. Could be better, but it is not the worst thing in the games.
Ogasawara info dunp in y7 is obviously overshadowed by joining of joon-gi, the most busted party member of all It even has multiple break points between each info dump, as if we don't have enough time to do something else
Not sure what is about how the dump's written but the discussion is quite engaging for the most part imo The reveal of Tamiya's true intentions along with the nature of Joji is enough for it to stay interesting enough for you to want to stay engaged throughout At least that's how I feel
I just experienced this cutscene last month or so, and I thought it made sense, given the context. Besides it works well to recontextualize some of the narrative threads, as well as to paint the rest of the game in a new light. What kind of light? Well, the kind of light that, when playing through the last fist fight and showing it off to a friend, and being asked about the reason for it made me go "Uhhh, where do I start..well we're on our way to some sense into our misguided, sociopathic aniki after he fucking kidnapped his only friend, who's coincidentally our boss AND friend, whilst sorta ALSO carrying out a CIA plot to expose a rogue CIA agent who happens to be the leader of a fucking terrorist arms trafficking ring known as Black Monday" It sounded insane when explaining it to a friend and it would've sound even more insane explaining it to your aunt. That's why we like Yakuza. The plot is always waiting for that moment to snap or spiral into insanity. I feel like this Y3's big one. Besides, this comes before the bizarrely homoerotic fight with your foster CIA uncle and that orphanage destruction scene that got my blood boiling. The moment Mine slapped Haruka father instincts kicked in and I was ready to murder. Same with Saejima's scene with Haruka in Y4. Oof let me tell you I did not like the fact that Kiryu let it go so easily. Overall I say what I most disliked about Y3 is the ending to that damn sidestory with the couple that the girl constantly lies to the guy and you can't do anything about it. That and the combat gets repetitive fast and the abilites are not easily accesible (I also forgot revelations where a thing for a while)
even though the infodump is such a huge takeaway from Yakuza 3 in the community, I didn't think it was that bad. you mentioned a great positive and that *Kiryu* summarizes Tamiya's explanations. that feature wasn't in Yakuza: Like A Dragon's infodump (from what I remember) and, actually, repeated a lot of info that was mentioned in the chapters leading up to the event. I've forgotten about these infodump segments, even though I play these games for their stories. That could be another reason why it doesn't bother me: they flesh out the plot (literally), so they serve their purpose.
Do the deadliest enemy next, the "beaten guy that has a gun nearby". I think that is the worst trope they keep coming back to. Happens in almost every game.
For me, the worst infodump by far is near the end of Y5, where poor Akiyama spends half an hour trying to explain the plot. It's how half of what he says is guesswork, but is still assumed to be true, that makes it painful. It's so that clear the writers wrote the character stories independently, then desperately tried to tie them together after the fact. And why is *Akiyama* playing detective? The writers introduced Date into the story so late that even he doesn't know what's going on, even though being the detective-explainer is basically his one job in this franchise. Another reason it fails, imo. Akiyama isn't even a key player, and he's only expositing because the writers need SOMEONE to untangle the overcomplicated story.
I didn't know that people disliked those infodumps so much. I guess that being used to listening/watching a bunch of video essays across the years makes these scenes so much less annoying.
If the player is invested in that plot, i think the info dumps can at least be interesting in a way, same with MGS4 ending, where it felt not nearly as long as it is, just for me loving that story. There's a counterpoint in Death Stranding, trying not to spoil here, but the entire ending sequence took way to long, as you run around the empty beach and the game slowly throws info dumps in your face, even though i also love that game to bits.
As bad as the infodump is, the way this chapter ends with majima saving you with that big ass truck makes me still like this scene way more then I ever should
I LLLLOOOVVVVVEEEE yakuza 3 and it’s story, but that infodump was pretty dumb, we have had plenty of info dumps before like with kazama in yakuza 1, but this one is especially bad when you consider how they let you skip it
By extension, they could do a Kiwami 4, since the original Yakuza 3 & 4 have close developments. Kinda like how Kiwami was made as carry on from Yakuza 0.
going off topic for a bit, I honestly think the meme culture of the fanbase can be too reductive to these games. You get the infamous Saejima-Haruka moment in Yakuza 4 get memed a lot but I really think that scene works great in portraying the mindset of Saejima at that time and it is designed to be gross but lots of people latch on to the meme and just go with the others and say it's stupid. I agree with you that 7 has the worst infodump in the series but because the infodump in 3 gets memed a lot, it becomes the easy prey. Same thing happened with rubber bullets, even though for me the mirror face is a lot more dumb and nonsensical than that
Yet another great entry in the Hanya's advocate series. You have perfectly echoed my sentiment about this particular info dump so I won't go over it again. To me, the worst one is the whole reveal of the Yamato battle ship in LAS 6. Granted,it's shorter. But for one, it killed Hirose's character literally and figuratively. And two, the political aspect of the plot felt like an unnecessary addition to make it more convoluted than it needed to be and inflate the impact of the ending. Nothing comes close IMHO, and it's one of the reasons I'll forever dislike LAD6.
I think part of what makes the infodump so memeable and infamous is the stuff that's getting talked about. I'm sure some people found it interesting, but the infodumpbeing about Kazama having a twin brother who's a CIA agent that Kazama never told Kiryu about is some rubber bullets tier bullshit.
Even more reason for a kiwami 3...they can rework the narrative and break the infodump up. And don't cut the kids...I want more orphanage scenes, especially after the gaiden scene
Good job on the video essay. Though, I disagree. I insist that Tamiya's is the worst, or, at least equal in terribleness to Jingu's and maybe Ogasawara's. There are some factors to the infodumps that I think you underexamined. Namely, organic dialogue, context within the story, the messenger, and the structure. In this paragraph, I will cover both organic dialogue and context within the story :: Organic dialogue can make an infodump feel less like a dump and more like an actual conversation. "Infodumps" that take the structure of an interrogation (Hamura, Ogasawara) have the feeling of tedium replaced with CATHARSIS, because there has been a build-up to needing to extract this information from a party we know has that info; it is hinted that they have the pieces of the puzzle we need, and we might even have hints as to what those puzzle pieces are. Notice that the whole point of interrogating Kyohei Hamura was to get the identity of the Mole, BUT HE DOES NOT SAY WHO THE MOLE IS DURING THE LENGTH OF HIS INTERROGATION! Yet, despite that, his infodump remains one of the least offensive in the series, because we have bickering between Hamura, Shioya, Yagami, Matsugane, that shows their relationships with one another and how trying to get Hamura to talk to them in the first place is an exercise in teeth-pulling. Next, the messenger :: I mentioned the relationships between the person doing the interrogating and the one being interrogated. In a situation like Tamiya's, there is no relationship. He's a politician who borderline came from nothing, aside from his parasocial mentions earlier in the story. We have no context to his character, dynamics, or motives besides the politics presented on TV, so for him to suddenly became a character and not an idea is jarring. This his only appearance as a character, and it does not help that his personality exclusively serves to benefit the plot and shows no outward-looking flaws (he is entirely, uncompromisingly straightforward and amicable towards Kiryu, and also affectionate with his subordinate, Toma, to the extent that he is willing to make a request of Kiryu that forwards the plot by having him chase Toma down and confront Kazama's brother). This makes him, admittedly, dull. Ogasawara is in a similar boat. Unlike Hamura, who has a wealth of depth to his character, Ogasawara is a plain-clothed, plain-faced pencil pusher with an unlikable demeanor behind an unlikable political movement. He's just a little less dull than Tamiya, and as a result, his interrogation is especially uninteresting. If he had more of a personality, then I would not consider saying he's anywhere near as bad as Tamiya or Jingu. Last, the structure :: The most aggravating part of Tamiya's exposition is how inorganically it is structured. It is literally him going bullet point by bullet point explaining the unexplained plot points in a line. There's no intrigue, there. Contrast this with expositions from Higashi, from Hamura, and from Ogasawara. They are at least talking about their own personal experiences in a chronological or semi-chronological order (and two of the three examples I mentioned have animated cutscenes to go alongside them), which not only reinforces their personalities in their exposition (since it is ABOUT THEM and what they've been through, to some extent), but makes the infodump feel better paced, less tedious, and less dragging because it can be so engaging. You put far too much emphasis in the factor of "time" that the infodumps cost. Ogasawara's and Hamura's may have been longer, but they benefit from: - Dialogue that feels and sounds like a real(er) conversation - Being delivered by characters who act as characters outside the context of their infodump and connect to the active plot of the narrative - Being structured like a story that the expositor is telling, instead of being structured like a power point presentation
Thank you for this video. The storytelling in the series has gotten worse as it went along, particularly with Yakuza 7 and Lost Judgement, and that’s solely because of the terrible presentation of exposition (info dumps). It’s just poor planning. This particular scene in Yakuza 3 is nothing compared to what similar scenes later on in the series have become.
The biggest issue I have with the info dump is that it FEELS like an info dump. You list all those other times and all I think is, yeah, boring scene. But a boring, dry scene within a story, not something done for gameplay. With Yakuza 3, I felt like I was running through a script with an NPC, like a text to speech version of those bios we get of all the characters. If it was all one cutscene, no menu, nothing, then it could work better. As it stands, it feels like a info dump, not a boring scene like the others.
What is your favourite and least favourite infodump of the series? :)
Lost Judgment is the game with the best infodumps, in my opinion, because they help recontextualize previous scenes and add clarifying information to the ongoing mysteries of the main plot.
@@heartlessangel2910true! Lost Judgement is amazing in infodumps
Maybe the worst one is 5...
I was surprised you didn't mention the Kurusu/Hirose infodump taking place after *THAT* reveal in Yakuza 6, which was around 30 minutes long. It's the most memorable example for me after Tamiya's.
I love that in Yakuza 5 there is the antithesis to the Tamiya info dump with Akiyama explaining Shinada involvement in less than 30 seconds
Tamiya? You mean Tanimura?
@@irsyadiaryadiva9430 Who's Tanimura?
@@MugdhaMahdiShamsno idea, hope we get a Tamiya game soon 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Well you get majima driving a pink truck to save kiryu after the info dump, that already makes the chapter worth it
This is the best video on TH-cam and it will be for generations to come
May the grace of Tamiya permeate through the platform for days on end 😁
Patriarch of the Yap Family
@@indolentlard8612 Thank you very much for the comment, i almost died laughing think about the title card with a dun dun, i might even edit this thing if there is not one around already
@cadfael3257 lol, the chad deserves more edits.
I think Tamiya"s big DOOMP is special because in all other info dumps in the franchise the characters react, theorize and talk amongst themselves while something is always happening be with shot composition or anything else. With this one Tamiya overloads the player with info and kIryu his responses are really just "uh huh" and ",I understand"
the 12:09 minute infodump about infodumps
Legendary Member
I honestly didn't mind Tamiya's yapping, hell, I didn't even realize it ran for 26 minutes because I found the plot genuinely interesting and enjoyed the game. Is it funny in retrospect? Yeah, kinda, and we know how much this community loves memes, but I feel it works when you play the game itself and it's largely skippable on repeat runs so there's really no harm in it, in my opinion.
"B L A C K M O N D A Y"
Remember that?
"BURACKK MONDEI"
@@RealAryanGuptaburrack omaba remember that
I honestly can’t imagine hating this scene solely because it’s really, really funny. Not in a so bad it’s good way. It made me laugh and is a great bit so it’s good automatically. I love it. Not my favorite chapter name/plot combo though. Sequence Of Betrayals in yakuza 4 having like, Shia lebouf whatcha say type shooting each other at the end is LEGENDARY
i actually didn't have that much of an issue with yakuza 3's info dump
by the point i reached there i was already heavily invested in the storyline
and luckily rgg gave me a badass fight outside after too
Yeah, it didn't stand out for me at all, when I first played Y3. I had no idea it was a meme.
When you try to mash through, and it immediately highlights the same option you've already listened to, and he goes "what's that you say? You want to hear me say it again???" and starts over...
Tamiya wants an excuse to yap more
Not gonna sugar coat it
R1 + ×
I always thought the name of the chapter referred to the land the orphanage was built on. "The Plot" as in "The Land"
Not entirely related, but criticizing Yakuza 3 for its slow pacing is always a bit weird to me. Yes, the Orphanage segment is quite long, but it is one of the best bits of the game. You get to know the kids, get attached to them and see how Kiryu would live his ideal quiet life. That's the most this man ever gets out of serenity in his life, cut him some slack! Getting to know Kiryu's gentle, loving and fatherly side is such a lovely change of pace. We wouldn't care for the kids and cry at the end of Gaiden if it wasn't for that part of Yakuza 3!
Absolutely agree
I don't have the attention spam for slow games
problem is that ppl generally have no media literacy and will try pass everything they don't like for bad writing.
My issue with the orphanage sections is partially how it was spliced in with the more pressing stuff(not a big issue though its just jarring once or twice) and it really kills any mood for me to replay the game, its not exactly the fault of the devs or anything but since its 100% mandatory you need to sit through it every single time you want to replay the game. Again i doubt I was like the target player in mind but those are both still issues with the segments
@@davigabriel783 I blame tiktok. 10 second attention span.
Lmao MGS4 reference at the end was so unexpected, yet so accurate. Yeah, we shouldn't be so harsh to The Plot chapter knowing that this infodump is an average MGS4 cutscene. Great vid as always.
MGS5 Skull Face/Snake 45min dialogue at the back of a pickup that could be summed by "war bad" is still unmatched
@@JongleurBt1 And then they're just staring at each other silently for another half an hour. Truly a masterpiece scene
@@deltawarte2394 with sins of the father blasting in the background. I wonder what a directed by Kojima yakuza game would look like
Great video as always. If I were to make a humble suggestion for a future video, it would be on topic of RGG's weird association with guns. Typically the use and portrayal of firearms in the Yakuza requires a lot of suspension of disbelief from the usual tropes: shots in legs, non-fatal abdomen injuries, accuracy over great distances... etc, you get the idea.
Info Dumps are an unfortunate part of the Mystery Genre. For Mysteries to work, you need to withhold or obscure information. The more information you need to withhold to maintain the mystery, the larger the inevitable info dump will be. Good Mysteries will space out the info dumping or diegetically answer questions, but until the mystery is solved, there will be those loose threads that need to be tied up.
While Yakuza 3's info dump is lengthy and very on the nose of being an info dump, it's not as egregious as people make it out to be.
Was i the only one who did not notice the infodump? I just watched it and didnt think anything about it. If you had asked me about the yakuza 3 infodump without me seeing the memes, i would not have known what it was.
Genuinely I actually don't remember this scene going on for that long I do not know how I didn't notice the cutscene was that long
I think that the tamiya infodump is so infamous also just because of it's meme status kinda how rubber bullets it's so infamous when mirror face is a thing snd it's not as talked about, hell i think ogasawara from 7 has a worse infodump
Tamiya in Yakuza 3, Ogasawara in Yakuza 7 and everyone in Judgment (chapter 9) are all huge info dumps. The only improvement RGG has done in later games was dividing the info dump in sections, making it feel less long (even though it isn’t).
I think the main issue with this info dump is that unlike others in the series, in this one, the person giving the information is some guy we have no familiarity with and briefly seen once, maybe twice beforehand. (Haven’t played Y3 since the remaster came out so my memeory of that game’s story is a little spotty. Also having the most boring and forgettable crime drama story of the series in my opinion certainly doesn’t help matters. I honestly preferred the Okinawa half.)
In other LAD games, these info dumps are usually given by the villain, supporting antagonist, or a close ally of the protagonist. Giving players a lot of extra context for the situation at hand by explaining the oppositions point of view. Offering us an opportunity to get a peek at the mental state or world view of the opposing forces within the story. Because the audience has no familiarity with Tamiya, it comes across more as him talking at us as opposed to having a proper conversation with the characters.
Y3 was the last mainline game Nagoshi had some involvement in story wise. I’m not sure if his involvement might have contributed to the atrocious pacing. Because at times it feels like two different writers fighting each other over what type of story Y3 would tell. At the very least, we know Nagoshi came up with the story concept for that game. Which likely included an outline of the overarching narrative at the very least.
Comparing the pacing of this scene to the first Judgement game, which was entirely written by Nagoshi, I think I see a similar trend. Don’t get me wrong, I think the first Judgement game is great! (Thinks it over.) I think it’s good! My main issue was that I felt the story for that game just kept dragging its feet. It honestly felt like an 8-10 chapter story that was stretched to 13. I had figured out the mystery by chapter 4. Once the ADDC gets involved the plot is easy to guess. But I was forced to wait what felt like thirty years for the characters to slowly figure it out for themselves. If Yagami used his brain and not been gaslit into thinking he lost his Judgement, he might have realized sooner that there was established link between Emi and ADDC. Also, if Okubo was apparently heavily intoxicated, how exactly would the fire have started? Shono’s plan for framing Okubo actually falls apart if you think about it for any extended period of time.
Certain side cases be mandatory certainly did not help. At least in Lost Judgement, the mandatory side cases were pseudo-tutorials for an addition to gameplay, or were otherwise completely optional.
The Y3 info dump was so boring I got sidetracked into discussing Judgement.😅
Image if that info dump were not skippable. The speed runs of Yukuza 3 will have a large break time
Considering that MGS4 came out a year prior, it’s possible that they wanted that kind of story telling in their own way, that’s how I see it. It never really bothered me since I had a feeling there was gonna be a lot of exposition given the chapter name lol
i went and listened to the whole Ryu-Kyu Humming as soon as the video started and then came back
The info dump might kinda suck but the fight after is cool as hell. The way Majima saves you is also pretty funny.
The best yapper of all time
with this video I declare yakuza youtube as back in its prime
The ogasawara infodump was so bad that they had to add multiple coffee breaks
I think The Plot is so infamous because it’s from 3, an incredibly divisive game. People generally praise 7 and Judgement’s stories so their infodumps are seen as not that bad or just ignored. 5’s story is so complicated as is, so infodumps specifically don’t really set off anyone’s radars much worse than other aspects of the story. But 3’s pacing is often maligned for being so slow, and I think The Plot is seen as the apex of that sluggishness
God i fucking love Yakuza 3
Nice video, I think the LaD infodump is not as talked about because there are some pauses between, like in lost judgment, so you can do other stuff, but it did not annoy me. Could be better, but it is not the worst thing in the games.
I hope the info dump turns into the bee movie script of the yakuza community.
Ogasawara info dunp in y7 is obviously overshadowed by joining of joon-gi, the most busted party member of all
It even has multiple break points between each info dump, as if we don't have enough time to do something else
Never had a problem with it, maybe it's just cause I love 3
Not sure what is about how the dump's written but the discussion is quite engaging for the most part imo
The reveal of Tamiya's true intentions along with the nature of Joji is enough for it to stay interesting enough for you to want to stay engaged throughout
At least that's how I feel
I just experienced this cutscene last month or so, and I thought it made sense, given the context. Besides it works well to recontextualize some of the narrative threads, as well as to paint the rest of the game in a new light. What kind of light?
Well, the kind of light that, when playing through the last fist fight and showing it off to a friend, and being asked about the reason for it made me go "Uhhh, where do I start..well we're on our way to some sense into our misguided, sociopathic aniki after he fucking kidnapped his only friend, who's coincidentally our boss AND friend, whilst sorta ALSO carrying out a CIA plot to expose a rogue CIA agent who happens to be the leader of a fucking terrorist arms trafficking ring known as Black Monday"
It sounded insane when explaining it to a friend and it would've sound even more insane explaining it to your aunt. That's why we like Yakuza.
The plot is always waiting for that moment to snap or spiral into insanity. I feel like this Y3's big one. Besides, this comes before the bizarrely homoerotic fight with your foster CIA uncle and that orphanage destruction scene that got my blood boiling. The moment Mine slapped Haruka father instincts kicked in and I was ready to murder.
Same with Saejima's scene with Haruka in Y4. Oof let me tell you I did not like the fact that Kiryu let it go so easily.
Overall I say what I most disliked about Y3 is the ending to that damn sidestory with the couple that the girl constantly lies to the guy and you can't do anything about it. That and the combat gets repetitive fast and the abilites are not easily accesible (I also forgot revelations where a thing for a while)
Feels like no one talked about it until recently to be honest
even though the infodump is such a huge takeaway from Yakuza 3 in the community, I didn't think it was that bad. you mentioned a great positive and that *Kiryu* summarizes Tamiya's explanations.
that feature wasn't in Yakuza: Like A Dragon's infodump (from what I remember) and, actually, repeated a lot of info that was mentioned in the chapters leading up to the event.
I've forgotten about these infodump segments, even though I play these games for their stories. That could be another reason why it doesn't bother me: they flesh out the plot (literally), so they serve their purpose.
Do the deadliest enemy next, the "beaten guy that has a gun nearby". I think that is the worst trope they keep coming back to. Happens in almost every game.
You forget that this can be hard countered by giving Daigo a gun. If kiryu invited his boy out on more activities, this wouldn't be an issue
Or bullet proof money like Akiyama
For me, the worst infodump by far is near the end of Y5, where poor Akiyama spends half an hour trying to explain the plot. It's how half of what he says is guesswork, but is still assumed to be true, that makes it painful. It's so that clear the writers wrote the character stories independently, then desperately tried to tie them together after the fact.
And why is *Akiyama* playing detective? The writers introduced Date into the story so late that even he doesn't know what's going on, even though being the detective-explainer is basically his one job in this franchise. Another reason it fails, imo. Akiyama isn't even a key player, and he's only expositing because the writers need SOMEONE to untangle the overcomplicated story.
When 5 recaps its own main plot because it's been ages since Part 1
I didn't know that people disliked those infodumps so much. I guess that being used to listening/watching a bunch of video essays across the years makes these scenes so much less annoying.
I was so tapped in with the Story when that Chapter came along so I didn't even really mind it
Peak is here 🎉
Aka a justification on why devilleon7 is right
I personally loved it
I love metal gear solid games, so when i started playing Yakuza games, i fell in love with the series and these long cutscenes and infodumps😅
If Poirot can infodump at the end of every novel and we love it, why not the yakuza :D
Excellent parallel! 😄
Nandato?!
If the player is invested in that plot, i think the info dumps can at least be interesting in a way, same with MGS4 ending, where it felt not nearly as long as it is, just for me loving that story. There's a counterpoint in Death Stranding, trying not to spoil here, but the entire ending sequence took way to long, as you run around the empty beach and the game slowly throws info dumps in your face, even though i also love that game to bits.
This is the only game when you fight at Diet Building (and I guess in video game history)
As bad as the infodump is, the way this chapter ends with majima saving you with that big ass truck makes me still like this scene way more then I ever should
Good evening Gokudoni
I LLLLOOOVVVVVEEEE yakuza 3 and it’s story, but that infodump was pretty dumb, we have had plenty of info dumps before like with kazama in yakuza 1, but this one is especially bad when you consider how they let you skip it
11:10 kiwami 3 will be the ultimate slop..
By extension, they could do a Kiwami 4, since the original Yakuza 3 & 4 have close developments. Kinda like how Kiwami was made as carry on from Yakuza 0.
going off topic for a bit, I honestly think the meme culture of the fanbase can be too reductive to these games. You get the infamous Saejima-Haruka moment in Yakuza 4 get memed a lot but I really think that scene works great in portraying the mindset of Saejima at that time and it is designed to be gross but lots of people latch on to the meme and just go with the others and say it's stupid.
I agree with you that 7 has the worst infodump in the series but because the infodump in 3 gets memed a lot, it becomes the easy prey. Same thing happened with rubber bullets, even though for me the mirror face is a lot more dumb and nonsensical than that
No lie I kinda like political drama in media so I actually enjoyed it
am i in the minority to say that out of 3 4 and 5 3 had the best story?
the tourist filter
the greatest yakuza game
Yet another great entry in the Hanya's advocate series. You have perfectly echoed my sentiment about this particular info dump so I won't go over it again. To me, the worst one is the whole reveal of the Yamato battle ship in LAS 6. Granted,it's shorter. But for one, it killed Hirose's character literally and figuratively. And two, the political aspect of the plot felt like an unnecessary addition to make it more convoluted than it needed to be and inflate the impact of the ending. Nothing comes close IMHO, and it's one of the reasons I'll forever dislike LAD6.
Yapiya is my goat
how do I play mahjong?
Tamiya looks like Leonid Brezhnev
As much as I love Yakuza 3, I struggled to stay awake during Tamiya's infodump.
I had no problem with it. It made sense that they had to explain to Kiryu, a retired yakuza, that there is an international conspiracy going on.
Real Yakuza use the Skip button
I think part of what makes the infodump so memeable and infamous is the stuff that's getting talked about. I'm sure some people found it interesting, but the infodumpbeing about Kazama having a twin brother who's a CIA agent that Kazama never told Kiryu about is some rubber bullets tier bullshit.
Even more reason for a kiwami 3...they can rework the narrative and break the infodump up. And don't cut the kids...I want more orphanage scenes, especially after the gaiden scene
Good job on the video essay. Though, I disagree. I insist that Tamiya's is the worst, or, at least equal in terribleness to Jingu's and maybe Ogasawara's.
There are some factors to the infodumps that I think you underexamined. Namely, organic dialogue, context within the story, the messenger, and the structure.
In this paragraph, I will cover both organic dialogue and context within the story :: Organic dialogue can make an infodump feel less like a dump and more like an actual conversation. "Infodumps" that take the structure of an interrogation (Hamura, Ogasawara) have the feeling of tedium replaced with CATHARSIS, because there has been a build-up to needing to extract this information from a party we know has that info; it is hinted that they have the pieces of the puzzle we need, and we might even have hints as to what those puzzle pieces are. Notice that the whole point of interrogating Kyohei Hamura was to get the identity of the Mole, BUT HE DOES NOT SAY WHO THE MOLE IS DURING THE LENGTH OF HIS INTERROGATION! Yet, despite that, his infodump remains one of the least offensive in the series, because we have bickering between Hamura, Shioya, Yagami, Matsugane, that shows their relationships with one another and how trying to get Hamura to talk to them in the first place is an exercise in teeth-pulling.
Next, the messenger :: I mentioned the relationships between the person doing the interrogating and the one being interrogated. In a situation like Tamiya's, there is no relationship. He's a politician who borderline came from nothing, aside from his parasocial mentions earlier in the story. We have no context to his character, dynamics, or motives besides the politics presented on TV, so for him to suddenly became a character and not an idea is jarring. This his only appearance as a character, and it does not help that his personality exclusively serves to benefit the plot and shows no outward-looking flaws (he is entirely, uncompromisingly straightforward and amicable towards Kiryu, and also affectionate with his subordinate, Toma, to the extent that he is willing to make a request of Kiryu that forwards the plot by having him chase Toma down and confront Kazama's brother). This makes him, admittedly, dull. Ogasawara is in a similar boat. Unlike Hamura, who has a wealth of depth to his character, Ogasawara is a plain-clothed, plain-faced pencil pusher with an unlikable demeanor behind an unlikable political movement. He's just a little less dull than Tamiya, and as a result, his interrogation is especially uninteresting. If he had more of a personality, then I would not consider saying he's anywhere near as bad as Tamiya or Jingu.
Last, the structure :: The most aggravating part of Tamiya's exposition is how inorganically it is structured. It is literally him going bullet point by bullet point explaining the unexplained plot points in a line. There's no intrigue, there. Contrast this with expositions from Higashi, from Hamura, and from Ogasawara. They are at least talking about their own personal experiences in a chronological or semi-chronological order (and two of the three examples I mentioned have animated cutscenes to go alongside them), which not only reinforces their personalities in their exposition (since it is ABOUT THEM and what they've been through, to some extent), but makes the infodump feel better paced, less tedious, and less dragging because it can be so engaging.
You put far too much emphasis in the factor of "time" that the infodumps cost. Ogasawara's and Hamura's may have been longer, but they benefit from:
- Dialogue that feels and sounds like a real(er) conversation
- Being delivered by characters who act as characters outside the context of their infodump and connect to the active plot of the narrative
- Being structured like a story that the expositor is telling, instead of being structured like a power point presentation
Thank you for this video. The storytelling in the series has gotten worse as it went along, particularly with Yakuza 7 and Lost Judgement, and that’s solely because of the terrible presentation of exposition (info dumps). It’s just poor planning. This particular scene in Yakuza 3 is nothing compared to what similar scenes later on in the series have become.
The biggest issue I have with the info dump is that it FEELS like an info dump. You list all those other times and all I think is, yeah, boring scene. But a boring, dry scene within a story, not something done for gameplay. With Yakuza 3, I felt like I was running through a script with an NPC, like a text to speech version of those bios we get of all the characters. If it was all one cutscene, no menu, nothing, then it could work better. As it stands, it feels like a info dump, not a boring scene like the others.
In short, It's awful. Saved you 12 minutes.
The info dump went in one ear and out the other so I really don't understand Yakuza 3's story
Aweful.
No, there is no mistake in it.
>>>> Gaiden's plot