Yakuza series general director shares additional tidbits on Yakuza: Like a Dragon battle system

Yakuza series general director Toshihiro Nagoshi shared more tidbits of information on the Yakuza: Like a Dragon (Yakuza 7: Whereabouts of Light and Darkness) battle system during the latest Sega Nama broadcast.

The tidbits from Nagoshi are available below. But first, be sure to read up on Yakuza: Like a Dragon chief producer Masayoshi Yokoyama‘s explanation of the battle system here.

• Since we’ve always done action up until now, doing action again and following the system system would honestly make it really hard to come up with something that goes beyond what we already had. We wanted to do something new and fresh.
• The interface is still in development, so the appearance will change quite a bit.
• The tempo of battle is not quite the same as selecting multiple commands, then watching the battle unfold based on the actions you selected… More than pure action… it is quite close to the feeling of endlessly watching a battle between several people.
• It’ll take some getting used to, but there are some tricks here and there, and if you learn them, you can play with the same habit of playing an action game.
• If what you’re picturing is an old school command RPG, then that’s the wrong impression. This will be completely different.
• We’re not fans of the slow pace, so it is not our intention in the least to create that sort of thing.
• There is also an auto battle feature. The AI is quite intelligent.
• There are some crazy developments we can do that go beyond the limits of Heat Actions and such that we are able to accomplish because we’re making an RPG.
• While we considered doing a hybrid of action and command, it would be the same as creating two titles and there wasn’t enough time for that.
• There is an action-like element where, after selecting a command, you can follow up with a final blow attack through additional button input.
• If a party member is near an enemy character when you attack, the party member will also join in on the attack.
• If you didn’t know what it was, you would think you’re playing an action game.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon is due out for PlayStation 4 on January 16, 2020 in Japan, and in 2020 in the Americas and Europe.

Thanks, Games Talk.

(Editor’s Note: Screenshot taken from the April 1 video that initially teased the new battle system for Yakuza: Like a Dragon.)