We have curated this Yakuza 6 Beginners Guide in which we will guide you on most important and basic mechanics of Yakuza 6 that sets the game apart from most titles of the same genre. We have some combat, photo taking, experience earning and world exploration tips and tricks for you below, which will surely help you start your journey in Yakuza 6.
Yakuza 6 is now out featuring all-new Dragon Engine designed specifically for this game. This is the final chapter featuring Kazuma Kiryu, the legendary Dragon of Dojima. If you are new to this series then you will need some introduction to the game mechanics and how Yakuza games play out.
Although it plays like most other semi-RPG open world games, Yakuza 6 features some unique mechanics that we have detailed below.
Yakuza 6 Beginners Guide
Yakuza 6 focuses heavily on cutscenes and melee combat. If you have not played the Yakuza franchise before then you do not need to worry, as the sixth game in the franchise does not punish you for that.
You can still pick this up and start enjoying this unique open world experience. The game even introduces the franchise, summarizing all first five games, which really help you get on the track.
Below you will find the most basic as well as some advanced important mechanics that Yakuza 6 offers you. After going through this guide, you will be able to start the journey without any problems and will be able to complete the game easily.
Learn the Combat Controls
Yakuza 6’s gameplay is mostly combatting and you will be spending a lot of time dealing with enemies in hand-to-hand combat. For a game that focuses heavily on combat, it is vital that you learn the controls of the game as quickly as possible. Same is the case with Yakuza 6, it is very important that you familiarize yourself with the basic controls of the game quickly.
While you are engaged in combat, you can land light and heavy attacks. Press square for a light attack while triangle will land a heavy attack. You can also grab your enemies by pressing the circle button.
If you want to dodge enemy attacks, press X. If you press and hold X, you will be able to sprint. Press circle to pick up weapons and objects to use during a combat.
Yakuza 6 features a heat gauge at the top left side of the screen, which builds up as you land successful hits on the enemies.
They range from light attacks, heavy attacks, or even combo attacks by mixing up these two attack types. If you look at the top left side of the main screen, you will see three blue orbs. These orbs represent the heat level. As you land attacks, they will continue to build up.
Each orb gives you one heat level so you can store up to three heat levels. Once an orb is completely filled, you can press the right trigger to activate the heat mode. This grants you a short time combat boost.
During this boost, you are not stunned by enemy attacks and your attack speed greatly increases. Spamming an attack key during this phase will land quick attacks on the enemy.
Once enough attacks have been performed on an enemy, you can initiate and complete a quick time event to deal massive amounts of damage to the enemy.
This is handy during boss battles and will help you defeat them easily. Building up the heat event to full is recommended during boss battles, as they can be hard at times. Heat mode attacks will deal a great amount of damage to them.
Complete the Main Story
The main story of Yakuza 6 is heavily dependent on cutscenes with occasional boss fights. You will also fight random enemies between the cutscenes but most of your time will be taken by the cutscenes.
You can even consider the main story as an interactive movie. The main story of the game is divided in 13 chapters spanning over two cities of Kamurocho and Onomichi.
You might notice that sometimes the game feels linear and it forces you to do certain things in an order but most of the times, the game will allow you freedom and you can do whatever you want during these breaks from the main story.
Apart from the main story, you will also find some side missions that you can complete at your will. The main story of the game is linear and there no branches so you do not have to worry about endings while making decisions.
Earn EXP
Earning EXP is very important in Yakuza 6 because you use it to unlock abilities, skills, and stats. There are different ways of earning EXP is Yakuza 6. The easiest way of earning EXP is by completing the main story.
Main story missions are very generous in awarding EXP and once you are done with the main story, you will have enough EXP to unlock every skill and ability the game has to offer.
However, you may want to unlock them prior to reaching final stages in the main story as they make the game much easier. In the world, you will find many sub-missions and activities scattered around.
There are also some mini-games in which you can take part in. Complete as many exploration activities as you can to gain EXP and earn new skills and abilities.
As you unlock new skills and abilities, you get Better in Combat and you can easily defeat bosses. Leveling Up is Important and it will make the later parts of the story much easier for you to complete as you will have a plethora of skills and abilities to defeat enemies with. Nearly every activity that you complete will grant you with bonus EXP in the game.
Explore the World
The world of Yakuza 6 is full of activities. Once you are done with an objective and need to reach a new objective, you will be free to roam around in the world. We recommend that you try to explore as much as possible before completing the main story, as the game has to offer so much to you.
During these trips, as you explore the cities, you will come across tons of games, restaurants, shops and trouble missions. You will also find some side story missions.
Complete these extra missions and activities to earn bonus EXP to level up and unlock new skills and abilities. If you want to, you can ignore all these side extras, as they are not required for game completion. However, Yakuza 6 experience is incomplete without exploring these side missions and activities.
They award you with EXP and makes the world feel alive and full of activity. You can complete them at any point in the story. They offer a good break and distraction between all the cutscenes that the main story is comprised of.
Take Pictures
Yakuza 6 comes with a Photo Mode, which allows you to take great pictures of the beautiful world of Yakuza 6 as well as selfies of the Dragon of Dojima. While you are in exploration mode, you can press the up key on the d-pad to access the camera.
This will open up Kiryu’s phone camera and will put you behind it in a first-person mode. Any pictures you take during your journey will be stored in the Photos tab in the pause menu.
In the photos tab, you can also apply filters to the pictures and view them at will. If you are not happy with the angle or the view, you can move around in photo mode and look for better angles or views to take a p Find the perfect background and take a selfie picture.
You do not have to exit the photo mode to move around. Once you are happy with the view, press X to take a picture. You can also take selfies if you want to. In photo mode, press triangle and the camera will switch to selfie mode showing Kiryu’s face with the background. You can move around in this mode as well.
This concludes our Yakuza 6 Beginners Guide. If you want to add anything to this guide, feel free to use the comments section below!
