Even in a Wacky Nautical Spin-Off, Yakuza Just Feels Wrong in English

I would unfriend someone if I knew he played Yakuza in english. Even if he was from my family, I would never talk to him again

While I haven't play all of the Like a Dragon series (I have played 0, Kiwami, Kiwami 2, and a little bit of 3), I only play them in Japanese.

It just feels...right.

If Kiryu is the protagonist, I play in Japanese with subtitles. If Kasuga is the protagonist, I play in English. I tried English with 7 just to try it, thinking I'd switch back after an hour. Fell for the game hard and never switched back. This new one... I don't know. Gonna be fun to find out though.

I guess I am in the minority but I played LAD and IF in English, I just don't like subtitles it breaks my immersion tremendously. I am not a massive fan of the series though admittedly until the recent releases

rollseyes last one was fine In English

Japanese w subtitles and heavy use of the skip button (if it's an option)

I played Judgement in English, for whatever reason that didn’t seem sacrilegious, but never for Yakuza…

@MikeOrator So I hear. The only one that I could take was Lost Paradise. I should try again some time. I'm not as averse to cutscenes as I used to be.

@Logonogo I agree on subs I want to watch the picture not read some lines but you get a situation where you want suitable dubs from rare enough the same nationality at least, if not even rarer the actors themselves but you usually get mismatched comedy which only suits a certain type of film rofl. But with games if you can skip the chat in turns I’ll leave subs on so I can process fast and move on ->

If you play Yakuza games in English then you ou might as well watch EastEnders with the Japanese dub.

Japanese voice with subtitles all day long. More authentic this way and it's far funnier sounding

English dub? Dame da no thanks.

Queen Michele - Debra Wilson

Please! You don't need to convince me anymore!

Watching anime in Japanese is one thing since you’re just watching. Playing and reading is too much for these old eyes.

Nah, the Yakuza dubs are always awesome and very well done. I will continue to use the dub and always will. It's really not that serious and people that think it is need to go outside lol.

@Alps_Stranger 100% this. Kaiji Tang deserves far more recognition for his performance as Ichiban. But I'm also so used to Kiryu's Japanese voice actor and I felt the need to switch to Japanese during his chapters.

@Burnish1619 oh good lord, is that the creepy bug-eyed lady that seems to be in every other game? Yeah lmao, I wasn't ever gonna touch the dub but this is a nice big additional nail in the coffin.

Japanese with subtitles, always.👊

I play Japanese games with Japanese voices, Korean games with Korean voices, French... you get the idea. I'm pretty happy that Mafia Old Country will be getting Sicilian dub. The only exception was Trails of Cold Steel: Japanese voice actors couldn't correctly pronounce German names of their lives depend on it.

I played the Judgment games in English, because I didn’t know what the characters were ‘supposed’ to sound like. Ditto for Yakuza: Like a Dragon, but then there were those cameos of characters from the Yakuza games and that was jarring.

Kiryu and Majima must sound like they should. I played the English demo for Infinite Wealth at the end of Gaiden and couldn’t stand the new Kiryu voice, so that was that for the English dub. I like the rest of the English voice actors, so I’ll try English again if classic Yakuza characters aren’t in the game.

If the acting is good I always play in English, infinite wealth was great,however I certainly understand some people's disgust at those that don't play with subtitles , I feel the same about people who watch dubbed versions of foreign films, ugh, just no 😂

I cannot imagine playing these in English. Possibly if your jumping on point was 7, that’s it. Fun to see Señor Joe here though, they say that all men are created equal.

I use Japanese voices whenever possible, except for Tales games.

To be honest, playing Infinite Wealth in Japanese was oddly jarring, too. It’s unusual to run into a single American who is fluent in Japanese, but everyone in Hawaii is? Some of the major characters give reasons for their fluency, but that just makes you realize that every lifeguard, taxi driver and hot dog stand operator also speaks it.

It doesn’t matter, play what you want. I just need Kiryu and Majima to sound right.

@nessisonett So youre the one that plays Stalker 2 in Ukrainian, right?

I unapologetically play them in English.

Why? Because I'm English.

And game dubs are nowhere near as jarring as a normal shows or movies are for example, with the whole mouth actions throwing you off. Would rather spend more time looking at the game than at subtitles.

@N0CYmr0k I haven’t played Stalker 2 yet but I played the Metro games in Russian. Depends how good the dubs are in most cases but some games feel far better in the original language. I wouldn’t play Witcher 3 in Polish though so it’s a case by case basis.

@lazarus11 dubbed movies, especially live action and not cartoon/animated, are tons more of an eyesore though when it comes to mouth movements etc during speech.

Samoa Joe? Big Poppa Pump is seething at the mere sight of him right now.

Can't recall having played any of these before but it would probably end up being in Japanese. I always start Japanese stuff in English b/c it makes life easier and occasionally they do get it right and I'd prefer if I don't have to read. But I prefer reading to really terrible voice over work. I don't understand why some voice over work has to be so terrible when some of it is just perfect. 🤷‍♂️ Cost cutting I guess. 🤑

@nessisonett So You are THE One...

@N0CYmr0k I have no idea what you’re talking about.

@Corc11 yes, it's truly horrible

日本語が好きです... I've been learning since February, but tbh I don't think some of the VAs were bad. You just need to cast correctly. Netflix definitely had a problem where they kept using the same VAs and it became tiresome to watch them in English, so now I tend to watch in Japanese, but for this? I could probably go either way.

Hello there fellow gamers.
Yeah, no. Yakuza/like a Dragon games always in their original Japanese voices thank you very much.
In that regard, I´m like my friend @Dalamar, I try to play most games in their original language.
Just like I´m doing with Black Myth Wukong, playing in Chinese.
It just feels more authentic that way..... To me at least.
Plus, Hidenari Ugaki is Majima. He is just perfect for the role.
Cheers and happy gaming everyone

I'm a japanese audio purist when it comes to LaD and especially so after they ruined Kiryu in the dub. I watched a scene from LaD 8 where he makes his cameo and i started laughing at everyone's voices, they were so bad.

@RaZieLDaNtE Wukong in chinese makes sense but the dub voices were good so i didnt regret my choice.

English all day. Japanese voice acting is overrated.

@N0CYmr0k "stop praising asian culture as if it was something great"

You sound like a redneck.

@JohntheRaptor Hello there friend.
That´s good to know, since there is always new game plus if I want to do it with english voice acting. To change things up a bit.
Cheers and have a good one

@SystemAddict Can you not do both? I can, especially as it takes me mere seconds to read the English text before the characters have finished speaking Japanese and they are literally standing still for most of them.

I play most games in English but I'm going through Metro Exodus now and playing in Russian. I now change to the native dialogue If the game is set in the real world location or equivalent and if it's available. Just feels better. I wouldn't play resi 2 in Japanese and I can't play Yakuza in English, it's weird to me. These people look Japanese, they are in Japan for the most part with Japanese names. The English dubs of stuff like this are generally terrible, Goro is so unique in his tone and delivery, falls apart outside the native language and so many English dubs say the names incorrectly to.

@Stale-Bread Dubs are generally bad news I’m missing the ambience of actual voice track for starters. Maybe you’ve a photographic memory? Maybe I’m just short sighted and refuse to get glasses 😆 daft. Will end up with crows feet

Grateful I am not a language snob.

I had a friend start yakuza 6 with English dub. I righted that wrong and was thanked for it.

Yeah I play in english kasugas English voice acting is way to good not to.

Remember when Metallica had a resurgence after master of puppets was in stranger things which lead to teenagers wearing Metallica t shirts which caused a massive problem with gatekeeping aholes hating people who just started listening to them to put it as polite as I can be that's what some of these comments come off as.

I'm not some purist that scoffs at others who play games or watch movies redubbed in their language if you do you just sound like your gate keeping the franchise instead of encouraging it's growth.

Play it however you like but it support it and in turn the franchise will grow talk down to those playing it like you don't like you're just hurting the thing you like long term

@PuppetMaster You sound like an anime femalish nerd.

@N0CYmr0k Word salad from a redneck

@PuppetMaster so. You didnt deny.

No idea what "redneck" is. I'm European.

How close are you to your waifu?

Been playing in Japanese since Yakuza 0. It would be extremely jarring hearing Majima speak in english at this point.

As I've gotten older and realised how many people deal with reading difficulties (dyslexia, etc), I've softened a bit on the concept of dubs. That said, I have low cringe tolerance and English dubs still give me a similar feeling to when amateur scat videos wander into my line of sight. But stronger. It just feels like people who may well be good actors normally putting on silly voices.

Plus, I know just enough Japanese to understand a lot of the jokes. Understandably, they have to be rewritten completely to work in other languages, but I don't really feel like listening to the localisation team's open mic material. With Japanese audio, I can hear the original dialogue and just pick out any keywords I didn't understand from the subs.

I've also heard the argument (very recently, in person) that dubs are good for multitasking, but if I try to watch or play something while doing something else I get absolutely nothing out of either activity. Which is probably a me problem, but it feels like the entertainment is being treated as a chore on a checklist.

I'm waiting for Creole voice acting. And no I don't speak Creole, just want to be edgy too.