Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name

The Castle's headline attraction: a brutal fighting show running four formats, from one-on-one tournaments up to team-versus-team brawls. You can put a Joryu Clan member in as leader and play them instead of Kiryu, so recruiting and arranging the roster is itself the strategy. Clearing every match at Silver, Gold and Platinum rank are the three trophies.

• Four formats: Tournament (one on one), Zigoku Rumble (one against many), Special Event Match (irregular special rules, entry earned by track record) and Zigoku Team Rumble (team versus team).
• Only Team Rumble has the Order gauge, bottom left. Filling it and pressing left on the d-pad issues an order that temporarily buffs your allies and makes them use heat skills more freely.
• Put high-defence members in the front row and support or healing roles behind. Members level up by fighting, and the Fighter Lounge restores the tired ones.
• Recruit members through substories and the Fighter Lounge. Stages split into an upper area (a tighter fighting space) and a lower one — check which before setting your team.
• Wins pay a base reward plus Time and Rank bonuses, so finishing fast and cleanly is worth real money.
• The Legendary Fighter Pack (pre-order bonus / paid DLC) adds Daigo Dojima, Goro Majima and Taiga Saejima as playable fighters, automatically joining the moment the Coliseum unlocks.

Gaiden's hostesses are live-action video, not 3D models — five women cast through the Yakuza Studio hostess audition, of whom kson and Ayu work at Club Heavenly. Talk, order and give gifts to raise affection to Romance Level 3 to finish a hostess.

• Entry is a flat ¥10,000 and orders cost more on top. Raising affection is expensive, so build up some money before committing to a hostess.
• You get two conversations per visit; which ones come up is fixed by the current Romance Level, and each visit ends with a gift.
• At roughly 80% of the gauge a rank-up conversation triggers; pick the right option and the level rises. Once raised, it never drops again even if you answer badly later.

The Castle's club, with Kaname, Kokoro Nakayama and Ai Sayama. The rules match Club Heavenly, and every hostess in the game can be completed as soon as Chapter 2 opens.

• The loop is identical to Heavenly: ¥10,000 entry plus orders, two conversations, a gift on the way out, and a rank-up conversation at about 80% of the gauge.
• Three of the five hostesses work here and both clubs open in Chapter 2, so all five can be finished inside that chapter.
• The developers noted the live-action club ate 77% of the game's movie data — no gameplay bearing, but it explains the scale of the mode.

Race mini four-wheel-drive cars around a track, in the same lineage as Yakuza 0's Pocket Circuit but with new tournaments, courses, bodies and parts. The shop is closed until Chapter 2.

• Machine stats are speed, balance, acceleration, downforce, grip, cornering, weight and cost. Faster is the default direction, but too fast flies off the bends and flips on the jump sections — and a stalled machine loses on the spot, so balance wins.
• Your build must fit inside the cost cap or you can't enter. Parts come from the shop for Pocket Circuit Points (PP) or as enemy drops.
• In-race you only have triangle to boost and mashing circle to psych the car on; mashing circle as it wobbles makes a recovery much more likely.

SEGA's 8-bit console sitting in the hideout — the 1986 North American Mark III — with region switching and two-player support. Playing five different titles earns the Retro Gamer trophy.

• The trophy counts playing, not clearing — booting five different titles and quitting straight away is enough.
• Four titles are built in — Ashura, Maze Walker, Doki Doki Penguin Land and Fantasy Zone — so you only need to find one more.
• Where the rest come from: Fantasy Zone II in coin locker F4, Galaxy Force sold at Ebisuya Sotenbori, Flicky as Sotenbori pickup No.24, Alex Kidd in Miracle World as Castle pickup No.7, Alien Syndrome in locker F1, Enduro Racer in locker I4, Double Target from the Castle casino exchange and SDI from the Castle gambling den.

Both arcades have the same line-up, and playing six different machines — the UFO catcher counts — gives the Arcade Dweller trophy.

• The machines are Sonic the Fighters (1996), Fighting Vipers 2 (1998), Virtua Fighter 2.1 (the 1995 rebalanced revision), Motor Raid (1997), SEGA RACING CLASSIC 2 and the UFO catcher.
• SEGA RACING CLASSIC 2 is the Daytona USA (PE) port, renamed because the Daytona licence couldn't be used.
• Sonic the Fighters plays close to Virtua Fighter 2.1, while Fighting Vipers 2 adds separate upper- and lower-body armour on top of the health bar.

Crane game. The controls are just two presses of cross, but the prize pool is spread across the two arcades, so completing it means visiting both.

• Hold cross to set the horizontal line, then hold it again to set the depth. After that the arm grabs and, if it holds, carries the prize to the chute.
• Most prizes are weighted at the centre, so line the claw up on the middle of the item and lift without tipping it.
• Talking to the attendant swaps the prize out — and resets the layout, so if a bad grab has shoved a prize somewhere unreachable, reset it that way.
• Circle quits even with plays left, though not while the arm is in motion.

A driving range running the Near Pin and Bingo challenges. Gaiden unifies every prize under golf points (gp), which you earn by meeting the conditions and spend at the counter.

• Cross starts the shot, cross again on the power gauge, and cross a third time inside the impact window. Missing that last press counts as a whiff.
• Stopping in the red Just Impact zone at the centre sends the ball straight; the yellow zones either side hook it left or slice it right. Even after locking the power you can cancel the shot with cross.
• Near Pin scores the total of ten shots. Only the beginner course is open at first; breaking 100 unlocks the next tier, and from intermediate up obstacles start blocking the line.

Four standard modes — nine-ball, rotation, eight-ball and four-ball carom — plus the separate One-Shot Challenge, which is what the trophy asks for on normal difficulty.

• For a straight shot you can literally hold something straight against the screen to check the line; angled shots miss on tiny errors, so it's worth knowing the trick shots.
• A cannon deflects the cue ball off one object ball into another; a kiss sends the struck ball into a third; a combination has ball one drive ball two in without the cue ball touching it; and a bank rebounds the object ball off a cushion — which kills its speed, so hit it harder.
• Nine-ball uses balls 1–9 and ends when the 9 drops. You must contact the lowest ball on the table first, though anything that falls after counts. Missing that contact is a foul and hands ball-in-hand to the opponent.

Gaiden also uses the DARTSLIVE3 cabinet, so Center Count-Up joins 01, Cricket and Count-Up, and special darts are available.

• Singles score face value, doubles double, triples triple, and both bulls count 50. A power gauge slides up and down as you throw — press in the best zone — and the dart you're using still adds wobble.
• Higher-spec darts wobble less. You start with the C-rank Beginner Darts; Normal Darts (B) cost ¥3,000 at Ebisuya Sotenbori, Rose (B) is 100 chips at the Castle casino exchange, and Pencil (A) sits on the bookshop roof on Bunzaemon Street — grab it with the Spider gadget.
• The five-hat-trick completion entry — all three darts in the bull in one round — is doable in single player.

The standard rhythm game. The song list is Baka Mitai, hands, TONIGHT, Sayonara Silent Night, Shin Ichizu Samurai and Like A Butterfly.

• Inputs grade GREAT, GOOD or MISS; GREAT and GOOD both extend the combo and any miss resets it.
• Twenty combo puts you in Super Passion Mode and the score jumps — keeping the combo is effectively the whole technique.
• Gaiden restricts the passionate call-and-response option to a few songs — of the six, only Like A Butterfly has it.
• Advancing Akame's drama lets you invite him to karaoke for a duet — that's the Rising Superstar trophy.

Standard four-player mahjong. The two parlours offer different table tiers and each hosts its own cup — the Shochu Cup and the Soten Cup.

• Placement bonuses are +10,000 / +5,000 / −5,000 / −10,000 on the weak and medium tables, and double that on the strong table.
• Before starting you can switch between hanchan and tonpuusen and toggle kuitan and the two-han minimum.
• Square declares riichi, L1 reviews discards, triangle opens the rules.

Ranking matches, Trial Run and tsume-shogi problems, all paying Shogi Points for prizes, with a separate set of shop missions attached to them.

• Take the enemy king to win, captured pieces come back into your hand, and resigning loses. Promoted pieces move differently.
• Square takes back a move, L1 takes back further, and triangle uses items — don't hoard the takebacks when a position goes bad.

One-on-one hanafuda. Completing a yaku lets you call koi-koi to push for a bigger one, so knowing when to stop is the game. Only the Castle den runs the higher classes.

• The earlier month deals first and thereafter the winner deals; payment is the score difference times the stake.
• Match a month between your hand and the field to take the pair — the field card gets a coloured border when you can — otherwise you place a card. Then you draw one from the stock and take that pair if it matches.
• You need at least 200 points in wooden tokens to sit down. Pick a class in the settings first; stakes are 10/30 (beginner), 40/60 (intermediate), 70/90 (advanced) and 100/200 (top).

Played with the 40 cards from months one to ten; get the last digit of your two or three cards as close to 9 as you can. It's largely luck, so short sessions are the sane way to play it.

• January counts as 1, May as 5, October as 0. Totals nearer zero are weak and nearer nine are strong.
• Only dealer versus player matters — players never compete with each other — and a tie goes to the dealer.
• Player stakes are 100 points on beginner, 500 on intermediate and 1,000 on advanced.

Blackjack and Texas Hold'em at the Castle. Chips trade at the exchange — the Double Target Master System cartridge and the Rose darts both come from here.

• Blackjack: number cards face value, J/Q/K count ten, and an ace is 1 or 11 while the total stays at or under 11. Over 21 busts, and the payout multiplier depends on how you won.
• Hit, Stand, Split (only on a matching opening pair) and Double Down; L2 is the minimum bet and R2 the maximum.
• Poker is Texas Hold'em: two hole cards with the board opening three, four then five, betting or folding each round, winner takes the pot.
• Ties break on the hand's own cards, then the best unrelated card, and split the pot if everything matches.