Yakuza 5 Remastered

Kiryu's side story, split between fare missions and races, with car customisation to raise performance.

• Fare missions grade you against what the passenger asks for — speed, quiet, a smooth ride — and penalise hard acceleration, braking and contact, so smoothness beats speed.
• Races are the opposite — pure pace — and without engine and tyre upgrades the later rivals are simply faster than you.
• Drifting out of corners banks boost, and saving it for the entry to a straight is what actually cuts lap time.

Saejima's side story: hunt on the mountain while managing body temperature and hunger.

• Falling body temperature makes the aim wander and eventually drops you — learn where the fires and hot springs are and route between them.
• Big game like bears and wolves counters a frontal shot — put a tree or rock between you and take the vital from the side.
• You can eat what you kill on the spot to refill hunger, which beats collapsing while hauling everything back.

A rhythm duel that shares its input system with Haruka's idol content.

• The judge point is the note overlapping the cursor, not reaching the lane — timing to the lane reads as early.
• Pushing the opponent's gauge back needs an unbroken combo, so hitting only the notes you are sure of beats going for everything and dropping it.
• Fever sections pay far more, so nailing those alone can cover mistakes made earlier.

Haruka's entire part is this: lessons, job requests and dance battles, climbing the Princess League.

• Lessons raise stats and job requests raise popularity — pushing only one leaves you short of what the next league opponent demands, so alternate.
• Each job lists the stats it needs; taking one you cannot meet fails it and costs popularity, so only accept what you can clear.
• Dance battles reward knowing the song more than raw execution — you meet the same tracks repeatedly, so memorising the hard sections pays off late in the league.

Shinada's side story runs the batting center as a mission list — up to twenty of them, and you do not need all to pass.

• Missions mix home runs, dodging beanballs, hitting fouls, hitting high-speed pitches and batting drunk, plus named pitches: Panty Flash #12 (a sinking fastball that vanishes halfway), Super Bender #6 (a big curve outside) and Tomafork #9 (high, then dropping over the plate).
• The awkward one is "hit a foul" — it gets harder as you get better. Swing only while the pitch circle is still pink; once it turns brown or yellow you will connect properly and fail the mission.
• The Sawada Course only opens after Part 4 ends — go back to Kineicho once you control Shinada again in the Finale. It is 800 points from twenty pitches, scored, so it wants home runs.

Completion is beating your opponent on all three difficulties, first to nine points. It replaces the table tennis of earlier games.

• Heat builds as you strike the puck, and far faster while you hold the Stare button — but that takes your eyes off the game, so only do it when you have room.
• The Slow button gives you time to line a shot up but spends Heat, so save it if you are building toward a smash.
• With the gauge full, hit Smash as the puck comes to you — it usually scores, but if the opponent counters you get very little time to hit the return prompt.

Raise a chicken up the classes; winning the Champion Class clears it, and that means breeding through generations.

• The jump from Challenger Class to Contender Class is the steep one — you generally need a third-generation bird to clear it.
• Beating the Newcomer Cup brings out two men offering chickens. The one near Ukai gives his away free, but it is barely better than your starter.
• The good bird belongs to the masked man outside Kamiyama Works. He asks ¥100,000, but say no twice and he drops to ¥10,000 — great Leg Power, poor Stamina, so train that.
• Conditions, personalities, titles and skills all exist, but a strong enough bird wins the Champion races with patience — five generations is a realistic figure.

Answer the straight-man line to each set-up with the right button. Three auditions, and the Laugh-o-matic wants 80 or better.

• Each line has a fixed answer, grouped by the kind of reaction — "enough already" lines take circle, agreement takes triangle, bafflement takes square — so read the set-up and match the tone.
• Once the rhythm clicks in the first audition, the second and third are much easier — the patter follows the same shape.
• Clearing all three auditions pays ¥50,000.

Hit targets for points across four courses, each with its own target layout, wind and ball count.

• Beginner: six targets, the 100 top-centre, no wind, ten balls — full power, dead straight, ten times.
• Intermediate puts the 100 bottom-centre with a slight wind: about 60% power and a 0.5-degree adjustment either way.
• From Advanced the targets flip when struck and only flip back if you clear the wall — hit the 10s first to gauge where the ball lands before going for the back wall.
• The Pro course is fifteen 100-point targets in heavy wind with fifteen balls — using the ground holes to hit one repeatable spot is more practical than working the wall.

Completion is passing all three songs on both difficulties. Each play lets you choose two of the three.

• Red markers are the drum head, blue markers the rim, with separate buttons for the left and right side of each.
• Long markers mean keep drumming until they end, and large markers mean hit both sides at once — missing these is what stalls the progress bar.
• You pass by pushing the progress bar past the marked point rather than by score, so a steady first half matters more than a clean finish.

Completion is a photo of each of the five characters in all four poses. Backgrounds do not matter.

• You strike a pose with one of the four buttons during the countdown. Each pose has its own sweet spot, and hitting it fills the photo with sparkles.
• A visit is three photos, so a good run banks three poses at once — and you do not have to save the picture for it to count.
• You need all five characters, so visit during each one's part — and Tsukimino has no Club SEGA, so use North Lanes there.

A base-defence shooter where you place cannons to receive the incoming robot flocks.

• Cannons and beams expire if they go too long without hitting anything, but lose no energy while they are hitting — so place them where they always have a target.
• Crossing two beams deflects them into a new direction at double strength, but it narrows your coverage — a fan spread defends better than pointing everything inward.
• Standing in front of your own cannon builds energy behind you, which releases as a stronger shot the moment you move aside.
• Prioritise any line of robots heading for the centre of the base — losing a few hexagons on the flanks is survivable, the centre is not.

Separate from Shinada's course in Kineicho, Kamurocho keeps a standard batting cage.

• Line the cursor up, then swing as the shrinking cursor matches the ball's size.
• Pitch scripts are fixed per course, and not rushing the slow curves is what protects the score.

Particular hands plus a points total — as ever, the longest haul if you do not know the rules.

• Cheap fast hands fill the rows faster than big ones — stick to riichi and tanyao.
• The points row goes much faster at a high-rate table and advances alongside the win-count rows.
• Without a yaku you cannot go out at all — riichi, pinfu and tanyao cover most of what is asked.

Completion is winning without a take-back.

• Pick the weakest opponent and never take a move back — one use disqualifies the game.
• If shogi is new, the set-position problems teach it faster than ranked games.

Koi-koi, oicho-kabu, cho-han and cee-lo. Each row counts cumulative winnings, so losses do not undo progress.

• Where a game has a cheat item, get it first — it turns the row into a chore rather than a gamble.
• In koi-koi the whole game is when to call — banking a small hand beats gambling it away when totals are what count.
• Steady mid-size bets finish faster than swinging for it and losing the bankroll.

All four count cumulative winnings, and blackjack — whose cap rises on a streak — is the efficient place to start.

• Blackjack raises your cap as you win and resets it on a loss, so climb the cap before spending a cheat item.
• Roulette and baccarat turn over fast but swing hard — build a bankroll at blackjack first if you are short.
• Chips convert to prizes at the counter, and since the rows count winnings rather than balance, spending them does not undo progress.

Alongside the standard games, particular shot types are what the list wants.

• A carom is cue to object ball then on to another ball which drops; a combination is the object ball doing the hitting.
• Play Alone, nudge the balls into shape, then scratch on purpose to place the cue ball where you want it.

Three modes — 01, Cricket and Count-Up — with the list asking for feats such as hat-tricks.

• A hat-trick is three bulls in a round, and a solo 01 game gives the most rounds to keep trying.
• Singles score the sector, doubles double, triples treble, bull is 50 — in 01 the bull is steadier than treble 20.

A button-timing rhythm game, with a different song list for each of the five protagonists.

• Judge on the note overlapping the cursor, not reaching the lane. Hold means hold to the end; Rapid means mash.
• The list changes with the character, so clear each one's songs during their own part rather than backtracking later.

Virtua Fighter 2 is the arcade board as-is; UFO Catcher counts distinct prizes.

• Virtua Fighter 2 keeps its arcade difficulty — one reliable combo on one character beats trying to play it properly.
• UFO Catcher counts distinct prizes only, so duplicates do nothing — ask the attendant to restock what you still need.

River and sea fishing are separate, each with its own species list to fill.

• Reel with the stick pulled the way the fish is swimming, and keep the tension meter off both ends or you lose it.
• Species depend on cast distance and time of day — cast to the range you need, and change the time if nothing bites.
• The big catches effectively need better bait, so buying it beats grinding with the basic stuff.

A normal game and a Split Game, with reliable strikes as the basis.

• Strikes come from the pocket beside the head pin, hit hard with a slight spin from a small left-stick nudge.
• Split Game wants a given combination down in one throw — clear the easy ones first to save balls.