Yakuza 6: Ultimate Heat Mode, Leveling Up & Building Your Muscles [Famitsu Wednesday]

Welcome back to Famitsu Wednesdays! This week we get to take a look at Ultimate Heat Mode and the new leveling up systems that’s going to let you build up Kiryu’s bod. Again thanks to Chelsea our favorite translator for getting all of this to us! Make sure you show her some love on twitter for getting these out every week!

Enjoy overwhelming power in Ultimate Heat Mode

You may enter Ultimate Heat Mode by using up the “heat” you have accumulated during battle. In this condition the protagonist, Kazuma Kiryu, will undergo a huge increase in power in the blink of an eye. By entering this exhilarating boost mode, you can fire off a series of super powerful moves!

Releasing your store of heat, you are surrounded in blue flames. This is the sign that you have entered Ultimate Heat Mode.

When he’s in Ultimate Heat Mode, Kiryu can even heft and swing around a big bike.

You can even battle inside shops!

Unlike the Ryu ga Gotoku series of the past, battles will now continue even after entering a shop. Several of the actions you can perform seem to be limited to the interior of certain shops.

You can even have battles in convenience stores full of merchandise! If you fight in places containing lots of items, maybe there’s more for you to use in Ultimate Heat Mode!?

A heat action (finisher) restricted to the gyudon shop!? Halt an enemy’s attack using chopsticks!

A new level of freedom! The elements of Kiryu’s growth

Obtaining experience points through winning battles or story progression and spending them to learn abilities is the same as usual. However, the freedom with which you can do it has been hugely increased in this game. Aside from a portion which have unlock conditions, you can freely choose what to learn and when. Choose whatever abilities you like!

(His stats, clockwise from the top: stamina, attack power, heat gauge, evasion, defence)

Abilities that you can obtain within the game are generally classified into one of the four categories below. Each of the skills you can learn from each category is displayed in a list, and you can choose them to increase Kiryu’s abilities bit by bit. Aside from abilities that have unlock conditions or are obtained in stages, as long as you have the required experience you can learn any of them at any time. This means that you can create a Kiryu whose basic abilities don’t differ much from when you initially start the game, but has a lot of useful heat actions, and so on. It seems easy to balance his growth well, but you might enjoy RGG6 even more if you create a Kiryu who suits your own tastes.

Basic Abilities: A collection of Kiryu’s basic abilities, such as stamina and attack power. Increases in stages.

Heat Actions: A category containing each heat action. Also includes Ultimate Heat Mode.

Battle Skills: Everything related to battle skills, such as characteristics of moves and the increase of combo speed.

Other Skills: A category containing abilities that are also used in the adventure section, like upgrading your dash ability.

Review: About experience in the game

A large difference in RGG6 is the way that experience is divided into five categories as below. So, how does this division affect gameplay? Well, it means that the kind of experience required for each kind of ability is different, so if you simply conduct battles in the same way as always you won’t really be able to increase your abilities. Certain actions make it easier to earn each type of experience. An important part of the game will be to bear in mind the type of abilities you want to learn, and act accordingly.

Muscles
As you would imagine, this is used when obtaining abilities related to attacks. It will surely also be indispensable in increasing your stamina.

Agility
Experience that will most likely be consumed to upgrade combo speed and evasion.

Guts
Experience required to upgrade Kiryu’s stamina. It also looks like it will be used to increase a variety of resistances.

Technique
Experience consumed when learning new moves, etc. It seems to be used when generally obtaining abilities.

Charm
Experience used for things like obtaining flashy Heat actions.

Strengthening abilities depending on what you equip!?

In this game, you may equip two items. Some of these also seem to affect your stats. It might be important to think about the additional effects provided by your equipment when choosing which abilities to upgrade!

Holding the key to your growth!? The new role played by dining

Playing a new role in earning experience intentionally is dining at each shop. The experience you receive is different depending on the menu, so you might even have to go to a specific place in order to get the experience you want! The new concept of “fullness” has also been added for this game, meaning that you have to think about what you eat in advance.

Battling fullness in order to obtain experience!

Even if you eat, you won’t obtain experience if you’re full up. However, your health recovers regardless of your fullness, so you can still use this as an effective way to recover after battle.

A new element in this game is “fullness”. The gauge fills each time you eat, and once you reach fullness (100), you will no longer obtain experience. In order to start earning experience again you must lower the gauge by doing things such as walking around town, battling and playing at play spots. Not only this, but foods that give you more experience will fill the gauge more quickly, so you’ll have to choose wisely. Perhaps in a way, strengthening your abilities is now a battle with fullness!?

Making sure to dine efficiently!? Food combos

When dining, if you select certain specific combinations of food you will receive bonuses to the experience earned. These are known as food combos. Your fullness gauge still fills in the same way, but you earn experience more efficiently this way, so you should still go for it. By the way, each food combo has its own unique name.

This appears to be soba and katsudon? This combination may be the most basic of the basic, but results in the “Don-Men Harmony” food bonus!

A food combo involving not eating oysters at Oyster Shack. The combination, due to fear of getting poisoning from oysters, had unexpected results.

Several familiar tie-up shops appear, too!

Beginning with Sushi Zanmai and Ikinari! Steak, there are, of course, several tie-up shops as is standard in the Ryu ga Gotoku series. There must surely also be food combos available to eat at each of these shops, too. If it’s like the rest of the series, the food you find at the tie-up shops will probably have generally good effects a lot of the time… Look forward to the results of the food combos in the game

Sushi Zanmai: Perhaps most remarkable for its many menu items that give you Technique and Charm experience.

Ikinari! Steak: Eating meat will increase your Muscles and Charm experience. You can also get Technique from side dishes!

Grow Kiryu strikingly through the Rizap challenge!

The Rizap challenge, upon which we have previously reported, is a great chance to earn much more experience than you would from other elements. If you receive a high rating, you have the potential to upgrade a variety of abilities in one go. However, it has been revealed that you can’t undertake the Rizap challenge multiple times in a row. Think carefully about which training you want to perform and when you want to do it.

Things you should know about training

Below, we will explain the six types of training you can undergo as part of the Rizap challenge. The mini games differ for each, so it will be key to think about what kind of experience you want and which of the mini games you are best at.

Bench press
Lift the barbell by tapping L1 and R1. The faster you press the buttons, the more effective your training will be.
Experience types: Muscles, Guts

Squats
Press the button along with the descending bar. With each success, the timing will become more and more strict.
Experience types: Guts, Muscles

Dead lift
Tap the circle button to fill the power gauge. As you fill the gauge, Kiryu will lift the barbell.
Experience types: Muscles, Agility

Squat jumps
Training in which you press the buttons displayed on the screen with good timing. Make sure not to miss any buttons.
Experience types: Agility, Guts

Lat pulldown
Press the L1 and R1 buttons simultaneously with good timing to pull yourself up and down. A sense of rhythm might come in handy?
Experience types: Guts, Agility

Seated rowing
Hold down the R1 button to fill the gauge, then release it with good timing. The more times you do this, the narrower the success zone will become.

What you eat has a big impact on Rizap challenge results

The Rizap challenge is accompanied by eating dishes recommended to you by your trainer. If you eat the recommended menu, it will increase your Rizap challenge rating. If, however, you completely ignore his advice when eating your rating will drop, and there will be a notable decrease in the amount of experience gained from it. As in the images below, don’t get lazy until you’ve finished eating and reported back!

If you complete your training well and make sure to eat the indicated food, you’ll receive a huge amount of experience according to what you chose!

Not eating the menu recommended to you is regretful. This will make your rating shoot down, so be careful.