Yakuza 6 Guide: Tips & Tricks for Beginners

Put on Some Equipment

Tips & Tricks For Yakuza 6

One thing that Yakuza 6 doesn’t explicitly tell you is the function that equipment plays, as well as how to even put equipment on Kiryu. While you’re exploring Kamurocho and Onomichi you’ll get various pieces of equipment as rewards from substories and the like, or you can purchase equipment from Ebisu Pawn. Now that you actually have equipment, head to the main menu and select Stats. Yep, equipment isn’t on the item menu like you’d expect but in the Stats menu.

Tab over all the way to equipment and select what you want to put on. You can equip two different items at one time. It’s absolutely suggested that you put equipment on as it can help boost your defense, attack, heat gauge, and more special effects depending on what you have and want.

Unlock Experience Boosting Skills First

Tips & Tricks For Yakuza 6

Yakuza 6 has a ton of skills and stats to spend experience points on, and you’ll want to be raking in as much XP as possible. To that end, we recommend that you start by unlocking a few of the experience boosting abilities first. These can be found under the “Other” tab of your Stats menu, and there are four different tiers for each type of experience.

You should try and unlock a few of these early on in the game, as it’ll only help boost the experience you get for the rest of your playthrough. You can also get skills that boost the amount of experience you gain from eating. Make sure to invest in these early to get the most use possible out of them, as they won’t serve a ton of purpose late in the game.

Make Sure to Eat Regularly

Tips & Tricks For Yakuza 6

On the topic of eating, you should try and stop in at an eater every now and again during Yakuza 6. You have a hunger gauge that dictates how full Kiryu is, and eating food can give you valuable experience of each experience types. You can even discover combinations of food that boost the XP you get even more. On top of that eating can restore huge portions of Kiryu’s health, letting you keep your valuable recovery items for more critical moments.

Kiryu’s hunger gauge lowers by simply running around the city and fighting, so it’s easy to pop into an eatery after a few battles and down another buffet of goodness. At the same time, drinking alcohol at restaurants can have other unique effects. Having Kiryu drunk boosts the rate that his Heat Orbs fill up, however, it also makes mobs more likely to attack you. Food and drink is something that you should always try and take advantage of.

Use Extreme Heat Mode

Tips & Tricks For Yakuza 6

One of the big changes made to combat in Yakuza 6 comes with Extreme Heat Mode. Once Kiryu has at least one Heat Orb full you can hit R2 to enter the mode, significantly boosting Kiryu’s damage and attack speed. More importantly, however, this mode lets you use different moves in general. If you head over to the Heat tab on your Stats menu you can see the prerequisites on how to use all of you Heat Actions.

These actions are generally very strong, causing a ton of damage or interrupting an enemy’s attack. While you can certainly save your Heat Orbs to use general heat actions, it can often be a better idea to pop into the mode, especially if you’re surrounded by a ton of enemies. Even the basic punches Kiryu throws in while using this special power can hit multiple enemies at once, making the mode a valuable tool for crowd control.

Break Off From the Main Story

Tips & Tricks For Yakuza 6

If there’s one suggestion that’s the most important for playing Yakuza 6, it’s to break off from the main story. While the story has some phenomenal characters and moments, like most Yakuza games, there’s so much to see and do outside of it. Substories in Yakuza 6 contain some of the best storytelling moments in the entire game, if not the entire series, and can be heartfelt or hilarious. These range from Kiryu dressing up like the mascot Onomichio-kun, or having a battle of wits with a sentient phone app named Hiji. There’s also a ton of minigames to engage in, from spear fishing to playing darts. Many of the substories can be discovered by venturing into different restaurants or playing certain minigames. On top of this there’s Trouble missions to undertake, collectibles and cats to find, and ghosts will even pop up in your pictures if you take them at the right spots.

The best way to get a feel for Yakuza 6’s world is by exploring and experiencing everything. Of course that’s not the only benefit, as the game rewards you with XP for almost every single thing you do. Playing minigames or completing substories will reward you, just like befriending cats. Splitting off from the main story and just doing your own thing is a great way to wrack up experience to spend on skills and stats, and it’s also some of the best content you can find in the entire game.