Fading Afternoon is a side scrolling beat em’ up/open world action roleplaying game/”existential Yakuza crisis” simulator developed By Yeo, a russian game developer whose previous titles include The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa and Arrest of a Stone Buddha. In an FAQ at By Yeo’s website, the developer describes how the game was originally set in the 1980s U.S. before moving it to China over concerns that he would portray so much stuff wrong that it would affect the quality of the game. Soon thereafter he would move it to China and set the conflict of the game with the Triads, wanting to pay further homage to the likes of Hong Kong action movies like Arrest of a Stone Buddha before ultimately settling on the Yakuza and expanding on the various mini games and activities. Aside from that there hasn’t really been anything crazy development story wise that I’ve been able to find other than the announcement trailer releasing in July 2021. How about my encounter with the game? How did I come across it? For most of review: https://backloggd.com/u/gamemast15r/review/4203648/ The gameplay for Fading Afternoon was once described as a combination of Yakuza, Shenmue and River City Ransom according to CerealSensei on Backlogg’d so shoutout to them. Would I agree with this? Yeah I can say that sounds pretty familiar in a sense, after all you have the literal Yakuza, events that lock you into certain pathways and potential endings in Shenmue and the pixelated side scrolling beat-em-up aspect of River City Ransom. The general idea of the gameplay is you can kind of bumble your way around the story and figure out what you want to do, but unless there’s a job market feature for Seiji that I didn’t discover you most likely will be joining back with the Azuma Family taking back the territory you need in order to get money, money that will be needed in order to pay for a hotel room or buy a new home. How do you get this money? Again the aforementioned territory takeover game, which involves you going around to several dots on the map that are color coordinated in order to either visit one of several businesses, explore for a bit or engage in a street brawl. For the sake of brevity, anything allied will either be black for Azuma or blue for Seiji (specifically the secondary office building), green is Tanaka, light red is Harada, dark red is Ando and white circles are neutral ground. If it’s a general location you’ll find a clear circle which will get filled when you visit it and discover whose territory this is, though keep in mind certain locations will only be discovered during specific story events and pathways. To take over territory you’ll need to enter an area and basically beat up/kill every enemy gangster there over a course of several week periods, with the star amount being equivalent to how many different times you’ll need to visit it (three stars means three visits and three different beatdown sessions) with the final means of full takeover being to visit one of two locations given to you to assassinate a “Shatei” (Yakuza lieutenant). This can be really random locations that you’ll either need to know the backgrounds by memory or you could rely on the likes of Kato (secondary office), a corrupt cop at the shrine (once you unlock the office) or I believe an informant who hangs out at the Pachinko Parlor. Once you take it over it’s recommended that you buy more guards for a territory as it will now be assaulted periodically by rival Yakuza who want their turf back. If you do lose a territory, you can beat them all up again and regain it back, though like all locations if you visit it during one week then you won’t be able to visit it until the next week and that includes hiring guards. That’s the general idea for the territory takeover, so my advice is whatever playthrough you decide to go down (as territory takeovers push the story forward) you’ll need a gun so you’ll need to head up to the Pawn Shop in the top right hand side of the map to buy one for 50,000 Yen. Other things to note exploration wise is that you’ll have four or so different places you can visit per week before it ends and moves onto the next week, that you’ll need to pay for a hotel room or get a home or else you’ll be homeless sleeping on a bench which will affect your permanent health pool and get you to lose respect. What’s respect? Well other than the obvious, the price to purchase guards will get lower the more respect you gain, though luckily you’ll be able to gain respect through buying certain suits (I think) and taking over territory. Other than taking over territories, there are things to do and businesses to go too though again some of it depends on branching narratives. Some places like the Massage Parlor and the Restaurant on Main Street will help you heal a bit (which you will need as your health will permanently drop by four points every day or higher due to constant damage or story events), while some places you can gamble like the Casino or talk to girls at the Hostess Club, where you can shill out cash in order to “romance” someone and bring them back to your place for s e x. Other places you’ll visit will basically be empty aside from some pedestrians perhaps unless there’s a random story that'll take place there in the future. The thing with the exploration is that while the map isn’t a super big map, there’s so much room for random events and hidden game mechanics that I struggle to even describe the overall scope, so what I can do is give you some tips. How about combat? As I said, your health will get lower and lower as time runs out due to cancer so you’ll not only have permanent health decreases, but you’ll have to fight dudes at the same time. Some of the enemies you’ll find include: blonde guys with bottles, martial arts dudes with grey ponytails, and others that’ll require you to switch up variation wise. For a full list of enemy types, click the link below: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3039396562 Now how do I feel about these two gameplay loops? Starting with the fights again, they’re not my favorite and considering the constant health loss I would say that I started to get really frustrated the further I went into the game. (Tl;dr, despite some frustrations and jank, I really loved the story branching RPG elements and admittedly some of the combat feels visceral and satisfying). Links: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1687000/discussions/0/7187237851774384639/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMFxlTa4hEY https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3037293074 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3040164690 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3041202937 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3051245531 http://fading-afternoon.by-yeo.ru/faq/ https://steamcommunity.com/app/1687000/discussions/0/7187237851774384639/ https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3039396562 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEaXQKy8APU (Shows a teaser where you can apparently kill your own boss…when you can’t in the base game) https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/FadingAfternoon http://by-yeo.ru/ http://fading-afternoon.by-yeo.ru/ https://www.youtube.com/@shin_yeo/videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CHzo7n5vhw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fading_Afternoon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sc4Glk-♥♥♥&list=PLeswP9Wor0NUX-2bHcg0fqVyNfgIN_H4E&index=1 (Soundtrack) https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6CjamOdxb8A7FoM5Y9TBfb https://downloads.khinsider.com/game-soundtracks/album/fading-afternoon-switch-windows-gamerip-2023 https://steamcommunity.com/app/1687000/discussions/0/3884973963033688516/ https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/FadingAfternoon https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CQlghqbgFxI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32wFOkmXKM0 (Prison Ending)
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