Basic Combat and Upgrading

Learn the essential combat mechanics in Yakuza 5, including understanding the Health, Experience, and Heat Gauges, different encounter types, and mastering basic movesets and special actions.

While each of the characters have their own sense of style and moves, there are certain things to explain that are universal to everyone.

Combat Display -

This section covers the meters and things you should be monitoring as you battle:

First is the Health Bar. At the top of your screen is a big orange bar. That's your health, and when it's depleted, it's game over. Your health will flash red as it gets really low. You can restore health using food and energy drinks, and you increase maximum health by gaining Levels and certain abilities.

Just above the Health Bar is the Experience Bar. This is a gray line that fills white as you gain experience, and when it reaches the end, you increase in Level.

Below the Health Bar is the Heat Gauge. As you hit other people, it will increase, and as it passes the marker, it will change to glowing and you'll be able to spend your Heat to use Heat Actions. It will decrease as you take damage, are grabbed by enemies, or are knocked down. You can increase your max Heat by gaining Levels and certain abilities, and you can gain new ways of increasing Heat through abilities as well.

To the left of the Health Bar is the Climax Heat Gauge. This is a circle surrounding the kanji for "ryu" or "dragon" that fills red as you perform regular Heat Actions. Once you perform ten, the Climax gauge is full and you can use a Climax Heat Action, a devastating move that causes massive damage to one enemy or a lot of damage to multiple enemies.

Other things to look out for are your minimap in the lower-left. It will point out enemies in the area relative to you as pink dots. In the lower right are enemy health bars. It's tough to tell who's bar is whose, but when they empty, the enemy is knocked out. Bars that are differently colored mean the enemy has higher health. The lowest colored bar is orange, then yellow, green, light blue, purple, and if anyone's a color other than that, you're dealing with a serious foe.

Encounters -

There are essentially two types of encounters in this game: Scripted and Random. Scripted encounters occur as a result of something you've done as part of a story, whether it's the main story, the side story, a substory, or as part of training or at the Coliseum.

Random encounters are those that are placed around the city. These encounters are further subdivided into three types:

• Aggressors - These are the most common. They're guys that see you on the street, and run towards you to initiate combat. You can hear them as they gruffly call out to you and above their heads will be a pink-colored word balloon you can use to identify them. If you walk, they will typically not approach you unless you're too close. Also if you run around behind them, they will usually not see you until you're at a point where you can get away from them.
• Stationary Groups - These are either two guys arguing on a street corner or four guys squatting in a group on the street. Apart from how they look, there are no visual cues as to them being a fight. If you approach them, they'll initiate combat. They're unique among encounters in that no other enemies will join them.
• Bumpers - These guys are just walking down the street without a care in the world and will only initiate combat if you collide with them. They're tough to spot, but they're never women, children, old people, or people carrying something like a backpack or bag. They always look like an enemy type: grumpy young-to-middle-aged men.

Once the encounter begins, bystanders will rush up to your fight and surround you, effectively making a fighting arena, and you're locked in. The only way it ends is with the enemy's defeat, or your defeat. You'll get a cool splash screen describing your foes, and then you'll be thrown into the melee. Defeat them and you'll receive a reward for your troubles: either yen or an item. If defeated yourself, you'll have the option to retry or load from a previous save.

The Basic Moveset -

Combat Controls (typical)
PlayStation	Xbox	Control
		Move your character
		Move the camera
		Light Attack Rush Combo
		Heavy Attack Finishing Blow Heat Action
		Evade
		Grab Throw enemy/weapon
		Guard
		Fighting Stance
		Taunt
		Center Camera Hold to negate Heat Actions
		Pause the game
		Pull out weapon assigned to that button
		Smoke break

All four fighters have the same basic moveset. It's usually once you factor in their special techniques that they differ:

• Rush Combo - Press Light Attack up to four times. These are fast and weak attacks. Very useful as openers to combos or quick jabs against enemies that are tougher.
• Heavy Attack - Press the Heavy Attack button. This is a single blow that's useful for causing slightly more damage than a Rush Combo. You can also use this against enemies that are prone on the ground to strike them.
• Finishing Blow - Press Heavy Attack after a Rush Combo. This will change depending on when in the Rush Combo you use it. For example, Light-Heavy is different from Light-Light-Light-Heavy. This typically causes really good damage and usually results in a knockdown.
• Heat Action - As you fight, your blue Heat Gauge will fill up. When it passes the first marker, you can press Heavy Attack to perform a Heat Action as long as there's a blue flame icon in the upper-right corner of the screen. Information on how to perform all the Heat Moves are in their section. NOTE: If you want to preserve your Heat, hold down L2/LT and you can press Heavy Attack without using a Heat Action.
• Climax Heat Action - Once your Climax Heat Gauge fills, you can perform this using Heavy Attack and a certain other button combination or sequence. The most common is entering fighting stance and pressing Heavy Attack. You'll know it's available because the blue flame icon will instead be red.
• Grab - Press the Grab button to