Man I finally got through every mainline game (played in release order) and im having a fun runthrough kiwami 1 now as a victory lap. Thinking about starting Kenzan or Dead Souls soon but I don't know for sure. What are peoples thoughts on those two? Is kenzan still interested despite needing a guide? Is the framerate of dead souls bearable?
I kinda wanna play the panther games on the psp but i havent seen any guides for them anywhere :( its a shame because its got that naganuma soundtrack and kitties like 6 did!
Kenzan is a blast to play even if your using a guide. Assuming the next new Yakuza game (Shin) is not released at the end of the year, I'm replaying it so I can finally fight Amon this time (missed the bastard last time). Really looking forward to revisiting it. Funnily enough I'm planning on doing another Dead Souls run as well, just because its been ages, I love Majima and Ryuuji in that game, and even though it has its issues, its still a fun Yakuza game. But yeah, it does have frame rate issues, mainly with big masses of enemies when you use a grenade/explosive. Its been a while since I played the game though so I forget just how bad it gets.
Guide wise for the PSP games:
http://kurohyo2.riroa.com/index.html
The above guide is one I used, and has links to the entire series of guides (so everything from RGG1 to Judge Eyes). They serve me well, so its worth noting the PSP games are actually incredibly good about marking everything you need on the map and mini map (its actually the first game in the series to do so, beating out RGG5). So if your mainly doing a story run with side stories (and looking for the cats) you don't need a guide, except if your stuck on a strange side story or two (most are really straight forward, one or two caught me out the first time).
And while its certainly no match for a proper story guide, this interview (I think there's one for PSP1 as well) give you a very general overview for the plot on PSP2:
http://fftranslations.atspace.co.uk/rgg/kurohyo2.html
Plus its just a really interesting insight into how Nagoshi and co designed the plot of the game (its hands down one of my favourites in the series).