Guide/ Tips for the minigames in Yakuza 3, focusing on achievements and the completion list

Intro:

Many of the minigames in this title are extremely clunky and have very odd behavior, often it is not clear on how to succeed. I thought I would try and compile some tips from my own experience, as well as information and tips I found digging around online (reddit, gamefaq, youtube, steam discussions, achievementhunter etc.)

Especially considering the fact this game originally came out in 2009 on just the PS3 and was then remastered nearly 10 years later, a lot of the games discourse is split amongst many different discussion platforms and so I thought it would be useful to try and group what I found most useful into one place (this guide)

Massage

TLDR: Don’t look at tiddy, simple as that

Spam the input to either rise or drop the marker on the dial (default on Xbox controller is B to rise A to drop), I would suggest trying to keep your marker in between the 2 orange bars (2nd from top and 3rd from top) this gives you a good amount of points but also gives you time to react when the movement flips to the other side (you don’t want to be too close to the top or on direction flip you will probably fail the game.) *SEE IMAGE BELOW*

If you are really struggling with this try the slow down method listed at the bottom of this guide.

Dial:

Batting

I found using a mouse easier than a controller for this (same in all Yakuza titles)

For the difficulties without a crosshair I suggest putting one on your screen yourself where the marker is on the other difficulties. I used a tiny piece of a post-it note and it worked well, you could also use blue-tac or a sticker etc. If you are really worried about leaving a mark on your tv/monitor you could always hang a necklace or an earbud over your screen to where the crosshair would be.

Fastballs come in a straight line from the ‘pitcher’, sinkers curve around to Kiryu’s right and curveballs curve around to Kiryu’s left.

For EX Hard, the throws are as follows:

1. Fastball (fast) 2. Curveball (slow) 3. Sinker (fast) 4. Fastball (slow) 5. Sinker (fast) 6. Curveball (slow) 7. Sinker (fast) 8. Sinker (slow) 9. Curveball (medium) 10. Fastball (fast) 11. Sinker (medium) 12. Curveball (medium) 13. Curveball (medium) 14. Fastball (medium) 15. Fastball (fast) 16. Sinker (slow) 17. Curveball (fast) 18. Sinker (fast) 19. Fastball (slow) 20. Fastball (fast)

Since curveballs can go behind Kiryu if you are aiming for a target on the right (3,6 and 9), making them significantly harder to hit, I found it useful to know which kind of throw was coming next.

UFO Catcher

The UFO catcher minigame is full of absolute rubbish that defies physics, sometimes for your benefit but mostly not. Standard logic of try grab sticking out limbs on animal prizes, try grab the handles for the bagged food prizes, for the giant animals I found grabbing their heads to be extremely inconsistent but occasionally the claw would clip through the head which helped a ton. I would suggest trying to and grab the head with the animal on its side, this is really annoying but it just takes time and trial and error.

Some prizes only appear in certain arcades ( I only got the food prizes in the Nakamichi Street Arcade) if the machine doesn’t have what you want talk to the attendant and ask them to reset the machine.

Prize List:

• Piyo-chan (A small yellow bird)
• Silkie Piyo-chan (A small black bird)
• Sky Piyo-chan (A small green bird)
• Peach Piyo-chan (A small pink bird)
• Kitty Kat Tiger (A small orange cat)
• Kitty Kat Shorthair (A small cream cat)
• Kitty Kat Blue (A small blue grey cat)
• Kitty Kat Calico (A small brown cat)
• Beary Bear Brown (A small brown bear)
• Beary Bear Gray (A small grey bear)
• Beary Bear Blue (A small blue bear)
• Beary Bear Pink (A small pink bear)
• Yummy Bar Corn (A packet with green snacks inside)
• Yummy Bar Cheese (A packet with orange snacks inside)
• Yummy Bar Natto (A packet with pink snacks inside)
• Chura-chan (A pink-haired anime girl)
• Big Piyo-chan (A large yellow bird)
• Fat Cat Tiger (A large orange cat)
• Fat Cat Shorthair (A large cream cat)
• Fat Cat Blue (A large blue-grey cat)
• Fat Cat Calico (A large brown cat)
• Biggy Bear Brown (A large brown bear)
• Biggy Bear Gray (A large grey bear)
• Biggy Bear Blue (A large blue bear)
• Biggy Bear Pink (A large pink bear)

It is worth noting the Silky Piyo-chan (small black bird) only appears underneath the Big Piyo-chan (A large yellow bird) in the layout of the machine which is full of birds.

Fishing

I found a good chunk of this through Reddit and thought it was helpful

– The bait doesn’t matter; you can do it with worms.

– As it should be obvious, always follow the fish’s pattern.

– You must reel with R1 just until the meter turns red, don’t keep pulling until it makes noise.

– To loosen tension, just follow the pattern without pressing any button. Start pushing R1 again when it’s green.

– The only moment you must use L1 is to let the fish go a bit when the tension starts making noise.

A tuna will still take a few minutes to catch no matter how you go about it, just familiarise yourself with the mechanics and try and be patient.

Some fish are time based e.g. only at day or night:

Maguro(tuna) – Any Time – (100m-150m)

Irabucha – Any Time – (50m-120m)

Mibai – Day – (50m-100m)

Gurukun – Any Time – (30m-100m)

Abasa – Sunset – (0m-50m)

Green Turban – Night – (0m-30m)

Coral Branch – Sunset – (0m-50m)

Umbrella – Day

(this data is taken from CyricZ on game faq, shout out! his work on the whole series has been an absolute lifesaver for completionists)

If you are still struggling try the slow down method listed at the bottom of this guide

Roulette

You can instantly get Roulette ticked off your list by using the Zero Jewel item (there is only 1 of these in the game; from Rikiya if you showed him the sights during chapter 6).

Use the Zero Jewel, bet the maximum 1K wager and bet on double 0 (00) If it then lands on double 0 (50% chance with the Jewel played) you get a 36 to 1 payout so instantly meet the requirement in the completion list. If it lands on single 0 just reload your save and try again.

Shouldnt take long, 50% chance!

Bowling

I struggled with consistency in bowling so I did lots of digging for advice, this seems to be the most popular consensus I could find but it isn’t flawless, there is still some RNG BS, you can do the exact same thing every time and still get different results but this listed method was the closest I got to consistent strikes every time:

Step left or right twice from the centre, aim for the middle pin, if you are missing the middle pin on your angle add a little spin in the needed direction to try hit the middle pin, for speed just send it! try get 100 if you can, I saw some post say aim for 50 but I personally seemed to have more success with as my power as possible.

Poker

For the 10k in one session completion list you can do as many games as you want but it must be one session (so do not back out of the minigame). Losses do not take away, so you could win 4k, lose 2k, win 4k and you will be at 8k, just make a note somewhere until you have 10k.

If you don’t know how to play I would suggest familiarising yourself it’s pretty simple, if you really don’t want to then just aim for pairs and go balls (out Kido) to the wall “ALL IN BAYYYYBEEEE”.

Smashing your head into the wall like this a few times should eventually lead to victory.

The cheat item Royal joker card (in Kamurocho Locker 07 and Ryukyu Locker 12) gives you the best possible card(s) on the next card turn, doesn’t guarantee a win but significantly helps!

Shooting (Boxcelios)

– In boxcelios (shooting) manually firing (mashing the button) is faster than the games auto fire (holding the button).

– You can move horizontally as well as vertically (this isn’t made all that clear in the very limited game control list). Changing position horizontally can make it a hell of a lot easier to hit the required level (50) as for many levels you can essentially be positioned right on top of the target as it spawns in. You can often see the core/engine of the target (as a glowing light) so try and keep an eye out.

Mahjong

I read that Mahjong seems easier in Kamurocho than Okinawa whilst participating in the ranked battles, since you start at the bottom and need to rise up, you start on an easier difficulty than average. Since all you need is 50k in one session win there is no need to climb the ranking ladder. I also found that the easier difficulty of low end ranked made getting the exposed dragon achievement really easy, I got it within a match or two.

I would recommend throwing away dragons (green, red white) and the Wind cards (west , east , north ,south) they only pair with themselves so are rarer/harder to play.

Potentially avoid 9s and 1s as they only pair with themselves and then one other tile for a run e.g. 9s only go for 8s and 1s to 2s etc

For the completion list you need 50k BEFORE the tally up at the end of the game.

Karaoke

I have found karaoke easier with the arrow keys of my keyboard rather than a default controller in every Yakuza game so I would advise trying that out here too.

Personal preference but it helped me.

You need at least 900 on each song, there aren’t really any tricks here, no cheat items.

Take your time, practice, stay calm, that’s all there is to it really. It will probably take you a few goes of each song to remember the rapid change ups and get the patterns down so just stay calm and keep at it.

” Oy! Oy! Oy! Oy! ”

Shogi

If you dont want to learn how to play just beat the first challenge 5 times over. It plays out the exact same way every time.

There are several videos of how to easily do this step by step in 40 seconds or so, just do that on repeat:

Koi Koi

For Koi Koi, since your winnings are your lead (victory) multiplied by your wager e.g. wager of 60, won by 5 points = 300 tag reward, always bet as high as you can and always play the highest difficulty you have unlocked as the wager is higher. You can change this in the game rules, I also mostly played short 3 round games and just aimed to win that way rather than having a nice lead and then getting destroyed by some RNG BS where your opponent suddenly pulls out a 20-point win in 1 round so you just wasted 15 mins.

I also suggest aiming for the viewing card combinations they’re quick easy wins and a good chunk of points. (see below)

Darts

I found there to be 2 consistent strategies to get yourself on target:

1) if you aim directly where you want to hit and pull the right stick back slowly about halfway then let go you should land exactly where you aimed.

2) IF you did 1) too slowly your dart will drop down significantly vertically but horizontally will be the same, SO if you keep consistently finding yourself doing 1) too slowly, getting the drop, aim for triple 20 instead of the bullseye and the drop should make you hit the bullseye instead.

This is ideal for the Hattrick achievement (triple bullseye) but is transferable knowledge to the completion list wins, with these techniques you should be able to throw straight so then just beat the required matches for the completion list.

Cho-han

Odd or Even, the cheat items help things land your way.

The cheat items for Cho-han are the “1-1-1 Card” (Kamurocho Lockers 04 and 10), the “Even Goro’s Beads” (Kamurocho Locker 17) and the “Lopsided Cigarette” (Kamurocho Locker 27 and Ryukyu Locker 15). The Lopsided Cigarette will cause bets to be skewed so more people in the game tend to bet to one side. The Even Goro’s Beads will make the next roll guaranteed even. The 1-1-1 Card will guarantee that the next roll will be snake eyes.

Once you have unlocked the option of guessing a specific number appearing (unlocked through playing/earning enough basic odd VS even games) do that instead as the payouts are wayyyy higher, doing that a few times is way quicker than only getting a few hundred for each win of odds Vs even. Since losses don’t factor into your winnings just keep doing this till you win enough if you have the cash to burn! (by the end of the game you will probably have several million spare)

Cee-Lo

Initially, you’ll have a maximum betting amount of 200. This can be increased, but it requires both number of times playing the game and what chapter of the game you’re in. You can increase to 500 and 800 in Chapter 7 if you play ten times and fifteen times, respectively, and you can increase to 1000 by playing 20 times and being in Chapter 12.

There are three cheat items you can use with this game. The first is the “1-1-1 Card” (Kamurocho Lockers 04 and 10) Use it to roll a triple 1. The second is 1-2-3 Gum (Ryukyu Locker 35). Use it as the banker and your opponents will lose. The third is the Piss Mountain Stone (Kamurocho Locker 05 and Ryukyu Locker 34). Use it as the banker and your opponents will miss the pot. You can only use one cheat item per game.

Losses don’t factor into your lifetime winning so just bank your wins your objective is total winnings not a certain amount in one session/game (leave then restart a new match between matches if you want to play it safe, likewise if you lose do the same)

Oicho Kabu

No cheat items here unfortunately, Just RNG, I’d suggest learning the rules it’s fairly simple

TLDR: Aim for 9, above 9 goes back to 0 (e.g 10 = 0 , 11 = 1 etc)

There aren’t really any tricks here just grind it out it won’t take too long you only need a lifetime 10k (losses don’t factor in). Standard logic bet high for highest payout. Good luck.

Golf

My best tip / TLDR: Be aware of the wind at all times.

This is a fairly standard generic golf game. Driving and Chipping aren’t too bad but Putting is quite difficult.

User: BanSan had a very good strategy/summary on gamefaq that covered everything well so I will quote it here:

“ So here we go you have a few choices in how you play the game.

You can choose a golf club that will indicate it would land right at the hole with a full power swing but obviously if you do this then the golf ball will roll far beyond the hole regardless of where it lands. Then you might consider trying to gauge how much power you should apply for such a shot. In my opinion thats the sure way of taking forever to get -5 in a mini-game you couldn’t care less about.

Then you could do what I do. You choose a golf club where the HUD indicates the ball will land about 5 yards before the hole in which case if you hit the ball at full power then when the ball lands it will roll right near the hole. You might be thinking well the ball will roll more than 5 yards but you’d be wrong because you just need to apply the right spin on the ball. Lets say that you see the icon for the wind and its green then just press down on the d-pad twice. Now the icon is yellow facing down then just apply one and then red apply none. Works similar to if the icon is facing up and yellow, the ball will go further so add 3 down, then its red you go all the way down… If you find its just an annoyance and you aren’t really getting it just apply 1 or 2 down every time and you’ll turn out fine I think. Almost forgot but if you don’t have a golf club that meets that measurement then try halving the power of each club as well to see if that works in your favour.

Then you need to consider that at least 1 of the holes will fail to have a proper golf club or halved power so you can do that little trick. I don’t remember which hole it is but don’t hit the ball at full power, reduce it by 1 bar and put a downward spin on your ball.

For that all to work in your favour you need to in most cases hit the ball perfectly with full power and right in the middle of the gauge on the right.

Don’t forget that your putter hits 30 yards so each bar hits up to 10 yards or 5 at half and if you halve the power of the club its 15 so each bar is 5 and half of one bar is 2.5.

If your ball lands in the bunker you need to apply double the power to get it out so don’t be afraid to let the gauge be quite high in power. If your ball lands on the rough then you need to apply a slight bit more pressure about 1/3 more than normal. If your ball lands on the rough right before the green near the hole then use your putter, not the default club. “

I found this to be extremely helpful, thanks BanSan

Blackjack

Blackjack is a simple enough game that everyone should know the rules but if you somehow dont then you familarise yourself in 60 seconds and be all set.

Just be aware of the dealer having to go up to 16 minimum and staying on 17 if they land on it, use this to your advantage and be risky, the payout for getting blackjack (21) is worth it.

Also consider the cheat items, they make getting the required 10k trivially easy:

– The Blackjack Amulet (Kamurocho Locker 23 and Ryukyu Locker 26) gives you 5 Blackjack hands in a row

– The Bust Amulet (Ryukyu Locker 05) make the dealer Bust 5 times in a row 😉

Should be a quick and simple one!

Pool / Billiards

I found this to be absolutely awful.

I didn’t discover anything for myself I just fumbled then got annoyed so went to google to be honest. I don’t really have much of my own to say here but CyricZ had a very helpful post so I will just quote it here:

“POOL IS VERY HARD IN THIS GAME. When the game was remastered for the PS4, it seems one of the oversights was the control sensitivity. Make sure as you pull the Right Stick back to shoot that you do so as vertically as possible. Any horizontal movement of the stick may cause your shot to skew to one side or the other. It wasn’t nearly this sensitive in the PS3 version, and my condolences to anyone who’s looking to complete this because boy is it a chore compared to other games. So here’s what I did: So you have the Right Stick, and you have your right index finger.

Point with your index finger downwards along the controller, have the tip of your index finger touch the top (by which I mean the side in the “up” direction) of the Right Stick.

Watch your hands, not the screen. Push down (the direction, not inwards) on the Right Stick with that finger slowly. You don’t have to push the stick all the way to the edge. I find even about a third of the way and you can still get a decent power shot out of it. By watching your hands, you can make sure you’re not putting any lateral movement on the stick.

For the release, simply move your hand back up so that the Right Stick returns to neutral. Don’t remove your finger from the stick. Again, you don’t have to be that quick about it even for a decent power shot. Don’t snap the stick back, don’t flick it. Just relax the controller and keep your finger on the stick so it doesn’t jerk.”

(once again I recommend checking out CyricZ stuff on gamefaq, incredibly useful)

BONUS: Slow Down Method

At the time of making this the ‘60fps makes some games impossible’ bug has been fixed.

However, if you are still having problems or wish to slow down some games to make it easier you can do the following: Set your game to 60fps cap, bump up ALL settings to max including render distance to 200% trying to aim for having ~30fps(if you have a great PC may need to open random programs in the background too to add to the load). With 60fps as your cap this game then runs at half speed if you are playing at ~30 fps. This can make some of the minigames significantly easier as they run slower, especially Fishing and Massage. This isn’t required to beat any minigame the original game breaking issues the remaster had on launch have been patched but if you are really struggling then this is an option.

Hope you enjoy the Guide about Yakuza 3 Remastered – Completion Guide & Minigame Master Tips, if you think we should add extra information or forget something, please let us know via comment below, and we will do our best to fix or update as soon as possible!