Sega has updated the Yakuza 6 official website with new information and screenshots about the game’s baseball team manager side element, the various places you’ll visit in the new town of Onomichi Jingaicho, and how eating plays a part in strengthening your abilities.

Get the information below.

■ Grass-lot Baseball

Become the Captain and Grow Your Team

After a strange turn of events, Kiryu is appointed as captain of the Onomichi Jingaicho grass-lot baseball team, the Sentouchi Warriors. It’s just a puny team made up of unmotivated players, but by helping the team grow as their captain, you can aim for the total domination of Onomichi!

Lead Your Team to Victory

The baseball game moves along on its own, but there are opportunities when the player will be able to control their team member and go up to bat. Your batting results will influence team member capability during the later game, so you should concentrate on hitting it in the batter’s box. If your batting turns out well, it will temporarily increase your team members’ capabilities. Luckily, even if you strike out, there are no penalties like lowering team member capability.

Changeups

A number of changeups that professional baseball players use in real baseball will appear in Yakuza 6, including the split-finger fastball and two-seam fastball. Additionally, some pitchers can use the “front door” and “back door” to change the ball zone to the strike zone at the last minute. React to a variety of different changeups and slam out a home run!

Scout Players on the Streets

In Onomichi Jingaicho, there are hidden athletes with baseball experience. If you happen to see someone who is likely to have that experience, you can call out to them and try to scout them. Additionally, by clearing sub stories, you can also befriend characters. Aggressively clear sub stories and scout your team members!

Build the Strongest Baseball Team

You can use scouted team members in games, as well as carry out “intensive training” to help them develop. At first, even if their capability is low or their chances weak, by building up experience playing games and repeatedly performing intensive training, each player can grow to the point where they’d surprise even a professional baseball player!… Maybe.

■ Onomichi Jingaicho Spots

Ryunan Shrine

An ancient shrine in Onomichi Jingaicho. When this town was still flourishing, the shrine was crowded with many people, but effected by the declining population of the last several years, it has now become a deserted shrine. However, it’s used as a meeting place by local residents. There is a legend that your wish will come true if you make an offering to the five jizo statues on the temple grounds.

Jingai Center District

A shopping arcade that supports town life, but many shops’ shutters have long been closed. In order to turn the situation around, there are people who want to ride the mascot character boom to turn things around in a single shot, but how effective would that really be…?

La Pente

A certain quiet French restaurant deep in the mountains of Onomichi Jigaicho. It’s an old building with a renovated open terrace and stylish interior. The master has a scary face, but his cooking ability is first-class. Authentic French cuisine like Ratatouille and Rossini can be enjoyed here. There are even regular customers from outside the prefecture who come for the delicious food. There is a rumor that the owner was quite famously bad in his home country, so he is always teased by Jou and company, who appear in the Clan Creator.

Cemetery

A cemetery surrounded by old houses. Having a deserted atmosphere, even people visiting the graves haven’t been seen for a long time. It gives off a creepy feeling even in the daytime, but there is a rumor that various things “come out” at night… However, what exactly it is that comes out is not clear.

Snack District

In the olden days, this area was a red-light district controlled by the Himei Association, and includes “Snack Kiyomi,” which Kiryu often visits. However, customers stopped returning once the fishing industry fell into a long recession, and it is now an area wrapped in silence that refuses visitors.

Jingai Ferry Landing

When this city was overflowing with prosperity, this was a ferry landing with ferries loaded with people coming and going. Now, that prosperity has long vanished, only the deserted boarding dock remains. However, since fishing boats that come along the pier still seem to use it, it still appears to be an important facility for the people of the town.

■ Eating and Ability Strengthening

Eat to Strengthen Kiryu

In previous entries in the Yakuza series, eating was mainly used to recover stamina, but this time, eating is an important way to further develop Kiryu. The menus at the restaurants you can eat at have experience points (muscle, agility, will-power, technique, and charm) and a stomach gauge increase value.

The higher the price of the food, the more voluminous the meal and the more experience points obtained, but said food will more easily fill the stomach gauge. You won’t be able to gain any experience when you eat so much that you go over your stomach gauge, so be sure to always check a menu item’s stomach gauge increase value and select a food item appropriate for that time.

You’ll recover stamina even if your stomach gauge is full. In battle you’ll gradually move slower, but there are items that can be used to speed up digestion and forcibly reduce the fill of the stomach gauge. Just like real life, if you’re hungry, you eat, and by continuing this habit, Kiryu will steadily grow stronger.

Efficiently Acquire Experience Points for Combo Bonuses

There are combo bonuses set on the food menus for each restaurant, and it’s possible obtain an experience point bonus if you select a combination of foods. Looking for combo bonuses is important looking for an effective meal. This time, there are 11 tie-in stores in Kamurocho and Onomichi Jingaicho. Since they’ll have the same menus they have in the real world, it will be interesting to try and find out combos are born from the menu items you may usually eat.

Freely Strengthen Your Abilities to Match Your Play Style

In Yakuza 6, you can strengthen Kiryu to your own liking more freely than you ever could before. Other than abilities that require certain conditions to unlock, there is no set order for learning abilities, so you can choose the abilities you want to focus on learning and strengthening.

For example, those who want to focus on defeating enemies can choose to increase their attack power; those who want to focus on not dying can focus on their physical strength and defense power; and those who want to focus on unleashing a bunch of techniques can learn battle skills and heat actions, etc. There are various ways to develop your character.

This time, experience points are divided into five varieties (muscle, agility, will-power, technique, and charm), and since the experience points you receive change depending on the places you play, you should seek out ways to efficiently earn experience points.

Advice from Rizap, from Training to Eating

—Six Training Exercises to Strengthen Kiryu

There are six types of training exercises. Players can choose two types of training from among them to strengthen Kiryu. Since the experience points you acquire change based on what training exercises you choose, it’s good to change up your exercises accordingly.

“Muscle Development Training” – By doing things like bench presses and squats, you will mainly acquire muscle experience points.

“Will-Power Development Training” – By doing things like squats and lat pull-downs, you will mainly acquire will-power experience.

“Agility Development Training” – By doing things like squat jumps and seated rowing, you will mainly acquire agility experience.

—The Link Between Eating and Training

What you eat after training at the gym is also important. When training is completed, your RIZAP trainer will give you advice regarding what to eat. Following your trainer’s eating advice will have favorable effects on your training results. Conversely, not eating according to the advice will result in a poor training evaluation, your overall evaluation to drop, and challenges failed.

You can gain a greater amount of experience at the sports gym. However, since you can’t go to the gym consecutively too many times, you should space out your visits and train at fixed intervals.

■ Ultimate Heat Mode

(This section expands on our previous Ultimate Heat Mode coverage.)

When you trigger the new “Ultimate Heat Mode” ability, you can enter a boost state specialized in attacking. During this state, you won’t take recoil from enemy attacks, and you can use huge objects as weapons that you couldn’t normally use, as well as Ultimate Heat Mode-exclusive techniques.

Additionally, you can pick up usable weapons and broken things in the small shops and offices you can now seamlessly enter and exit, which will become a treasure trove of battle actions allowing your skirmishes to unfold as if they were something in an action movie.