Recent reviews by Arf

This game is great. It's an unusual decision to create a turn-based JRPG after 7+ beat 'em up games, but they never fixed their bloody lock-on, so... anyway Yakuza: LAD is good. Spoilers WILL occur below.

PROS:

- The story is decent. Parts of it are contrived, but it's a classic JRPG band going up against political forces that are supposed to be beyond their control. What's not to like? It's hard to oversell the impact of "this is the current yakuza situation in Kamurocho" if you've played the last few games as well, I was quite surprised. Freaking Omi Alliance takeover out of nowhere, what was the point of the last like 4 games damn it.

- Most of the main characters are quite good. Ichiban is up against a 20-year nostalgia fest of monsters when it comes to making his mark, but he separates himself from the likes of Kiryu, Majima, and Akiyama effectively enough to be a good protagonist. I think nearly all of the main party is characterized decently as well. The overworld party chats and after-meal chats are indispensable character building, but even in the story, there's multiple scenes where I really believed in the typical JRPG friendship stuff. The weakest link here is Eri, who is nonexistent for the entire story pretty much, and although they do a bit better with these two by the end, JGH and Zhao are also not given quiiite enough time to settle in properly.

- Ichiban deserves his own point. I think it was very difficult to let go of Kiryu after 7 games with him in it, and even though Kiryu isn't the MOST complex/well-defined character ever, sheer staying power means it's a big deal to move on from him. What do you then do? Retell Yakuza Kiwami 1 in literary foil fashion: Ichiban goes to jail for a homie (who is like a brother to him), is pretty much betrayed when he gets out, and has to try and bring them back to his side? Check, check, check. The fact that he wears nearly the same colors as Y0 Nishiki? The fact that his story mirrors Kiryu's? The fact that his main antagonist is basically Nishiki but with even more of a complex regarding his brother? The fact that his VA IS NISHIKI'S VA I mean come on. Ooof. They had a mountain to climb when it comes to making their new protagonist good, and I am down to see more Ichiban. Well done.

- The combat is mostly fine, it's just your typical turn-based fare. The skill animations are pretty good, the poundmate animations are usually funny, and it's not usually too unfair, despite there being no "dodge all damage" function like in a beat 'em up. The buff/debuff system isn't my favorite but it is functional, more or less.

- We finally get to see Saejima and Majima work together against a common "enemy" and they do not hold back.In a beat 'em up it would have been hard to present them as the sheer overpowered forces they are: remember that playing as Kiryu and playing as Ichiban are different things. The turn-based formula allows them to avoid holding back and it's as glorious as it is frustrating - that fight took me three tries.

- The minigames are decent this time around too, I liked the can collection a lot, batting cage is still batting cage, the movie sheep thing is honestly pretty funny, and mahjong is still rigged for the love of-

- Ichiban actually gets to bang his romantic interests… I think. Pretty sure. Is that a positive? Well at least they're not NINETEEN this time, damn Light Yagami and his detective cradle-robbing ways.

- I think the lack of focus on old Yakuza characters like Daigo, Majima, and Kiryu is good. If you want to build new protagonists don't have them rely on the old ones!

- Any game with MachineGunKiss in it gets a bonus point.

CONS:

- Unskippable credits. The lead-in to these unskippable credits is the main antagonist almost being redeemed then getting randomly stabbed by a mini antagonist. Did that mini antagonist's arc make sense? Yes. Is it still tremendously unsatisfying? Also yes.

- Character classes LOCKED BEHIND DLC absolutely get in the sea. Are the classes pay2win? Not exactly, but they ARE very fun to use and it's disgusting to do that, get out of town.

- Dude, Nanba is kind of… I think he should have eaten a punch to the face at least. I actually quite liked his intro and his weird friendship with Ichiban before the revelation of his motives. You want to welcome him back after his massive ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, sure maybe, but like, not with open arms no resentment whatsoever, come ON! I still don't think he's terrible, but it IS a little weird.

- The grind required to beat the last dungeons in the game is… well it's JRPG standard, but JRPG standard is still completely ♥♥♥♥♥♥. I couldn't bring myself to do it, and I fought Yiazmat back in the day. It may not be in me anymore.

- The business minigame needs to be able to be sped up even further, there's too many menus and pauses it's so tedious. At least it's relatively simple still…

- Not sure how I feel about Saeko being a romantic interest. Maybe it makes sense, it's probably fine. I don't really have a problem with it, but it does feel odd. I don't want to pigeonhole characters though, I guess let em do whatever.

- The karaoke rhythm in this game is the worst in the entire series so far. You don't sing most of the songs, so you're stuck with the "cheering" version, which is normally still at least to the rhythm of the song. In this game, I don't know WHAT it's mapped to, it's just… stuff. However, the song selection is still very very good, it's just that the corresponding charts aren't.

- As usual, characters and story stuff don't make a lot of sense under scrutiny. A politician making a meteoric rise to the top, and not ONE investigative reporter/person from Ogikubo's camp managed to figure out he was Masato Arakawa? Get the hell out of here, "Arakawa the Assassin"'s son would have been someone to keep an eye on for anyone even vaguely involved in Kamurocho, and there's no way my man bought off or killed EVERYONE who knew his identity. If he did facial reconstruction surgery maybe but he didn't! And we know that surgery is very powerful in this universe because of Joon Gi Han. I guess Ichiban wouldn't have recognized Masato then, and that WAS a good scene, but grrr. I always overthink Yakuza plots and their realism.

- In the same vein, Masumi Arakawa getting himself killed is sus. Why did he just go off on his own after helping disband a group of very angry yakuza, how dumb can you be… at least the Seiryu chairman dying made sense, being too late to save him is VERY realistic.

- The Florist of Sai has not been mentioned in about 4 games now and I don't really get why we forgot about him. If it's because he's a plot breaking character, why are the Geomijul basically the same thing he did? Where the hell is Akiyama? He wasn't even mentioned in Judgment, and that game dealt with the homeless even more than this one.

- This game reveals that Lau Ka Long and Kashiwagi are somehow alive. Now I understand Kiwami 3 changed a few things from the original (Mine) but here's the thing: LKL got shot in the HEAD, and Kashiwagi was shot to pieces by a MINIGUN. "Somehow, Kashiwagi returned"??? I don't get the point of ruining impactful deaths like that. The Snake Flower Triad is dead for all intents and purposes, and so is the Kazama family. WHY bring these guys back? Is Kim Daejin from 2 or Shinji from 1 also going to be alive now? I can no longer believe that anyone who "dies" actually dies. Sohei Dojima might even make his grand return to piss off Daigo or something, who even knows.

- The "oi, soko no omae" in this game is very irritating at times especially because you can't just hoof it like in the beat 'em ups and each loading screen (including fights) resets enemies: the escape function sometimes works but not always. You do get the item to turn off encounters about 2/3 of the way through the game, but christ it's annoying to get out of a battle and see ANOTHER group of enemies spawn in.

Game good!

This game is pretty cool! The lack of the "Yakuza" or "Like a Dragon" name attached to this is warranted; it feels different enough, has different presentation, and even though many of the characters would not be out of place in a mainline game, the overall atmosphere of this game separates itself just enough. That said, the typical bells, whistles, and other accoutrement you'd expect in a Yakuza game exist: there's Mahjong, OutRun, Darts, SubStories, even Tiger Drop (which is odd but welcome). If you enjoy the typical post 0 Yakuza game, this one should be all right too.

PROS:

- I think the story is decent enough. It's got elements of noir, elements of mystery fiction, is just tropey enough to be recognizable without necessarily being a storm of cliches, it's a good time

- The main cast are good. I'm surprised that Yagami manages to be a good enough protagonist considering the acts he has to follow, it's great. The side characters are all pretty good, Kaito is typical Kiryu-lite yakuza man, Hamura is hateable little yakuza boss, Hattori has Umbridge level heat, it's aight.

- The combat is serviceable. I'm ooga and booga so I didn't delve too heavily into the combo mechanics but they're there if you want them, and if you just want to stick to what works, that is also an option. Still, Kiryu wasn't getting the kind of verticality Yagami does, so it feels different.

- Most of the substories and side content are all right. I didn't do every single substory this run through (got a little fatigued can't lie) but the majority of the ones I did do (think I missed 4) were solid. The minigames are okay this time around too, drone racing gets tough at the end but still okay.

- The detective mechanics are not the worst, tailing people, taking pictures, sherlock scanning crime scenes, it's atmospheric! The tailing can get tiresome if you do every single one in the game, and two or three of the scans were annoying to figure out, but it's not that bad,

- Yagami never gets tired no matter how much you sprint. Take notes, Kiryu-san yo.

- The environments and general movements in this game have little friction compared to previous titles, it's nice! Yagami can climb over some of the obstacles and such, which is more than other games.

- The business minigame this time around has some friction to get to, and can be quite annoying at times, but you can curb the RNG of it to a significant extent, which is also something previous games didn't always do well. Still, getting to the point of playing it for free is a bit of a chore, so grain of salt.

- There's essences to throw freaking hadoukens in this game for some reason

- There's no pervy minigame in this game for once!

- The gambling is limited to 4-5 games instead of the typical 9+, which is welcome. There's even a cheeky main story bit about finding a place that runs the cho-han game. Had a good laugh at that.

CONS:

- Unskippable ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ credits, no your timelapse shots of the office don't make up for it SEGA

- The "oi, soko no omae" in this game gets to ridiculous heights when the keihin gang threat level is around. Literally every street has groups of enemies lined up and you are damn near forced to go beat the street bosses to make it stop. It's not always the end of the world but it can be annoying AF.

- There's so many ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ smarmy cops in this game, I hate smarmy cops

- NO KARAOKE. HOW COULD THIS BE. Also a game called Judgment doesn't have Judgment - Shinpan in it at all. Come on now.

- Koro-nyan gotta have the most annoying voice I've ever heard, why can't he go away forever, makes the business minigame 10x more irritating

- The girlfriend mechanic would normally be fine, it's like reskinned hostesses, but they introduce the mechanic by having you try and woo someone SIXTEEN years younger than you. Japan, for crying out loud...

- It's not quite to Kiwami 3 levels but the bosses have a sort of similar aura mechanic when you get them low enough, and it gives them a lot of super armor/dodging potential, not my favorite mechanic.

- The mortal wounds thing is weird, you don't get a way to get rid of them for a while so having it be possible to get them early is strange. Hope that never comes back, missing a portion of your HP bar feels bad.

- Getting every drone QR code (yes I know) is a tiresome ass process let me tell you. The constant whine of the drone gave me headaches after a while too.

- Crane style is surprisingly not good enough at AoE to be worth using over Tiger in most situations. The exception is when you're in EX Boost mode, but still, it plays second fiddle to Tiger nearly all the time.

- Man some of the tailing missions take freaking forever, I would space out the side missions you do otherwise you'll get roped into doing several back to back sometimes, and it's not the most fun after a while.

- This game has missable achievements, which honestly is probably fine since there's a Legend difficulty cheev too, meaning you'd have to run back the story eventually anyway. Unfortunately some of these cheevs are so asinine I'm putting this as a negative anyway, what do you mean I gotta look for cats in every main story investigation?!

- Being expected to win with open riichi is a new level of mahjong hell that I didn't know could exist. Diabolical behavior.


Judgment is a nice jaunt outside the typical Yakuza-esque scene. It sets itself apart enough to be interesting, without being such a departure from the genre that longtime fans will feel lost (judgment). I do recommend it, it's nice to see a Yakuza game not relying on the age old cast to keep it going! Even if I do think Kaito is meant to be similar to a certain yakuza archetype...

This game is all right. There's parts I don't like, but I think in an overall sense this was a decent experience and I wouldn't mind going for the platinum (even if it included the completion list, which this one inexplicably doesn't) - something I do NOT feel about Yakuza 5. 6 is worth your time and worth playing, but is incomprehensible without context and shouldn't be your first, second, or third Yakuza game... if that needed saying.

PROS:

- Dragon Engine returns, it has its problems but holy moly after the trainwreck of anti-QoL from 4 & 5, I could kiss the ground DE walks on.

- The story rides the line between jumping the shark and regular over-the-top Yakuza things, but it's more good than bad, something I did not feel about the last THREE games. There's a moment that rivals the Osaka Castle transformation from 2, but I found most of the story beats neutral/tolerable with only a few pissing me off (for once)

- The side content is mostly fine, there are some pretty good substories and lots of normal ones, very few I'd call bad or tedious. Business minigame wise, Clan Creator is more bare bones than the K2 version but is also easier so that makes up for it a bit, Spearfishing is just a funny FPS, and Baseball Manager is... honestly a little tedious but only in the setup portion. It's a broadly okay lineup of content and nothing offensively bad (I have personal issues with one of them though, we'll get to that)

- I actually think playing as one character the whole time was an improvement from 5. The multi character thing was done okay in 4, but after 5 I don't trust them with that anymore and do not wish to see it ever again. ... If I don't know what's in my future then I don't know I guess

- Even if I didn't like the decision itself, the ending was done mostly tastefully and I didn't hate the final sequences. It's a decent round-off to the story and I think it was all right.

- The antagonists in this game are honestly pretty decent. I know some people found certain characters to be underwhelming, but not everyone can be a Ryuji Goda, people like said certain someone need to exist too, it's the underworld! I'm not happy about a certain faction showing up again, and their leader felt like he just showed up to say hi ngl, but he was broadly fine too.

- The protagonists are pretty good too, the 4 idiots have a couple poor moments but are broadly decent, especially Nagumo, and Akiyama is Akiyama, can't really go wrong with him.

- The letter at the end of the game is a pretty nice letter and addresses some of the complaints I've had for three games. However...

CONS:

- Unskippable BLOODY credits they're extra long this time for some reason

- Some character decisions are freaking unbelievable, Kiryu deciding to go BACK to jail against the advice of EVERYONE was a monumentally bad decision that leads DIRECTLY to the hokum that happens in this game. Haruka doing Haruka things is also frankly ridiculous but I'll blame her father figure for this one, she's just following his footsteps. Kiryu is a deadbeat dad.

- The decision made at the end of the game is also a bit... like they dress it up as a tasteful thing but when you think about it I feel like he never learned his lesson. Abandonment is never for the good of the abandoned, don't delude yourself.

- Green EXP (Technique) is frankly ridiculously more necessary then every other and is not easy to get either. Why this is so unbalanced is beyond me.

- The baseball manager side story is about bonding with your teammates and overcoming adversity together instead of throwing money at the problem... except the best way to beat this side story is to recruit former pro players with money and side content and have them be the backbone of your team. I think Gori-san and Maetani scored over half my team's total runs, and without Gorchov the other team would have scored three times as much. Also... it's a baseball sidestory post Yakuza 5, and you DON'T have Shinada show up? What gives lads? I hated his combat but he probably deserved to be here.

- The live chat thing is probably the second most horny thing in the series so far, after the gravure photo shoot from K2, and bro someone needs to talk to the director of these games because what the ♥♥♥♥. There is ENTIRELY too much effort in this one as well, from the usernames and comments to the lenny faces, like there's no way that was in the original, someone had to localize that and was having way too much fun. Kiryu being a massive pervert is maybe acceptable from a story point of view, man's spent way too long in jail, but man... maybe the problem is I'm not a camgirl person I don't friggin know. This was awkward.

- Substories aren't marked anywhere on the map till you start them and there's no Trouble Finder in this game, so they are quite easy to miss... especially since they're time-of-day locked. I missed the spearfishing unlock and didn't get to it till wayy later.

- Stop glazing that ship. Stop it. It was dead on arrival and did nothing of note, stop licking its shoes.

- Maybe I did something wrong, but I felt like I had money problems this game. You can build walking-around-money easy enough, but the high end equipment is 4-5 million yen, and unless I missed something, doing the business minigames for that amount would require actual grind, which is unusual.

- The Kiyomi stuff started all right but I hated what they did with the character in the later chapters.

- Combat is mostly fine but the Guard Break in this game is weird as hell, why did they do it like that? I ended up abusing throw even more than usual.


Yakuza 6 shows its age just a teensy bit if you played Kiwami 2 and/or 3 before this one, but compared to the ACTUAL old games that are 4/5, it's leagues ahead IMO. In 4 I got over most of the jank, in 5 it was damn near unbearable, but this game does away with most of the friction and is therefore a far smoother experience. If you have somehow gotten this far into Yakuza and are unsure about this game (well, given Yakuza 5 I might understand actually), don't worry it's a decent Yakuza game. I'm off to Judgment now.

Oh boy. Okay, this will not be spoiler-free, nor will it be particularly fair to this game. Yakuza 5 is sometimes held up as the "best in the series" and I'm telling you this from the perspective of a newcomer, I didn't and still don't feel that way. I gave Yakuza 4 a thumbs down overall because the game's story peaked at a cliffside and fell down to Jahannam, and the game's rough edges and lack of QoL made much of it a negative experience. Yak5 only makes a couple band-aid fixes to SOME of these issues.

PROS:

- I think most of the business minigames are pretty good. All of them are an improvement on Akiyama's Hostess Maker bullenscheisse from 4, and have some unique charm to them. Caveats: old-game jank is very present and still affects the experience, if you don't like hunting then Saejima's will not be for you, Kiryu's game contains Cyberpunk 2077 NPCs who tumble into the road, Shinada's baseball only becomes tolerable when you upgrade equipment, and Haruka's is ENTIRELY too long too fully complete - also if you hate music/rhythm games good luck.
Extra Caveat: I completed Shinada's baseball before I unlocked Heat Eye. Oops.

- 3/4 combat characters play pretty well (with some upgrades) and this game is not Difficult in a broad sense. Kiryu and Saejima are busted characters as advertised and feel okay to play even with old game simplicity, and Akiyama is all right. Caveat: Akiyama's anime launch kick does not work against most of his boss fights, so you have to find other methods. His Counter Kick was my go-to.

- The final ending of the game isn't actually THAT bad - the reveal may have been bad, but I thought Aizawa despite the lack of build up was interesting, the last three or four cutscenes of the game are Okay. Everything before that uh... we'll get to that.

- Except for Shinada, I didn't have money problems or healing issues the whole game, which is a pleasant surprise.

- At least they tried with the different city environments, I won't knock them for not limiting it to Kamuroucho and Sotenbori. How effective it was is a separate concern, but the environments at least feel pretty different, shout out Hokkaido's snow.

- PUNCH THE BEAR, SHOOT THE BEAR, BEAT HIS ASS

- People didn't get shot for turning their back on the enemy on purpose for once... instead they get shot face to face for being stupid or as a surprise, cool.


CONS:

- UNSKIPPABLE BLOODY BAKWAAS. The credits as usual, but the in-game rendered cutscenes now move with the characters' movements, which means if you're trying to speed through dialogue you sometimes have to wait tens of seconds for them to complete a movement or get to a point on the map before they will continue the cutscene. Maddening.

- The story is GARBAGE. Yakuza 4 ended with Kiryu vowing to take responsibility for abandoning the Tojo Clan and leaving Daigo with entirely too many responsibilities. Yakuza 5 reveals that he is willing to abandon his vow as soon as someone with the ability to emotionally manipulate a child shows up in front of him. Saejima is as much of a blockhead as ever, but this time he's joined by the Omi Alliance's Watase, who is Kiryu from Kansai (Ryuji Goda? Who?), and his kyodai Katsuya. These 4 chuckleheads decide to fight to the death on top of the Millennium Tower in order to "draw out the true mastermind", which is a plan only a bunch of meatheads could come up with. The problem with this is that Katsuya is explicitly shown to be intelligent and NOT be a meathead, so what the hell. They could not figure out a way to get to the required boss fight in a way that made sense, and it shows. This lack of planning (or planning leading to something really terrible) infects the rest of the story. Haruka's arc is so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ unbearable that I started skipping any cutscene with T-Set in it. Her gameplay? Broadly okay. Her idol thing? Tolerable. Her actual story beats and drama? Impossible. I couldn't sit through it, I didn't give a hoot about it and it was so awful I couldn't deal with it. Akiyama's story is very out of focus but mostly fine, Shinada's story wasn't interesting to me but it was tolerable, but the main throughline, my god. Awful.

- Combat is still relatively boring, you use mostly the same stuff over and over, at least most of the characters feel fine. The exception is Shinada. I get it, he's bad by design, he isn't even yakuza adjacent, why WOULD he be good at fighting. Cool, that all makes sense. However, something that's bad by design is uh, is still bad. Yeah, oops. I found no value in his fighting style and I hated his long battle with a passion.

- This game has a lot of the same navigation problems as Yakuza 4 - still no sprint, combat encounters are hard to avoid. 5 amplifies some of these by the layouts of the new cities. Nagasugai has too few taxis and is hard to get around. Tsukimino has uncrossable streets and navigating it is annoying at best, unbearable at worst, Sotenbori has no taxi close to Dyna Chair. Encounters also tend to have a lot more enemies, but if you take out the lead and use fear to your advantage this is sometimes still fine.

- Most side content and minigames feel bad... stuff like old style darts and pool have always been not great but their completions are also really bad, what do you mean I need to beat all TWELVE TO FOURTEEN opponents, christ. Saejima's FPS minigame doesn't feel like the engine can support it properly, Haruka's manzai minigame was so damn hard, I actually looked up a guide for it because I couldn't get my head round it at first (I'll chalk this up to Japanese Skullduggery), mahjong still has little to no spectacle, the noodles minigame was pretty hectic but actually not terrible. Normally I only hate playing some of these minigames but this time I couldn't bring myself to engage with damn near any of them.

There's more I want to say about the things I didn't like in this game, but I dunno it covers a lot of similar ground. This is the only Yakuza 5 you can currently play and there probably won't be another one for a few years. I think a Dragon Engine version of this game would remove a lot of the jank issues but the story of this one is also so annoying that I don't know if it would make enough of an improvement to matter. People who like this game, I'm sorry man, I thought this story sucked. It was a slog at points, and I have no plans to 100% this either, which wasn't something I felt about the 5 previous games I played. Ouch.

All right before you assassinate me, all I'm saying is wait for Kiwami 4 or the equivalent. No, put down that emetic syringe, hear me out, just listen. This game is broadly fine. It's an overall mid experience. That's okay! It came out in 2010, people born after this can freaking drive in some places, it's an old game and it feels like an old game. Parts of this are nice, and parts of it are dogass, but most of it is like fine. If you must play A Yakuza 4, this is all you have, so we make do, but seriously, consider waiting a bit for the remake if you aren't bumrushing through the games like me. Some minor spoilers lie ahead but I'll try and keep it from being too much.

PROS:

- The characters in this one are pretty good I can't lie. The opener is strong, Akiyama is a good hook, great job whoever ordered these chapters. Saejima an excellent followup, Tanimura isn't half bad either and you end with the Dragon himself, can't do too bad there.

- Until they ruin everything, the story is legitimately not bad. I was actually invested enough in the main story that I skipped doing a bunch of side stuff in Saejima's and Kiryu's chapters. Let me tell you, that is Unusual for Yakuza, I usually spend way more time on the side stories.

- The spectacle especially in a couple long battles and the final chapter sequence is really good, even for 2010. Great job with the cinematography there.

- All four characters feel pretty badass in their stories, yeah even Tanimura.

- You can unlock the Tiger Drop pretty early as Kiryu if you earn a bit of money and spam alcohol

- Earning money is fairly easy through the bowling minigame if you are good enough to get 300. I didn't worry about money the ENTIRE game, that just doesn't happen even in Yakuza 0 till the end.

- Completion List not required for the 100% is a godsend in a game without Bottomless Stomach and other QoL. There's other problems with the 100% though, you need THREE playthroughs christ.

CONS:

- Unskippable bloody credits, screw you SEGA

- They mess up some of the gravity in the story by doing an infamously silly thing that you as a Yakuza player probably know about already! I didn't though, and I was quite upset. I think it devalues a lot of things the way they did it and I'm not happy. No spoilers from me, but christ...

- This game is ooold. It's made in 2010 with like 2006 sensibilities. Pay phone save points are back, and very sparse indeed, movement is slow with no sprint, the underground and rooftops areas are huge, somewhat confusing and kind of irritating, the locker keys are in the sky or up my ass half the time it feels like, the menus are bad, interacting with doors/weapons/things is bad, the lock on is atrocious, combat feels so one dimensional its insane, most of the substories are not interesting, the minigames are often bad, even mahjong has no spectacle or music attached it feels so empty, some of the villains are characterized very little because of reasons, people KEEP TURNING THEIR BACK ON DEFEATED ENEMIES STOP IT ALREADY STOP IT freaking learn a different story beat christ

- People keep turning their back on defeated enemies especially with a gun nearby. Oh what's that, I said that already? Well they DID that already and they keep doing it so repetition is clearly on the menu.

- Oh the story changes in K3 actually matter, I had to look up a couple things because it didn't track from the previous game I played, which is why I think K4 HAS to exist and I say you should wait for it.

- Combat so one dimensional I'll give it its own point... it's an old game so it gets some leeway but even then you'll be using the same stuff from start to finish on each character and heat actions are so specific you'll probably only use 2-3 on each character. Not the worst I've seen but not great.

- I learned to avoid encounters eventually but they're hard to spot initially! Huge time waste when you're trying to just get around Kamuroucho. Hint: Hostile NPCs kinda stand around scoping out their surroundings, try to go behind or avoid anyone doing that if you don't want to be playing old JRPG style random encounter combats.

- I'll tell you this for your own sanity, DO each Master's training to completion on Akiyama, Saejima, and Tanimura to get all three pieces of Sacred Tree Armour and give that to Tanimura at some point before the end of the game. Just do it don't ask questions. Christ...


This game has massive problems because it's old as sin. It's not the worst game I've ever played, it's probably a 4.5/10 in aggregate. I didn't hate myself while playing it and only hated the game sometimes. Still, be aware that going from Dragon Engine to this suuuucked. Please consider waiting for the remake, even if this game has its own worth and charm.

Damn it's rough, giving this a thumbs down. A couple things: I haven't played the old PS3 Yakuza 3, and I'm sure that game has way wayyyy more friction than this does, and if you must play A Yakuza 3, this one is likely more worth your time. This also isn't a "this game is irredeemably bad", I just think it's a little more bad than good.

PROS:

- The new Ryukyu style is at least a little interesting, I enjoyed the flail AoE and Bullet Reflect. Perfect Guard itself felt surprisingly not very good though, and I really like my parries usually. Not having to gather up weapons and keep track of them was nice for me, although some people may hate the lack of flexibility

- Training Points being tied to the completion list felt fine. The EXP from K2 was interesting too but this is more streamlined and I didn't hate it

- The music playlist is very nice to have in the open world. Some fun songs to have blasting while segwaying around the world. DAYTONAAAAA

- Speaking of, segway mount is great, huge fan of added mobility

- Bad Boy Dragon might be my favorite "business minigame" in the series so far, I freaking love the car crash pitched melee battles, the bikes, the stupid yankee aesthetic, and even the characters. It's cheesy and a little cringe but as a certain Dragon once said, "a man ought to be a little stupid"

- Damage Control from Dark Ties is all right. It's good character building for a character who desperately needed it... we'll get to him

- The orphanage stories+mechanics are not bad. Kiryu always cares about things, but this was nice to see and experience, even the little flash game style minigames.

CONS:

- The combat is not for me. So in K2, I whined a bit about the lack of unique heat actions, and it felt like the styles didn't flow as well, but my god this game. Dragon of Dojima flows so poorly I'm not sure why. The Aura system means you spend the entire game quickstepping behind people and hitting them with the same combo, else you do little to no damage. The moves don't feel like they're meant to chain together, and landing a full combo is not a preferred strategy. Ryukyu has good AoE, I will give it that, but it's also not the best flow in single target. This could be skill issue, YMMV, but I wasn't a huge fan.

- The main story is not for me either. Where to begin with this one... The final villain isn't built at all unless you play Dark Ties, this is the first Yakuza game I've played where I didn't care about the final boss till AFTER you beat them. That cutscene plus Dark Ties almost redeems the character tbf, but why is it all after the fact! The weird ass Intelligence Organization involvement also felt like it was meant to build intrigue for something I don't know about yet... which is possible since this is a remake but I don't know what I don't know. It felt like a rectal pull is what I'm getting at and I don't think it added to the story positively.

- I am sick and tired of people turning their back on "defeated" antagonists that still have a gun within reach, this has happened too many times to keep happening, get out of here

- The Kiryu substories in this game are bad... I heard they removed a bunch from the old game but I can't imagine all of them were of this quality... only a few felt like they mattered, and those were the ones that give you people for Bad Boy Dragon. Not a fan of the substories in this one.

- You can't get Baka Mitai on your playlist until you clear the main story... unless you buy DLC.

This game is not god awful. It may even be worth your time! It just wasn't as good as K2, which is weird as hell. since that game came out ages ago. They unlearned some lessons from that game, and I'm not a huge fan of that. Still, I'm now on Yakuza 4, and I already wish there was a K4, so uh. Make your choice.

This game is quite good. I had essentially zero (hah) experience with Yakuza prior to this game, but I am quite familiar with Japanese games and weird JP humor a la Metal Gear Solid. I won't lie, without that context parts of this game are EXTREMELY odd, even with that context it's odd. However, it's probably worth it to experience the game as a whole.

PROS:
- Story is pretty good. Characters are all pretty good. They nailed the 80s bubble vibe and the various politicking between the gangsters is all very believable. I don't have the personal context to know what happens in future games but both Kiryu and Majima are decent protagonists and I liked playing them a lot. Honorable mention to Wen Hai Lee, what a lad.

- Antagonists are quite good as well, Kuze, Awano, and Sagawa in particular are masterclasses in smarmy, slimy, smug gangster villains. Really makes you want to hit them.

- Combat is broadly okay for a 10 year old beat-em-up. The various weapons are pretty fun to use and all the styles for both characters are nice in different ways.

- Neon lights Kamurocho is staggeringly pretty in almost a Neo-Tokyo vibes way. Yes there's trash everywhere and seedy locations and posters and rusty signposts but if you've ever lived in a third world country the vibes are immaculate to a boom economy red light district. Incredible.

- The first character switch actually upset me a little because I had unfinished business as Kiryu but as the story progresses the different threads of each character remain pretty compelling and when it all comes tying together... mwah chef's kiss. It's not necessarily super groundbreaking but it is still told quite well.

- Music is quite good, even non Yakuza players like me have heard of the OST and SEGA pulls it off. Honorable mention to "Beyond the Speed".

- no knowledge of previous games doesn't affect appreciation of this one, I'm sure I missed a few "wink wink nudge nudge" moments but actually I think it might enhance the story to not know who ends up where, any plot twists this game had that would be spoiled by future games were a non issue for me.

- The final long battle sequences for both characters (but especially Majima) are immensely satisfying


CONS:
- Fair warning, there is a laundry list of very irritating complaints I have about this game, even though I like it overall. Some of these will seem petty to you but I promise they are annoying AF. Here we go:

- UNSKIPPABLE stuff. Cutscenes, credits, cutscenes, various menus in minigames, cutscenes, money counting screen, cutscenes, all unskippable. Jesus.
- what's with the random vibes of the game being a massive ad for softcore gravure adult content. There's SO much of it in the game wtf? You can ignore some of it but not all, very weird.
- Saving and reloading is very unwieldy. Game came out in 2015 not 2007 Christ.
- Lock on doesn't work properly
- Kamoji's training is god awful especially compared to the rest
- the money inflates so quickly there's no real concept of worth and it destroys immersion. I could have bought out all of Kamurocho by like Chapter 6 but in game they continue to pretend 10 billion yen is a lot of money.
- no quick restart for minigames. These are very grindy for completion points and you have to suffer through the menus every time
- Legend Style has to be swapped to from the PAUSE menu
- If you don't want to engage with the cabaret minigame the game says "lol piss off good luck fully unlocking your combat styles"

- There's like 4 different styles of cutscene for ... no reason? It's a little weird.

- Even I, a non yakuza fan, know who and what Majima ends up becoming, and this game provides no answers as to how he gets to that mental place. It doesn't, seriously.

- Our two protagonists don't intersect till the POST CREDITS SCENE. No fight? Not even a cutscene fight? Piss off.

- The completion 100% is straight up dogwater. On the one hand, it's an RPG 100%, of course it's garbage. However it's legitimately hair tearing at times and deserves a separate complaint list. The only saving grace is that you don't HAVE to do most of these to just finish the game:

- Arcade games that were designed to steal your quarters are on the completion list because F you thats why. They're not impossible to beat but Fantasy Zone in particular can swallow my weiner.
- The batting cage completion is stupid and kind of frustrating since it's the money course not the prize course
- Many of the minigames are literal RNG timewasters: catfights, majima's gear search, roulette, cee-lo, blackjack, baccarat for example. Others have a small amount of skill involved but oodles of RNG still: mahjong, koi-koi, pocket circuit, telephone club. This is by far the single most frustrating point of completion in the entire game and I don't get why there's just so much ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ RNG.
- Fishing requires certain fish to show up and sometimes they just don't wanna.
- Substories being started randomly is quite silly and makes them easy to miss.


This game is cool, but is also VERY Japanese. It's not afraid to make the badass protags look like massive dorks, but also leans way too far into strange perverted angles that don't need to exist. There's a bunch of weird stuff like that, I'm not exaggerating. Still, it's a good time, especially if all you care about is beating the game and finishing the story. Save your sanity and don't try to finish literally everything. Would recommend!

This game is brilliant. Especially on sale, the bang for your buck in this title is well above average. I'm a big stealth game guy, and Hitman really separates itself from the pack in this genre. The map design, gameplay options, and general vibe of the game are unique and interesting. 9/10, You Should Play It. I enjoyed my time so much I'm actually listing the cons first.

CONS:
- Always online bullenscheisse that doesn't even stop cheaters from populating the leaderboards, not a fan. This is foremost a singleplayer game and I don't appreciate always online ever.

- Elusive target time gating in a 6 year old game is very irritating. I do have the signature suit with gloves now but it took a solid three months with no way to speed it up.

- Buying the correct version of this game is surprisingly challenging! Almost feels like a scam sometimes. Luckily I got it right the first time I opened my wallet.

- Freelancer is interesting in concept but difficult to the extreme even for a roguelike. Let us keep some of the weapons or something, it's wild how much you stand to lose per run.

- Hitman JankTM: NPCs will be suspicious at the drop of a hat, but don't care about huge bloodstains, cameras going down, or anything of that nature. This game series already cares more about NPC behavior than almost any other, but there's still very strange gaps in the logic that don't compute all the way. Odd bugs are also not uncommon.

- Game is brutal on the hardware, in a very weird way. It runs fine in the sense that it rarely lags or drops frames or crashes (rare but not zero!) but it is impossible to have the game running on my laptop and try to do ANYTHING else, no chats, no messages, no browsers. Granted, laptop. However it's rough.

- You unlock 1 quintillion different guns and have essentially zero reason to use anything other than a silenced pistol. I guess it's fine, but eh.

PROS:
There isn't really a need to go point by point here I adore most of the gameplay and panache of this game. The map design, mission stories, side stories, continuity, unlockables, target options, user made contracts, escalations, all have various charm points for my personal taste to contribute holistically to this being one of my favorite games. I intend to 100% as much of this as I can (Freelancer is a major roadblock here). I'm such a fan of the map design in particular I will do an impromptu personal tier list and end the review on that note. From least favorite to most:

Marrakesh: Colorful, calorful, hace bueno hace chingada. This map has a lot of bells and whistles and it is Friction to get in and out of the various locations. I like the idea of the map in concept, but it is crowded and hard to do much with. See Mumbai for a better version.

Hawke's Bay: There's just not much to this one but they actually added a bunch of extra nonsense in this map despite it being a short one, via mission stories and such. The escalation with all the busywork KOing guards puts this lower than it should be, which is unfair but bah humbug.

Colorado: Holy moly where can you go on this map without being seen by someone I feel like I have to KO fifty people if I want to keep the Suit on. The map isn't my least favorite because the mission stories are a lot of fun and I enjoy them more than Marrakesh. I understand if this is bottom of your list though.

Santa Fortuna: I haven't explored every inch of this map it's massive. The bits I have seen are again cool, but have a lot of friction when transitioning locations. It's aight just not my favorite to navigate.

Ambrose Island: So Much Walking. This map's points of interest are freaking miles apart it's actually quite annoying. That's the only real downside though, the rest is a lot of fun.

Carpathian Mountains: This map is so cool. Ever seen Snowpiercer? Still it's near the bottom for similar reasons to Hawke's Bay, not much to DO here.

Chonqing: This map is very cool, brings to mind Virtual Insanity by Jamiroquai. However it's also a pain in the ass to navigate my goodness. Again, haven't explored absolutely every inch but hoo boy it's a job. Just because it's near the bottom doesn't mean I hate any of these maps, I actually do enjoy all of them to some extent.

Sapienza: WHAT HOW COULD YO- shut up the lab is not a fun place to navigate and I despise it. The city is great, the mansion fine, the film set solid, the lab -1/10. I know there's shortcuts to break the virus and whatever but custom contracts also love putting targets down there. Screw the lab.

Hokkaido: Pain in the ass to navigate? All rise for the honorable Hokkaido. Without a certain trick in the morgue this would be at the bottom. Once you solve that problem it becomes a lot better.

Isle of Sgail: Female dog ass map, I swear... there's a deep amount of friction in getting places on Sgail, but being a more recent map it does have a lot of polish and the verticality is interesting instead of frustrating... except sometimes.

ICA Facility: No seriously, for a tutorial map this is amazing. You can do a fair bit here with the limited objectives and unlocks. Decoying the old man over with a coin was my first big "Aha!" in this game.

Bangkok: This is going to sound crazy because Bangkok is very interesting to navigate overall... except the second hotel building where Cross is. Jesus, what a pain in the ass place to go except exactly the top floor. The underground in Bangkok is incredible for gameplay purposes and is solid. That other hotel building... ugh.

Berlin: Hoo boy it's a little claustrophobic at times but Berlin is interesting. I don't adore the club section of the map but navigation here is not as bad as you'd think. Bumps it above a few others.

Dubai: Another one where navigation is not as hard as it appears, except for the damn exhibit section. I got straight up lost in there once, very embarrassing.

Haven Island: The resort is cool. Lots of walking but it's less than Ambrose and the level design here is pretty fair.

Mendoza: The winery is amazing. I really like this map actually, it's got a lot to it and deserves a high ranking. I just like the other maps a bit better.

Mumbai: I've been to Mumbai. This feels like Mumbai. That is both good and bad. No notes.

Whittleton Creek: I've been to the suburbs. This feels like the suburbs. That is both good and bad. Very fun to navigate.

Miami: Crossing the circuit is disastrous for your shoe leather but what a map. The user contracts on this are incredible, I learned you could wear disguises I didn't even know about from the mission stories. Good job playerbase, you cooked with this one, and so did IOI.

New York: The bank is cool. It's got layers to it and is both claustrophobic and open at the same time. Really fun to dart around enforcers and cameras in the lobby while making your way upstairs. Banger map.

Paris: For a starter map there's a lot to this, they actually almost nailed it the first time. I have personal issues with this map due to a certain escalation but I actually think in terms of sheer layout it's a banger. Solid little stage.

Dartmoor: Oh amazing. It's the easy answer for a reason, I love running around this map in my suit, it just feels like it's made for that playstyle. The stories are cool, the layout is incredible, the various side objectives exist, it's a good time.

Hitman is a good use of your gaming time, it's one of my favorite singleplayer experiences from the past half decade or so, and that resume includes RDR2, Baldur's Gate 3, CyberPunk 2077, and Expedition Verso. I know I just listed four RPGs and Hitman, but I play this game like an RPG I guess whaddya know. Turn off the mission story full guide and set it to limited or whatever, then play it like a puzzle game, Hitman is enjoyed best in that configuration IMO. Still end of the day your decision do what you want, but play this game.

What a game. I can't believe how much fun the (not-so) simple feature of native multiplayer is. Everything I liked about the original Slay the Spire is here, with some new stuff on top. If you've ever played the first game, you probably own this already. If you haven't played the first game, play this one instead, it's got everything minus achievements.

PROS:
- The ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Time Eater is gone

- Same good StS gameplay loop, "roguelike deckbuilder" if you're IGN, basic elements of DnD parties if you're not. Very simple, has depth, is good fun.

- New characters add quite a bit to the game. I like playing Regent and Necro a lot, and never gelled with the Watcher so kinda glad she's gone sorry

- New mechanics are also cool, I like Sly. Less thrilled about some enemy mechanics like slippery and ringing but I will learn.

- Ascension 10 is more manageable than having to do 20, that's very grindy. This might change though we'll see.

- Multiplayer is so good. The multiplayer specific cards are cool as hell and you can do so much fun stuff. Synergistic card picks, healing each other at rest sites, setup bots, block bots, heal bots, debuff bots, it's a laundry list and it's all very nice.

CONS:
- Early Access means things will change and they might get worse before they get better. They also might not.

- The balancing is very askew, half the time it seems like the player is broken beyond belief, then you meet some of the elites (especially in Act 1) and it seems quite the opposite. The random mobs are sometimes also horrifically strong, some of them are basically elites themselves. Special mention to "Hunter Killer" that name has struck fear into me since Black Ops and this one has a mean streak to match.

- Each encounter's gimmick seems inclined to punish specific strategies, which means that some builds are outright outmatched against them. Example: the galvanized walking Van de Graaff generator who takes 6 HP for playing a Power card. Defect players beware. I guess it "promotes diverse decks" but like come on, a random brick wall in your way is brutal.

- Following on from balancing, some player strategies and cards are nonfunctional without key pieces of the puzzle. I am not very good at this game so perhaps some of this comes from skill issue, but it feels like certain player strategies are infinitely stronger than others: Sly on Silent, Souls on Necro, it sort of feels like artificial gimping if you're not building those strats. Similarly, some cards are broken beyond belief in multiplayer and outright terrible in singleplayer: Strangle and Ironclad vuln stacking to name a couple.

- I am very confused on whether the game actually wants you to target elites. In StS1, the elite's guaranteed rewards and relics changed the entire flow of the game to such an extent that targeting them as much as possible was the most common strategy. In this game? It almost feels high-risk low-reward. The relics are ... fine? I've only seen a few that are really build-arounds but I'm no theorycrafter. You don't get a guaranteed rare card either, and those are absolutely build-arounds. Odd choices to the elite reward balancing here.


That's it. Notice how most of the cons are stuff that Early Access games often have issues with at the start, or growing pains. I expect some of the fixes to these problems will involve player nerfs, which sucks in a PvE game, but some math wizard will point out how its necessary. Other than encounters feeling almost arbitrary in assignment (some of the random mobs are seriously elite level in strength it is ABSURD) and certain elites being overtuned to hell (F them quad worms in Act 1, WTF is that) this game has few flaws for my personal taste. Will play for hours to come. 9/10.

Hoo boy. This is a ...contested game. There's a lot of history behind how this game came to be and what happened to it when it was let out into the world. So 5 years and a whole DLC later, what's my verdict? It's just not all it's hyped up to be, lads. This game's problem is that it's surface level and superficial to an embarrassing degree given how it was marketed and received. I'm going to be very harsh on this game's level of detail and freedom of expression. Why? Because in a post GTA5/RDR2/BG3 world, open world RPGs just need that level of TLC. If you don't have it, you get punished. ESPECIALLY when you say you have it, and very much do not.

PROS:
- It's managed to keep enough of the Blade Runner/Neo-Tokyo aesthetic and grime to feel "dystopian but still pretty" in a neon-saturated red-light district kind of way, which is what the Cyberpunk genre should feel like IMO

- Melee combat and netrunner combat feels decent for the most part. The heft of the hammers and the manic katana spam has oomph, throwable knives feel good, and so do most pistols honestly

- The NCPD hustles and fixer gigs are easily the most fun I had "doing stuff" in the game. Very little railroading occurs here and you have a wide range of options to complete your objective. Full stealth is actually pretty enjoyable here.

- The lore around the NCPD/Gigs are environment-based and you can learn a fair bit about the fixers and their respective spheres of influence.

- You can make people end it all.

CONS:
- Driving sucks harder than a joytoy on Jig-Jig Street. Whatever the hell they did to their roads and driving mechanics, so few cars handle properly it's a nightmare. You can get used to it eventually but it never really stops being a roll of the dice.

- Guns feel like ass for the most part, especially the full auto ones. Anything above a pistol doesn't look or feel nice to use, except maybe a power shotgun. I think I stopped using assault rifles and SMGs before I was 15 hours into the game, and the various gimmicks like Tech/Smart/Unique versions of these full auto guns are still so unsatisfying.

- TwinTone sucks and the whole owning cars system sucks, no garage sucks, why in the name of God are the color slots limited I just don't understand why this system is so bad.

Actually, forget this cons section. There's several glaring issues in this game that need their own paragraphs because we need to talk about this holistically.

Okay, this game is railroady as all heck. You will go and do things as we say, and you will then watch this cutscene. Special mention to the 30 minute sequence following "The Heist". You've only just been introduced properly to V and his Night City shenanigans, then you're thrown into Keanu Reeves'... I dunno anarchist wet dream or something. I lost the ability to play MY character for such a long period of time that I straight up Alt-F4'd the game and afterwards sped through the explanations for what was happening. I didn't CARE about this history lesson, or introduction to Silverhand, I didn't give a single solitary ♥♥♥♥, and this sort of expository ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ is a recurring feature in the game. I spent as much time avoiding main story quests as possible because of this. This extends to in quest stuff too, even if you're a netrunner build sometimes a bot will either be randomly unhackable or have a forced magic pixel of health remaining because it needs to do a story thingTM like shoot someone to create drama.

When I said this game was superficial, I wasn't kidding. Oh you have an option to use your "Cool" or "Nomad" backstory dialogue? Yeah whatever man anyway back to the scheduled outcome and voice lines. You know how many times V said something that didn't make sense given my background/previous actions/previous dialogue? Okay, in depth explanation. Panam is a nomad and is trying to help her clan with a thing. If you, as V, have a nomad background (as I did), you can talk about her clan well before this quest and establish your shared knowledge base. Then, in the event, Panam says something to the effect of "Oh god, members of [clan] are dying!" V, nomad V, V who has discussed TWO seconds ago BY NAME this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ clan, will go "your clan??" This is such a glaring discrepancy I just don't know what to say. There's so much stuff like this in the game. You can scan a dead body from a drone in that same quest and the game will identify it as a certain person. When Panam wonders out loud whether said person is alive, V HAS NO OPTION to say anything! You can't bring it up, you don't even get a dialogue for it. She keeps thinking they might be alive till she finds the body herself. Judy fights the Tyger Claws for control of her ♥♥♥♥♥ club, while you as V are completing gigs for Wakako, who has prominent influence in that gang. Can you bring this up to her or talk about the event afterwards? No, of course not. You know how I praised the lore in those NCPD hustles and fixer gigs? If you find evidence that a fixer has failed a gig previously and you are their second/third option, or if you find some interesting gossip about them on a computer in said gig, can you ask them about it? No, of course not. When you find Dakota's failed attempt to save pregnant women in the Badlands, can you commiserate over a drink? No. Am I asking for too much depth from a video game? In a world with Baldur's Gate 3 in it, I don't think so. Even if it is too big an ask, sucks to suck don't know what to tell you.

The game breaking bugs from 5 years ago weren't plentiful in my run, but there were points where... it breaks the flow significantly when it happens. At a certain point in the DLC, I'm carrying an important character in an important moment to an important place. There is Jesus Music playing, you are princess carrying this person like the Virgin Bloody Mary. You turn the corner and... a door is closed that isn't supposed to be. Can you do anything about this? No, reload an old save and pray that works. If it doesn't? Eh I dunno. Great.

Speaking of this DLC, okay. It's... fine. There's some extra environmental things to do in Dogtown, and the gigs and other events are of a different flavor to the rest of Night City. There's at least a couple legitimately good quests here, shout-out the "rescue two cops" gig and the "Aguilar" quest for Hands. The addition of the car stealing quests were fun for me because I like that sort of thing. Otherwise, I don't think the writing improves any. It's painfully obvious that what's going to happen won't be happy or fun for you as V.

Speaking of which, why are there so many instances in this game of "you know, that there's a bad idea, we should not do that. Anyway, here's our gonk plan for doing that really dumb thing we said is a bad idea." This is the driving force behind so much of the main story that I started wishing I was listening to Dutch tell me he had a plan again. V is stupid, most people around him are stupid, and it's not fun to be around stupid people.

There's also a bunch of small things about the game that are unbelievably annoying. Odd lag spikes when you open the map, that freaking "we like the pain" song, pedestrians staggering INTO the road when you drive near them, the fact that the parry counterattack is TWO hits so you might accidentally kill someone you are trying not to kill, trying to target someone in a car for hacking purposes, trying to get autodrive to not hit something 10 seconds in and shut down, single animations for takedowns, I dunno it's a list. Mods probably fix a lot of this, but the vanilla game has addressed very few of these things.


This game sans DLC is worth maybe $15. This game with DLC is maybe worth $25. Does that seem extremely low to you? You can get better versions of this sort of game for that price, I promise. If you HAVE to have this game, consider sailing the high seas or something, I just didn't think it was worth it in the end.