No you did not misread that, this game is a JRPG combined with a Yakuza game. And it's probably one of my all-time favorites. It's still very much a Yakuza game with a plethera of minigames including Mahjong, Karaoke, and Batting Center, a ton of well-written Sub Stories, and two major side stories called Business Management and Dragon Kart (a straight-up Mario Kart clone). One of the biggest changes you'll notice if you've played any of the games is the combat, which has been changed from real-time combat to a turn-based one based a party of four and the Job class system from the early Final Fantasy games. And this is maybe one of the best parts of the game as it's classes like Break Dancer, Pop Idol, and Riot Squad that each have their own specializations and Heat Actions that have been reimagined as special moves. You also get Summons in the form of a Smartphone app where you use your money to summon random bodyguards such as a crayfish rainstorm, a little girl with a donation box that sucks money out of enemies, and, later on, legacy characters from the series. The main story is probably one of the series' best as it revolves around a new protagonist, Kasuga Ichiban, and his misadventures through Yokomama. Unlike other protagonists, he's not a high-ranking official but a low-rank grunt that usually on the recieving end of Kiryu's punches. But I wound up really liking him as he's optimistic, hilarious, a bit naive, loyal to a fault with his friends, and never lets anything get him down. Oh, and he suffers from an overactive imagination and is a megafan of Dragon Quest. And the rest of the supporting cast is equally great and likable enough to where you actually cared about what happened to them, which is highly important in a JRPG. If you are wondering about the DLC, you don't need it. I haven't played it but I heard the two classes you get only one of them is worth it. But you can stick with the base game and the same fantastic experience. Recommended.
No you did not misread that, this game is a JRPG combined with a Yakuza game. And it's probably one of my all-time favorites. It's still very much a Yakuza game with a plethera of minigames including Mahjong, Karaoke, and Batting Center, a ton of well-written Sub Stories, and two major side stories called Business Management and Dragon Kart (a straight-up Mario Kart clone). One of the biggest changes you'll notice if you've played any of the games is the combat, which has been changed from real-time combat to a turn-based one based a party of four and the Job class system from the early Final Fantasy games. And this is maybe one of the best parts of the game as it's classes like Break Dancer, Pop Idol, and Riot Squad that each have their own specializations and Heat Actions that have been reimagined as special moves. You also get Summons in the form of a Smartphone app where you use your money to summon random bodyguards such as a crayfish rainstorm, a little girl with a donation box that sucks money out of enemies, and, later on, legacy characters from the series. The main story is probably one of the series' best as it revolves around a new protagonist, Kasuga Ichiban, and his misadventures through Yokomama. Unlike other protagonists, he's not a high-ranking official but a low-rank grunt that usually on the recieving end of Kiryu's punches. But I wound up really liking him as he's optimistic, hilarious, a bit naive, loyal to a fault with his friends, and never lets anything get him down. Oh, and he suffers from an overactive imagination and is a megafan of Dragon Quest. And the rest of the supporting cast is equally great and likable enough to where you actually cared about what happened to them, which is highly important in a JRPG. If you are wondering about the DLC, you don't need it. I haven't played it but I heard the two classes you get only one of them is worth it. But you can stick with the base game and the same fantastic experience. Recommended.
Just beat the game on Steam and it's probably in my top 5 entries in the series. It feels like RGG listened to all the criticisms of Yakuza 4 and improved on it. Although I will say that this game is long. Like LOTR Extended Edition long. Because there is so much packed into this game including the main story, the substories, the four side stories that include a taxi cart racer, a hunting game, and a baseball minigame, the Hostess stories, the training masters, the Underground Colliseum, and all the usual minigames that show up in Yakuza games. This is a game that is going to keep you BUSY if you are a budget gamer. One of the big highlights for me is the combat which tight, versitile and impactful. It's spread out over 4 characters and each has their own skill sets that feels unique and varied. You have Kiryu who utilizes combos and strong counter moves, Saejima who is a tank who tanks through hits to toss enemies around, Akiyama who utilizes strong kicks to launch enemies into the air, and newcomer Shinada who is a scrappy street fighter and weapon specialist. Even Haruka gets in on the action by engaging in Dance Battles and talk shows as she works to become a Idol Star, something that I thought was a nice change for a female character instead of making her a badass fighter. The main story stands out to me as it does a fantastic job maintaining a coherent and consistent narrative across 5 different protagonists in different cities and scenarios. I found the overall sense of intrigue of underworld politics, the twists that connect the events of the cross-country story, a good supporting cast of side characters, and one of the greatest villians in the series. It does suffer from having events happen to make the plot move forward, major events happen off-screen, and some characters just vanish despite seemingly being a bigger deal, but they don't detract from a great narrative. Overall, I would recommend this game at full price as I think it's that good.
Game is super barebones right now. No character customization, unhelpful tutorials, pushing ESC doesn't close the window you are in, basic functions for games like this just straight up don't work, and the tutorials showhow tell you nothing despite telling you what you need to do. On top of that, the developers are rather advisarial with their Kickstarter backers and customers particularly when the issue was raised on their Discord that the direction the game was going was not what was advertised. On top of that, there is no roadmap for upcoming features which is a red flag to me. This game should not have been released as a DEMO nevermind a $20 Early Access game. Do not recommend.
I rarely get excited for games nowadays. Yakuza is one of the only series in the last few years that I get genuinely excited about whenever a new entry is announced. I have individual reviews of the ones I've played as I have them all on Steam but I would recommend the bundle for Yakuza 0, Kiwami 1 and 2 alone. They are fantastic games that we rarely see anymore and there really isn't a game series quite like them.
I replayed this game a couple years ago and I think this entry gets way more hate from the Y0 fans than it deserves. I think a lot of it comes down to Kiryu being the less popular protagonist from the newbies to the series and you only play as him. It's also a weird callback to when the series tried to be this super-serious crime drama of the early 2000s and going for a more traditional RPG approach. But I really dug how the more grounded tone of the game and it was a nice throwback to how entertainment used to be back in the 2000s. It also made me appreciate the characters that appeared in Yakuza 0 like Nishki, whose character arc shown in flashbacks was insanely good storytelling. The Majima Everywhere system is also hilarious, particularly the Yakuza Deadsouls sequence. It was also nice to get the fighting moves from Y0 back and improved to make some stances feel better to play, particularly Kiryu's Dragon stance. The Tiger Drop move is hilariously broken and makes a lot of boss fights a joke and I love it. That being said, it's hardly flawless. I remember getting frustrated with unlocking all of the Dragon combat moves because to unlock some, you need to fight a certain version of Majima. And he would not always show up in the form I wanted. Also, getting the "Mister Master" achievement is a NIGHTMARE. Otametal MY LIFE is one of the hardest songs in the series until Truehearted Samurai (from Ishin!) came along. In conclusion, if you liked Yakuza 0 you'll love the follow-up to it. Recommended.
If you are familiar with Yakuza 0 or Kiwami 1, this one plays a lot like those games. And while not the greatest entry, I really appreciate the ambition they tried with this game. This entry really shoots for the stars as we follow the storyline of 4 main protagonists across the game: the new mainstays in Akiyama and Saejima, the one-off wonder of Tanimura, and, of course, the mascot Kiryu. Not only does each character have their own story, but they also have their own narrative and sub-stories, but they also have their own unique fighting style, weapon specializations, karaoke songs, and interactions with the city. For example, Akiyama runs a cabaret club where he can train a hostess, which serves as one of the unique minigames, that other characters can date later on. That being said, it's a rather divisive game in the series notably in the story and Saejima. 1) The story is coherent but it goes all over the place and has way more twists than an M Night Shymalan movie, and they are not particularly good twists. While there are good supporting characters and villains, most of their actions don't really make sense outside of "it has to happen to move the plot along." That being said, it was really cool as a fan of Yakuza 0 to see the events that were referenced in the game play out on screen. 2) This game hates Saejima. Like REALLY hates Saejima. The prison break sequence that is his introduction is the most hated sequence in all of Yakuza because it's pretty easy to screw yourself if you pick the wrong talents. Not to mention you get limited healing items, an irritating mini-boss fight half-way through, and an irksome "dodge the sniper" sequence. After that, while it makes sense as you are a felon, Saejima has take the scenic route to dodge policemen and doesn't even do some of the minigames. Overall, the game holds up really well for a PS3 game and it well worth a play if you love Yakuza.
It should be noted that this game is not bad but it's a reMASTER of a PS3 game unlike the Kiwami games which are reMAKEs of PS2 games. What that means is you are going to go into this and notice this game is missing a lot of Quality of Life improvements you are gonna miss from previous entries. Particularly with things we take for granted in more modern titles such as the amount of button presses, having to do an unnecessary amount of NPC interaction and non-stackable difficulty achievements. It's very much playable and familiar for those who played the newer titles but you are gonna notice what's missing and go, "Man, I miss this from Yakuza xxx." The main story is probably the most serious in the series that had potential with a great supporting cast, great villains such as Kanda, Hamazaki and Mine, and a solid amount of intrigue. But it's hamstrung by some weird decisions that didn't really age well such as toning down the comedy aspect of Majima, having a major character "return" but not really, a lot of the new characters have plot threads that go nowhere, and its really hamstrung by this feeling that they were going to retire Kiryu as a main character. (Spoilers: it isn't.) I also struggle to remember most of the side stories which are usually as good as the main narrative. I do recommend it but I can't say I was inclined to try and complete it compared to other games. It's rather low for me overall in the series.
This game ties with Yakuza 0 and Yakuza: Like a Dragon for my favorite entry in the series. A remake of the PS2 game with the Y6 engine, its one of the best playing games in the series. If you are like me and played up to this game from Y0, you will know what I mean when I say how smooth everything feels from the graphics, walking around the world, and the combat. And out of all the main storylines, this one remains my favorite with a great villain Ryuji Goda, a great supporting cast in both the returning and new characters, a lot of good twists and scenarios Kiryu has to navigate, and, of course, Majima Construction Company. And that's before we get into the Sub-Stories and the Cabaret side story, the latter being a fantastic wrap-up I didn't think I needed from Yakuza 0. But there are some weak parts: 1) the Majima Saga because its fairly short unless you do some of the minigames to get money that unlocks items in the main story and Majima uses a fighting style reminiscent of his Mad Dog style in Y0 that I didn't like using. The best part and maybe the only reason to play it is it provides a nice epilogue to his arc in 0. 2) The Majima Construction Mini-game. This is basically this game's Cabaret mini-game that's apparently a lot like Clan Builder in 6 (I haven't gotten to that game) but more so as a tower defense game. And it's not great. It also features cameos from Japanese wrestlers that are gonna go over your head unless you are REALLY familiar with that scene. But besides that, it's one of the best games you could play in the series largely thanks to the Dragon Engine running extremely well. And it's also one of the easier games you can 100% if you care about that. Worth getting at full price and is a steal during a sale. Recommended.
This is hands-down one of my top 5 games of all-time. It's a hard game to nail down because it's very unique among video games but the closest comparison would be Shenmue. Unlike Shenmue however, RGG is interested in telling a complete story along with a complete game. Mechanically, I would call it a 3D brawler in the vein of Streets of Rage with an RPG system where you unlock new moves, health and heat gauge. You play as two characters who have 4 unique move sets that range from slow but hard hitting to fast, agile light hitter to a balance of the two. It's also an open-world game in the vein of the early 2000s where you go around to restaurants, item stores, arcades with SEGA arcade games, and even dedicated mini-game buildings. It's also a story-driven game while straight-forward is a rather excellent love letter to Japanese gangster series revolving around two main characters: Kiryu Kazuma and Goro Majima. Taking in 1988 Japan when the Yen was the strongest it ever was, the backdrop of a gaudy gilded age with '80s clothes, disco and Traditional Japanese culture is one of the most unique I've seen. But the real interesting story revolves around the side quests, or Sub-Stories, that tell more interesting and compelling narratives than 99% of modern movies and TV coming out in the last 5 years. Heck, there are entire plot lines, characters, and game mechanics revolving around the minigames of Pocket Kart, Cabaret, and Real Estate that most companies would sell as DLC that is just included in that game. Also, the OST is one of my all-time favorites with some of my personal favorites being Trouble Shooting Star, Rocket Nuts Groove, Recieve You The Subtype, and Breaking Showcase. This game is well worth getting at full price, but the sales price of $5 is an absolute STEAL for a game like this. And everyone who I've recommended this game to absolutely loves it. Get it.
