I spent a lot of time editing this review with Pangburn and discussing the game's various aspects thoroughly with him. Thanks again for all the help!

I’ll get my major gripes out of the way first: many of them are due to potential areas of improvement in Yakuza 0’s combat. I admit that I’m not a huge fan of the Style System, which felt underwhelming to me because it usually results in spreading myself too thin while locking the best abilities until the very late game. Money is a bit harder to come by in the early game (unless you can consistently win against the roaming enemy Mr Shakedown, who can just as easily bankrupt you upon defeat if you aren’t prepared with the adequate combat upgrades), and each combat style is tuned to adapt for specific situations (i.e. Rush Style is agile and allows Kiryu to quickly slip behind single enemies and bog them down with attacks, while Beast Style is often better at handling multiple foes by picking up large objects and swinging them for effective crowd control). However, a lot of the valuable defining traits for specific styles (i.e. Iron Gut on Beast Style to guard against knife/gun attacks, or Quickstep Blow on Rush Style for quick evasion into powerful attacks) cost significantly more than previous steps (2 million yen for Rank 2 abilities to 30 million yen for the above Rank 3 abilities), so I felt incentivized to invest equally into the different styles instead of trying to specialize. As a result, my characters felt somewhat lacking through most of the game’s runtime, since I had to split my investments equally between the different styles to accommodate for different situations (and thus often lacking crucial abilities). Eventually, the three-style system becomes effectively superseded once your protagonists finish their main side-quest lines and unlock a “true” 4th style reminiscent of prior entries in the series that combines traits of the previous styles, which to me seems to only further highlight how insignificant progress within the style system can feel.

Enemy variety is also rather bland in the Yakuza games (most likely due to the beat-em-up structure), which in turn further homogenizes combat. Most enemies are simple grunts around your size that will charge at you with standard close range attacks. Some will try and stagger you with knives and swords, a few have tasers on hand, and near the late game, a couple of enemies will have guns. While tasers and guns can stunlock you and force you to mash to stand back up, you can just pay for the corresponding expensive upgrade in each style to nullify stuns altogether. As such, I ended up fighting every enemy as if they were functionally the same, and once I purchased the necessary unlocks, tearing through them like paper became a simple task. The only time I had to accommodate for a different enemy type occurred during specific story missions, where sometimes larger grunts with superarmor appear that actively require baiting and punishing. Otherwise, most non-boss combat starts to all blend together, and it never quite hits that sweet spot between mindlessly mashing to take out scores of enemies or getting tossed around like a salad by guns and tasers.

There’s also a weapons system involved in all this, but it feels rather extraneous. There’s never any real need for weapons given the functional homogeneity of most of the enemies. Moreover, many of the combat scenes in the game are placed in locations with plenty of breakable loose objects lying astray that often serve that exact purpose as is. Additionally, weapons have a durability counter, and to repair weapons, you either have to use Repair Kits (which are obtained randomly from Dream Machines) or trek to the local Dragon & Tiger. The actual fees involved are a trifle considering how much money you’ll end up earning, but having to waste tons of time farming Repair Kits from Dream Machines to fix your weapon in the middle of combat or spend time outside of combat walking back and forth from the Dragon & Tiger is a pain in the ass. As such, I basically never bothered with weapons in-game, save for the one quest with Simon where you have to purchase and farm weapons & materials/recipes from Dragon and Tiger (and that is a whole different time-consuming RNG endeavor altogether, though again, it never felt crucial due to how little I used weapons).

If there’s one silver lining to all this, it’s that the combat never truly felt like a significant barrier to me due to its simplicity. It becomes pretty straightforward to cheese and simplify combat once you figure out the easiest strategies for each protagonist. Majima’s Breaker style was fantastic at stunlocking enemies due to how many hitboxes got thrown out in each cycle, and later on, Slugger became my go-to because the extended X-X-X-Y-Y cartwheel combo broke every enemy’s stance and was actually positive on hit in every story fight I encountered on Normal difficulty. Meanwhile, Kiryu’s Beast style quickly became my mainstay; picking up large objects and batting away foes was a bit too overpowered most of the time. As mentioned previously, the quick crowd control options, alongside better defensive tools such as superarmor, provided Beast Style with most of the utility necessary to clear the majority of the game’s standard fights. Thus, even if combat was uninteresting most of the time, it was at least over quickly enough to where I could proceed with little stress, especially when utilizing stamina drink stockpiles for powering through damage.

I’ll give Yakuza 0 some credit though, as a few of the boss fights were engaging enough to leave a mark on me. The Kuze fights are a huge highlight here, considering that his first fight resulted in my first game-over, and it was extremely satisfying performing visibly better with each consecutive fight, especially since a few of these fights are no-frills 1v1 fights that forced me to rely upon more of my toolkit. In particular, I found Kuze and other bosses to be far more aggressive and willing to combo me for larger damage margins and chipping away at my health while I was knocked down. Defensively, they were more up to par too, with much more emphasis placed upon quick dodges and guards to nullify my lighter attacks. The final boss fight for Kiryu takes the cake for my favorite boss encounter overall given how the different phases mirror Kiryu’s own abilities, and it put a smile on my face when I realized that they were willing to pull the exact same stunts that I had also been abusing in combat. In particular, I couldn’t stop smirking during the second phase of the final boss, when my opponent began picking up tables and chairs to slam and hurl at me. It’s a very visceral yet humanizing way to top off the game, and I do wish that more of the other fights had enemies that were willing to resort to similar underhanded tactics to highlight just how dirty the crime world can get.

That said, you’re not really here for the mostly inoffensive combat: the real bulk of the game is everything else, more specifically the various interactions between every other system in the game including the different connecting narratives and side/substories. Perhaps that is the true strength behind the franchise: no one system stands out above the others, and as a result it becomes something much more than the sum of its parts. It may sound like a weakness, and it is a major weakness of many games that try to do everything at once, yet Yakuza 0 escapes this pitfall because everything is seamlessly and inexorably linked.

A lot of this is in part due to the centralization of progression systems within the game. Everything is linked to exorbitant amounts of money, which is not only thematically appropriate but also results in all grinding leading to the same collected pool. Money can be earned through fights, certain sidegames, and most importantly, Kiryu’s real estate and Majima’s cabaret club. In turn, money is used to upgrade your characters (and weapons) for fights, pay for entering certain sidegames as well as upgrading necessary materials for better performance, and paying for properties and staff in your respective side gigs. I was afraid at first that the existence of all these different activities would result in a million different systems that I’d have to memorize and optimize for different purposes, but since they all feed back into the same resource, everything you do ultimately results in some form of progress towards the same end goal, resulting in a much more focused experience than what I had first assumed on a surface level.

To expand upon the two main side stories, Kiryu and Majima must essentially fight rival head honchos of each section of Kamurocho/Sotenbori through the collection of landshare/influence. Kiryu can purchase certain properties in each area to later invest and gain dividends, while Majima can partner with properties to increase Club Sunshine’s fanbase and gain more notoriety during cabaret club nights. As the player gains more control over each sector, more of the background behind the opposing head honchos is revealed until inevitable confrontation occurs, usually in the form of a minigame/street fight for Kiryu and a “club battle” for Majima where Club Sunshine must outcompete its opposition while enduring enemy abilities. These side stories feed right into the overall progression system, since they provide a reliable source of income as well as an incentive to engage in outside activities and explore the two hub areas for staff and valuable resources. As mentioned previously, the definitive and more overpowered 4th fighting style unlocked from completion is a great cherry on top of this whole endeavor.

Aiding all of this are the numerous substories scattered throughout the two main hubs. No side quests are marked immediately on the map with markers when you first start new chapters; instead, you have to unlock them by stumbling into the correct section of Kamurocho/Sotenbori or by engaging in certain activities long enough. Once you do unlock these side quests, actually fulfilling them is simple enough, since blue question box markers will appear on the map showing you where to head next to progress. The result is that exploration in the overworld opens up fairly organically; the player is incentivized to wander about naturally without any pressure to eliminate all the lit up checkpoints on the map from the start. Additionally, side quests often are completed in spurts, and players often have to travel outside of a given quest’s area to activate its next section on the map, meaning that they have a choice of whether or not they want to continue seeing the quest through at that very moment or spend time elsewhere and return to that sidequest later. Finally, completing sidequests can lead to unlocking other related side quests as well as gaining aforementioned helpful staff, properties, and useful items (such as an encounter finder, to track down street fights more easily). Yet, there’s no single substory that feels so important in terms of personal or monetary gain that players have to go out of their way to fulfill all necessary conditions for it. By doing this, Yakuza 0 never imposes and merely suggests; players can complete and explore as much as they wish with little negative externalities if they choose not to go all the way.

To add on the above, the actual activities themselves are designed in a way where there’s just enough depth to allow for significant improvement if players choose to dedicate more time to their favorite pastimes, but again, not too much depth to where it takes an eternity and a half to master certain activities. For instance, consider the bowling minigame. It’s quite simple to pick up: you can adjust your ball’s weight, starting position, trajectory, and power, with the obvious caveat that heavier balls are tougher to aim but better at retaining momentum. You don’t necessarily need to keep close track of every option to succeed and best your buddies in three-frame sets, but there are nice little side rewards in the form of completion points (CP) (which can be used at shrines to unlock unnecessary yet helpful little abilities such as longer dashing times and more Nouveau Riche encounters to fight for more cash) for bowling ten strikes. Further plays also increase friendship with the attendant there, which will result in a sidequest that allows you to recruit a chicken as staff for your real estate firm once you bowl a turkey. There’s also a separate side mode called Split Game where you have to more carefully aim your ball across special split pin arrangements that allows you to earn more cash and a potential CP. Again, there’s plenty of optional rewards that are great for upgrading your character and systems if you choose to invest a bit of time here and there, but even then, more grindy minigames are optional to the point where they become unobtrusive; as such, you can switch between a multitude of different activities with little consequence whenever your current focus starts to wear you down.

The story can also be thought of as another of the game’s smaller systems, thanks to how it never feels particularly intrusive. After clearing the first chain of events in Chapter 1 as well as the associated tutorials, the main introductions take a step back and you can begin messing around with the aforementioned sidequests and minigames. The game is very good at telegraphing exactly when the player needs to be committed to the story and when they are free to meander about; at no point does the game ever feel like it is forcing you to put down what you are doing at that exact moment in time to return to the main storyline. At the same time, progressing through the story events is greatly streamlined whenever the player needs to do so. Therefore, despite the main storyline’s linearity, the game manages to retain a visage of non-linearity; the wide variety of activities available at any given time allow you to swap between the story and optional content effortlessly at your heart’s content.

Just as there’s a balance between story progression and player-driven exploration, there’s a certain balance struck in the game’s tone that’s present throughout each narrative thread weaving into one another that exemplifies an undercurrent of sincerity. The central plotline jumps back and forth between Kiryu’s struggles escaping the Dojima family after being framed for murder, and Majima’s struggles serving as a blackmailed affiliate of his old yakuza family while seeking release from his gilded cage. Both are constantly caught in increasingly absurd scenarios by old friends and random strangers alike, and play fantastic straight men juxtaposed to the sticky situations that they must resolve. Alongside this, RGG Studio balances frenzied street brawls between topless yakuza members with dramatic scenes of characters pouring their hearts out. Even the substories carefully walk this tightrope between cheesiness and earnestness: one of my personal favorites has to be Stadium Jumper Strut, where you have to escort a guy whose dream is to walk across Iwao Bridge. He begs for Majima’s assistance, for every time he tries, he is beaten up by thugs because he refuses to take off his stajun jacket that’s riling them up. It’s an absolutely ridiculous premise, yet even I had to admit that sealing the deal with the life lesson of “pursuing dreams regardless of what others think” put a smile on my face. Camp meets candor time and time again, and as a result, Yakuza 0 never feels too sarcastic or too overbearing; it’s a cozy and compelling mix that kept me hooked during every story beat throughout.

There’s so much more I could say regarding Yakuza’s imperfections thanks to its many ambitions. There’s a forced stealth section that feels a bit clumsy since you have to guide and protect an escort at the same time. To do so, you must hide amongst crowds to avoid detection by patrolling foes, and this becomes a bit awkward since enemies can spot you from far away and enter/leaving crowds has a noticeably long animation with a forced delay between entering and leaving, so staying out of these optional fights is much more tricky in practice. Majima’s cabaret management progression feels not quite as well-integrated, since it’s actually possible to keep gaining fans by playing the club minigame over and over without purchasing properties, and the final stretch requires a bit more grinding as preparation to avoid your hostesses losing all their HP from the opposing club’s special ability. Finally, special moves can be taught by mentors through their respective side missions, and while Majima’s mentor missions are fantastic (Fei Hu’s lessons are a thrill, having to adapt against his quick Kali Sticks and Nunchakus), Kiryu’s mentor missions feel a bit squandered and too by-the-books. My favorite mentor missions there would have to be Miss Tatsu’s training, which involves puzzles where you have to destroy crates for money while eliminating mannequins with guns. It’s a bit more clunky than expected, since you often don’t have enough time to react and throw/dodge when picking up boxes to attack these targets, but it’s definitely an interesting thought exercise of what could have been and it helps that it’s accompanied by a track that quite frankly puts the main Beast Style theme to shame.

Yet at the end of the day, I have to wonder how much these nitpicks matter in the overall scheme of things. I came into Yakuza 0 wanting to fight Kuze and experience a change in pace, and I left feeling quite emotionally invested and fulfilled considering how much time I wasted cheering to x3 Shine and flaunting my new disco moves to Let’s Dance I Wanna Take You Home. While I have to admit that I can’t see myself 100%ing the game anytime soon, and I’m not quite ready to dive into the rest of the series lest the experience begins to outstay its welcome, I’m more than content leaving everything as it stands. It’s obviously doing something right if I’ve managed to spend over 70 hours messing around with everything that even mildly interested me without any single aspect feeling too disjointed or particularly irritating. My fears that Yakuza 0’s wide appeal was an indicator of numerous hours of padding and shallow interaction between systems appear to have been unfounded, and needless to say, I can wholeheartedly recommend Yakuza 0 despite the rough patches. I’m looking forward to the inevitable YaKuze spinoff where we get to play as the old man in the profession where men tend to die young.

After a great experience playing Yakuza: Like a Dragon, I gave a chance to Yakuza 0.

The game is divided in two parts, which one is dedicated to one carachter. Each "part" has your own map and both of them are incredible.

The battle system is fun but really easy. I bought a lot of medice and I never got close to die in the game. It was a walk in the park.

The story is AMAZING! One of the best ever told in the video game history.

It's really good to see that everyone can play this game now. It doesn't matter if you have Xbox Game Pass or Playstation Plus, you'll find all Yakuza games on your library.

Please, do yourself a favor and play Yakuza!

So, after playing all of the mainline Yakuza titles prior to this in release order, I’ve finally arrived at Yakuza 0. I do like this game, but I don’t really get it like most others. People online and my friends had kept telling me about how good this game is, but I didn’t always see it. For a while during my playthrough, I was skeptical of all the praise Yakuza 0 had received, although now that I’ve reached the end, I understand it a lot better now.
Starting with the combat, I found myself enjoying it as it feels very arcadey and flows well. Heat actions did feel overly long at times, which isn’t a problem exclusive to this game, however it felt particularly annoying here. Overall, I didn’t have as much fun with Kiryu’s new styles as I did in Yakuza 5. For the record, I didn’t bother with any of the Legend styles. I thought the grinding for them was a bit too much. Majima is simply fantastic though, with a varied moveset that’s very fun to experiment with. As for the bosses, most of them were pretty solid, with only a few that were… just okay. Kuze especially was a fun boss to repeat. Like I said, I had a good time with the gameplay, but I definitely prefer Yakuza 5’s or even Yakuza 2’s.
Moving onto the story, it was great and serves well as a prequel without needing to retcon past stories for fanservice. The pacing in the beginning is a bit slow, though I can look past that since the rest of the story is so engaging. Each of the new characters are also al interesting in their own right. I really love Tachibana and Makoto’s roles in the narrative. Characters are killed off in a meaningful way, which similarly reminded me of Yakuza 1 in ways. And oh boy the finale. It’d be difficult for me to put my thoughts on it into words, so I’ll just say it’s done extremely well.
Looking at the presentation, it is insanely colorful and stylish, much like the previous entries. I was wholly surprised at how consistent it performs on PS4 due to this too. Yakuza 0 doesn’t have my favorite aesthetics in the series, especially compared to Yakuza 2 and 5, but damn is it amazing nonetheless. The music has prominent electronic and dubstep, with some great themes on top of it. Although I would still say it’s not as memorable as 1-3’s to me.
In summary, I really do owe this game a lot in the end, as it’s the entire reason I even got interested in this franchise in the first place. Yakuza 0’s popularity is what sparked my interest initially, and it’s led me to this point where I absolutely fell in love with the series as a whole. While I may not have appreciated this as much as others have, it was still a blast to play through. It’s an excellent Yakuza title all the way through. Next I tackle Yakuza Kiwami. And boy, do I have some things to say about that fucking remake.

YOU DON'T GET TO THE TOP BY CRYING

The buildup I experienced going into Yakuza 0 was intense for a multitude of reasons. Not only did my decision to go in release order (LAD notwithstanding) lead to me going through several games before reaching this one, not only did I have to endure trials to play this on PC, which ultimately ended in failure, but because this was built up as the best game in the series and one of the best games ever made. While I don’t think it lives up to THAT high of a standard, it’s still a fantastic game with some of the highest highs the series has ever seen.

To start with the gameplay, it has a pretty interesting innovation with its combat. This game introduces the style system, where you can switch between three different fighting styles for each character, with a fourth one based on their original movesets being unlocked after the Real Estate and Cabaret side games. I really like this system, it adds a good amount of variety to combat while also being really, for lack of a better term, stylish. Also, the more the gap between Yakuza and Devil May Cry is bridged, the better.

I’ll briefly go over each of the main fighting styles, starting with Kiryu’s. Brawler style is cool as a sort of early version of Kiryu’s normal fighting style. I noticed quite a few parallels between it and the Legend style he unlocks later, but with Brawler being quite a bit more scrappy, which is fitting for Kiryu’s place in the story. Rush was my personal favorite to use, especially for 1 on 1 fights. I really like the mobility it offers, and the bobbing and weaving you can do with some moves and the guard almost made me feel like I was playing God Hand at times. I wasn’t a fan of Beast style at first, I didn’t see much utility in the guarding mechanic it had, but once I unlocked more abilities, including some attacks that come out of the guarding stance, I realized that Beast style is completely broken. It was an easy go-to for tearing apart crowds.

Moving onto Majima’s, I feel like Thug is a similar type of early adoption of Majima’s fighting style that Brawler was for Kiryu, though I think Thug’s focus on movement and evasion is a bit more interesting. It feels like a closer equivalent to Rush than Brawler at times. The Slugger style rivals Beast in how meathead-y it can be, even with just the bat by itself. I think it ties in with how Majima has a much emphasis on different weapons between the two. The last one I want to go over is Breaker, which is my favorite in terms of choreography. Incorporating breakdancing into combat is really cool to see, and this is one of my favorite examples of it in a game. Really like the freeze poses too, those are dope. Overall I’m a big fan of the style system, I’m excited to see how the system is expanded on in the Judgment games.

A really cool piece of how it incorporates its mechanics into the story is the role of money. The most brought up example is the progression system, but it’s a recurring thread through every facet of the game. Most of the key facets of the plot are about making money and buying properties, it forms a handful of the villains’ ideologies, and a good chunk of the substories focus on money. It’s really cool that the focus on money, as symbolism of Japan’s bubble economy at the time, has a really large presence.

But the most notable one is its skill trees, which has a lot going for it. I think its structure is the best middle ground the series has had between the freeform skill orb system in 4 and the more linear progression of the other games in the series. I still think 4 has my favorite leveling system for how much freedom you have with spending orbs, but I see a lot of value in the skill tree. Speaking of value, I do like the idea of making money the indicator of your progress. Like I said, money is a large aspect of 0’s story and time period, so tying that into your growth for both characters is really neat. I also like how this means progression isn’t just tied to combat or substories. You can get tons of money from selling items, gambling in the Fate Extra catfighting ring, or engaging in each of the characters’ main side stories. Going through them as you move forward makes the feeling of progression satisfying in a pretty unique way for the series.

So there's all sorts of systems that help you make money and support this system really well. However, there's one teensy-weensy but ever so crucial tiny, little detail. None of them matter. For the purposes of gaining money, every single one of these methods is completely irrelevant. And that's all because of one man. Or rather, because of four men…

I like Mr Shakedown in theory, having a superboss walk down the street with steep consequences for losing, while resulting in a massive payout if you beat him. They even have funny little stories as you fight them. In execution, his presence completely ruins the progression of the game. It doesn’t take long for the fights to become incredibly easy to exploit, completely eliminating the risk element of the risk-reward system and making for a painfully easy way to get billions of yen in no time flat. It makes it so that any money management from the side games is nonexistent, making the possibility of doing them all in one go rather than doing them over the course of the game much easier, and, more importantly, you can max out skill trees incredibly fast. I feel like the team was slightly aware of this, so they had to balance the skill tree around him by making sharp price hikes in abilities, especially for Kiryu. But then the result of that is feeling the need to grind out Mr Shakedown to get anywhere close to getting more skills. Being able to max yourself out this easily, alongside the side modes for each character (which are much easier to do all in one go than people would have you believe), leads to the bosses feeling like complete jokes until the very last chapter of the game. This is by far the most exploitable progression system in the series, to the point that it was incredibly hard to ignore. I feel like the game would be better off without that system in place.

But let’s put all of that aside because, as much as I really like it, the gameplay isn’t really the main appeal of the series, the story is. I was originally going to start this by hardening my stance on its role as a starting point, (To summarize, I think starting with the originals is the best way to go about it, but if you start with 0 or LAD like I did, I won’t hold it against you) but I think focusing on that will distract from how it being the 6th title impacted the way I perceive the story. I think the game’s structure is the best execution of having multiple protagonists that they’ve done in the series. Frequently switching back and forth between Kiryu and Majima does wonders for holding my interest in both of them, especially with the TV serial style they’re going for with this. Kiryu’s side of the story is pretty awesome. It’s interesting to see Kiryu in a state where he’s still learning and not anywhere close to the level of dominance that he has in the other titles. It’s cool seeing the way he’s influenced by the people closest to him, and those that challenge him throughout the game. However, I felt that Majima’s side was much stronger in this regard. It might be a stretch to say, but this almost feels more like Majima’s story than Kiryu’s at points. My main intrigue for this was due to seeing him before the events of this game in Yakuza 4, and I’m glad to see they really capitalized on that. Seeing Majima start to cut loose due to his personal stake in the events of the story is the coolest thing. All of Majima’s dialogue in the final chapter had me absolutely giddy.

The villain lineup was also pretty good, I’ll go through each of them briefly. Kuze is great, easily my favorite of the three lieutenants. I love how persistent he is, he’s like a rival character in an action game that’s constantly testing Kiryu. He also happens to have the best boss theme in the game, but that’s besides the point. Shibusawa is pretty neat too, though I feel like he could’ve had a closer dynamic with Kiryu before the very end, like what Kiryu had with Kuze. Kuze and Shibusawa sort of remind me of Saix and Xemnas from Kingdom Hearts II, where the latter has a more imposing role in the narrative, but the former feels more like the main antagonist through his relationship with the MC. The third lieutenant, Awano was a bit of a letdown tbh. His speech to Kiryu was fantastic, but it feels like they didn’t know what to do with him after that point and kind of forced him into a boss fight. The last one I want to mention, Sagawa, is my favorite villain of the entire game. In each scene he’s in, he exudes so much pressure from his calm expressions and the way he talks. Every exchange he has with Majima feels like he’s seeing right through him and has him completely under his thumb. It makes it all the more interesting to see the kind of impact he has on Majima as a character. And that’s the key part of Yakuza 0, we get to see how the people that Kiryu and Majima meet and the actions they take influence them, and form the way they understand the world and themselves. But as satisfying as their growth is, all of it has a tinge of sadness to it, with the knowledge of what’s to come.

I think the most important part of having the context of the whole series as I played, was the way it unmasked the tale’s true nature. All the way through to the credits, Yakuza 0 is a tragedy. When I saw those very scenes of their growth, like any scene with Kiryu and Nishikiyama, or the epilogues of both protags’ stories, I found myself constantly thinking of what they would become in the future, how their decisions to follow these paths would lead to them being thrown into a world that will tear them apart, one that they can’t escape from no matter how many times they pull through. The dark undercurrents of every event, no matter how lighthearted or exhilarating a moment could be, really stung in so many moments. Even if you played 0 first, I urge you to go through it one more time after 5 just to feel the impact of this.

But beyond all the great writing, fun combat or tragic undertones, this game reminded me of my deep love for a series that, relatively speaking, I’ve only recently been acquainted with. I know it sounds superficial, but all of the the small moments of noticing references to past games, like certain music tracks or appearances of characters, and recognizing how the people that Kiryu, Majima and the others met over the course of these twin journeys made them into the people that are so close to my heart, it all really got to me. No amount of critiques I have, even the most damning ones, are going to change that for me. This and Like A Dragon make me really excited for the future of the franchise, and all of the twists and turns that come with it. I’m really happy that I got a chance to go through this series. RGG studios, for whatever your future has in store, I’ll receive you, cause you always brighten my life.

Is Tokyo as predictable and artificial as its depiction in Yakuza 0? The city only seems alive when you happen upon one of many absurd but inconsequential quests. These wacky sidebars also stand out because of their contrast with the standard soap opera crime narrative of the main story. Perhaps Yakuza 0's endless contrivances could be forgiven if the martial arts action weren't so awkwardly telegraphed and designed. The game tries to convince you the combat is cool with its monotonous use of multi-angle cutscene finishers, but anyone with basic knowledge of the beat-'em-up genre and fighting games has seen all of this crap before in more fluid packages. The desaturated still-frame shot that one activates with a victory speaks to the desperate dullness at hand in Yakuza 0. Critics should be jailed for giving this game a pass on its flagrant lack of creativity back in 2017.

eu sempre tive a visão de que yakuza era super bizarro e engraçado, mas nunca tinha dado uma chance real para a franquia.
Isso mudou depois de eu me interessar por obras japonesas e com subtexto de organizações criminosas, eu sei que é específico, mas foi justamente isso que fez eu me interessar pela franquia.
Quando eu comecei a jogar yakuza, logo de cara, a primeira coisa que eu reparei foi a sua ambientação e o seu combate, que por mais diferente que pareça, fica extremamente divertido depois de dominado.
A historia do jogo é o seu maior charme, e me quebrou completamente, pois eu esperava algo bobo, e acabei descobrindo um jogo muito sério e bem feito.
Hoje, depois de consumir a maior parte dos jogos da franquia, percebo como esse meu preconceito com o jogo era bobo, obvio que existem momentos enfadonhos, mas não é o cerne do jogo e nem sua totalidade.

amo o majima, casa comigo cara!!!

Sunao ni I LOVE YOU! todokeyou
kitto YOU LOVE ME! tsutawaru sa
Kimi ni niau GLASS no kutsu wo sagasou

Futari de STEP & GO! itsu made mo
Shin'ya juuni-ji wo sugitatte
bokura no LOVE MAGIC wa
toke wa shinai

Oide meshimase ohime-sama
Doku no ringo wo tabete nemucchai sou na
Sunao sugiru kimi ga totemo itoshii

Atarimae ＝ (iko) takaramono sa
Chikyuu wa mawari hi wa nobori
Kimi wa hohoemu

Sunao ni I LOVE YOU! todokeyou
Kitto YOU LOVE ME! tsutawaru sa
Kimi ni niau GLASS no kutsu wo sagasou

Futari de STEP & GO! itsu fez mo
Shin'ya juuni-ji wo sugitatte
Kimi wa boku no itoshii nijuuyo-jikan CINDERELLA

Hey! Ei! Ei!

To live is to not run away

The original Yakuza, the game that transitioned Sega out of the in-house console era onto the PS2, opens with this line. It embodies the spirit of the entire franchise that would come to be. Yakuza’s spirit was that of the romanticized Bushido code mixed with the rich atmosphere and contemporary setting of Yakuza crime movies. What distinguished Kiryu from the real-life yakuza was his way of life: his tenacity and insistence on walking the path laid out for him.

Yakuza 0, as a tenth anniversary celebration, looks to explore that tenacity, that insistence on looking past the inflating yen of the late 80s, and direct Kiryu and another man with a common conviction—Goro Majima—toward their personal truths.

> Through this whole ordeal, I saw a lot of people try to set things right. It blew me away, man. Not just yakuza. Civilians too. It really drove home just how green I still am.

The streets of Kamurocho in ‘88 were dirty and grimy. There’s a bed of trash coating the sidewalk, and gaudy lights and excess are laid out everywhere. It’s the kind of environment that breeds monsters willing to tear each other apart, tooth and nail, for a spot of land about the size of a doghouse. Perfect space for a 20-year-old Kiryu, aimlessly following the whims of others and vaguely following his adoptive father’s footsteps.

Kiryu’s philosophy and way of life is slowly being brought to the surface. Every surprise attack he gets from Kuze, every slimy wishy-washy opinion from Awano, and every piece of shit thing a yakuza takes the liberty of doing to those he cares about pushes him over the edge. There’s a level of reverence 0’s Kiryu plot has towards the character’s legacy as a whole – filling in some of the missing pieces of characterization that understandably couldn’t be explored in the original ‘05 game.
Kuze specifically is masterfully crafted as a benchmark for how Kiryu is doing, and his level of resolve. He’s a stubborn old man that tries to constantly beat Kiryu down through raw strength reminiscent of his boxer days. He’s the crown jewel of Kiryu’s antagonists in his simplicity and brutality. Tachibana was able to confide in a young Kiryu, but it took his death for a switch to flip in the kid’s head – he’s going to stop the lieutenants with his own two fists even if it costs him his life. Walking away, the old man’s able to acknowledge Kiryu as fit for the job.

Shibusawa isn’t nearly as competently written as Kuze, but his ability to challenge Kiryu’s beliefs and sense of direction by highlighting the futility of honorable yakuza and Shintaro Kazama’s disregard for the idea forces Kiryu to make a personal change – he’s no longer his oyabun’s puppet but wants nothing more than to carve out his own fate.
As he gets his last drink in at Serena, Kiryu throws on a gray suit: it’s not a pure white, but black isn’t particularly fitting either. It’s grounded by a passionate, burning red collared shirt underneath.


> Watchin’ you, I figured out just how important hangin’ on really is.


Soutenbori is similarly drowning in excess, but a level of sophistication comes from the sprawling cabaret scene and laid-back food-focused economy of Osaka. The indulgence of the settings hides the truth: it’s a jail for a Majima in his mid-20s, treated like a toy, and referred to as “Shimano’s project."

Yakuza 4 sets the groundwork for Majima as more than comic relief but establishes him as a broken man using the facade of the Mad Dog to get through to the next day. There’s a certain level of reverence both Majima and the story itself share in regards to the alleged “slayer of 18," Taiga Saejima.

Majima’s arc has a lot of highlights, one of the most prominent being the parallels drawn between a young, recently traumatized Goro and a young girl limited by her psychosomatically triggered blindness. Makoto grounds Majima’s story and forces him to punch above his weight and be shaped into more than just a hitman. The implication in Yakuza 4’s cutscene where he and Saejima prepare to gun down the Ueno Seiwa clan is that this isn’t their first time doing something like this. Saejima himself has done some dirty shit and no way his sworn brother hasn’t tagged along.
Unfortunately, Makoto is frustratingly passive throughout most of the story. She is entirely aware of this, but this self-awareness doesn’t really sway me over to loving her character. It doesn’t help that her big statement of independence is where she foolishly puts her life at risk in front of a cabal of hardened yakuza.

Sagawa is excellent and stands as a checkpoint for Majima to look at as he grows and experiences the storyline. He’s always right around the corner, taunting Majima and being a stick up the guy’s ass. It’s unfortunate that no one else really has the staying power he does consistently throughout the narrative. Lao Gui feels like a last-minute addition that is hamfistedly Majima’s final boss.

Goro Majima’s story is one that pushes the guy into his own twisted way of life – even if he pushes everyone away from him and destroys his ability to be engaged with seriously. As a mad dog, nobody can throw him into a bullshit scheme. No one can trick and deceive him, nobody can pull out weird underhanded tactics, and no one can ever toss him into an alley and gouge out his eye.

Majima is not Kiryu. I wish this could have been further reinforced throughout Zero. This might be a bit of a hot take, but I genuinely wished Majima had taken out Lao Gui with his own two hands. Sera bullshits him with weird excuses like “Makoto wouldn’t want to carry that weight”, knowing full well the girl still resents the Dojima Family deeply and openly expresses a desire for their destruction. Majima’s big poignant moment could have been giving Lao Gui a quick gash to the head with a knife, refusing to take orders from anyone he doesn’t feel like. Majima didn’t have a Nishiki-type figure to stop him at the moment – Saejima is in jail. I was really hungry for the more unstable, vicious Majima we see in Yakuza 1, and the lack of these moments in the main story make it hard to believe the guy organically transitioned into that older iteration.

While Zero continues this exploration beautifully, its characterization of Majima doesn’t quite strike the balance of moral grayness in his earlier iterations with the more archetypal heroism of past RGG protagonists—he's forced to be a Kiryu-type in substories, side content, and at points in the main story.

The grind of the bubble

Zero is in love with the legacy of the franchise, and as a last-ditch effort to encourage newcomers, it pushes the player into engaging with its side attractions. As this isn’t my first time experiencing the game, it really got on my nerves.

Majima’s Cabaret Club Czar starts off as a fun minigame that espouses traditional Yakuza protagonist beliefs of fair play and fair treatment of women. It takes the awful cabaret hostess minigame from Yakuza 3 and 4 and flips it on its head, making it an enjoyable bite-sized experience you can knock out in 3-minute intervals.

The different women you interact with are really likable and fun to be around. Their presence is made clear through the cabaret “practice” dialogue you go through with them, and the outings like pool, disco, and karaoke feel very emblematic of the era. I think my favorite hostess was Ai.

It follows a very predictable pattern that side content tends to follow in these games in the same vein as Yakuza 5’s racing. You’ve got five big bads that each answer to an even bigger bad, and after beating the shit out of each of them, they join your side. While you can see the progression from a mile, you’d have to be a real cynical person to not get even a grin out of the interactions.

The problem is, like most of 0’s side content, you’re pushed into doing an entire session of the mechanic starting the game out, and if you want to meaningfully level up your skill tree and remove its blockages, you really have to thoroughly and consistently engage with it. CCC is grindy, and if you’re not doing it on the side, you’ll have to just dedicate days of your life to catching up if you want to really level up the game’s styles.

You end it with the Mad Dog awakening, which is less a thematic parallel and more a gesture of fan service.

Looking at Kiryu’s Real Estate Royale, things are a lot worse. While CCC was a minigame that demanded your active attention, Real Estate Royale is entirely passive and expects you to dedicate real life time to it. The subplot with your two coworkers and the Five Kings is a less engaging version of Majima’s. Real estate is far more inflexible to different players’ preferences on how they engage with side content. The expectation is that the user would be tending to real estate on the side between the plots, but not only does this fundamentally break the airtight pacing of the main story, but it’s far too common for players to be too engaged to care for the extraneous bits of a completely disconnected narrative. There’s also an irony in the core mechanic being real estate and accumulating absolute mountains of money that eclipse anything the main story is fighting over.

RER also expects you to accumulate a lot of money through purchases of various properties in the seedy Kamurocho underbelly. If you haven’t figured out the common fan strategy of cheesing Mr. Shakedown and getting multipliers off your collection of money, you’ll have to manage by grinding the real estate mechanic itself, gambling on janken half-naked wrestling games, and hopefully running into a couple Nouveau Riche enemies.

At the end, you’re greeted with the legendary Dragon of Dojima style, but about one-third of its usual speed thanks to Yakuza 0’s heat meter system.

That brings me to combat.

Zero’s combat in some ways tries to clean up the extravagant and incredibly long heat moves and over the top nature of Yakuza 5, the last mainline game with the traditional fist-to-fist brawler combat. The multiple style approach from the samurai spin offs Kenzan and Ishin was implemented here and in theory it’s a great idea. You have different approaches to handling combat scenarios and different flavors of enemy. However, the experience is held back entirely by an asinine decision – tying the heat meter’s increases to an increase in speed. This means if you have an empty heat meter, you’re incredibly slow. This happens quite a bit entering fights after having drained your heat on a previous encounter or boss fight, and it makes it increasingly more difficult to even land a hit in.

The point of Heat is to reward the player for staying on top of combat fundamentals by granting them the ability to pull off high-damage spectacle. It was nailed as early as the first game, but somehow they managed to take a step back in Zero? Like I mentioned above, Dragon of Dojima becomes a completely unviable style in this game simply because of how it’s clearly not designed to be played at .75x speed. The style you busted your ass for isn’t really worth using at any point in the game.

A true love letter

Despite it all, Yakuza 0 is an incredibly competent love letter towards the Yakuza franchise as a whole. Its consistent tone, airtight pacing, and avoidance of over-the-top twists characteristic of this franchise helped push Yakuza into the modestly successful franchise it's currently become in the West. Without this game, me and a lot of other people wouldn’t even know it existed. Zero raised the bar for maturity in the series’ storytelling and the games that would follow took the lessons from Zero to great success.

This was pretty Dame Da-mazing! I loved it when the Dame Da Ne guy said his famous catchphrase "Dame Da Ne" and then made all those guys Dore Da-dead. I also liked the other dude, he was pretty cool, breakdancing all over the place. Overall, I had a really great Baka mi-time with Yakuza 0!



fr though this game rocks, great combat, fantastic story, fun as hell side content, a lot of real good boss fights (with a case of one boss overuse), and as well being a extremely well done introduction to the world of Yakuza. Excited to play the rest soon(ish)!

Enjoyment - 9/10
Difficulty - 7/10

Holy moly. Why haven't I played these games sooner?! Nights I could be vibing to this series... wasted. Instead, I was probably playing Fantastic 4 for PS2.
🏆

Yakuza 0 has better twists and reveals than 99% of movies and TV. I want to gush about everything I loved, but the surprises are part of what make it so incredible.

The main story is intense and compelling, while the side quests are often wacky and laugh-out-loud hilarious. The mini-games are so well-crafted (Darts, bowling, pool, mahjong, shogi, etc.) that they could be sold as standalone titles. The variety of gameplay is astronomical.

I didn't think I'd be into it, but my wife and I put 80 hours in together, and now we're making our way through the whole series.

If you've got Game Pass or PS Plus Extra/Premium, give this a try ASAP, even if it doesn't look like your kind of game. It might surprise you!

there’s dignity and honor in fighting, depending on who you ask. old men obsess and cling to this ideology, and in some ways it blinds them. blinded from ways of change; ideas that sprout anew in a time of economic boom and societal maturity. the old men consider it noble to defend their decaying ways, yet all the young want to do is break away from such. they fight not out of pretentious beliefs, but out of the need for expression, even if frequently careless. fighting becomes a common resolve between generations. both sides, young and old, fight unbeknownst of the weight they carry, merely knowing they need to fight back. fighting is their lifeblood, fighting is what defines who they are.

but fighting also turns into work. working towards self-righteous pursuit of a measly three squares obviously, but also towards money. money rests as less of an objectified obstacle and more as fuel that drives people’s spirits. in 1988 japan, money does actually make people happy, apparently. though despite what could be inferred… money can’t buy you everything. greed knows no bounds, and thus blurs the line between the economy and violent criminalized pavements. sure, you can pay, but it may only be your fists that let transactions sail, and the cost deadly.

yakuza 0’s ambitious nobility is arguably its defining characteristic. a sublime display of the series’ themes at birth. kamurocho and kansai suddenly become retro, and their industrialized features vanish. the cities proudly wear their grassy riversides and primitive slums on their sleeves. the usual trouble still familiarly runs amok though! style-switching a la DMC lends itself well to the series’ staple combat. always keeping the sense of urgency and energy pulsing throughout the veins of every battle.

fighting is the founding postulation of yakuza’s society. political disputes, romantic conflicts, street confusion, hell even entertainment; all act as open air for violence to spread its wings. y0 paints these outlets similarly to its brethren but in a fresh new-age way. i think some of the praise has been wildly misplaced but it holds weight in where it roots. yakuza 0 is a damn good yakuza game and stands proud as one the defining titles for its generation. not sure what else to say really, everybody gets what makes it so good. one of the only prequels i know that branches out to become a significant starting point for its series. definitely deserves the various titles and acclamation it’s received over the years.

Genuinely was not expecting to enjoy this game by the end. Sincerely doubted it, had to shelve it a few times to keep the strongest sense of charity going. And to be fair to part of Y0, I certainly was uncharitable towards that spirit at many points. Granted, Yakuza 0 really did not do me many favors.

Still, I do walk out of the end amazed by the final steps of the journey, where the game ultimately ties back to that central theme of becoming like a dragon in many many ways. Defining, redefining, and creating character rationale for that "way of the yakuza". Majima especially was the heart of the game that I centered myself around, being the particular character exploration that I found interesting. There's so many wonderful boys rock moments that I had to get in the jive for, as well as a few rare, but excellent energized and choreographed scenes. Presentation in general for Yakuza does not pull punches.

But god it was GRUELING for me to get that far. The ending gates of "holy shit it's finally coming together" is barred by actually just awful awful combat, so dysfunctional and a complete mess to try to take seriously that you might as well put it on Easy and chug health potions. And also some of the worst pacing I've had to set myself up to, and I've been playing some long rpgs lately!!! The beginning chapters, especially with Kiryu, are actual chores in setup and production, and even in the more well put together back half, there'll still be extraordinarily dumb moments because they simply did not know how to deal with a lot of the characters they just threw at you.

And to make matters worse for me, the game's more problematic elements were more than just sour points. Y0 will bend itself over backwards to force you into some substories and a lot of the humor blew right past me but the required ones had some deeply disgusting elements. I don't think a lot of it, or really any, could be said as malicious, but it's certainly very Japan culture to have the one black person you ever see for example be the 'mass murderer' in an underground fighting ring.

I lay this out on the table though, mostly because most people don't (yakuza twitter is a menace), but also because I do think the journey is worth trudging through. It should also be noted I came with my own biases too, because I'm just tired of years being near fratty bro culture (college years i was stuck with a lot of frat roommates) and as I transition I just am kind of averse to bro vibes first. So knowing that, and the fact that I still thought the last few hours were unparalled fucking A energy, I think people should at least give this one a shot.

Do actually like, skip the substories if the humor doesn't work for you like I did.

More misc thoughts:
-Kiryu extremely a hottie, made my SO swoon every time he was on camera. Still team majima though!!
-I really really liked the majima minigame. That was some seriously good down to earth dialogue with the girls and is maybe the only time Y0 has an even somewhat pleasant lens on women in the game. Emphasis on somewhat there's like 5 asterisks there.
-What is this game's obsession with <5f reactable tracking moves on bosses lol. I just laughed every time I found one and there were more than 5!

My first Yakuza game, i was expecting great things and it gave my 10 times that.

Yakuza 0 is such a rollercoaster of emotions and craziness that I can't get here and not write a great review about it. I love my boys Kiryu and Majima. I love doing sub-stories and side content for hours and hours. I love grinding like a mobile game in my real estate and cabaret. I just love it all.

Therefore, instead of reading reviews, go all out and play it, i swear to you, it's definitely one hell of a game.

Hey look at that I finally finished this game. So, this game is very close to being a near perfect game for me. It is missing or lacking in a couple of areas that keep it from being a 10/10 for me. The story, while being slow at first, eventually picked up and hooked me with the ending being a perfect way to conclude the events of this game but also set up for the future. The ending is a heart throb that will pull on your heart strings. The combat is good, I don't have many complaints. I do wish the styles were more fleshed out and had better combo options. It also isn't great that you have to grind for hours to gain more moves, I wish they took less time to obtain. This game at times did struggle to keep me fully engaged but that may be more of an issue on my end. The cutscenes and mandatory side content at times drawed out the game a bit too much for me. There was also these weird comic book style cutscenes that appeared like 4-5 times and were really weirdly spaced out. Maybe I would have better appreciated some of the elements of the game had I played the series in release order but I still enjoyed this game a lot.

What a cool fucking game man. I'm just gonna splurt my thoughts out for this review because I literally just finished it, but man I really enjoyed it.

The story was a highlight, it starts slow but once you get to around chapter 4 it really starts going and I was equally engaged in both Kiryu and Majima's stories. Majima's in particular was a real highlight and I loved the way it ended. Loved a lot of the characters, and the ones that I disliked at first I ended up enjoying quite a bit. Kiryu and Majima might be some of my favorite male protagonists in a game. I really love the brand of sensitive masculinity that they portray in this game. They get their strength from protecting the people in their lives that they care about as opposed to just being strong for strength's sake. I love that.

The side content was pretty cool. None of it was too deep on its own, but it was just deep enough for the sheer amount of it in the game to be impressive. The dance mini-game is gas, I would play a full game of that tbh. Then there is Real Estate Royale and the Cabaret Club Mini-game. I wasn't a huge fan of the Real Estate mini-game, it just felt a little too hands-off for me. It was cool seeing the characters from the sub-stories again, but there wasn't much drive to play it outside of it being a passive money-making farm at end-game. The cabaret club is really fun though and the management sim aspect scratched a deep part of my brain lol. I definitely would like to play more stuff like that in the future.

The only thing I really didn't like in this game was the upgrade system for the combat? It kind of felt like the progression was wonky. It felt too expensive to invest in the early game and then by the time I had enough yen to afford it I just kind of maxed out the entire tree? Idk, I would have preferred a normal exp system here, but I get what they were going for thematically. Styles were pretty cool, I felt like I got use out of all of Kiryu's styles except the legend one. That one just felt like a slower version of Brawler. I realize the fighting style is based on how Kiryu plays in the other games, but I just wasn't really using it effectively idk. Majima's styles were even more of a mixed bag especially since I had less upgrade money for him. I didn't use Slugger at all. Thug I found useful during the early and mid-game fights and Breaker was my go-to in crowds. The counter that his legend style has is broken, so I used that for the end-game fights lol.

Anywho, this game fucks and I look forward to playing the original on Ps2 next.

To have a game cater to my wishes of punching a hole straight through some guy's head just for looking at me funny is really all that I needed currently. But, for this game to offer up a metric ton of bananas side content with it was giving way more beyond any and all expectations, not to mention the genuinely thrilling plot to boot as well.

There's something so inherently batshit about how serious the main plotline is in comparison to how extremely unserious the other 85% of the game is. Everything is so masterfully exaggerated, from doing the most simple tasks, to the wildly different mini-games, to breaking someone's head open over Kiryu's kneecap. It's got a punch that will leave a lasting impression, mixed with such an emotionally delicate storyline that finally smashes together in the climax. This game is rad as fuck and holds absolutely nothing back.

Having known really nothing about this series going in, it's interesting to see the origin story of characters you've only ever seen in passing through various youtube clips and meme gifs. Oh, how joyous it is to finally understand the context of said moments and realizing that, nope, this game is just as batshit insane as it looks on the outside. Somehow they've made it work, while the bulk of your hourly playtime is coming from the business and substory segments of the game, it's sparsely broken up by the very serious crime soap opera that would often lead to some doom and gloom without the karaoke and disco mini-games to bleach your eyeballs afterwards. It never really felt like anything was overstaying its welcome, (save for the end, but I'll get there), and the pacing was completely self-driven. If you want to shotgun this plot rather quickly, by all means, but the benefits you get from some of the substories are more than worth it. Especially with the business ventures. Sure, there’s a person who is terrified and starving in a storage unit waiting for you to get back to them, but god damn it, someone has to take their hostesses on dates.

I feel like once you do a mini-game you don't.. really have to do it again, but they're interesting time wasters for sure. You can pretty much do anything from bowling, to poker, or pocket circuit racing or even watch a wide range of girls try their best to look cutesy sexy and totally not like they're trapped in a bathroom at gunpoint. I do however find it really funny that most of these activities lead to smaller plot threads that neither of the characters really have any business learning or caring about. Oh, you want to do some little mini-car racing for a bit? Well, the owner of the establishment is a lonely guy who doesn't understand his worth and could use a self-confidence boost. Oh, you want to eat some sushi because your health is a bit low? Well, the owner is a dickhead to his nice employee that should be treated way better for the amount of effort she puts towards running the restaurant when he's not around. It's so funny, every time. The phone mini-game would be less ass without the RNG substory elements added to it, however I do wish that there were more karaoke and disco songs though.

I did enjoy the combat for the most part, but to say it's perfect would be a bit of a lie. It's pretty simplistic by nature, but has huge room for growth. When you upgrade your characters, you really do feel more powerful with every heat action or special ability unlocked. I love the various styles you can pick from and how each one may affect different bosses in different ways, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't tend to lean towards some over others. The Brawler style for Kiryu has the fast paced wombo combo dream for me that the Beast style lacks, without losing the strength behind the punch that Rush often would. I knew that if a bicycle was in range, that shit would be done in 30 seconds flat. That being said, I think I much preferred playing as Majima, as his three styles were bonkers BUSTED. Making him a lot easier to play and also a ton of fun as well. The combos that the Slugger style offers are just satisfying to pull off, with devastating results. The Breaker style would go absolutely nutty if you pulled a string of attacks off correctly. I don't think I game over'd once as Majima, it was only ever as Kiryu. Kiryu is supposed to be the main character of the whole series and I played him like straight ass the whole time. Sorry, man. This doesn't even mention the final styles of each character as well, a very worthwhile reward for putting up with the long as shit business segments that ate up most of my playtime. It was such a treat to run away from Mr. Shakedown with full pants for 90% of the game, to finally get the pleasure of breaking his spine in half once the characters were fully upgraded. The combat can get repetitive at times, especially near the end, but it never truly stopped being fun. However, the bosses always felt like a special occasion. Except the one, or two technically, optional bosses. Not sure what the lore on that was about yet but you can add this game to the list of RPGs with some of the most dogass optional bosses you've ever seen.

I'm so glad they added the ability to avoid battles by using money, but it doesn't quite work all the time if you're a little late on the draw, which is when the combat would drive me bananas. Near the end of the game, the regular enemies beef up to annoying amounts of health and attack you in droves. It makes trying to waste time and partake in business activities a nightmare sometimes. Boy, do I love getting sandwiched between a triangle of 3 dudes that are just punching me endlessly with perfect succession. Or how the later game bosses really love to somehow skate behind you and kick you into a stun that takes what seems like an eternity to break out of. This was pretty constant in the end-game, but for the most part it’s not really an issue. It’s very fun to punch into enemies and then break their bones with heat actions nonetheless.

I think most of my gripes actually come from a money balancing issue I ran into while playing. Majima seems to obtain money at a much more exponentially insane rate in comparison to Kiryu. His business mini-game is also much more interactive and while it takes longer to get through a cabaret session, the profits for defeating a Star are always humongous. The only real issue I had with it was the atrocious fashion you had to put some of those poor women through for the best results, but it’s the 80’s I guess. Anyways, he gets money insanely quickly which in turn upgrades him at a much faster rate. Kiryu on the other hand has to invest into his business, which means saving a lot of his money to advance the real estate rather than himself. Not to mention, Majima doesn’t have to invest in Mr. Moneybags nearly as much as Kiryu does, which I found odd. I ended up getting through the Cabaret plot line rather quickly, while the real estate seemed like it took ages. There was a good chunk of gameplay near the end where I’d have to go find things to do while I waited for my profits to come in, which kind of sucked and it left Kiryu behind in terms of his upgrades. Which is realistically why I probably preferred one character’s playstyle a lot more than the other.

The substories in this game are goofy as hell and I like them for the most part, but I do think we could have done with a bit less of them to be honest. Some of the best involve bowling for a turkey and some of the worst includes Kiryu buying pornography for.. a child. But, for the most part, they all end in exactly the same way with the exact same lessons to be learned for the random Joe and Smough you came across. Someone needs help with something, it turns out there’s a big miscommunication, shenanigans ensue, some dudes try to kick your ass, then rinse and repeat. Either have less substories in my opinion or, at the very least, shake up the formula on a lot of them so that the next one doesn’t feel exactly the same as the last one. They’re pretty funny at first, but later on I had to speedrun the dialogue on them to not feel like I was going absolutely insane.

All in all though, the narrative is masterfully told and definitely the best part of the game. You knew when the Japanese voice acting started, you were in for some popcorn munching shit. It starts off the rails almost immediately for both characters and never really stops. You have Kiryu thrown into what seems like a battle royale where everyone and their mom is coming for his ass no matter what he does, fighting for his damn life every second of the day. Then every so often, you switch to Majima’s much more kind-hearted, but desperate segments that contrast so well with what I can only assume his character is like in the other games. (An insane madlad.) The buildup of tension is heart pounding and it never falters. The OST fuckin’ rips. It’s just absolutely jaw dropping from the beginning and ends on such a refreshingly tender note. I’m sure there was a lot of contextual air that I was missing having played the prequel before everything else, but I am pilled enough to finally try out all the other games that came before this one.

Baka Mitai (I’ve Been a Fool) for leaving this unplayed in my Steam library for so long.

Edit: Used to be a 4.5 star rating, but I stopped doing halfsies.

First game I played to the Yakuza series - What was I missing for all these years?

Yakuza 0 focuses on two protagonists, Kiryu Kazuma a young Yakuza who when framed for murder has to go on the run from the Yakuza to clear his name and Majima Goro, an ex-Yakuza who is desperate to get back in and will do almost anything to do it. The story is fantastic, I honestly never expected to be enjoying the storyline as much as I am, the characters are really well fleshed out and it's full of tense, exciting and sometimes emotional moments with some nice twists and turns along the way. While the main storyline is pretty serious there are lots of substories to find that are the complete opposite and are completely daft and hilarious. There are about 100 in all to find that vary from helping to train a shy dominatrix to help produce a tv show. While completely optional the substories are some of Yakuza 0's best content and you can get some good in game rewards for completing them.

The gameplay is essentially like a beat-em up/brawler with some role playing game elements. Each character has their own location to explore which shows up as part of a city map, it's not exactly huge and isn't an open world as most western games know it but it is densely packed with things to see and do. As you travel from mission to mission you will often be ambushed by Yakuza, street gangs and various other ruffians sparking a fight, sometimes this can get annoying when you're just trying to travel from place to place though it is possible to run past them. During a fight you can do basic combat moves such as block, dodge, punch, kick, hold, throw etc. but as you hit enemies without taking damage you build up a bar that lets you unlock heat moves which are one off attacks that use that bar. These heat moves can be brutal, you can stomp on peoples faces, slam their heads in car doors, smash pushbikes over them etc. and it is incredibly satisfying at times. There is also a plethora of weapons to find, buy or craft that can be used in a fight like knives, baseball bats, katanas or even some guns. While each weapon has a certain durability they can really make a difference against some of the tougher opponents and bosses.

Kiryu and Majima both have various fighting styles to switch between they unlock as the story goes on. Each style has it's strength and weaknesses, some are fast, some use items, crowd control and special moves etc. so depending on the situation it's worth swapping between them. The styles can also be upgraded using money to unlock more moves, attack power and health with the more advanced moves being far more expensive.

Though money is gained through combat simply from beating up enemies there are a ton of other ways to gain cash in Yakuza 0 and it's where I have spent the bulk of my time so far because this game has a ton of mini games. They range from darts, pool, Karaoke, fishing, casino gambling, baseball batting, Mahjong to weirder activities such as model car racing, disco dancing, and even cabaret club management. Each mini game is surprisingly good, I spent hours learning how to play Mahjong through the game having never played it before, in some arcades there are even full games of some old Sega megadrive games to play such as Outrun, Super Hang On, Space Harrier and Fantasy Zone. The amount of games to play, things to customize and do is really impressive. Yakuza 0 has a wealth of content and all of it is fantastic.....except catfighting, which is all round terrible both as an idea and for the actual gameplay which is both luck based and rigged against you. Seriously it's awful and only stands out more because the others are pretty well done.

Yakuza 0 originally came out in Japan in 2015 as a cross gen Playstation 3 and 4 game so it is never going to blow anyone away visually. Having said that though it does in fact look great. The protagonist character models are especially impressive at times, both the cities look really good with all their neon signs and bustling streets. Where it is slightly let down is that npc (non player character) models are pretty sub par in most cases, they especially stands out in story scenes. There is also some occasional screen tear when sprinting through busy areas of the cities here and there but neither of these really hurt the game from really looking pretty good. The music and voice acting are both of top notch quality to boot. The game is dubbed in Japanese with English subtitles but the voices of all the characters really match their characters perfectly. Not every character is voiced with characters in substories only getting the odd laughter noise or something as interaction but everyone in the main story is fully voiced.

Essentially if you haven't played a Yakuza game before and have been daunted due to the size of the series 0 being a prequel to them all is a perfect place to jump in and is also just a fantastic game in it's own right. It's serious, quirky, funny and brutal and I highly recommend it.

+ Main story is interesting, emotional and full of twists.
+ Substories are many, varied and hilarious.
+ Combat can be pretty brutal.
+ Great value for money with large amount of great minigames.
+ Visuals, music and voice acting are surprisingly good.

- The catfighting mini game is awful.
- Being ambushed a lot when going from place to place can get annoying.

this is possibly one of the most "right place right time" games of the 2010s, as it launched in america at the beginning of 2017 right as a huge resurgance in japanese games began (other notable games include resi7, nier: automata, persona 5, and the excellent first year of the switch). the game's effortlessly campy nature was played up in advertising and won over a lot of people interested in a very funny and inextricably japanese open-world experience. this is all in spite of the fact that the game ran on a previous-gen engine, significantly scaled back the story and world of the previous games, and ultimately was a stopgap entry while fans waited for the end of kazuma kiryu's saga in the from-the-ground-up next-gen yakuza 6. it's an impressive feat that's only possible not only to the timeframe the game released in (in the states anyway) but also the sheer quality of the gameplay and story.

this stands as my favorite yakuza story to the point at which I've played (halfway through yakuza 5 as I write this review). the narrative shifts focus from young dojima family soldier kazuma kiryu to former soldier and cabaret manager goro majima in a cyclical fashion, where each segment of the story resembles episodes of a TV show. splitting up the story like this does wonders to improve the pacing here, which generally was a slog in previous yakuza games. the characterization is also lovely here, with a younger and brasher kiryu than in his later middle-aged appearances, and majima as a caged animal who is relatively docile as he attempts to restrain the insanity he'd be known for later in the series. many characters who appear in early yakuza games get time to shine here (kashiwagi, nishikyama, and sera all have great moments) and the villains are sketched beautifully. the game takes a page from yakuza 3 by introducing three major dojima lieutenants who you fight against repeatedly as the story continues, and the smirking omi alliance captain sagawa as majima's adversarial handler is slimy in the best way. this games is particularly dark for a yakuza story and treats its characters brutally; it's very pulpy and still suffers from some of the contrived plot points of previous games, but the justification for many of these moments is much less flimsy than in those games. it helps that each protagonist is solving an intertwined mystery from separate ends, and thus the game is able to navigate cliffhangers and reveals that extend across the protagonists very efficiently.

in terms of the gameplay, the main weak link for me here is the style system. in a major stylistic departure from yakuza 3/4/5, each protagonist has three different styles (broadly an agile style, an all-rounder style, and a brute style) to switch between at will, with a more potent style resembling previous appearances in the series only being unlocked at the end of a long side questline for each character. while this is interesting in theory, in reality what it means is that you always feel slightly underpowered, or slightly incapable of handling a given situation. the combat even here is still not deep enough that I'd want to invest a lot of time in it, and after playing later entries I gotta say I prefer having a single versatile skillset. other than that it's typical yakuza fare, still in the model of yakuza 5 where attacks have a little more weight to them and enemies are overall more aggressive.

the side storylines here have been significantly pared back from yakuza 5; while this may seem like a detriment on paper it honestly cuts a lot of fat and enhances the game in other ways. kiryu gets a menu-based yakuza 4-style real estate simulator and majima gets a cabaret club management minigame that plays a bit like a juggling-multiple-things-at-once diner dash sort of thing. unlike previous games, these questlines are focused around dominating a particular area of the map (either by purchasing real estate or gaining fans of your club) to the point where you eventually must face off with the current owner/king/head honcho of that area. in both cases there's a cabal that manages real estate/cabaret clubs in the area, and you must pick them off one by one to get to the end of the questline. defeating them usually involves a boss fight or minigame battle, and then the grind begins again to dethrone another kingpin. compared to the more linear side questlines of previous yakuza games, this beefs up the questline a bit and raises the stakes when you actually fight against one of your rivals. this was the winning formula right here for side questlines in yakuza games, and continues on into later games with subgames like clan creator in yakuza 6 and kiwami 2.

beyond the side stories, the substories here are also excellent. many of them follow roughly the same "watch a cutscene and answer prompts" or "run from place to place with fights in-between" structure from yakuza 5, with enough curveballs thrown in to keep it fresh. on top of this, there are friendships you can cultivate over the course of the game, which vary from a shy convenience store clerk to a guy who walks around jacking off in public. these friendships open up new activities and options for you over the course of the game, including new arcade games, the ability to transfer money between the playable characters and... softcore porn (this is the horniest yakuza game by far). on top of this there's a full questline involving the kids who race Pocket Circuit cars and the hapless loser who runs the circuit, which is one of the best storylines in the game by far. for the fans there's a couple of backstory substories as well, including very young versions of daigo dojima, ryuichi goda, shinji tanaka. although the amount of substories significantly tapers off as the game leads on, this game lends itself well to not binging every substory as soon as you see them (especially since substories are not visible on the map until the substory finder item is found). characters from substories also come to assist with the sidestories, which is a nice little bonus to bolster your roster of hostesses/financial advisors as the game goes on.

as per usual, many of the minigames here return from previous games with few changes, including bowling, karaoke, the batting cage, fishing, darts, pool, and a wide selection of gambling games. the arcade here has been completely overhauled with four emulated sega arcade classics, and they honestly sucked up a lot of my time working through the side content, especially outrun and space harrier (though fantasy zone is quite good as well!). the disco minigame is an interesting rhythm minigame, where your aim is to make as many steps in a grid as possible before reaching a square with the next note on it in time, though the control is a bit stiff. the pocket circuit racing game is more of a simulation game with little actual gameplay, where the focus is on building a car that can take on the track while you watch (and occasionally steady the car by mashing circle). I found this pretty fun until the later races where I resorted to using a guide instead of fiddling with builds, as the mechanics are pretty opaque. the cat fighting minigame is the worst of the bunch by combining rock-paper-scissors with button mashing and gambling... it feels like a chore and a waste of money to play this game to be frank. finally there is the telephone club, which is a cute minigame and unlocks new substories in the form of dates for kiryu to go on. if anything betrays kiryu's young age in this game, it's definitely how insanely horny he gets simply by listening to people on the phone...

beyond the insane amount of content already mentioned, there is even more stuff to do around sotenbori and kamurocho, somehow. there's the aforementioned adult video shop containing actual softcore porn, and as far as I'm aware all of the models show up as random characters in the game as well. the coliseum makes a reappearance, though it's no more interesting than any incarnation of the coliseum in yakuza. mentors return, with each character getting one for each of their styles. while kiryu's are pretty par for the course, majima's are a little more fun thanks to his more deranged moveset, specifically the dance battles in his breaker form that require him to beat the shit out of his bizarrely ugly dance partners to make money. kiryu's most fun are probably his debt collection missions, tho these require doing very boring practice missions involving attacking mannequins with crates worth varying amounts of points. as kamiyama works does not exist yet, weapon creation is done via chinese restaurant black market front Dragon & Tiger, with a new system that involves sending agents out to various parts of the world to obtain rare materials and weapons. I don't find much use for the high-power weapons so I didn't dive into this mode much. finally, there's roaming Mr. Shakedown boss fights involving gigantic musclemen seeking to rob you. you really have to go out of your way to initiate one of these battles, but the rewards are often signifcant if you do, as you win everything in his wallet if you do, often to the tune of millions or billions of yen. on the flipside, you lose all your money if you lose, and as he packs a punch it can be easy to be taken off-guard and instantly lose several hours worth of cash... definitely the most angry I got at this game. thankfully you can win the money back the next time you fight him, and by mid-game these fights should not be particularly difficult if you're paying attention.

what ties everything together is money... money is absolutely everything in this game. there is no EXP here, so all abilities are purchased via cash, making gaining as much of it as possible a necessity to progress. thankfully this also decouples EXP collection from battles and substories, as you can now grind for cash in effectively any manner you choose. easily the best way is kiryu's real estate management sidestory, which yields a significant amount of cash on each cycle of facility management. there's an addictive gameplay loop here of getting a whole damn stack of bands from your investments, dropping it on more real estate around you, and then messing around with side content while you wait for your investments to cash out again. once random encounters aren't worth it anymore, you can even throw cash at your enemies to distract them, something other yakuza games could have sorely used. this is what really makes this game so addicting, far more so than other yakuza games: there's proper incentives for you to do every single bit of side content you can find and constantly jump between them. you can't bumrush an entire side story at once anymore, and so budgeting time to do certain things before returning to the side stories feels like a necessity here, and I simply could not stop playing. I wish other yakuza games were able to approach this same level of integration between all the mechanics, with substories yielding people to help with your side stories, side stories generating cash to fuel ability purchases (among other things), mentor missions unlocking new parts of your tech tree, and minigames opening up new substories or giving completion points... which I've glossed over up to this point but also have a significant impact on your moveset and items. the unfortunately named CP can be gained by any number of accomplishments either in battle, minigames, eating, sidestories, substories, etc. and can be cashed in for infinite sprinting, better armor, and perks in the side story minigames. this mechanic originaed in yakuza ishin as far as I'm aware and is such a great addition to the series for encouraging exploring every single thing the game has to offer.

other than a few minor quibbles (among those mentioned above, the game also has significant screen tearing on ps4 from my experience), this is absolutely my favorite yakuza game up to now, and will probably not be dethroned in the future to be completely honest. the way all the content is intertwined in this entry makes this not only one of the best in the series but one of my favorite games period and an amazing way to hop into the series. it helps that this game is $5 on steam constantly... there's no reason not to get it and try it out.