With an improved engine such as Yakuza 0's, Yakuza 5 appears on the block and by god it was great. I loved 0's combat, and playing this was a nice breath of the same air that felt all new. 5 cities to explore, 5 characters play, and 5 individual stories that warm up to the climax for a shocking ending.
Gameplay has now climax heat for bigger gameplay, better minigames making for great side content, and a nice story to play through.
Each character has their own climax heat that does different attacks such as Kiryu becoming invincible with strong attacks that, unfortunately, can be blocked by bosses which I didn't like. Akiyama's is an air juggle combo for extension of said combos. Saejima's is a grapple to throw enemies around with ease to hurt others nearby. Finally, the new character, Shinada, who has another grapple against that can be used to ram into opponents and slam them to the wall for damage. You're so powerful with this and it's cool to use against street grunts. Crafting is better and doesn't require cumbersome items to make so you can bring one to Kamiyama and invest for a simple unlock. If by chance you get the food bonus gauge, then you have more reason to eat around town. Characters play the same except now with Haruka and Shinada in the mix, you get some interesting gimmicks. Shinada is a grappler and weapons master, but refuses to use bats as one because he is a baseball player which is a nice touch of detail. Haruka is a rhythm and minigame galore, where you must participate in event to gain fame. Each character also have their own sidestories like Kiryu's having a taxi driver story line, which sounds ridiculous but fits in the surreal context of Yakuza.
Story had me pulled throughout beginning and end, but the main antagonist's motivations confused me. It didn't matter much to me though cause it was interesting to go through. Character writing was good as every but it was best in Saejima and Kiryu's chapter. The pacing only felt off when playing as Shinada.
Side content was much more surreal and better for the substories and sidestories. Playing as a taxi driver for Kiryu was hilarious and silly, and Shinada's had that tone of surrealism which I liked as well. Other minigames improved like karaoke and fishing and you got to meet more new and old faces too.
A good game to finish off the ps3 line of Yakuza games, but you need to learn a lot from 1,3, and 4 to get into it. Go play it.

Right– I am the furthest thing from a longtime Yakuza fan. Yes, the first game I played in the series was Yakuza 0 in 2017. For some inexplicable reason, I decided to attempt the game in the hard difficulty. Tempers were lost, and a controller was broken. From then on, I sort of had no time for the series. There were certain things I "got" about it, but Kiryu and Majima (sorry!) had no appeal. Contrary to what many fans, new and old, have said about Y0, I felt like I was left in the lurch about the overriding appeal.

Then, Yakuza Kiwami became available via PS Plus. After absorbing so much love for the series in the near two years since my initial experience, I thought I'd give it another shot. Everything about the plot and characters of the game clicked with me– Kiryu's stolid acceptance of everything put in front of him whether challenging or absurd; Nishikiyama's guilt, bitterness, and jealousy driving his tragic arc; Majima's balancing act of menace and loyalty. It all made sense.

Throughout the quarantine, I got the chance to play games at a much greater frequency than my age and other personal commitments usually allowed. This freed up some time for me to intermittently play Yak 2 (Kiwami)-5.

If I feel so inclined, I will do write ups for the rest of the series (with comparatively less fresh memories of them, mind). Otherwise, Yakuza 5 has one major thing going against it, and anyone familiar with it should know what that is.

Yes, the game is bloated, yet I appreciate the series greatly enough to have spent almost 65 hours on it. I am not the type to try for 100% completion for the Yak series because I could spend time playing a new game. Whatever the case, one of the playable characters in the game feels pointless except for their connection to a series regular that has not ever been playable themselves.

I enjoyed the gameplay change with Haruka. It is refreshing to have a rhythm game as a break from the fairly standard almost above average combat system. I am baffled that there's no playable rhythm sequence for her endgame sequence.

Saejima's questline was so drawn out that it seemed to meander, which is a shame because his relationship to another important character (as established in Yak 4) underpins one of the big mysteries of the game. That same character is also revealed to have been in a relationship with a NEW side character, a fact which is not paid off nearly as much as other characters who mean little in the grand scheme of things. That new side character has an arc that is, let's just say fridgey.

Furthermore– and this is often an issue with the storytelling of the series as a whole– the plot has an issue of too much exposition to justify twists that mean little by the endgame. I don't care about a character from hour 10 or so returning at hour 62. They mean so little by that point.

Is it fun? Hell yeah, it's Yakuza. However, my attention strayed at too many moments that should have had an impact. It is clear that with Yakuza 6, they stuck to Kiryu, and I look forward to that.

Notes:
-There are wrestling moves, which is always fun. I have done a front facelock to an Orange Crush, a back body drop, a giant swing (series staple!), and a Boston Crab.
-Whatever happened to the series's disdain for cops and prisons as in Yak 4? I miss that.
-Shun Akiyama has gotten better in my opinion, mainly because he isn't a complete misogynist to Hana-chan.

Yakuza 5 is amazing.(NON SPOILER REVIEW)
This game is MASSIVE spanning 5 districts and 5 playable characters.
The Tojo Clan and Omi Alliance’s truce is about to end as the Omi chairman is on his deathbed which means they are at the brink of war. After Yakuza 4 shifted focus away from Kazuma Kiryu, Yakuza 5 puts more focus on him as he is the first character you play as in the game. Kiryu is now a taxi driver in Nagasugai under the name Taichi Suzuki, and i love nagasugai its a nice little place and a good change from kamurocho.
Since i’ve went in depth about Kiryu,Akiyama and Saejima in my Yakuza 4 review i won’t be talking about them here but they are in the game and i will talk about the 2 new playable characters Haruka Sawamura, and Tatsuo Shinada.
Haruka FINALLY makes her playable debut in yakuza 5, she isn’t combat orientated she has dance battles and her side story is about making it big as an idol and yes it is a big departure from the crime drama beating people up of other protags but her story is pretty dark and a nice outlook on the subject.
Tatsuo Shinada was a baseball player until his career got reduced to dust for something he didn’t do. I really love Shinada, he’s very funny and tragic and his combat is a LOT of fun. His side story revolves around baseball even though he refuses to use baseball bats in combat out of respect for the sport.
Overall Yakuza 5 is a great game and very fresh with so much new content a great story and many improvements to gameplay.

Yakuza games are not brief. They're laser-focused on getting you to hang out as much as possible in the world of their eternally lovable himbos. They accomplish this with tons of great NPC interactions, minigames, sidestories, and an overarching narrative you actually want to see to completion featuring characters you're made to love by the end of their first cutscene.

Yakuza games are not brief, so believe me when I say that Yakuza 5 makes the rest of the games in the series (thus far) feel like quick 8-10 hour romps by comparison. Yakuza 5 is like... Dragon Quest XI length. It's unreal. There's so much game here, and for some people it's probably going to be way too much.

Who can blame 'em? Five main characters, five cities and a crime story that feels like it'll swallow all of Japan! It's a lot to handle, but for someone like me that just loved to be around it all I couldn't get enough. I was completely enraptured by all of Yakuza 5's twists and turns and its final section made me cry so incredibly hard. More than any other installment, this one was a full-fledged journey.

Makes sense to kick off my backlogged MyCareer by reviewing the last game i finished which was two days ago baby.

Yakuza games are kind of part fighting game crime drama and part wacky soap opera so you can give them a lot of leeway for the melodramatic scenes or ridiculously insane twists, in fact it's part of their charm. But 5 I think may be that formula coming to a head, five different protagonists, five different city locations (with a couple sub locations) each character has their own side story which can easily add another 2-3 hours of content (Except for Akiyama despite him being the best character after Kiryu) and a story that is only getting more convoluted with each chapter. 4 had a needlessly convoluted story as well but it had one less protagonist and was set predominantly just in Kamurocho which made it, for me, a bit easier to follow and stay invested in, 5 is just so much and only keeps growing the further you get, the last two chapters in particular before the finale were real slogs for me to get through.

Spite of my complaining it's still a fun wee Yakuza game and I might be being a bit too harsh on it just because beating it took me longer than it probably should have but of all of them in the series it's probably my least favourite as it stands currently.

Menuda noria de emociones ha sido este juego, me ha tenido bastante enganchado hasta el final, la jugabilidad es casi la misma que la del 4 con algunas mejoras, la trama insuperable que, ya para esta entrega, parece que ya le pillaron el truco del todo.

Lo único malo que puedo decir del juego es que es demasiado largo. No es que se estire la historia ni nada es que he tardado como 72 horas en pasármelo y según el reporte final solo he completado como el 30%, y eso que he hecho todas las Secundarias y la mayoría de subhistorias, pero oye si eso no es un problema para ti mejor.

Yakuza 5 is perhaps the game I'm always most excited to see new fans get to. The amount of stuff there is in this game is staggering, 5 protagonists sharing 4 different areas and extensive multi-hour side stories along with all the other activities you'd expect at this point in the series. One of my favorites here is the new character Shinada, which ignoring my bias as a baseball fan has a fighting style focused on weapons and grabs that brings a new fresh flavor to the combat and makes the weapons more than just gimmicks and portable heat moves. Compared to Yakuza 4 in other areas, from visuals to animation and how seamless different parts of the game can connect together it's a wonder the magic they were able to pull out of the PS3.

One of the best Yakuza games I've ever played, the story is fantastic and I like nearly everything about it. the only thing I don't like is how Akiyama is treated like he's in the story because he's just there, like he's half of a chapter, and he doesn't have a cutscene like the others, this felt jarring considering he was the first character we played as in Y4, another thing is why is the final boss there? Like why him? As a character it doesn't make sense and he feels like a C tier one at best, for its side content, the substories were great for the most part, the only game I'll ever have the time to complete the substories for tbh, and for each character, I really like their side jobs, never felt hyped riding a taxi as Suzuki-San, and hunting never felt as great. For the combat, you can have a second health bar with Strength, Spirit, and Focus, from a cook called Tatsuya Kawagoe, who's actually a real person, you should check the guy out, with Strength increasing the damage you deal unarmed (Boosts dance points in Haruka's case) Focus, which has the heat gauge stay at a certain point, and Spirit, which boosts the damage of heat actions (Boosts the rate it fills up in Haruka's case), they each have a master to train, Sosuke Komaki for Kiryu, Tendo for Saejima, Yoko for Haruka, Saigo for Akiyama, and Igarashi for Shinada, you can do a breakthrough for each of the characters to break the level 20 cap and they can reach level 25, it is hard but except for Kiryu and Haruka, i just shot my way using the Golden Gun. The characters felt good and fluid to play as, though I wasn't really a fan of Shinada's style because I prefer fighting the yakuza with my fists most of the time, and fighting as Akiyama still feels fun, Saejima wasn't that hard to use compared to 4 in my opinion w/o any upgrades, and Kiryu is still an easy protag to get used to since his style really hasn't changed throughout, and for Haruka, who you do dance battles with instead of fighting, is great for the most part, but performing So Much More can get tiring like damn. There are 5 cities for each character, Nagasugai for Kiryu, Tsukimino for Saejima, Sotenbori for Haruka & Akiyama, Kineicho for Shinada, and Kamurocho for the finale, playing in these cities feels great, I really like Nagasugai and strolling around in here. The OST is exceptional for the most part, the ending is great too, one thing that isn't really related to the game but more so on QLOC is the optimization, I feel like it could've been better, I can run Y0 and K1 at 1080 High w/ SSAO & AA off and maintain 30 FPS on a Ryzen 3250U w/ the integrated Vega 3 graphics, but when I run it at the default settings (or medium preset) at the same resolution, it struggles to maintain the same FPS, this goes for the whole collection too, though there is a silent patch to remedy this, overall, this is my favorite Yakuza game in my opinion and I hope people talk about it more now that it's on PC and Xbox.

Yakuza 5 is all together too much Yakuza. Too much story, too many playable protagonists (5), too many mini games you're forced to learn, too many random battles, too much everything.

If this was the only game I had available to me for a year I'm sure I'd love it, but with other things I want to get to (including a newer Yakuza game!) it becomes a chore. I think if you tried to play this to 100% completion, or even just doing a bit of everything it pushes you towards then you're looking at a 150-200 hour game.

I understand the love this entry gets from some people but just be prepared how much time you're going to have to put in to get the most out of it.

Look, I could sit here and wax poetic about how this has the best characters in the series, how the plot does everything 4 wanted to do but good, how RGG finally invented fun combat, and how this game has so much fun side content your head will explode.
However, I could also wax poetic about how the ending feels somewhat anticlimactic, how Saejima's portion almost burnt me out on Y5 entirely, how his game beats you to death with its themes, and how the final boss doesn't know why they're here (or is fun to fight, for that matter.)
But at the end of the day, none of that matters. The final boss is still gonna rip their shirt off and yell KIRYUUUU and they charge at each other and the title card shows up and I nut because I am a simple man with a monkey brain.
Yume/10