NO SPOILER REVIEW AND EXPERIENCE

Intro:
Yakuza was something I never paid any mind to. I'd briefly heard about the series through popular reviewers online and just thought it was another series that I'd always admire from afar because I didn't think I'd like it. Then, I saw a video of a small girl slapping a grown man that immediately cuts to a nude man walking away in silence. Enough was enough, I had to know what the deal with these games was. $20 a piece was too much of an entry fee for me, if I thought I would like these games as much as I wanted to, I needed to go all in. Luckily for me, the very next week a Steam sale bundled all 7 games in the main franchise for just $44. I went all in and I started playing.

Review:
Yakuza 0 is brutal, hilarious, emotional, and engaging. I was immediately drawn in by the drama that ensued in the first hour of the game. Then, I got lost in the vast and dense city where the game takes place. The first half of the game took me 40 hours to play. This isn't a bad thing. I kept becoming sucked into the lives of every citizen of the town and their weird problems. I would be on my way to progress the story, then all of a sudden I'm a real estate agent trying to prevent these billionaires from taking over my beloved city. There are games within games inside this title. I must have sunk 10 hours alone into pocket car racing. The music (while sometimes repetitive) is great. When a track kicks in, you know exactly the type of emotion to be feeling at that moment. The story is over the top, and while it loses its pacing sometimes, it tends to pick itself up just long enough to hit a home run of a story beat. I played the game on Hard first. The combat tends to fluctuate between too easy and aggravating. You quickly figure out that between the two protagonists, if you switch to a certain style and do a certain move, you can bulldoze almost every fight. The aggravating part is while you do have a block and dodge, they aren't reliable enough to use for most of the encounters. Group encounters end up encompassing up to 20 people. If you get caught in one attack, the group swarms you and stun-locks you as they pass you around the group. Again, this is a small issue. I found the combat fairly consistent until the end game and didn't struggle much. When you should utilize your dodge and block (mainly in one-on-one boss fights), the camera prevents you from consistently dodging in a direction to avoid combos. If you can tame the camera, the combat is extremely tight on the Hard difficulty. Lastly, I want to talk about the visuals. I don't think that graphics are what makes a game good. I grew up playing games 10 years behind my friends. While they were playing on the newest consoles with the newest games, I was playing games one to two generations back. When they had Xbox One's, I had a Wii. It did make me appreciate what makes a good game, however. I look for graphics last in a game. Now that I have more income, I can play these high-fidelity games higher than 30 fps. That being said, the graphics do fluctuate. However, they fluctuate on a scale from "incredibly life-like" to pretty damn good. The in-game cutscenes are stunning, so sometimes pulling back to the scrolling text scenes can be a bit jarring. This didn't phase me a whole lot and I don't think it detracts from the game at all. Wandering the colorful and lively streets of the city is still excellent eye candy and I never got bored walking back through areas.

Conclusion: I'm not one to rate games, so I'll offer this: Yakuza 0 is an excellent game full of dense content, well-produced music, incredible graphics, and fairly engaging combat that's wrapped up nicely in an engaging story that I assume sets up 5 rows of dominos each poised to fall during the next games. I highly recommend this game, even for those on the fence about it. And since this game often goes on sale for $5, it's more than worth the risk. If you do purchase this game, keep an open mind. Loosen up. It's ok to laugh, cry, and get lost in this game. When you get hyped for a man taking off his shirt, you've either unlocked a new sexuality, or you finally understand what makes this game great (or both).

TLDR: While wacky, the well-made content and story make this game a must-play.

Not only does this game have a captivating story, packed full of twists and reveals, I think it does a couple of interesting things with its structure that I can't recall seeing in many other games. The main one is having the story split between the two main characters, essentially creating an A/B story. Much like with traditional storytelling mediums, this allows one story to reach a climax before switching to the other, building tension and suspense. Before seeing it here, I never realised how much I wished other games utilised this narrative device.

The other technique I like is how the story is divided into chapters, complete with a recap at the start of every other chapter. Towards the end of the game, as I began mainlining the story, it began to feel a lot like a serialised TV show. It got me wondering what a Yakuza game that fully committed to this idea (hour-long chapters, designed to be played one at a time) would be like.

While I loved the story, and the cinematography that supported it, I found the gameplay to just be rather serviceable. The combat felt repetitive by the end. The multitude of side quests and mini games varied in quality, some being more fun and interesting than others. The problem I find with games so packed with side content like this is that I feel compelled to at least glance at all of it, so when there are so many filler mini games, I’d much rather they were just left out. It’s not that any of this is that bad, it’s just that there’s so little of it that seems worth your time to engage with compared to the main plot of the game.

I’m definitely interested to play more of the Yakuza series (Like a Dragon is the only other one that I’ve played), but I think I’ll probably try to stick to the main story in them when I do.

A fantastic story with stellar voice acting but bogged down with bad gameplay.

The gameplay loop consists of run to place, uninteresting mash buttons combat and then 10+ minutes of stiff cutscenes. Seriously some of these cutscenes can be cut completely in half and carry all, if not more of the weight.

People praise the substories of this game but they all boil down to fetch quest or beat up a few enemies. The ‘funny’ writing is absurdist or just overly sexual. The other praised factor is all the mini games but I found them barebones and unengaging. I feel like they went for quantity over quality with the side content which some may find appealing but personally I didn’t.

Finished this for the plot mostly. If this was a movie I would adore it, but being playable is its shackles.

I started this game around December of 2022, giving it a shot thanks to the game undergoing a large surge of popularity thanks to the many memes of it that existed around that time, in a similar vein to Metal Gear Rising. It was a blast in every regard: the story, the gameplay, the characters, the sidequests...and yet only now did I buckle down to try and complete the main story. Regrettably, I forsook the rest of those elements in favor of completing the main story simply because I wanted to say I had beaten it. This game was one of many I tried to beat within a year, all inspired by a pair of excellent videos from Daryl Talks Games talking about the gaming backlog. That initial video inspired me to take to many places and ask both friends and various Discord servers about games I needed to play and to see if I could beat them in a years time (July 2023 to July 2024). Needless to say, I am definitely not accomplishing that goal with the many RPGs I have included taking well between 60-100 hours. Yakuza 0 was one of those games, and I sporadically hopped in every now and then in between both games I wanted to try out and the many multiplayer games that have cycled through my friend group. This experience of going from taking my time and enjoying myself to racing to the finish line just to check another box in my spreadsheet shows me the issue of trying to beat games under a deadline. Daryl experienced a similar situation and found the same conclusion, and he offered the viewer to experiment with their backlog in the same way. Now in late May as of writing this, there are many games I've had to leave behind for this challenge. And yet, Yakuza 0, the game that took me almost one and a half years to beat, is probably one of the best I've experienced in my time. This was my introduction to the franchise and funny enough is a prequel game to a long running series that just recently got two huge entries. What a hell of a first impression. I loved the combat structure, switching between styles and wiping the floor with goons never got tiring or less enjoyable. The bosses were admittedly frustrating but maybe that's because I preferred to rush in headfirst and mash a variety of X, Y and B like I was back in seventh grade typing class. Still great. The story and the writing is tight in that it can incorporate moments of humor and cheese as well as the heartfelt and admittedly tearjerking without feeling out of place or like tonal whiplash. The tension, the drama, the fun, the sadness, all blend together to create a unique and flavorful experience that rivals even the tastiest of beef bowls. Like I said, I regret taking it fast towards the end because Yakuza gives me the impression that you should take it as a marathon and not a sprint. There are SO many sidequests and minigames to enjoy on the side that is just as polished as the main core gameplay and it's insane. There's fully functional RC racing, fishing, darts, pool, disco and karoke minigames, and that's not even all of them! There's well over 80, maybe even 100 hours of content just for you to explore and enjoy. I guess the main lesson that I learned from this game is that sometimes it's about the journey and not the destination, even if it is excellent in itself. I will come back to this game one day and see everything that it has to offer.

I wholeheartedly recommend Yakuza 0. I only have one issue with this masterpiece — I’m not sure who I’m recommending it to. It’s easy enough to say “if you like beat ‘em ups, this is for you.” But we’re talking about a massive, massive game with so many different facets to it, I don’t think that’s gonna cut it. I’ll try my best to explain. But for those out there who enjoy similar games to me here’s the short version: I consider this a must play game.

This is not usually how I recommend a game, but to give you an idea of how Yakuza 0 was for me, I’ll chronicle the short version of my experience in the hopes it will better explain how good it is.

I’m the type of person who likes to play through some (if not all) of my available side quests before playing through a main story mission in quest based games. Playing in that way usually allows me to experience the majority of the game and by the end my character is quite strong. I did the same thing here in Yakuza 0 and found myself rolling credits on the main storyline after 20 hours.

Those 20 hours were awesome. Kiryu and Makima have extensive move sets to upgrade and master, the story slowly pulls you along with an exciting twists, and playing a vast collection of mini-games across 1980’s Kamurocho and Sotenbori is great fun. It has its slow points (i.e. trailing missions), but for the majority of my time I was impressed with how compelled I was to keep playing through to the end.

Now I don’t consider myself a completionist but I do like to look at a games achievements from time to time just to see what the developers of any given game decided were a part of its core experience. After rolling credits, I checked Yakuza 0’s and noticed one that changed everything, “Reach 50% Completion.”

I knew I wasn’t exactly hyper-fixating on every pixel for every achievement up to rolling credits, but I did complete as many side quests as I could and felt I really took my time to finish the story. But I haven’t cracked 50%? I checked my game file. A little over 22%. I don’t normally jump in to games after credits, but it was clear I hadn’t seen nearly enough.

It would take 45 hours over the next two months in order to unlock that achievement. The games longest side quests (Real Estate Royal and Cabaret Club Czar), would take me a month each, a good handful of hours each week, grinding away to complete them.

And I LOVED IT. While I am a bit too burnt out to continue in Yakuza 0, there is still much to do in my game file. Even now at 85 hours, I only have 65% of the achievements. I haven’t unlocked all of the fighting style upgrades. Haven’t seen all of the side quests. If you’re willing to buckle down and play everything this game has to offer, you’re going to be here for… a GOOD long while. You will enjoy it for as long as you need to, and there will potentially be more game even after that.

At the end of it all, I am especially impressed as a series newcomer how effortlessly the writing is able to powerfully convey many different and at times, opposing themes. Often I found myself starting a quest on very humorous pretenses, only to discover at their conclusion a really heartwarming and serious life lesson to be learned. This masterful writing is what will probably drive me back to continue my journey into the next game (in a year or so — to give me some breathing room).

Maybe as a final note, let's revisit the topic of the HUGE catalogue of “mini-games”. Many of them are really fun and break up the game quite nicely. I mean, you can go from fighting a mammoth of a dude, to bowling, to dancing at the club, to assigning a chicken as your property manager, to racing a toy car, to playing pool, to going on a date, to beating up street thugs, to playing majong, to betting on fights, to buying from a gacha machine, to fishing, to karaoke… all in a single play session. That’s not even close to everything, that’s just off the top of my head. The variety is ridiculously good, and many are great fun, so much so that they alone may justify purchase of the game.

Overall, I love Yakuza 0. It’s cool enough that they have a great action RPG with a robust fighting system and multiple stances to use against tough as nails Yakuza dudes in a killer action drama. But like some heavenly 7-layer dip, that’s just one aspect of the greater whole. With the beat ‘em up core, you also have really well written stories, an excellently designed city to explore, and a heaping ton of mini games. I think they all work well together and it gave me a ton of valuable play time. This may be my first experience in the franchise, but Yakuza 0 made me a fan. If any of this has sounded interesting to you, I hope that you’ll journey into Yakuza 0 for yourself to see what I mean. Thanks for reading.

He's a freak out the sheeeets and the other guy gets his own cinematic with dramatic lighting just to spout "Moshi moshi?" to the fairer sex. It's time to get acquainted with- wait, what? Oh, it's a common entry point for the series. I'll try not to bring up content from the other games. That said, most of the major players from Yakuza 3 to 5 were still not brought back. I'm satisfied with the substory cameos, though. People were fucking crazy in the late 90s. They had more money and adult entertainment than they knew what to do with. They do know, actually, but I don't think I'm strong enough to give the deets.

After Yakuza 3... this is a strong contender for best story, so far. 3 had tourists, kids and pets roaming the streets of Japan and it's kinda weird they stopped existing afterwards, but now stray cats and dogs can be found again. Fittingly, Majima doesn't sport the role of the straight man that Kiryu has wink wink, actively splashing fuel to the fire. Though when push comes to shove, this Kiryu can be less straight...the man.... less man straight well it's Yakuza bruv when you kill a man he dies and when you give him backshots your name is Mr. Shakedown.

I played Kiwami, but I was glad to see the combat again here. We are eating! But is it good? This is more confirmation that the moveset never was the problem. We were warned, this is what happens when you give a chimpanzee a machine gun. The random super armor on enemies was especially egregious this time around. Is this how disco forged our men? I have that crazy theory that Kiryu can only sprint in this game because he's... under 30 years old! Supposedly. But then he kinda rember in future entries. Never tell him to take a hike, because chances are, he's in Beast style and will actually grab a hike and maul you with it.

It's weird thinking of this Majima as one people may have gotten to know first. But they are very unlucky!! That is the peak of his career. His styles also have nada to do with the true dawg of Shimano. A bat and dance moves? Can't I use a knife and ninjutsu? What's the point in showing the watermelon flashback if not to instill in the player's head that he must be an expert knife user that can fruit ninja irl. Riddle me this. Why is Kiryu's real estate better than Majima's real dump of a club? Because an eye for business has less worth than two forced to commit yubitsume that's enough yakuzing cya next entry or my name isn't goror majimer, the Apex Predator named Princess.