Fucking amazing. It's disgusting how good this game is both as a sequel AND just as a yakuza game even compared to the later games. Kiwami 2 genuinely just does fuck this game up especially with the music, like yes kiryu getting stabbed in kiwami was awful but holy shit the final scene on Kamurocho Hills was so beautiful and heart wrenching in the og and then kiwami says "hey what if we played that boonk ass ugly ass shitty ass bullshit ass SiM song"
But yeah anyway game is fucking amazing, if Miike made a Yakuza 2 movie it'd be the best thing ever made.

I don't know what to say about this game. In recent times i have been getting into games that I couldn't finish or didn't put time into and how I got that spirit back was from tlou 1, it showed me what games are at peak level and made me understand how characters are written and build a special relationship with the characters and helped me with my depression. So I was excited for tlou 2 and tbh. It's an amazing flawed game, it has more flaws than the first one but god damn some moments in this game are so depressing but beautiful. The problems really shows but still, it's not bad but kinda weak compared to the other parts. I love this game, even tho flawed. I think it is an amazing experience. As I said I don't know how to describe my thoughts since there is so many.
Update: I can't really give a rating to this game because i am mixed about what rating to give.
Update 2: last update, this the official rating I'm giving this game for now.
But one thing I want to say before ending my review.

Thank you Naughty Dog.

The truly hot Yakuza take finally manifests. THIS was the follow-up I was looking for after Yakuza Kiwami, and I'm so thankful for all of the great story choices the Ryu Ga Gotoku studio made here. Yakuza 3 may have very well surpassed Yakuza 0 in my personal ranking of the series.

The combat is clearly stiffer than the more contemporary entries, but it's combat that still makes a lot of sense. Yes, enemies block a ton but if you dig into the combat just a bit you'll find more than enough tools to deal with everything the game's narrative throws at you. I can't speak for the extra ultimate boss stuff, I'm not a platinum hound, but I found the combat in Yakuza 3 to be more than serviceable.

The real star is the story, and the wealth of great substory content in the game. The orphanage was a brilliant choice and anyone that can't hang with it is no friend of mine. It's a choice that makes complete and total sense for Kiryu and involves Haruka in a meaningful way, which makes Yakuza 3 just feel way more vital as an entry than 2.

Yakuza 3 isn't perfect by any means but it's got an astonishing amount of heart and it does right by all the characters you've grown to love up to this point. It's probably an unpopular opinion but this feels like a high point to me for the series, a game that sees the series truly come into its own as a long-running narrative.