This game is fantastic, i have a lot of fond memories playing it and replaying it recently i still think it's good, i like how tight and focused it is, the game doesn't waste your time with grinding or padding.
The city is fantastic, you can see how they wanted to recreate the shady aspect of the red light district of Tokyo, the fixed camera works to its favor to show off the city at its best, it really does seem like a dangerous place full of scammers and thugs, it's also filled with little details like you can find the fake Mizuki or the white color gang hideout before the main story mentions them.
They also used the rain and snow really well in certain moments of the story, atmosphere isn't just a meme.
The combat is good and i'm tired of pretending it's not, sure it can start out pretty basic but you'll get everything you need during the course of the game, it really feels like Kiryu is becoming a more skilled fighter during the course of the game. I also really like how good it feels, it's a mix between the animations of your attacks, the enemy reactions to getting hit by your combos and the sound design being really crunchy, every game's combat after Yakuza 2 didn't feels quite as good as this imo but they were good in different ways.
I also never see anyone talk about how good Kiryu's moveset actually is, something about it is just really iconic, his kick is in the front cover for a reason.
The story is beautiful, i like the mistery and how everything unravels, my only complaint is that the death scenes for most characters aren't handled that well, that's certainly something they got better at in later games. Nishiki itself already worked in this game imo, the loss of his sister, Yumi and Kiryu all in a short time made him change and that's stated pretty clearly in game. I don't feel like the cutscenes added by Kiwami really add much to his character, instead they only made him look pathetic. 0 does a much better job at making you feel for Nishiki than Kiwami does.
Regarding the substories, it seems the first Yakuza has a reputation for having bad substories and i can't say i agree, sure most of them are scams but there's quite a bunch of more elaborate ones with cutscenes and all, i especially like those tying into the main story like The fake Mizuki or the Yakuza's wife(the rain and thunder in the background are so kino). Plus there is some light hearted substories here too, it's not like humour was invented with 0, it's just that this game has a different tone.
The music is good but that's true for all the games in this series so i won't talk about it more than that.
Edit: As of 25/06/2022 the restoration patch to get the japanese dub is actually out and it works perfectly, thank you Sylwahan
The city is fantastic, you can see how they wanted to recreate the shady aspect of the red light district of Tokyo, the fixed camera works to its favor to show off the city at its best, it really does seem like a dangerous place full of scammers and thugs, it's also filled with little details like you can find the fake Mizuki or the white color gang hideout before the main story mentions them.
They also used the rain and snow really well in certain moments of the story, atmosphere isn't just a meme.
The combat is good and i'm tired of pretending it's not, sure it can start out pretty basic but you'll get everything you need during the course of the game, it really feels like Kiryu is becoming a more skilled fighter during the course of the game. I also really like how good it feels, it's a mix between the animations of your attacks, the enemy reactions to getting hit by your combos and the sound design being really crunchy, every game's combat after Yakuza 2 didn't feels quite as good as this imo but they were good in different ways.
I also never see anyone talk about how good Kiryu's moveset actually is, something about it is just really iconic, his kick is in the front cover for a reason.
The story is beautiful, i like the mistery and how everything unravels, my only complaint is that the death scenes for most characters aren't handled that well, that's certainly something they got better at in later games. Nishiki itself already worked in this game imo, the loss of his sister, Yumi and Kiryu all in a short time made him change and that's stated pretty clearly in game. I don't feel like the cutscenes added by Kiwami really add much to his character, instead they only made him look pathetic. 0 does a much better job at making you feel for Nishiki than Kiwami does.
Regarding the substories, it seems the first Yakuza has a reputation for having bad substories and i can't say i agree, sure most of them are scams but there's quite a bunch of more elaborate ones with cutscenes and all, i especially like those tying into the main story like The fake Mizuki or the Yakuza's wife(the rain and thunder in the background are so kino). Plus there is some light hearted substories here too, it's not like humour was invented with 0, it's just that this game has a different tone.
The music is good but that's true for all the games in this series so i won't talk about it more than that.
Edit: As of 25/06/2022 the restoration patch to get the japanese dub is actually out and it works perfectly, thank you Sylwahan