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CtheIronblooded finished Yakuza 6: The Song of Life
Yakuza 6 is the 7th mainline entry in Ryu Ga Gotoku's Yakuza/Like a Dragon series, the first on the newly implemented Dragon Engine and the final chapter in the Kazuma Kiryu saga.

Yakuza 6 takes place directly after the events of Yakuza 5 and opens with a bang because following the aftermath of Yakuza 5, Kazuma Kiryu once again faces a prison sentence, this time for 3 years with the hope that this will be the final prison sentence he'll have to serve and when he gets out he will be able to live a happy and normal life as a civilian with his adopted daughter Haruka and all the other orphans at the Morning Glory orphanage he runs. Naturally nothing can ever be so simple because the only thing Kiryu comes back to after 3 years is the disappearance of Haruka which leads him on a search to find his daughter at all costs and in doing so he gets wrapped up in yet another gang war for control of Kamurocho that involves many factions from the Tojo Clan, the Chinese triad, the Korean mafia and even extends its reaches to Hiroshima. The narrative of Yakuza 6 is a slow burn and doesn't really pick up until the 2nd half of the game, but the whole 1st half serves to build up all the new characters that are introduced. I think that's one of my only minor complaints about the narrative because while I liked the new characters a lot by the end, it feels weird to focus more on a bunch of new characters and turn series regulars into nothing more than simple cameos when this is meant to be the climatic finale to Kiryu's saga.

If Yakuza 5 was all about following your dream no matter the cost even if it means sacrificing family, Yakuza 6 is about the complete opposite with themes of family bonds and parenthood and just how far someone would be willing to go for their family and their children and this is seen through parallels of various characters and their motivations throughout the game. I think Yakuza 6 has one of the best narratives in the series and also one of the best explorations of parenthood in gaming in general with so much thematic depth which really gives you a lot to think about while telling a compelling, emotional ending that's fitting for the tale of Kiryu as it's a very personal narrative that serves to give Kiryu even more development and growth as a character because that's one thing Kiryu has never done is stop growing and developing as a character, even at the very end of his story.

Beyond just the main narrative of Yakuza 6 another thing I loved was the world-building. The world-building of this series just gets better and better with every entry. Yakuza 6 definitely feels like the climatic ending of Kiryu's journey because it manages to bring back and reference so many things from Kiryu's past both in the main story and in the side stories as well and it truly rewards the player for playing all the games in Kiryu's saga. I also love how the world of Yakuza is ever evolving and growing just like the real world and Yakuza 6 really tackles themes of traditionalism vs modernism and just how much has changed in the 3 years Kiryu was gone, how the Yakuza of old and the beliefs he was raised on are dying out and being replaced with (arguably) much worse people and ideologies that just don't have the code of honor he's used to.

If you're a fan of the Yakuza series then you already know it is known for having plenty of sub-stories/side quests and Yakuza 6 is no different having over 50 of them. I think Yakuza 6 has some of my favorite sub-stories in the game since there's a lot that harken back to previous stories in the series which is fitting for Kiryu's final chapter. There are also a lot of funny and wacky side quests that show how much technology has advanced in Kiryu's absence from Kamurocho and how he's learning to adapt to it.

A thing I was quite disappointed with when it comes to Yakuza 6 is the lack of side content because coming off Yakuza 0 and Yakuza 5 which had the most amount of side activities and mini-games in the series to date, Yakuza 6 is surprisingly very bare bones. There are still the staples of karaoke and darts and a handful of Sega arcade games, but gone are so many of the best side activities of previous games like gambling, the colosseum or even bowling and pool and the new activities that have replaced these classic ones just aren't as interesting. The two biggest side activities being the Clan Creator which serves as an RTS style mini-game where you take on gangs in the streets from a top down view while ordering different units just has little depth to the strategy and offers even less difficulty and the baseball team side activity is boring because it plays itself and only lets the player actually interact a couple times each match.

Another major disappointment for me with Yakuza 6 was the combat itself. Once again Yakuza 6 has the unfortunate task of being the follow-up to two of the best games in the series with the biggest amount of variety and diversity in the gameplay and compared to Yakuza 0 or Yakuza 5, Yakuza 6 is just so bare-bones and repetitive. Yakuza 6 is the first game since Yakuza 3 from 7 years prior to where the only playable character is Kazuma Kiryu and beyond that there are no different combat styles either, so it just leaves your options in the combat department very lacking and I felt I was mostly using the same combos and the same moves for almost every situation which got a bit stale by the end of the game and when there are not many side activities to break up the monotony of the combat that just makes how repetitive the combat is even more apparent.

However Yakuza 6 was the first game to feature the newly implemented Dragon Engine and I think testing out the new engine (which would be vastly upgraded and perfected with future games) is the biggest reason the game lacks in so many areas, but the Dragon Engine also improves the game in just as many areas like making the world more seamless because now battle encounters don't have a loading screen before hand and you can enter buildings without loading as well which means if a brawl occurs on the street it can now even continue in the local convenience store. Besides making battles and the world more seamless than ever, the Dragon Engine is also just beautiful making the world of Kamurocho look the most lively, realistic and gritty that it has ever to this point in the series. It's hard to believe Yakuza 6 is a game from 2016 because graphically it easily stands toe-to-toe with most modern games.

Yakuza 6 to me is similar to Yakuza 3 in many ways. Both focus primarily on building up Kiryu's relationship with new characters, both take Kiryu to a new town, both have similar themes of parenthood and most importantly both are fantastic narratives that are trapped in less than fantastic games. Yakuza 6 offers tons of depth in its narrative, character development, themes and world-building, especially for those who have followed Kiryu's story from the beginning making Yakuza 6 one of the absolute best stories in the series, but unfortunately every other aspect of the game from the combat to the side activities are sorely lacking in depth or variety compared to previous entries making the climatic finale of Kiryu's saga more than worth experiencing, but far from the masterpiece it could've been and deserved to be.

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