This franchise seemed to garner a lot of attention around the release of Yakuza 0, and the Kiwami remakes of 1 and 2. It seemed like the perfect time to finally try to get in to them.

I tried 0 and could not see what others were seeing. It didn't feel good to play. It felt like some weird mix of a beat-em-up and a fighting game; two genres I generally don't enjoy. It felt stiff. There was nothing fluid about the combat and that's an instant no from me.

I'm sure I could have gotten in to the characters, I appreciate some stupid and corny fun a lot. I also appreciate a good contrast between that and a serious story. I'm sure this has that but I cannot get past how sluggish it felt to play. After 5 hours, I gave up on the entire series because I knew it wasn't going to feel any better than this does at the beginning. That's just gotta be how the series' feels. Nope.

I kinda want to try Yakuza: Like a Dragon because it's turn based and that might alleviate my issues with it. However... it feels wrong to just jump in to a random game in the series and it's also incredibly long which is a put off.