This review contains spoilers
One step forward two steps back
Yakuza 8 saw Yakuza 5's messy ass plot and said, yeah, I can beat it.
The positives are abondant. Mainly in all things concerning gameplay.
-Combat is massively improved from 7. I'd actually say it really comes into it's own in this game in a way it never really did in 7.
-Side stories are overall pretty good
-Yamai. Just. Yamai.
-I didn't dislike Adachi in 7, but I think he really shines here, he's hillarious.
-Seonhee is hot.
-The game has decent, if a bit on the nose commentary on social media, manipulated news stories and fame culture.
-Kiryu's souvenir thing is a lot fun, I greatly enjoyed doing them, even if some of them were a little contrived.
-Takaya Kuroda's best performance to date, by far.
-Soul, this game has plenty and more. Whatever it's flaws, I can say this is a game made with passion and love for the characters and universe, and with AAA games nowadays, that is excedingly rare.
But oh boy is it messy.
-The great "Ichiban and Kiryu teamup" that was advertised, is a lie. Ichiban and Kiryu are toghether for a couple of chapters and after that, they go their seperate ways, with their own seperate parties, stories that connect only very loosely.
-Which leads me into this point, this feels like it should be two seperate games, "Ichiban looks for his mother in Hawaii" and "Kiryu's real real final stand (forget Yakuza 6 was a thing)". The way they each have their own seperate final bosses, one feeling like a parody take on JRPG God monsters and one feeling like a generic yakuza final boss in the Millenium Tower.
-While this might not be a problem /inherently/, it becomes one when you realise that way more effort seem to have been put into the Kiryu portion of this game than Ichiban's. Thus, Ichiban feels like he's playing second fiddle to Kiryu in what is only his second game. This game almost feels like the fan reaction to Ichiban was negative and the devs are attempting to course correct. But that's just not the case, Ichiban is probably the single most well received sucessor protagonist I've ever seen. So I find it a huge shame that RGG seems to think he can't carry a game by himself and needs Kiryu to prop him up.
-The ending is insanely abrupt. With Ichiban just being made into a butt monkey and Kiryu's.....just not being an ending.
-The pacing is honnestly god awful, its as bad as Final Fantasy XVI. The forced tutorials for the mini games are truly a chore. Look, I respect Sujimon and Dodonko Islands, I'm sure some people got lots of fun out of them, but I don't care, that is not why I play Yakuza, and I dont feel I should be forced to do so.
-The villains suck. Bryce starts up interesting and menacing but they go too far. Him being like 100 years old with no explaination, having a giant squid in his lair just makes him unbelievable. It also makes the framing "Palekana is good actually, Bryce corrupted it" kind of moot when everyone currently alive who are part of it are indoctrinated within Bryce's worldview.
-Ebina is even worse, he is genuinly the worst villain in the series by far.
-It ruins 7 as a decent starting point for newcomers. Having Kiryu feautred so heavily makes it impossible for someone who only knows Ichiban's story to follow.
-While I'd like to believe this is Kiryu's final game, fact is: He is alive at the end of this game, and Yakuza 6 was supposed to be. Therefore, I can't truly trust RGG not to bring him back again for some stupid reason.
All and all. I have no hate for this game, it was fun. But its an absolute mess and pales in compairson to its predecessor.
Ps: releasing this game next to Persona 3 reload is certainly a choice. I thought P3R was gonna be overshadowed by Y8, but tbh, no, the opposite happened. Releasing the best written persona game with an improved gameplay experience really does this game no favor.
Yakuza 8 saw Yakuza 5's messy ass plot and said, yeah, I can beat it.
The positives are abondant. Mainly in all things concerning gameplay.
-Combat is massively improved from 7. I'd actually say it really comes into it's own in this game in a way it never really did in 7.
-Side stories are overall pretty good
-Yamai. Just. Yamai.
-I didn't dislike Adachi in 7, but I think he really shines here, he's hillarious.
-Seonhee is hot.
-The game has decent, if a bit on the nose commentary on social media, manipulated news stories and fame culture.
-Kiryu's souvenir thing is a lot fun, I greatly enjoyed doing them, even if some of them were a little contrived.
-Takaya Kuroda's best performance to date, by far.
-Soul, this game has plenty and more. Whatever it's flaws, I can say this is a game made with passion and love for the characters and universe, and with AAA games nowadays, that is excedingly rare.
But oh boy is it messy.
-The great "Ichiban and Kiryu teamup" that was advertised, is a lie. Ichiban and Kiryu are toghether for a couple of chapters and after that, they go their seperate ways, with their own seperate parties, stories that connect only very loosely.
-Which leads me into this point, this feels like it should be two seperate games, "Ichiban looks for his mother in Hawaii" and "Kiryu's real real final stand (forget Yakuza 6 was a thing)". The way they each have their own seperate final bosses, one feeling like a parody take on JRPG God monsters and one feeling like a generic yakuza final boss in the Millenium Tower.
-While this might not be a problem /inherently/, it becomes one when you realise that way more effort seem to have been put into the Kiryu portion of this game than Ichiban's. Thus, Ichiban feels like he's playing second fiddle to Kiryu in what is only his second game. This game almost feels like the fan reaction to Ichiban was negative and the devs are attempting to course correct. But that's just not the case, Ichiban is probably the single most well received sucessor protagonist I've ever seen. So I find it a huge shame that RGG seems to think he can't carry a game by himself and needs Kiryu to prop him up.
-The ending is insanely abrupt. With Ichiban just being made into a butt monkey and Kiryu's.....just not being an ending.
-The pacing is honnestly god awful, its as bad as Final Fantasy XVI. The forced tutorials for the mini games are truly a chore. Look, I respect Sujimon and Dodonko Islands, I'm sure some people got lots of fun out of them, but I don't care, that is not why I play Yakuza, and I dont feel I should be forced to do so.
-The villains suck. Bryce starts up interesting and menacing but they go too far. Him being like 100 years old with no explaination, having a giant squid in his lair just makes him unbelievable. It also makes the framing "Palekana is good actually, Bryce corrupted it" kind of moot when everyone currently alive who are part of it are indoctrinated within Bryce's worldview.
-Ebina is even worse, he is genuinly the worst villain in the series by far.
-It ruins 7 as a decent starting point for newcomers. Having Kiryu feautred so heavily makes it impossible for someone who only knows Ichiban's story to follow.
-While I'd like to believe this is Kiryu's final game, fact is: He is alive at the end of this game, and Yakuza 6 was supposed to be. Therefore, I can't truly trust RGG not to bring him back again for some stupid reason.
All and all. I have no hate for this game, it was fun. But its an absolute mess and pales in compairson to its predecessor.
Ps: releasing this game next to Persona 3 reload is certainly a choice. I thought P3R was gonna be overshadowed by Y8, but tbh, no, the opposite happened. Releasing the best written persona game with an improved gameplay experience really does this game no favor.