2nd best yakuza. I really enjoyed this game, I loved all the playable characters, they all had unique combat and each one had their own town to explore. Each character also had their own huge minigame side quest, like playing need for speed, hunting giant bears, being a popstar, and playing baseball. The non kamurocho/sotenbori maps were cool but were pretty small and Nagasugai was hard to traverse because of the huge building circles you had to go around. They did well to differentiate each chapter, never making you lose interest. Kiryu is still dropping tigers, Saejima finally got rid of that Snape hair, Haruka is finally playable, Akiyama has a beautiful singing voice, and Shinada is the greatest thing to happen to humanity since the birth of Shaq.
I do admit, I was confused on where the story was going for a while. The first chapter progresses normally, then in the 2nd it almost feels like a whole other self-contained game. But by the end, you see some dots connect in your head, slowly. Then you move onto the next part which appears to drop the whole "yakuza" part of yakuza and is now a teen girl popstar movie complete with the mean girl rivals. But again, it masterfully and subtley connects everything together.
and by the last part you're introduced to a whole new character and are forced to open the wikipedia on baseball terminology.. and again, like the last chapters it connects together like a cool puzzle.
The finale chapter is really sick. The final boss is so great, probably the fairest hard boss in the series. And the parts where you could choose who to play as for the next part was cool.
Overall, this may feel long at times but I felt the length really was justified in how huge the scope of this game is. Instead of feeling like you start the game and 5 sidequests later you're shirtless on the millenium tower, it takes its time and encourages you with a slower pace to enjoy your surroundings and have fun with the side quests and minigames. Let me put it into perspective: By the end of chapter 2 in yakuza 5, I had more hours than I did by the end of yakuza 3. Good game!!!
I do admit, I was confused on where the story was going for a while. The first chapter progresses normally, then in the 2nd it almost feels like a whole other self-contained game. But by the end, you see some dots connect in your head, slowly. Then you move onto the next part which appears to drop the whole "yakuza" part of yakuza and is now a teen girl popstar movie complete with the mean girl rivals. But again, it masterfully and subtley connects everything together.
and by the last part you're introduced to a whole new character and are forced to open the wikipedia on baseball terminology.. and again, like the last chapters it connects together like a cool puzzle.
The finale chapter is really sick. The final boss is so great, probably the fairest hard boss in the series. And the parts where you could choose who to play as for the next part was cool.
Overall, this may feel long at times but I felt the length really was justified in how huge the scope of this game is. Instead of feeling like you start the game and 5 sidequests later you're shirtless on the millenium tower, it takes its time and encourages you with a slower pace to enjoy your surroundings and have fun with the side quests and minigames. Let me put it into perspective: By the end of chapter 2 in yakuza 5, I had more hours than I did by the end of yakuza 3. Good game!!!