Not all heroes wear capes, some wear seriously outdated suits.

It's been a long road getting to this point for both myself and Yakuza's main star Kiryu Kazama. Like many people I got into this series with Yakuza 0 through word of mouth in 2017 and wondered what I had missed all that time. There simply isn't another game series like it. It's a Frankenstein's monster whose separate parts on paper don't feel like they should work but amalgamated together they create something magical. They are serious crime dramas, only they are off beat comedies. They are beat 'em ups yet also adventure games, RPGs and dating simulators. It's all of these things and yet none of them. Not all it's ideas work, when they throw so much at the wall some things don't always stick but without fail for me they are always emotional, hilarious and entertaining.

The series' big selling point to me though is actually it's world design. This series along with Deus Ex made me realise I don't dislike open worlds, I dislike vast areas for the sake of being vast with empty meaningless content, sometimes less is more. Yakuza games are open worlds done right, not gigantic bloated icon maps usually used for those descriptions but smaller denser hubs. Locations have meaning, they have personality, the cities feel like characters in the game as much as the cast. If the game tells me to go to a shop or street I normally know where it is without having to bring up a map. They are full of life, small compact and focused.

Yakuza 6's story follows this same thought, whether it was because this was the first game on the Dragon Engine at the time meaning they cut back I don't know but I appreciated the sharper focus on Kiryu rather than the overly large games before that were getting a bit too big for themselves. Kiryu was really the heart of this game, it's his personal story about his own values and dedication to family. Hard to discuss without spoilers but whilst the overall story wasn't quite my cup of tea generally resulting in some pacing issues it still has some fantastic characters, moments and voice acting. This is partially because Yakuza's cinematography for it's cutscenes are a step above most games to me. The camera angles, facial details and expressions have always been extremely impressive but I truly noticed it here.

Like every Yakuza game the side content is often as important as the linear main story. Yakuza 6 scales back on this too but there is still a wealth of content here I spent a lot of my 70 hours playing through on. Spear fishing in an underwater on rails shooter, building up a clan for street fights in a mini strategy game, helping a small baseball team beat their countryside rivals (I'm not into baseball but this is making me consider some other games for it) as well as the usual suspects like cabaret clubs, video chat dating, mahjong and arcade games. It even has the full arcade game of Virtua Fighter 5 as optional content which is pretty crazy as far as a throw away mini game is concerned.

Honestly except some story beats I just don't have anything negative to say about this game. The combat is a little simpler than some other titles though that doesn't concern me much as the moment to moment narrative beats and atmosphere are the core to the series to me. I started it because I needed to play it to play Gaiden as I skipped from 5 to 7 initially but then had a feeling of regret I hadn't played it sooner as the Yakuza magic took hold of me. I love the world, the characters, the side content, exploring and taking in the sights of the locations. Yakuza as I discussed is a lot of things but to someone who grew up as a Sega fan it really shows to me that they still have that spark that made me a fan of theirs in the first place and may it long continue.

+ Hiroshima is a great new location.
+ Cinematography and voice acting are superb.
+ Baseball, spear fishing and clan fighting are pretty fun side content.
+ It's Yakuza.

- Storyline is a little up and down.