Another day, another review talking about how this is their first Yakuza game. Guess what? It's really great! I want to talk about it some more, so hopefully this gets more original from here on out.
Yakuza 0's greatest asset is its story. The acting is phenomenal, and the drama can be extremely compelling. This is especially true in the back half of the game, when events really begin to kick into motion. However, this came with the unfortunate effect that past say, chapter 10 or so, I just stopped doing any side content. At a certain point, the substories became too repetitive, and the minigames lost their luster. This was my biggest disappointment from the game. So much of Yakuza's publicity is surrounding these side activities, and while I don't regret spending the time I did screwing around in the early game, I don't have any desire to go back and see what I missed.
In many ways, this has to do with how I feel about the game's other main aspect, its combat. It's fine. I guess. I played on hard, but the game never got very mechanically challenging. Most of the time the combat is fun because of spectacle, this is especially true of boss fights. I'm honestly having a hard time determining why I feel so middling on the combat. In theory everything is there, so what is the missing link? It may have something to do with the enemy design. Enemies are split between being mindless pushovers, or having absurd defensive capabilities. I'm left wondering if some of the bosses had literally infinite super armor, or my damage output was pitifully low from being on hard mode.
Finally, I want to end on something I really enjoyed about Yakuza 0. I feel like I've been primarily negative so far, but I overall really liked the game, so I want to reflect that. What I loved the most about Yakuza 0 is its commitment. In every possible aspect of the game, down to the smallest minigame, it goes the extra mile. It treats every aspect with the same level of engagement, nothing truly feels like leftover side content. What a great time overall, maybe in the end it was just too long for its own good? Eh, who knows.
Yakuza 0's greatest asset is its story. The acting is phenomenal, and the drama can be extremely compelling. This is especially true in the back half of the game, when events really begin to kick into motion. However, this came with the unfortunate effect that past say, chapter 10 or so, I just stopped doing any side content. At a certain point, the substories became too repetitive, and the minigames lost their luster. This was my biggest disappointment from the game. So much of Yakuza's publicity is surrounding these side activities, and while I don't regret spending the time I did screwing around in the early game, I don't have any desire to go back and see what I missed.
In many ways, this has to do with how I feel about the game's other main aspect, its combat. It's fine. I guess. I played on hard, but the game never got very mechanically challenging. Most of the time the combat is fun because of spectacle, this is especially true of boss fights. I'm honestly having a hard time determining why I feel so middling on the combat. In theory everything is there, so what is the missing link? It may have something to do with the enemy design. Enemies are split between being mindless pushovers, or having absurd defensive capabilities. I'm left wondering if some of the bosses had literally infinite super armor, or my damage output was pitifully low from being on hard mode.
Finally, I want to end on something I really enjoyed about Yakuza 0. I feel like I've been primarily negative so far, but I overall really liked the game, so I want to reflect that. What I loved the most about Yakuza 0 is its commitment. In every possible aspect of the game, down to the smallest minigame, it goes the extra mile. It treats every aspect with the same level of engagement, nothing truly feels like leftover side content. What a great time overall, maybe in the end it was just too long for its own good? Eh, who knows.