Been a really long time but I finally finished it - and I'm glad I took my time. Kamurocho and Sotenobori grabbed me immediately with their mesmerizingly rich detail and cinematography recreating an era that a lot of Japanese still look back on wsitfully - its practically virtual tourism, I could just walk for hours. 4 years later, I've visited both those places (Kabukicho and Dotonbori) and its truly incredible how similar they are - well except for the incredibly crowded Starbucks everywhere. This is how you do an open world. Just like Discol Elysium, only two maps for a small area of a city, yet its bigger and more immersive than any ubisoft game could ever be. The game itself was fantastic, truly something for everybody,. And best of all it used the world so well, so many characters, items, and interconnected minigames that take you to every nook and cranny. And I loved seeing Yakuza film veterans like Riki Takeuchi, Hitoshi Ozawa and Shingo Tsurumi (not the first time they've acted together! That was in Takashi Miike's DOA) and of course, Yakuza film royalty Tetsuya Watari (Tokyo Drifter, Yakuza Graveyard). Probably as close as you'll get to playing Battles Without Honor and Humanity on your PC.

Didn't experience any of the glitches others have, but this was the blandest world of the entire series - the cities are horrible! Even in SwSh I could visually distinguish them all. The open world is pretty ugly too, had absolutely no desire to explore it all - what's even the point with all these randomized items? Why do they keep going back to limited-use TMs? The pokemon themselves are pretty good, especially some of the abilities and moves (but none as good as Dragapult or Glastrier, so). And finally, finally, Ice weather is good! But Tera, while interesting, I found requires too much of a knowledge base and combined with this terrible world and non-narrative, for the first time I lost motivation to play competitively since I started more than 10 years ago. I hope that will change but seeing the meta shifts in just a few months of inactivity is really daunting.