MASTER PIECE>

This game is much more of what you'd expected it to be.
It is art. Maybe, The Most art you will have from a game.
Acctually, this game defines state of the art and should be considered as the definition of GAMES... ART GAMES.

PLay I CARLY METE DBANÇA ICALRY METE DANÇA
ART GAME.

ahhhh doutor eu gosto desse

É super genérico a gameplay as fases e tudo mais obvio mas fuedase é o motoqueiro fantasma dando correntada e andando de moto (as fases de moto que por sinal podiam ser 10x melhor mas enfim)

A versão do gameboy advance é ruim ein

Genuinely was not expecting to enjoy this game by the end. Sincerely doubted it, had to shelve it a few times to keep the strongest sense of charity going. And to be fair to part of Y0, I certainly was uncharitable towards that spirit at many points. Granted, Yakuza 0 really did not do me many favors.

Still, I do walk out of the end amazed by the final steps of the journey, where the game ultimately ties back to that central theme of becoming like a dragon in many many ways. Defining, redefining, and creating character rationale for that "way of the yakuza". Majima especially was the heart of the game that I centered myself around, being the particular character exploration that I found interesting. There's so many wonderful boys rock moments that I had to get in the jive for, as well as a few rare, but excellent energized and choreographed scenes. Presentation in general for Yakuza does not pull punches.

But god it was GRUELING for me to get that far. The ending gates of "holy shit it's finally coming together" is barred by actually just awful awful combat, so dysfunctional and a complete mess to try to take seriously that you might as well put it on Easy and chug health potions. And also some of the worst pacing I've had to set myself up to, and I've been playing some long rpgs lately!!! The beginning chapters, especially with Kiryu, are actual chores in setup and production, and even in the more well put together back half, there'll still be extraordinarily dumb moments because they simply did not know how to deal with a lot of the characters they just threw at you.

And to make matters worse for me, the game's more problematic elements were more than just sour points. Y0 will bend itself over backwards to force you into some substories and a lot of the humor blew right past me but the required ones had some deeply disgusting elements. I don't think a lot of it, or really any, could be said as malicious, but it's certainly very Japan culture to have the one black person you ever see for example be the 'mass murderer' in an underground fighting ring.

I lay this out on the table though, mostly because most people don't (yakuza twitter is a menace), but also because I do think the journey is worth trudging through. It should also be noted I came with my own biases too, because I'm just tired of years being near fratty bro culture (college years i was stuck with a lot of frat roommates) and as I transition I just am kind of averse to bro vibes first. So knowing that, and the fact that I still thought the last few hours were unparalled fucking A energy, I think people should at least give this one a shot.

Do actually like, skip the substories if the humor doesn't work for you like I did.

More misc thoughts:
-Kiryu extremely a hottie, made my SO swoon every time he was on camera. Still team majima though!!
-I really really liked the majima minigame. That was some seriously good down to earth dialogue with the girls and is maybe the only time Y0 has an even somewhat pleasant lens on women in the game. Emphasis on somewhat there's like 5 asterisks there.
-What is this game's obsession with <5f reactable tracking moves on bosses lol. I just laughed every time I found one and there were more than 5!

the reviews that quickly throw out "it's dated" without saying much else are pretty disappointing, because all the guff that plagues the proceeding games in the series shows just how perfect this one is.

not a moment is wasted in GTA 3. you have a city that's actually fun to explore and drive around in, the missions are truly open ended and challenging, and there's none of that Rockstar Games-brand mediocre prestige TV wannabe writing to bog down the experience. the story is only a vehicle for you to take on more bonkers vehicle challenges peppered with occasional gunfights, while current GTAs seemingly focus on the opposite. the atmosphere is top notch; there really is nothing else that compares with blazing through Liberty at night while listening to a classic Moving Shadow drum 'n bass set.

it's a classic game with a perfect formula that only got more and more muddled as the series went on. I don't understand why this gets overlooked so frequently these days, especially when its more popular follow up Vice City is far less exciting (unless grinding asset missions while circling around two flat islands really gets your rocks off).

A recent review said they heard someone say something about the purity of this game, and for my money, it is an apt description, far more precise than the neglect with which contemporary perspectives treat this - like it or hate it - monument in the medium's history. Only nineties kids (and probably those older) remember how incredible this game felt upon launch: Liberty City, murder sprees, tanks, celebrity voice acting, a shockingly good radio that kept you seated and eager as the fires consumed the car you jacked in some grand theft auto that began your umpteenth downtown massacre. Unbelievable stuff. You stood at the edge of the beach and breathed in the possibility that surrounded you.

Things have aged of course, but to me for some reason they are nowhere near as interesting to talk about. One returns to that idea of purity, and with the fireworks faded, one recognizes in 2021 how dark the shadows are at night, how dour the clouds, how graceful the rain as their pitter-patter gracelessly scores this city. Back then, when the game was a revolution, the city felt so alive and open. Only now has the rust revealed reality. This is a small and dead city, a small and dead game, starring a small and dead psychopath more or less destined to kill pedestrians and do missions. But this is not diminishment, rather, one now sees clearly the charms of this game, some twenty years on. The ocean of a childhood was just a piss puddle at daybreak in New York City.

Claude the protagonist is betrayed in the beginning, betrays his later allies, hunts down his betrayer, and possibly kills the only person he loved for talking too much. That's it. That's purity. That's what somehow makes this game better than Vice City, Scarface drained of de Palma, Pacino, and pathos. By contrast, GTA III lost nothing: it was content to make nothing its tone, atmosphere, story, character, and theme. Of all the GTA games, then, this one is invulnerable to the ever-looming (thankfully nowadays much less bandied about) accusation of ludonarrative dissonance. There is no conflict between story and gameplay. You are a killer and nothing but. Have fun. I did and do.

From Claude's scrunched up face to his black jacket and weird green pants and the water that churns the colour of concrete, there is a heaviness to Grand Theft Auto III that more serious entries (IV) never matched. But there's also a brutal clarity to the space, where we are always able to see objects in relation to one another, and where collisions seem active instead of incidental. It's just a genuinely explosive game, from the way it looks to the way it controls. I heard someone say it's the purest of the series, and it's also one of the purest games. Where it lacks in atmospheric effects its distinctive grime textures carry the weight of the whole city, and if that's not enough there's the radio permanently tuned to the haunted vibrations of Scientist Rids the World of the Evil Curse of the Vampires.