Yakuza 4 aged better than the third episode, that's for sure. Like all the previous games it's still a solid entry in the series, which I enjoyed for the most part. Personally, I liked that the story is full of betrayals and that we got bombarded with plot twist after plot twist. And the soap opera quality of the emotions that run through it made for yet another great Yakuza experience. But the last 2 hours or so felt really rushed.

Introducing several new main characters was quite ambitious back then, but still well done. Though, Akiyama was really the only new addition I grew quite fond of.

However, there is one thing I have to nitpick because it kind of soured the experience for me a bit. Let me preface this by saying that I absolutely adore the Yakuza franchise and that it's one of my favorites of all time..

...so with that out of the way, I need to talk about -that- scene. Yes, it's about Saejima and Haruka’s introduction scene. I understand what the writers were trying to do, but using Haruka for that was just wrong on so many levels. The excuse, “he hasn’t been around a woman in years”, is terrible because Haruka is a child, not a woman. It's gross and it made it very difficult to like Saejima afterward (I eventually did though). The idea that we're supposed to applaud Saejima for having the strength of will to not rape a child, like that isn't the base level of behaviour we expect out of anyone who wants to participate in human society, is laughable. There's literally nothing to applaud in that scene. It was neither deep nor well written, it was just bad in taste. Like I said, I love Yakuza but I will never excuse that scene like so many other fans did. It was unnecessary.