A great game muddied by a HORRENDOUS combat system. While I can see why some would not be much of a fan of this game as a send off to kiryu’s story due to the lack of returning characters or other elements that would make it feel like a true finale, I think what is here is nice and still enjoyable in its own right. Basically all of the new characters are at the very least memorable, and the villains are arguably some of the best in the series imo. A lot of the substories are great too, and having all of them be fully voice acted gives a lot memorability to them.

It’s really a shame about the upgrade system and combat, however. The upgrade system is bloated as shit with barely anything feeing substantial, and to get all of the upgrades at the end you better have done a shit ton of clan battles to even have the cash to buy the training items for it. Even disregarding the level system though, the combat just feels off. Heat actions are less prevalent in favor of extreme heat mode and kiryu’s core moveset is different and isn’t very satisfying to control. Also the rag doll physics aren’t very funny after like, the 3rd battle. Not to mention it’s also very easy, I’d get pumped at many points before an important boss fight only for it to be over in a matter of seconds due to how they all only have one bar of health barring a single fight near the end.

Overall, I still enjoyed Yakuza 6 and while I’d probably have it near the bottom of my rankings from what I’ve played (only slightly above yakuza ps2 as well as kiwami being in a distant last place), I still enjoyed my time with it. If the combat was better, I could probably see it being one of my favorite entries in the whole series.

Absolutely phenomenal. Regardless of how many issues I could probably come up with if I really think about it, I simply do not care. The stellar cast of characters, the extremely fun gameplay loop that manages to be really challenging on hard mode, and both the many heartwarming and wrenching moments that take place throughout the story are enough to consider this on par with the other games in the series and as one of my favorite games ever made. What a fucking ride, dlc already gonna make this the best game ever made I can feel it.

Finished brutal mode for the first time just now totally not by abusing glitches and cheats to skip the bullshit encounters. Seriously don’t even bother with this legitimately, I love Crushing but Brutal is pretty obviously not tested lol.

Anyways I still like this game about as much as when I first played it. The level design definitely doesn’t feel as grand as some of the later moments in the series but it still manages to be engaging and the narrative reflects this too, with also having an ending that I just find really dang satisfying. Cool game.

the internet lied to me.

Seriously though I can kind of understand most of the complaints this game gets but goddamn I genuinely think this may be my new favorite in the series so far. I really liked the orphanage stuff and I thought it was a nice way to develop the side characters really well (chapter 11 fucked me up HARD and so far has been one of the few moments in this series to make me emotional). Also the soundtrack is godlike. If the encounter rate was less annoying and combat wasn’t worse than Yakuza 2 then I could easily call this my favorite but for now I’ll have to think about it…

Edit: i platinumed the game now FUCK pool