This was originally going to be a much different and longer review but looking back on it I don't think that it represents what I feel about this game anymore after sitting on it for a few weeks.

I don't like this game, I find it to be disgusting, malicious and most criminally boring. LAD8's story is repugnant and fundamentally betrays everything I love about the series' writing.
Memoirs of a Dragon and the Bucket List are one of the most evil and shameless game design choices I've ever seen, trying to actively pay homage to the prior entries while actively doing it way worse than it already had previously, I'm not much fond of Yakuza 0 either but that game actually put effort into celebrating the series and Kiryu's past.

I had my share of problems with Like A Dragon 7 as well, but for everything that game did wrong the writing remained top notch, having some of the best narrative and emotional highs of any game I've played prior. The majestic voice work of Kazuhiro Nakaya helping to create a perfect scene during the finale.
But LAD8 never reaches these heights, aside from Yamai and Tomizawa every character arc either feels completely rushed or filled with plot twists that lead nowhere.

However, there's still a lot to love about the game, some of the side content arguably being the series' best. Dondoko Island being a pastiche of Animal Crossing with the goal of building a Natural Paradise, a Legendary resort for people to fall back in love with nature! Yet the ultimate punchline is that the most effective way of going about this is by essentially rebuilding Kamurocho... Oops! There's also Miss Match, a natural evolution of the Chaturbate minigame from Yakuza 6, showcasing the gamification of human contract and relationships.
Even with all that aside, the reworked gameplay and job system has breathed a whole new life into the turn-based combat, actively promoting experimentation and to grow your bond with your party members, almost perfecting the system that was introduced with LAD7.
And to go along with the new and improved combat is the phenomenal OST which may possibly be one of RGG's very best, fiiled with tons of memorable tracks like Slugfest, BodyBag, Kooky, Barracuda, etc.

This review is probably more negative than I intended but It's just really unfortunate that for everything this game does right, I just can't bring myself to like it because of how much I despise the writing, some of Kiryu's best and coolest character moments are buried deep within this game yet I still don't feel like either this game or Gaiden justified not making Yakuza 6 Kiryu's final chapter when the series actively tries to fake Kiryu's death in every single entry.

What a colossal disappointment.

Ok it's not that bad. Everything with Kiryu is great especially chapter 8 (except the end that shit is ass, his final boss is good but feels like Ichiban should've fought him). New party members are cool and I like the gameplay improvements (still not a fan of having to go to a specific location to change jobs but there are more of them and money isn't as tight as in 7). Hitting dudes richocheting into other dudes never gets old. Same as having a physical character comboing into a mage to get them back some mp (there's even risk into it since enemies target the closest guy to them which would be said mage if it's their next turn).

The game feels like it was made back when length was a factor in game reviews. There were some cutscenes where I checked my phone or zoned out which never happened before in any other yakuza game. I don't know if it's due to the dialogue itself or just the length of the cutscenes but it really feels longer than it should. But somehow the ending feels rushed with a lot of stuff either forgotten about or that feels like we should've known more (Eiji becoming public enemy n°1 for example, did Ebina expose him because he wasn't useful anymore ? Was it Chitose ? Somebody asked who was running the Tatara channel and she said it was him ?)

Antagonists are also a big wrong in this game. One is Aoki but worse in every way and one is a generic cult leader. I guess there's a 3rd big one but him not appearing in the final chapter but instead in the ending cutscene where Ichiban talks no jutsu him (happens a lot btw, even for him) and he says sorry and it's fine apparently.

There's a lot if weird inconsistencies (Chitose casually using the Tatara channel despite Eiji having control of it and using another voice actor, the Geomijul unable to find a famous streamer but hijacking a government satellite, Nele Island running out of the space for the waste being a twist despite the thing being visibly half full in 2 months once you enter the cave)

The Daidoji are also not beating the shittiest group in the series accusations. What a wet fart of a character Hanawa is I can't believe Yokoyama said he was important what a fucking liar.

It pains me to say that this game was a big disappointment for me, especially after years of waiting for it to be the best game in the series. As much as I love this franchise deeply from the bottom of my heart, I feel like I've been toyed with for 80 hours. I don't want to make it sound like I hate this game, I think it has a lot of soul behind it and I appreciate it for that. But sadly RGG Studio missed the mark with this one. This game made me feel a lot of things to the point of making me cry until my nose bled, but it also kept dancing around the ideas that made this franchise a masterpiece, thus making itself stale and uninteresting. Despite all its shortcomings, I really do like what this game has to offer. And it sure packs a punch, but it fails to add the ingredients that make this franchise and ends up haphazardly throwing Yakuza tropes at your face, as if it's yelling "please like this game!!!". I wish they did better things with the perfect material they had.

Bon voyage I guess.