Gaiden offers a heart wrenching return to the life of Kiryu, and while the intent for the series to pass the torch to a new protagonist, its experiences like these that feel bittersweet when theres so many directions you can take the franchise's legendary dragon. However that return to familiarity, both in protagonist and brawling gameplay, is short lived due to the consequences of development. Gaiden's evolution from an interlude in the upcoming Yakuza 8, to a standalone experience, kneecaps a lot of the deeper themes and meta-text. There is so much the story wants to say, and its consistency in how strong its writing is executed, feels undercut when 4 chapters in you find out its ready to end. I can only hope that 8 will deliver.

The conversion to a standalone game was also something done in an extremely short time, with only 6 months of development. While it's story manages to be top quality, the gameplay awkwardly drags it down a touch. Which is an unfortunate constant, Dragon Engine is never kind to kiryu, and all 3 of his games have had combat that ends up feeling sloppy, and undercooked. While Gaiden has taken improvements from the Judgment series, it's brisk time in the oven becomes very clear, as with tweaks the fighting could be stellar, in its current form I feel it's lacked playtesting.