This game might actually be impossible to assign a score. Compared to Yakuza 3 Remastered it is a huge, huge step up in terms of storytelling and gameplay variety, but in some ways that just makes the game's shortcomings more frustrating.
For example, by virtue of being the first new character players are introduced to as well as being threaded through the other characters' stories as well, Akiyama winds up feeling like the main character of a game the player rarely actually embodies. In some ways that's a neat trick, and RGG definitely weaponizes his charm to lift the spirits of the other characters' fairly dour storylines whenever it feels right, but every time Akiyama appears it's also a reminder that not only is his dialogue the most fun but his combat the most unique. This is especially true if you're marathoning through the games in chronological order, where his kick-heavy combat style truly plays like nothing else in the franchise to this point.
While charming additions to the gallery of misfit gangsters, Saejima and Tanimura are often saddled with gimmicks that make the game more cumbersome than interesting. Saejima, for example, is mostly forced to navigate the city via rooftops and sewage systems due to a high value warrant out for his arrest, which is not only a confusing and convoluted way to get around Kamurocho (albeit a slightly clever way to alter an otherwise constant map) but also highly discourages the pursuit of side quests. Tanimura, by contrast, has free reign of the city in a way no other character does, and yet nearly all of his missions involve him engaging in some kind of one-off mini-game or unavoidable gimmick that often restricts his already all-too-similar to Kiryu move set. Yakuza 4 is full of variety, but sometimes that variety can feel as convoluted as Yakuza's various criminal organizations.
Though if I'm being fair to Yakuza 4, it's main story is so propulsive that there's little wiggle room for dating, MMA training, combat arenas or the SEGA Arcade. Much like Yakuza 3, this game is awful about surfacing its side quests or guiding the player along the way Zero and the Kiwamis do, so I actually came to appreciate this. While Yakuza does an awful job pointing players in the direction of its side activities, its narrative does an excellent job of enticing the player to keep the accelerator revving. For what it's worth, the narrative does offer a very explicit opportunity to swap freely between characters and wrap up whatever loose ends you might want before completing the narrative.
While a classic JRPG trope, that does open the question: what business does a game, or player, have approaching the finale of their tale only to stretch the game from 17 hours to, potentially, over 100? It's a compromise made slightly tempting by the diverse playstyles and personalities of the characters as well as the hitting-its-stride silly writing of whatever substories you've likely seen at that point, but still...
I ultimately decided it wasn't really worth it, in part because the final proper act of this game may not feature the block happy anger management class bosses of Yakuza 3 but it certainly features some of the most poorly designed combat encounters I've yet experienced in this franchise. Far too often enemies can juggle the player character in a never ending series of stuns and knockdowns, in a Game of Death-like marathon fight in which your greatest enemy might actually be your limited inventory slots. The combat in Yakuza 4 is rarely hard but it is frequently cheap and somehow even more infuriating than 3 due to the more aggressive enemy A.I.
It's also hard to ignore that much of the final story beats lay the animé bullshit on thiiiiiiiiick while also matching the ending to Yakuza 2 practically beat for beat. Yakuza 4 spends so much of its time being a small (if absurd) story about how four strangers are all emotionally tied to the same state-wide conspiracy that a lot of its final hours can feel as desperate as they are repetitive.
In other words, I spent much of this game waffling between a 3.5 and a 4, but I think I ultimately have to settle even lower, a strong, bold-faced 3. For all the ways this game improves on that meandering installment and all the fun little hooks and twists there are in the story's mid-section, an eventual abundance of purely frustrating combat encounters and some true lack of imagination in the more Machiavellian aspects of the game's story make for something I definitely couldn't recommend as a cold turkey entry point to the Yakuza series, but would also advise those looking to binge the series as I have been that the game is quite enjoyable - with some very significant caveats.
For example, by virtue of being the first new character players are introduced to as well as being threaded through the other characters' stories as well, Akiyama winds up feeling like the main character of a game the player rarely actually embodies. In some ways that's a neat trick, and RGG definitely weaponizes his charm to lift the spirits of the other characters' fairly dour storylines whenever it feels right, but every time Akiyama appears it's also a reminder that not only is his dialogue the most fun but his combat the most unique. This is especially true if you're marathoning through the games in chronological order, where his kick-heavy combat style truly plays like nothing else in the franchise to this point.
While charming additions to the gallery of misfit gangsters, Saejima and Tanimura are often saddled with gimmicks that make the game more cumbersome than interesting. Saejima, for example, is mostly forced to navigate the city via rooftops and sewage systems due to a high value warrant out for his arrest, which is not only a confusing and convoluted way to get around Kamurocho (albeit a slightly clever way to alter an otherwise constant map) but also highly discourages the pursuit of side quests. Tanimura, by contrast, has free reign of the city in a way no other character does, and yet nearly all of his missions involve him engaging in some kind of one-off mini-game or unavoidable gimmick that often restricts his already all-too-similar to Kiryu move set. Yakuza 4 is full of variety, but sometimes that variety can feel as convoluted as Yakuza's various criminal organizations.
Though if I'm being fair to Yakuza 4, it's main story is so propulsive that there's little wiggle room for dating, MMA training, combat arenas or the SEGA Arcade. Much like Yakuza 3, this game is awful about surfacing its side quests or guiding the player along the way Zero and the Kiwamis do, so I actually came to appreciate this. While Yakuza does an awful job pointing players in the direction of its side activities, its narrative does an excellent job of enticing the player to keep the accelerator revving. For what it's worth, the narrative does offer a very explicit opportunity to swap freely between characters and wrap up whatever loose ends you might want before completing the narrative.
While a classic JRPG trope, that does open the question: what business does a game, or player, have approaching the finale of their tale only to stretch the game from 17 hours to, potentially, over 100? It's a compromise made slightly tempting by the diverse playstyles and personalities of the characters as well as the hitting-its-stride silly writing of whatever substories you've likely seen at that point, but still...
I ultimately decided it wasn't really worth it, in part because the final proper act of this game may not feature the block happy anger management class bosses of Yakuza 3 but it certainly features some of the most poorly designed combat encounters I've yet experienced in this franchise. Far too often enemies can juggle the player character in a never ending series of stuns and knockdowns, in a Game of Death-like marathon fight in which your greatest enemy might actually be your limited inventory slots. The combat in Yakuza 4 is rarely hard but it is frequently cheap and somehow even more infuriating than 3 due to the more aggressive enemy A.I.
It's also hard to ignore that much of the final story beats lay the animé bullshit on thiiiiiiiiick while also matching the ending to Yakuza 2 practically beat for beat. Yakuza 4 spends so much of its time being a small (if absurd) story about how four strangers are all emotionally tied to the same state-wide conspiracy that a lot of its final hours can feel as desperate as they are repetitive.
In other words, I spent much of this game waffling between a 3.5 and a 4, but I think I ultimately have to settle even lower, a strong, bold-faced 3. For all the ways this game improves on that meandering installment and all the fun little hooks and twists there are in the story's mid-section, an eventual abundance of purely frustrating combat encounters and some true lack of imagination in the more Machiavellian aspects of the game's story make for something I definitely couldn't recommend as a cold turkey entry point to the Yakuza series, but would also advise those looking to binge the series as I have been that the game is quite enjoyable - with some very significant caveats.