This review contains spoilers
I'm honestly pretty mixed on this entry. While there is certainly a lot to love, which I'll get into, I was honestly really disappointed with how the main story and various character arcs turned out.
The biggest improvement from Y7 is the gameplay. It's much more refined and the difficulty curve is a lot fairer, there's no crazy difficulty spike like the fight against Majima and Saejima in Y7. I really liked how they incorporated normal attacks so it wasn't useless anymore, the new jobs are all pretty great at what they do and it's a lot more versatile which encourages levelling multiple jobs instead of sticking to one broken job like in 7. My only real issue with the new gameplay is that I found the buff/debuffs to be too weak, you have to waste multiple turns to get them to a level that actually felt effective.
Many of the new characters introduced are also pretty fantastic. I absolutely loved Tomizawa and Chitose as both party members and how they were written, honestly I liked them more than Nanba and Saeko respectively. Also great seeing Seonhee crush out on Kiryu, an unexpected but adorable side to her. But the true highlight is easily Yutaka Yamai. This guy is definitely a fan favorite in the making a-la Goro Majima, and I expect him to make an appearance in any future Yakuza game. Also helps that he's voiced by DIO himself.
The graphics are great as usual for a Dragon Engine game, while it doesn't look as clean as Lost Judgment, they have massively improved the lighting from Y7. The soundtrack also slaps, if there's one thing this series has never missed on, it's the music. No complaints there.
Now for the negatives. Let's start with the side content: They're all pretty disappointing. The substories are extremely lackluster in this game, which is especially disappointing since a good portion of the humor this series has is derived from the wacky substories. The more interesting substories are simply rehashed from previous games. Dondoko Island is also an absolute chore and I could not be any less interested in it. What a massive downgrade from the confectionary minigame from Y7. Sujimon collecting was also a bore, and the dungeon crawling became too repetitive. It's actually kinda funny this game came out around the same time Persona 3 Reload did because the dungeons in this game is basically just dimestore Tartarus. The minigames I've never really played in any other Yakuza game, and I skipped those here too. Didn't care for them.
The main issue I have with this game is how the main story progresses. It's extremely predictable, about as subtle as a sledgehammer to the face, and just really really boring in general. Pacing is a big problem in general, and while nowhere near as egregious as Yakuza 5's pacing was, cutscenes felt like they went on forever which is really aggravating when you can already predict what's gonna happen. I did praise the minor villains like Yamai and I also enjoyed Dwight Mendez, but the main villains are just so disappointing and lame. Ebina and Bryce have no aura despite having a lot of influence, and Ebina in particular has 0 buildup which makes his fight unmemorable, he's easily the least interesting final boss that Kiryu has ever faced.
I was also not a big fan with the direction the game took with a lot of the characters. They basically undo everything that the gang had accomplished in 7, introduce a potential romance between Kasuga and Saeko that has no satisfying conclusion, and most disappointing of all, the reunion between Kasuga and his birth mother is barely given any screentime at all. They also really go hard on the inherent evilness of social media, as if they didn't already tackle this issue with some actual nuance in Lost Judgment a few years earlier. A lot of the biggest moments in The Man Who Erased His Name is also undone in this game, to the point where that title feels pointless to play through now. Also a minor gripe I have is that mfing sex trafficker Jun Oda got a remembrance for the Dragon's Awakening mechanic over so many other characters that Kiryu actually liked and had a meaningful connection with, makes no sense.
Overall I did enjoy my time with this game but was disappointed by the direction the story took. The gameplay is a step forward but the story is two steps back. Maybe wait for a sale before getting this.
The biggest improvement from Y7 is the gameplay. It's much more refined and the difficulty curve is a lot fairer, there's no crazy difficulty spike like the fight against Majima and Saejima in Y7. I really liked how they incorporated normal attacks so it wasn't useless anymore, the new jobs are all pretty great at what they do and it's a lot more versatile which encourages levelling multiple jobs instead of sticking to one broken job like in 7. My only real issue with the new gameplay is that I found the buff/debuffs to be too weak, you have to waste multiple turns to get them to a level that actually felt effective.
Many of the new characters introduced are also pretty fantastic. I absolutely loved Tomizawa and Chitose as both party members and how they were written, honestly I liked them more than Nanba and Saeko respectively. Also great seeing Seonhee crush out on Kiryu, an unexpected but adorable side to her. But the true highlight is easily Yutaka Yamai. This guy is definitely a fan favorite in the making a-la Goro Majima, and I expect him to make an appearance in any future Yakuza game. Also helps that he's voiced by DIO himself.
The graphics are great as usual for a Dragon Engine game, while it doesn't look as clean as Lost Judgment, they have massively improved the lighting from Y7. The soundtrack also slaps, if there's one thing this series has never missed on, it's the music. No complaints there.
Now for the negatives. Let's start with the side content: They're all pretty disappointing. The substories are extremely lackluster in this game, which is especially disappointing since a good portion of the humor this series has is derived from the wacky substories. The more interesting substories are simply rehashed from previous games. Dondoko Island is also an absolute chore and I could not be any less interested in it. What a massive downgrade from the confectionary minigame from Y7. Sujimon collecting was also a bore, and the dungeon crawling became too repetitive. It's actually kinda funny this game came out around the same time Persona 3 Reload did because the dungeons in this game is basically just dimestore Tartarus. The minigames I've never really played in any other Yakuza game, and I skipped those here too. Didn't care for them.
The main issue I have with this game is how the main story progresses. It's extremely predictable, about as subtle as a sledgehammer to the face, and just really really boring in general. Pacing is a big problem in general, and while nowhere near as egregious as Yakuza 5's pacing was, cutscenes felt like they went on forever which is really aggravating when you can already predict what's gonna happen. I did praise the minor villains like Yamai and I also enjoyed Dwight Mendez, but the main villains are just so disappointing and lame. Ebina and Bryce have no aura despite having a lot of influence, and Ebina in particular has 0 buildup which makes his fight unmemorable, he's easily the least interesting final boss that Kiryu has ever faced.
I was also not a big fan with the direction the game took with a lot of the characters. They basically undo everything that the gang had accomplished in 7, introduce a potential romance between Kasuga and Saeko that has no satisfying conclusion, and most disappointing of all, the reunion between Kasuga and his birth mother is barely given any screentime at all. They also really go hard on the inherent evilness of social media, as if they didn't already tackle this issue with some actual nuance in Lost Judgment a few years earlier. A lot of the biggest moments in The Man Who Erased His Name is also undone in this game, to the point where that title feels pointless to play through now. Also a minor gripe I have is that mfing sex trafficker Jun Oda got a remembrance for the Dragon's Awakening mechanic over so many other characters that Kiryu actually liked and had a meaningful connection with, makes no sense.
Overall I did enjoy my time with this game but was disappointed by the direction the story took. The gameplay is a step forward but the story is two steps back. Maybe wait for a sale before getting this.