The writing falls off a fucking cliff towards the end and its ambition becomes a double-edge sword but ooooo does it nail basically everything else right and is a crazy good blueprint for how the rest of the series goes. The individual stories are so captivating, the combat is probably some of the most fun I've had in the franchise, the content is very rich and plentiful, and a lot of the characters make such a strong impact and impression which is a crazy feat to pull off giving there's so much going on in the story.

It's the most Yakuza game out there for better and for worse, and is such a big reason for why I love the series as a whole.