Before going into this game I was well aware that is considered the black sheep of the series with numerous complaints leveled against its story and gameplay. In preperation I decided to play the game on easy which may or may not have been the way to go. I did not really experience much of the infamous "enemy blocking" on this setting but the difficulty instead was nonexisitant with my playthpugh consisiting of zero deaths. The game does not allow to change the difficulty at any point when playing which brings me to my main complaint with this game, its dated mechanics. A lot of the qualitiy of life impromevents of later Yakuza games are either not present or not very effecitve in their current state which left me confused and annoyed in parts.

Gameplay aside, the story is actually pretty interesting at the start but loses its traction the more it goes on. The "Kiryu being a dad" moments are incredibly wholesome but always just made me want to go back to the main story as soon as possible. This game being one of the shortest in the series makes all of these negatives not nearly as egregious. Defintely still worth playing even though it probably is the worst in the series.
Also bonus points for the tropical setting and Ryikia, I loved him so much.