The truly hot Yakuza take finally manifests. THIS was the follow-up I was looking for after Yakuza Kiwami, and I'm so thankful for all of the great story choices the Ryu Ga Gotoku studio made here. Yakuza 3 may have very well surpassed Yakuza 0 in my personal ranking of the series.
The combat is clearly stiffer than the more contemporary entries, but it's combat that still makes a lot of sense. Yes, enemies block a ton but if you dig into the combat just a bit you'll find more than enough tools to deal with everything the game's narrative throws at you. I can't speak for the extra ultimate boss stuff, I'm not a platinum hound, but I found the combat in Yakuza 3 to be more than serviceable.
The real star is the story, and the wealth of great substory content in the game. The orphanage was a brilliant choice and anyone that can't hang with it is no friend of mine. It's a choice that makes complete and total sense for Kiryu and involves Haruka in a meaningful way, which makes Yakuza 3 just feel way more vital as an entry than 2.
Yakuza 3 isn't perfect by any means but it's got an astonishing amount of heart and it does right by all the characters you've grown to love up to this point. It's probably an unpopular opinion but this feels like a high point to me for the series, a game that sees the series truly come into its own as a long-running narrative.
The combat is clearly stiffer than the more contemporary entries, but it's combat that still makes a lot of sense. Yes, enemies block a ton but if you dig into the combat just a bit you'll find more than enough tools to deal with everything the game's narrative throws at you. I can't speak for the extra ultimate boss stuff, I'm not a platinum hound, but I found the combat in Yakuza 3 to be more than serviceable.
The real star is the story, and the wealth of great substory content in the game. The orphanage was a brilliant choice and anyone that can't hang with it is no friend of mine. It's a choice that makes complete and total sense for Kiryu and involves Haruka in a meaningful way, which makes Yakuza 3 just feel way more vital as an entry than 2.
Yakuza 3 isn't perfect by any means but it's got an astonishing amount of heart and it does right by all the characters you've grown to love up to this point. It's probably an unpopular opinion but this feels like a high point to me for the series, a game that sees the series truly come into its own as a long-running narrative.