yakuza 3 is kind of sad to me, a good game held back by glaring issues. mine is still one of the strongest foils to kiryu and still has the coolest boss intro and battle theme in the series and most scenes with him are incredible, and i really like the story in terms of kiryu and the orphanage and all of that, but the combat is pretty weak and the actual conspiracy that drives the plot is by far the weakest in the series and it's hard to reconcile with that when the behind the scenes scheming and what not that drives the plot is too uninteresting to do that very well. equally integral to and great for kiryu's story and progression as it is uninteresting and not really worth revisiting in my opinion

Yakuza games are not brief. They're laser-focused on getting you to hang out as much as possible in the world of their eternally lovable himbos. They accomplish this with tons of great NPC interactions, minigames, sidestories, and an overarching narrative you actually want to see to completion featuring characters you're made to love by the end of their first cutscene.

Yakuza games are not brief, so believe me when I say that Yakuza 5 makes the rest of the games in the series (thus far) feel like quick 8-10 hour romps by comparison. Yakuza 5 is like... Dragon Quest XI length. It's unreal. There's so much game here, and for some people it's probably going to be way too much.

Who can blame 'em? Five main characters, five cities and a crime story that feels like it'll swallow all of Japan! It's a lot to handle, but for someone like me that just loved to be around it all I couldn't get enough. I was completely enraptured by all of Yakuza 5's twists and turns and its final section made me cry so incredibly hard. More than any other installment, this one was a full-fledged journey.

A weaker game than 0, Yakuza Kiwami still delivers a well-rounded and emotional experience for those invested in Kiryu's story. The added scenes in this version of the game bring a lot of volume to the villain's arc and Haruka is an outstanding character that completes the Yakuza dynamic.

I personally found the character progression in Kiwami to actually be more engaging than 0, and the ties to Majima Everywhere really helped that. However, a lot of the plotting and scenarios do feel ripped right out of a PS2 game, because they are. This doesn't have a ton of bearing on my enjoyment of the game but it does drag it just beneath Yakuza 0 in my personal ranking of the series.

Yakuza 0 is so good that it makes me break my steadfast rule of always playing things in release order. Yakuza 0 does this by simply making a better case for the entire series than the actual first game of the series. You get everything here. The drama, the goofiness, the bombast, the long winding tv-like narratives. Yakuza 0 is The Whole Package.

One of the best iterations of Yakuza's combat lies in this entry as well, serving as light by character-action standards but in-depth by old-school brawler standards. It's a game that is so effortless to play and explore that a completionist run begins to look less like a chore and more like a chance to sink your teeth as far as you're able to.

Kiryu and Majima are both incredible protagonists, though for long-time fans the Majima stuff may in fact be the stronger selling point. However, Kiryu rightfully gets the most momentum going into the next game, setting him and the player forth into a longform exploration of the character over a staggering 7 game saga.

Yakuza can feel like a hard sell at times (it's so weird tonally and the combat is "janky" by modern standards) but if there was ever a game to successfully convince an unitiated public to give it a serious chance, it was this one.

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.

Coming off of Yakuza 0 and Kiwami 1, Yakuza Kiwami 2 feels like a game confused about where to take the series narratively. It tries to fashion an Empire Strikes Back type sequel for the series and it crafts a love story noir type dynamic with Kiryu that doesn't really work. And on top of that, Kiwami 2 clearly had no idea what to do with Haruka which feels like a giant step back from the first Kiwami narratively.

I haven't played Yakuza 6 yet so this game is my first brush with the Dragon Engine and I have to say I really love this aspect of the game. It's stunning to look at and while the combat trades technicality for bombast, I think that works greatly in Kiwami 2's favor. Some of the encounters are just simply stunning. Osaka Castle in particular is one of the most stunning things I've played in the series thus far.

As people echo in other Yakuza reviews on the internet, a lesser Yakuza game is still better than most games so it's not like Kiwami 2 was a poor experience, I still had my fun. It's just that as a sequel it feels severely lacking in some baffling ways. I feel like I expected more from a game touted as the series' peak.