1494 reviews liked by boogiepop


I never played Yakuza 5 back when it first came out, but even 12 years later the sheer ambitious scope of this game is baffling. Featuring 5 playable protagonists and 5 different settings to explore all across Japan, Yakuza 5 was truly a massive expansion that took the series to new heights never before seen.

Yakuza 5 takes place 2 years after the events of Yakuza 4 and starts out with tensions between the two biggest Yakuza groups in Japan, the Tojo Clan and the Omi Alliance as the truce between them begins to deteriorate and an impending Yakuza war is on the horizon. Former chairman of the Tojo Clan and Yakuza legend Kazuma Kiryu now living in Fukuoka as a taxi driver under the name of Taichi Suzuki gets pulled back into the fold when his friend and current chairman Daigo Dojima goes missing. At the same time Kiryu's adopted daughter Haruka is living in Sotenbori following her dream to become Japan's number 1 pop idol and other stories are unfolding all across different cities in Japan involving ex-convict Taiga Saejima, moneylender Shun Akiyama and former baseball pro Tatsuo Shinada, each with their own dreams they'll do anything to achieve. Just how will all these various characters and their individual dreams connect? I can promise you it's probably not in the way you'd think because the narrative of Yakuza 5 is full of twists and turns and never felt predictable.

Yakuza 5 is written in that Tarantino-esque way and split into 5 different parts with each part having multiple chapters and focusing on fleshing out one character and their story arc at a time before switching to the next one until finally reaching the climatic finale where all the characters and their individual narratives intertwine. Yakuza 5's narrative is both massive and masterfully written. Full of complex plotlines with twists and turns galore and rich and engrossing character arcs enough to equal that of 5 normal games, the narrative of Yakuza 5 stands as one of the best in the series to this point. How far would you go to achieve your dream? What would you be willing to sacrifice?

The narrative isn't the only ambitious thing about Yakuza 5 though, the sheer amount of variety and diversity in every aspect of the game constantly keeps Yakuza 5 feeling fresh. The developers went to great lengths to make every character play and feel different whether in combat or outside of it. From getting to experience Kiryu's job as a taxi driver and street racer (in an homage to Initial D) to Saejima's time spent hunting bears in a small mountain town or Haruka working to increase the reputation of her idol agency by participating in dance battles and publicity events, no two characters feel or play the same and all the various sub stories feel more closely integrated alongside the main plot which helps flesh out the world and side characters much more than any Yakuza game before it.

If you've played a Yakuza game before you know one of the things the series prides itself on is the amount of diversions from the story and Yakuza 5 is no exception from that rule featuring a wealth of side activities and mini-games outside of the story related content. Pool, darts, air hockey, karaoke, various gambling games, a Virtua Fighter 2 arcade cabinet and even Taiko no Tatsujin are just some among the myriad ways to take a break in between story missions.

Speaking of fighting, as mentioned before every facet of Yakuza 5 has so much variety that keeps it constantly feeling fresh after hours upon hours and that includes the combat too with all 5 characters having their own unique battle styles (Haruka not actively engaging in combat and instead having rhythm game based dance battles instead) from Kiryu's classic brawler style to Saejima's grappler and heavy hitting charge attacks or Akiyama's fast-paced athletic footwork there's plenty of combat variety to keep you thoroughly entertained even when fighting low ranking goons in random encounters for hours (and trust me, you'll do a lot of that because the random encounter rate in this game is high)

Yakuza 5 stands tall as a pinnacle of the series, featuring both one of the best narratives in the series (Especially for those who have followed Kiryu's story since the beginning) and some of the most in-depth character arcs as well alongside detailed world-building that breathes life into the world of Yakuza like never before and an unbelievable amount of captivating side content which makes the penultimate game in Kazuma Kiryu's saga a journey that will stick with you long after the credits roll.

Insane how 2000s fans bullied capcom into thinking this game sucked
They manage to almost wholly replace the entire main cast and it works so well. Trucy is such a fun character, ema is such a massive loser, and klavier is an actually cool prosecutor. I liked every case, though 2 was kinda just ok. I think spark brushel is my favorite witness in the whole series. I will never forgive the OGs for being responsible for dual destinies. (This is a joke, Matthew 38-39 asks that we forgive one another and turn the other cheek.)

I play this game religiously every year, even more than once a year. I have it on every console I own. It’s truly a game that never gets old!! Such a masterpiece

genres: action horror, third person shooter, occult

A great side story that introduces one of my favorite FFVII characters, Yuffie. Combat is a nice changeup from Cloud and the final boss is pretty difficult. Definitely play this before heading into Rebirth.

Very strong contender for my favorite persona game. The gameplay is easy but with how everyone complains about it really isn't as bad as expected. The story is very good and the cast works together super well.

I'll just start by saying that i'm really glad i grew up with these games.
This is of course the crown jewel of the trilogy, as everyone knows. Even people who didn't play these games can recognize the characters, and most likely heard the amazing music.
Despite getting a little more silly than the games before, this game puts the characters you grew to love through some real challenges and lets you see them from a more personal, vulnerable angle - climaxing in a last case which is a nuclear explosion of emotions and a worthy send off to the three games.
I sincerely recommend the entire trilogy to anyone with the patience to do all of that reading and objecting, it's really worth it.

no listen to me this game is a masterpiece i dont have anything else to say you got the most hideous and somehow likeable villain the sexiest the most charming the most husband material the number 1 coffee drinker prosecutor and the best story of any game in this fucking series no im serious i finished the game and i cried for an entire night and now every time i listen to the fragrance of dark coffee something within me breaks inevitably this game is something else i swear

Such a great fire emblem, embodies the spirit of the franchise perfectly without MISSing a single detail, I hate it.
I would say fe6 is the most hit or MISS game out of all gba fire emblems, and it's kinda easy to see where the hate comes from when you have ambush spawns and double bolting sages in a fog of war map. But don't let that scare you, this game is so much more than that. New characters come in at an alarming rate, seriously, the amount of playable units is so large, that by the time you realize Wolt and his 4 damage iron bow are MISSing from your team because a
silver lance wyvern reinforcement just spawned on top of him, you already have 5 new characters fighting by your side. It's an all-out war, and it feels like one. Other fe games fail to do this, as they are treated more like isolated conflicts. Such a shame the rest of the world MISSed out on this game, as it is Japan-exclusive.

After playing fe7 and fe6, not gonna lie, I will MISS the continent of Elibe and its terrible playable lords...

yeah its clunky and graphics have aged like shit, but like, I loved resident evil, and then this came out. And it was darker and more fucked up. And nothing has since come close to these games in the horror genre.