I actually started this game in late 2020 and shelved it for what was supposed to be a few weeks but turned into 3 years. I was able to pick back up on the main story without too much trouble, but I forgot what was going on with most of the side content and substories so I decided not to go my usual route of completing all of that stuff before beating a Yakuza game. I think part of the reason I shelved this in the first place was because I was forcing myself to go through the cabaret club sidequest, which is soooo boring compared to the cabaret club minigames in Yakuza 0 and Kiwami 2.

The beginning of Yakuza 3 is fantastic, I love how this really commits to having the player live through about 2 years of Kiryu's life in retirement, being a dad to his adopted daughter some lovable orphans in an idyllic beach house in Okinawa. As the game goes on and Kiryu inevitably gets pulled back into Yakuza business, I think it loses some steam. The main plotline about the resort/military base real estate deal is pretty dull and hard to get invested in. The combat is also a bit boring, much less variety to the moves you can do, and a lot more focused on defensive tactics than other Yakuza games. There's also not a ton of good minigames, and the substories are a little repetitive. To be fair, this is the earliest Yakuza game I've played by release date, so I'm not sure if these gameplay problems are unique to Yakuza 3, or if the series had just improved much of this stuff by the time of the PS4 games that I'm familiar with.

A great game in its finest moments, but those moments are a little too spread out and strung together by tedious combat sequences for me to put this on the same level as Yakuza 0 or the Kiwamis. I'm glad I played it though, if only so I can continue catching up on this series. I'm not sure when I'll play Yakuza 4 but I don't intend to wait another 3 years before I get around to it.