In Yakuza 4 I feel like I never got to spend enough time with the characters individually, whereas here I am spending far, far more time with them. In the time it took me to complete Yakuza 3, 4, Spider-Man, and Miles Morales, I had only just got to the half-way point of Yakuza 5. Granted, I took part in the side-quests, not that they give you any grand reward but they are just fun.

However, even with this quintupling of content, I can't help but feel the story is underwhelming. The problem with stretching your story all across Japan is you need to have a damn good reason to pull it all together, and Y5 doesn't quite hit the mark.

In between downright frustrating characters in Haruka's story, a true stretch of connection in Shinada's and a villain whose objective is completely unclear ("I hate the rampant nepotism that the Yakuza Clans have been suffering from for so long. That's why I'm bringing my untrained son to lead the Omi Alliance!") Yakuza 5 fizzles out rather than comes together on an explosive finale.

Y4 has Kiryu, Akiyama, Saejima and Tanimura coming together atop the Millenium Tower for a climatic showdown with the main villains (and Daigo for some reason), Y5 ends with the characters splitting up for their own underwhelming boss fights.