This review contains spoilers
Probably some of the worst writing I have witnessed in video games, maybe even fiction.
Everything in the plot revolves around the hit back in 85 until that gets resolved by the absolutely asinine rubber bullets twist (which they reuse later where it's just as stupid) and Katsuragi is shot in the head after which it becomes irrelevant.
Issue is, now the writers had 0 idea how to wrap up this nothingburger of a story so Akiyama literally goes "fuck it let's put 100 billion yen on the top of milenium tower and see who shows up."
The story is so insanely unremarkable there's genuinely nothing to else to say about it.
The antagonists are embarrassing, what did Kido or Arai even want? why is Daigo even here? and Munakata doesn't even deserve to be mentioned.
I was thinking of just skipping the final cutscene because I could not stand listening to this drivel anymore.
Probably the best part about the game are the movesets of the playable characters, they're diverse, they suit the respective character's personality and they're all just fun to play.
However this is the only nice thing I can say about the combat.
The enemy AI is so aggressive that you can basically never combo anyone in group fights because enemies will constantly interrupt you and while they do very little damage, it's immensely annoying getting stunlocked for like 15 seconds.
The grappler enemy type is especially dogshit because they love nothing more than chain grabbing you and forcing you to mash A/X to break it (which seemingly gets harder to break with each consecutive grab), I died 3 times during Saejima's prison section because I essentially got stunlocked by one of them while 3 other enemies were pummelling me to death.
I should sue RGG because this shit has given me permanent thumb damage.
The bosses aren't really all that noteworthy and the game is overall quite easy (albeit very annoying at times) but I do have to give a special shoutout to Saito for the absurd difficulty spike he provides at the start of Kiryu's part with his annoying moveset that has almost no openings whatsoever and you have to fight twice back to back alongside a bunch of his henchmen and then Munakata, the final boss, who is nothing more than a sacred tree armor check and even with that his henchmen are still a pain in the ass to deal with and the fight as a whole remains unremarkable, up there for one of the worst bosses in the series.
Some of the sections in this game leave me genuinely 110% convinced they don't playtest these games whatsoever.
Aside from combat, Saejima sneak sections where he has to hide from the cops are noteworthy because they make no sense, police are positioned in ways you should be trapped but turns out cops can only see what's 1 foot away from them, it's just a shitty stealth game.
Yea the protags are cool, some of the the substories are kinda fun and the rooftops and underground are nice additions but beyond that Yakuza 4 is as bad as a Yakuza game could be.
Everything in the plot revolves around the hit back in 85 until that gets resolved by the absolutely asinine rubber bullets twist (which they reuse later where it's just as stupid) and Katsuragi is shot in the head after which it becomes irrelevant.
Issue is, now the writers had 0 idea how to wrap up this nothingburger of a story so Akiyama literally goes "fuck it let's put 100 billion yen on the top of milenium tower and see who shows up."
The story is so insanely unremarkable there's genuinely nothing to else to say about it.
The antagonists are embarrassing, what did Kido or Arai even want? why is Daigo even here? and Munakata doesn't even deserve to be mentioned.
I was thinking of just skipping the final cutscene because I could not stand listening to this drivel anymore.
Probably the best part about the game are the movesets of the playable characters, they're diverse, they suit the respective character's personality and they're all just fun to play.
However this is the only nice thing I can say about the combat.
The enemy AI is so aggressive that you can basically never combo anyone in group fights because enemies will constantly interrupt you and while they do very little damage, it's immensely annoying getting stunlocked for like 15 seconds.
The grappler enemy type is especially dogshit because they love nothing more than chain grabbing you and forcing you to mash A/X to break it (which seemingly gets harder to break with each consecutive grab), I died 3 times during Saejima's prison section because I essentially got stunlocked by one of them while 3 other enemies were pummelling me to death.
I should sue RGG because this shit has given me permanent thumb damage.
The bosses aren't really all that noteworthy and the game is overall quite easy (albeit very annoying at times) but I do have to give a special shoutout to Saito for the absurd difficulty spike he provides at the start of Kiryu's part with his annoying moveset that has almost no openings whatsoever and you have to fight twice back to back alongside a bunch of his henchmen and then Munakata, the final boss, who is nothing more than a sacred tree armor check and even with that his henchmen are still a pain in the ass to deal with and the fight as a whole remains unremarkable, up there for one of the worst bosses in the series.
Some of the sections in this game leave me genuinely 110% convinced they don't playtest these games whatsoever.
Aside from combat, Saejima sneak sections where he has to hide from the cops are noteworthy because they make no sense, police are positioned in ways you should be trapped but turns out cops can only see what's 1 foot away from them, it's just a shitty stealth game.
Yea the protags are cool, some of the the substories are kinda fun and the rooftops and underground are nice additions but beyond that Yakuza 4 is as bad as a Yakuza game could be.