grumpy_tiger
2 reviews liked by grumpy_tiger
This review contains spoilers
The good is VERY good: We have the absolute peak of gameplay in the Yakuza series, both in combat and in side content. Every single one of the 10 playable characters are awesome, multi-dimensional, and super fun. Seeing Seonhee's dorky side was an absolute treat. The party banters you get throughout the cities range between heartwarming to absolutely sidesplitting. The game itself runs really well and mostly looks awesome outside a few weird looking NPCs. Some of the main story is great (mostly Kiryu's side). The Bucket List outside of a couple infuriating narrative choices is one of the most unique and ultimately poignant piece of side content I've ever seen.
Now for the bad, and why this is behind a spoiler warning: The main plot is so uneven. For every amazing moment there's one "what even is this shit" moment. Ichiban's main villain falls flat on his face both narratively and from a fight perspective (the two big fights just before were much more difficult and fun). The worst part though is the ending. RGG just absolutely REFUSES to take the easy wins that everyone would love. They don't let us see Haruka and Kiryu reunited, (they are absolutely reunited to be clear, we just don't get to see it). Ichiban's personal growth and repairing his relationship with Saeko after his massive fuckup at the start is thrown away for a cheap gag. I came out of the ending ultimately rather furious. They dropped the ball on the ending hard. I could have forgiven all the weird unevenness of the main plot if they'd just done what was obvious all along, but they overcomplicated it and it landed like a sack of potatoes.
Steam says I played 86 hours. I'd say about 84 of those were fun as all hell. It's still a great game and worth every penny. But I said to my friend about 2/3 of the way through "the only way this drops out of my top 5 is if they completely shit the bed on the ending" and unfortunately that's what happened, so it'll probably place somewhere around 9-10.
Now for the bad, and why this is behind a spoiler warning: The main plot is so uneven. For every amazing moment there's one "what even is this shit" moment. Ichiban's main villain falls flat on his face both narratively and from a fight perspective (the two big fights just before were much more difficult and fun). The worst part though is the ending. RGG just absolutely REFUSES to take the easy wins that everyone would love. They don't let us see Haruka and Kiryu reunited, (they are absolutely reunited to be clear, we just don't get to see it). Ichiban's personal growth and repairing his relationship with Saeko after his massive fuckup at the start is thrown away for a cheap gag. I came out of the ending ultimately rather furious. They dropped the ball on the ending hard. I could have forgiven all the weird unevenness of the main plot if they'd just done what was obvious all along, but they overcomplicated it and it landed like a sack of potatoes.
Steam says I played 86 hours. I'd say about 84 of those were fun as all hell. It's still a great game and worth every penny. But I said to my friend about 2/3 of the way through "the only way this drops out of my top 5 is if they completely shit the bed on the ending" and unfortunately that's what happened, so it'll probably place somewhere around 9-10.
In Stars and Time
2023
This will be so many people's favorite game of all time. It's not mine, and I may have my issues, but I write this because I absolutely wanna celebrate games that have such unbelievably good production, such interesting and rich worlds, characters with expansive perspectives, such beautiful diversity and take something that has already been a staple of several amazing games over the past few years and just experiment with it further and further to see the way players react. It didn't perfectly click with me, but if it does with someone, HOOOOOLY I can't imagine that feeling. It's so rare that games with such incredible production try and reach further than they maybe can, than they maybe should, and not play it safe, and I think even this game maybe goes a bit safe at specific points, but it GOES for it otherwise. It's just such a rare thing to take something that works perfectly well and decide to risk it all. Just, fuck yeah, video games.