This game... for me this game is resident evil 6 of the yakuza franchise. Too much bloat for it's own good. No focus. Quantity over quality. Already causal friendly gameplay made even more casualised with the new spirit moves that makes you unkillable for some reason.
Also there is a lot of new side content. So much so that, they thought artificially lengthening the main story is the right way to pacing the side content(what I mean is half of the game at least filled with go talk this go talk that missions). Only time I had close to getting fun with this game is with racing and dancing competitions. Rest of is meh at best, monotonous boredom and frustration at worst. Also this is the game that stopped doing cutscenes for substories and started cheaply using copy paste animations even for interesting story substories like Akiyama's own substories that reminds his past.
Also there is 4+1(walking karaoke) playable characters but combat is not much improved.
If we look at Akiyama, he sucks now. He can't spam kick like before but they balanced with not being able to good damage opponents either so you have to keep dodging and heavy attacking constantly because that's your only option
New character Shinada feels unfinished with his forced weapon requirements.
Saejima and Kiryu have the new spirit things that makes them invincible and makes the combat damn boring in my opinion.
I can go as far as to say it's no different than a button masher game. You press spirit button, spam attack attack attack. Watch victory. Repeat.
Also you can't die in this game, I mean I guess there is a death screen somewhere? But you have to try your best to see it. Yes, to see the death screen.(or fight an amon, only way to die legit way)
Story starts pretty promising (like resident evil 6), but with every new part and playable character, it devolves into plot twist jank fest(also like resident evil 6). I am not gonna go too much detail but I can say this, if you see a new character in the screen that is not playable, he will probably betray you 20 min later no matter what. Yes, story is that dumb.
Also there is soooo many characters in this game, did you thought yakuza 4 was big? This is even bigger cast than y4, there is like 50 fu##ing characters in it and of course it's so unfocused that when you see a character second time you don't even realize you seen it before. It's that many characters in it. Most of them don't even have conclusions for their stories anyway for some reason.
Also they made Kiryu devolve back to his angry stubborn self (because of a certain nihilistic garbage manipulative teacher as a stupid excuse). I hate Kiryu. I hate Park. I hate stupid idiot brainwashed Haruka. I hate everyone. I hate this... I hate this... I hate this... I hate this game.
Also finishing this damn game take a lot from my will to play next rgg games. It was soo damn time consuming with unnecessary interruptions from itself(for example long fights now have unskippable conversations in them as a new feature, so you can't continue and do nothing but wait for them to finish for continuing to next long battle section) AND THAT RUINED LONG BATTLES FOR ME.
Not just that, game's own pacing is even worse than that yakuza 3, because even if it had a slow beginning, it got more bombastic as it goes on. In this one you start from 0, progress, finish the character, start a new character from 0, progress, finish, start from 0... You do this disgusting amount of times and the game ends FINALLY (At least yakuza 4 have decency to develop a one continuous story).
Also it ends somehow worse than yakuza 4. Did you thought random twist villains wasn't enough? How about a villain you don't even see more than 15 minute in the game???
Not just that, no character have a proper epilogue scene for their endings(did Shinada returned to his life or not with that girl? Or did Saejima finally returned to his own family in the clan with baba? Or what happened to kiryu and haruka after that abysmal ending?) None of it explained. (I am not even gonna go in details with how many side characters stories don't have an end to their stories either)
I don't like this game. I thought yakuza 4 was a letdown but this is not even comparable to that. Sorry for making people upset but this game left this impression on me. It's not for me in the slightest degree.
Also there is a lot of new side content. So much so that, they thought artificially lengthening the main story is the right way to pacing the side content(what I mean is half of the game at least filled with go talk this go talk that missions). Only time I had close to getting fun with this game is with racing and dancing competitions. Rest of is meh at best, monotonous boredom and frustration at worst. Also this is the game that stopped doing cutscenes for substories and started cheaply using copy paste animations even for interesting story substories like Akiyama's own substories that reminds his past.
Also there is 4+1(walking karaoke) playable characters but combat is not much improved.
If we look at Akiyama, he sucks now. He can't spam kick like before but they balanced with not being able to good damage opponents either so you have to keep dodging and heavy attacking constantly because that's your only option
New character Shinada feels unfinished with his forced weapon requirements.
Saejima and Kiryu have the new spirit things that makes them invincible and makes the combat damn boring in my opinion.
I can go as far as to say it's no different than a button masher game. You press spirit button, spam attack attack attack. Watch victory. Repeat.
Also you can't die in this game, I mean I guess there is a death screen somewhere? But you have to try your best to see it. Yes, to see the death screen.(or fight an amon, only way to die legit way)
Story starts pretty promising (like resident evil 6), but with every new part and playable character, it devolves into plot twist jank fest(also like resident evil 6). I am not gonna go too much detail but I can say this, if you see a new character in the screen that is not playable, he will probably betray you 20 min later no matter what. Yes, story is that dumb.
Also there is soooo many characters in this game, did you thought yakuza 4 was big? This is even bigger cast than y4, there is like 50 fu##ing characters in it and of course it's so unfocused that when you see a character second time you don't even realize you seen it before. It's that many characters in it. Most of them don't even have conclusions for their stories anyway for some reason.
Also they made Kiryu devolve back to his angry stubborn self (because of a certain nihilistic garbage manipulative teacher as a stupid excuse). I hate Kiryu. I hate Park. I hate stupid idiot brainwashed Haruka. I hate everyone. I hate this... I hate this... I hate this... I hate this game.
Also finishing this damn game take a lot from my will to play next rgg games. It was soo damn time consuming with unnecessary interruptions from itself(for example long fights now have unskippable conversations in them as a new feature, so you can't continue and do nothing but wait for them to finish for continuing to next long battle section) AND THAT RUINED LONG BATTLES FOR ME.
Not just that, game's own pacing is even worse than that yakuza 3, because even if it had a slow beginning, it got more bombastic as it goes on. In this one you start from 0, progress, finish the character, start a new character from 0, progress, finish, start from 0... You do this disgusting amount of times and the game ends FINALLY (At least yakuza 4 have decency to develop a one continuous story).
Also it ends somehow worse than yakuza 4. Did you thought random twist villains wasn't enough? How about a villain you don't even see more than 15 minute in the game???
Not just that, no character have a proper epilogue scene for their endings(did Shinada returned to his life or not with that girl? Or did Saejima finally returned to his own family in the clan with baba? Or what happened to kiryu and haruka after that abysmal ending?) None of it explained. (I am not even gonna go in details with how many side characters stories don't have an end to their stories either)
I don't like this game. I thought yakuza 4 was a letdown but this is not even comparable to that. Sorry for making people upset but this game left this impression on me. It's not for me in the slightest degree.