yakuza 3 is a very good game. i really enjoyed the beginning chapters being slow paced versus the explosive nature of the previous entries, and all of the orphanage scenes were really nice, showing a more vulnerable while strong version of kiryu.

regarding the story itself, i really dont like that it basically just dumped everything in one chapter and then the actual plot started to unravel after like 15 hours of already playing. while i do think that this was a result of all of the super intimate orphanage scenes at the beginning taking up a large chunk of screentime, i do feel like starting the story up a bit earlier wouldve helped a lot. i think the plot itself is ok, but if it dropped slight hints from like idk chapter 5 or something onwards (more than two people getting shot and some random person that looks like kazama), it wouldve helped the plot slowly unravel rather than feeling kinda contrived by the time it comes to a head.

mine himself is a really good villain -- hes a foil to kiryu in the way that the people and ideals you surround yourself with have a massive impact on your outlook on the way you live your life. i wish he had more development though because by the time you face off against him (fucking amazing boss fight btw) hes only appeared in like 7 scenes max, which i dont think is adequate enough; in fact, i think its a direct result of the majority of the plot just kinda being shoehorned in at the end. i do think that the base idea of his character is enough for me to love him.

wrt gameplay: i really enjoyed it. while it was less fluid than y2, which i initially held against y3, it was just a different style and pace of combat. you have to be a lot more tactical and calculating in each and every fight, and while the boss ai or whatever had a blocking problem, theres a lot of ways to get around it that make boss fights super fun. fights like lau ka long, joji, and mine were really fun, make you think, and actually force you to use your resources to not get completely destroyed.

the soundtrack was probably my favorite so far out of the 4 ive played. i dont really have much to say but one song that stood out was the mine boss fight song.

overall, yakuza 3 is a good game. while i have a lot of gripes with it, they dont really take away from the objective quality of the game and are instead just personal issues that i have. play this game though it sees kiryu at his best, it sees some of the most intimate, heart-touching scenes in the series, and it features a duality that may not be as good as yakuza 2, but is special in its own way.

"Your eyes are not a sin. Don't ever be ashamed of them."

This is a story about perspective, about how truly blinded someone can become. You start the game off as this honest kid named Nier whos just trying to save his sister from a fatal disease, while these things called shades get in the way. You're immediately meant to relate more to the guy that looks like he's the same species as you, rather than the formless creatures that you're meant to kill on sight. These implicit messages are just all the more reason that the twist at the end hits even harder. Once the Shadowlord takes Yonah you tear through every shade you can find in a fit of blind rage until you meet Devola and Popola, who tell you that the things you've been ruthlessly murdering are humans and you're a fake without a soul. This is just actually groundbreaking for the player but then you see Nier's reaction, his head is too far up his ass in self-righteousness that he actually just gives zero fucks by the end because all he wants is to save Yonah. But even then you see from the little snippets on the loading screen that his earnest personality and dedication to his sister works against him. Yonah constantly spends time alone or with Devola/Popola but never with Nier. it just adds to the tragedy of it all.

Then in route B you see what Kaine sees. She sees the shades attempting communication and you can finally figure out what's going on. Before getting to this route I already had an iota of a doubt as to whether Nier was good or not - there's a sidequest where a girl is protecting a shade and Nier goes to kill it with a feeling of pure indignation, but it doesn't even attempt to attack him. It really puts things into perspective, and then in ending B you see the consequences of your actions. You are actively tearing apart families, committing genocide on children, and ending innocent lives, all in the name of your twisted ideals. For example when you revisit the Aerie in route b you see the shades trying to fit in and live normal, peaceful lives without having to hurt anyone. But then Nier shows up and him, Kaine, and Emil brutally murder people. They kill a little boy's sister simply because she's a shade. You could argue that what Nier does throughout the game is morally correct, but that's where the entire internal strife of the game lies. Was Nier right or not? Can Nier be right if he's doing horrible things but has good intentions? Is he truly justified if he just doesn't know any better?

At the end of the day all he wants is to get Yonah back. In the process, he literally ends humanity one by one until finally reaching the ultimate enemy, the Shadowlord. And in Yoko Taro's twisted irony the Shadowlord is literally just Nier but actually a person with a soul that's also trying to save his sister. You face yourself by the end, send an innocent brother and his sister to heaven, and condemn the world to endless suffering. What did you gain out of it? Like 30 years of peace with your sister. Even then, the game still tries to make you feel bad for the main protagonists. In route B when the shade stories get revealed, you're still meant to root for Nier, Kaine, Emil, and the power of friendship. For example there's the story of Roc, who just wanted to reclaim his land and live a long life for his long dead owner's sake. Initially Nier holds nothing but minor contempt for the wolves, but once he realizes that there's a shade involved, he goes all in and kills every single wolf in the desert purely because they're affiliated with one shade that never meant any harm. And throughout this entire process, you are still playing as Nier. You are still meant to root for the good guys to win, but who even are the good guys at this point?

Another one of my favorite examples is the robot and Kalil because they never hurt anyone, nor did they want to. Gideon is just like Nier in that he's very quick to shift the blame of his brother's death to the robot when it was because of debris that HE caused to fall. Nier tells Gideon to stop kicking P-33 after a while which highlights Nier's hypocrisy. He realizes the faults of people like Gideon but refuses to believe that he's doing the wrong thing, because how could trying to save his sister ever be bad? It reflects a core flaw in humanity, and the people without souls still carry the same refusal to take accountability for their actions. It also shows Nier's inner dichotomy - he's doing things all with a good intention, but his world and perspective is so closed off that he couldn't imagine anything besides him being the magnanimous hero that saves his sister in need.

The game constantly has you switching perspectives and seeing new things as you go along. Even though you play through the same story like 4 times, over time you realize the gravity of your actions. Over time you realize how twisted you've become. It never explicitly tells you why you're supposed to kill shades but you do it anyways. By ending C I was avoiding combat with any shades that weren't mandatory because I actually just felt horrible killing them. Small realizations like that sidequest and seeing little shades drop coloring books slowly make you realize that what you're doing is not right. Then ending E shows up and I think its a mixed bag. By itself it's a hopeful ending to the game because you see everyone reunited again. I think I liked it as its own thing because it gives an extra layer of development to Kaine, but i also think it kinda unravels the atonement that Nier goes through in ending D. The soulless protagonist killed his version with a soul, ended humanity, and atoned by sacrificing himself to give Kaine a fighting chance and now you bring him back to existence to live out the rest of his life in a desolate, rotting world created by his own hands. Either way I think it was a really really good conclusion to the game and adds extra stuff to tie it to automata.

Regarding gameplay, it was significantly better than automata imo. Instead of being able to beat the entire game by just spamming one attack string and dodging you have more moves at your disposal. It's still mindless at some level with preset combos but there's things like blocking, sidestepping, parrying, and other features that make it a lot more fun than automata, and while its not as complex, I think its just way better designed (though I wish the game was a bit harder on normal mode). The core gameplay loop itself is pretty linear and circular because you revisit the same areas. Maybe the reason the world is static and tiny in this game is cuz Nier's perspective is so small but that's probably a stretch lol

Then with the soundtrack, it was obvious from the beginning that it would be perfect because Keiichi Okabe remixed an already masterful ost, but Nier Replicant had the most consistently good soundtrack in any game I've played. Every track conveys every mood perfectly and adds an extra layer of feeling to each scene. Tracks like Snow in Summer, Song of the Ancients (both Devola and Popola's versions), Cold Stone Coffin, The Wretched Automatons, Kaine’s Salvation, Grandma, Shadowlord, and all of Emil’s themes are all crazy good, along with the rest of the soundtrack.

This game is pretty trash however. Do not play this lol