I'm actually so disappointed in this game. Part of it might've been my expectations. Ishin was like this legendary spinoff I was waiting to play since I first heard about it after finishing 0. Still, RGG definitely made a lot of weird decisions that inarguably hamstring the game.
When I first saw it was carrying over a lot of the RPG-ized mechanics from Y7, I was pretty excited. I thought things like gear and crafting worked way better in those systems compared to the traditional Yakuza games. There's a weapon crafting system that basically looks like Monster Hunter's. Unfortunately, you will hardly get to use it. Money is so scarce outside of chicken race exploits and save-scumming gambling that you'd have to dedicate an actual dozen of hours to doing tedious crafting tasks to get it to the level to craft the high-grade weapons. You are so aggressively incentivized to ignore it. XP has a similar issue. It's fine for a while, then you hit about the halfway point of the game and it slows to a crawl. You basically stop unlocking new skills. Again, you can remedy this by dumping more hours into the game to make money to buy XP orbs (or spend real money on them; can't help but wonder if this is an Assassin's Creed Odyssey situation), but really it just doesn't feel worth it. Why bother? Just finish the game and save yourself 20 hours on tedious crafting and money-making schemes.
The combat and enemy design also have pretty significant issues. I found the boss fights pretty great in the first half of the game, but later they fall off sharply, becoming damage sponges (its BAD) and having very few interesting mechanics. In general, you'll be spending most of combat wailing on or shooting at a downed enemy. In sword fights, you will likely find yourself just repeating the 4 light 2 heavy combo. Sure there's other things you can do, but outside of most situations, this is just the best thing you can do. It's a shame because a lot of the aspects of the real-time combat are good. It has great hit collision as in Y0/K1, instead of Y6/K2's weird bumbling Death-Stranding-tripping-over-a-rock movement and collision. The gameplay could be better, it's just held back by baffling combat and enemy design choices. I found few fights to be memorable, except the Sauna fight and the three-way buddy brawl, which I admit almost makes the game worth playing in itself.
I found the plot to be pretty forgettable. It's not terrible like 3, just kind of standard for the series. The opening premise is interesting, and with all these great actors that have worked on the newer games I was hoping it'd be elevated to the levels of 0 and 7. Some of the acting / characterization was good. This is maybe the most interesting incarnation of Kiryu. You see sides of him that are rare to see in the mainline series. I thought Mine's actor did a really great job. Saejima and Majima stayed interesting throughout the whole game. Awano did good reprising his role. Most other characters, I was unimpressed or let down by. Kuze was a huge disappointment. Now, I don't know if this is the writer's fault or the actor's fault, but Kuze played such a bland character that didn't seem to incorporate the original characters personality and quirks the way nearly every other character did. Maybe his performance felt dry because they gave the character nothing to work with. For whatever reason, it was a bummer.
In conclusion, I would only recommend this game to diehard fans of the entire series. A lot of the series' charm is present here, but the gameplay and systems are very poor. I'd seen people online recommending new players to start the series with this and after finishing I have to strongly argue against this. It will definitely turn some people off on the series. So much of this game is a wink at other characters and plot points in older games that a new player will just not appreciate or even notice. I also have a sneaking suspicion that the characters don't work well enough on their own and need the implied backdrop of which Yakuza character is "playing" them to fill in gaps. This game is for fans of the series, who know and accept its tropes and repetition, and love it in the way people love a bad season of their favorite TV show.
When I first saw it was carrying over a lot of the RPG-ized mechanics from Y7, I was pretty excited. I thought things like gear and crafting worked way better in those systems compared to the traditional Yakuza games. There's a weapon crafting system that basically looks like Monster Hunter's. Unfortunately, you will hardly get to use it. Money is so scarce outside of chicken race exploits and save-scumming gambling that you'd have to dedicate an actual dozen of hours to doing tedious crafting tasks to get it to the level to craft the high-grade weapons. You are so aggressively incentivized to ignore it. XP has a similar issue. It's fine for a while, then you hit about the halfway point of the game and it slows to a crawl. You basically stop unlocking new skills. Again, you can remedy this by dumping more hours into the game to make money to buy XP orbs (or spend real money on them; can't help but wonder if this is an Assassin's Creed Odyssey situation), but really it just doesn't feel worth it. Why bother? Just finish the game and save yourself 20 hours on tedious crafting and money-making schemes.
The combat and enemy design also have pretty significant issues. I found the boss fights pretty great in the first half of the game, but later they fall off sharply, becoming damage sponges (its BAD) and having very few interesting mechanics. In general, you'll be spending most of combat wailing on or shooting at a downed enemy. In sword fights, you will likely find yourself just repeating the 4 light 2 heavy combo. Sure there's other things you can do, but outside of most situations, this is just the best thing you can do. It's a shame because a lot of the aspects of the real-time combat are good. It has great hit collision as in Y0/K1, instead of Y6/K2's weird bumbling Death-Stranding-tripping-over-a-rock movement and collision. The gameplay could be better, it's just held back by baffling combat and enemy design choices. I found few fights to be memorable, except the Sauna fight and the three-way buddy brawl, which I admit almost makes the game worth playing in itself.
I found the plot to be pretty forgettable. It's not terrible like 3, just kind of standard for the series. The opening premise is interesting, and with all these great actors that have worked on the newer games I was hoping it'd be elevated to the levels of 0 and 7. Some of the acting / characterization was good. This is maybe the most interesting incarnation of Kiryu. You see sides of him that are rare to see in the mainline series. I thought Mine's actor did a really great job. Saejima and Majima stayed interesting throughout the whole game. Awano did good reprising his role. Most other characters, I was unimpressed or let down by. Kuze was a huge disappointment. Now, I don't know if this is the writer's fault or the actor's fault, but Kuze played such a bland character that didn't seem to incorporate the original characters personality and quirks the way nearly every other character did. Maybe his performance felt dry because they gave the character nothing to work with. For whatever reason, it was a bummer.
In conclusion, I would only recommend this game to diehard fans of the entire series. A lot of the series' charm is present here, but the gameplay and systems are very poor. I'd seen people online recommending new players to start the series with this and after finishing I have to strongly argue against this. It will definitely turn some people off on the series. So much of this game is a wink at other characters and plot points in older games that a new player will just not appreciate or even notice. I also have a sneaking suspicion that the characters don't work well enough on their own and need the implied backdrop of which Yakuza character is "playing" them to fill in gaps. This game is for fans of the series, who know and accept its tropes and repetition, and love it in the way people love a bad season of their favorite TV show.