[11/1/2023]

Scrolling through the list of games on Xbox Game Pass always ended with me facing the lineup of 8, soon to be 9, mainline entries in the Yakuza series at the bottom of that list. The more times I scrolled through out of boredom, the more they showed up, and the more interested I was in trying the series out. The out of context moments and the fact that one of my favorite streamers is a fan of the franchise helped too. So, I eventually took the plunge on the 17th of October of this year.

The game's a prequel, but that doesn't mean that the whole game exists only to set up the future games or be filled with name drops that would confuse somebody whose first game is the prequel (looking at you, Resident Evil 0, or something like that I never played it). Thank god for that. This is the first game in a while to actually grip me in its story. I originally planned to do one chapter a day, but eventually it ended up becoming two chapters a day, and even three on a good day.

The gameplay's fun if you enjoy walloping people in a variety of ways and also hitting people over the head with a variety of objects. The combat's at its most thoughtful in one-on-one fights, to be honest. It kinda felt like a fighting game the moment I realized I could whiff punish and be whiff punished. Slugger Majima rules.

Depending on how much I like the next couple of games, I honestly might blaze through the series in the span of a few months before Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth drops. If my time with Yakuza 0 means anything, this is a good sign.