This review contains spoilers
Can't help but be a bit let down by this, unfortunately. Complaints first:
- I'm not exactly doing the math on hours of gameplay or total playable minigames or whatever else, but despite the marketing, this certainly does not feel like 'the biggest Yakuza game yet'. Honestly, there's just not as much new stuff as I was expecting, and actually not as much returning old stuff either. No meaningful post-game content. No unlockable extra party members. Way too few job classes (I couldn't believe you just ... get them all pretty much right at the beginning). Nowhere near the vast feel of Y0 or even Y7, let alone the absurd scope of Y5. This is a feel thing - again, there may technically be more content here. I dunno, maybe my expectations were too high. At least the Hawaii map is big and well done. (NOTE: Since writing this, I have leared about all the standard-content-in-any-other-game ass DLC that was very clearly just sliced off from the finished build and stuck behind a paywall. Awesome. Great stuff.)
- Weirdly fails as a follow up to MAN WHO ERASED HIS NAME, to the point where it feels like this was written by other people entirely, like a different creative team picking up a storyline they didn't particularly believe in the details of. The broad strokes are there, but some stuff seems to be straight up retconned (from a game that came out like three months before this, ffs) and the one major returning character gets done dirty in a way that is honestly just insulting. Big disappointment given that, uh, leading into this was kind of that game's whole deal!
- The story has a VERY strong start in Hawaii (more on that after I get done bitching) but starts to unravel at around the midpoint, and after that, every successive chapter feels weaker and weaker until it ends on - owing to the split party thing - not one, but two anticlimaxes. Much of this falls on the extremely weak villains and their dumb plan. I kept wishing for someone else to be behind the scenes, waiting to spring the REAL plot of this game on us from out of the shadows.
- They chickened out and punted on Kiryu's fate. I mean, we had to know they would, but still.
- The two main characters/two parties/two major maps thing is really clumsy and ultimately quite unsatisfying. The amount of awkward little contrivances and concessions and systems workarounds they have to employ to get it to work make it feel like a mistake. And in the postgame when everyone is together (kind of) it's even worse.
- Ichiban's story is very weak compared to Kiryu's. Nowhere near how good his stuff was in Y7. I still really like the character and feel just fine about him being the MC for the series moving forward, but I don't think he's getting his due in this one. The Saeko stuff doesn't feel right and overplays his buffoonery, and they end up kind of fumbling the storyline with his mom. Oh well, maybe next time.
- The major returning party members from Y7 don't get much to do in the story, and given that, they feel a bit like wasted space in the roster. Like, when I realized we were gonna get Zhao and fucking lame-ass what-the-fuck-even-are-you Joongi Han towards the end of the game instead of anyone new, I was annoyed. They're all just kind of there.
- They STILL don't know what the fuck to do with Majima, Dojima, Saejima, and Akiyama. (Here's an idea .... PARTY MEMBERS)
Complaining aside, there are definite bright spots. The new supporting characters and party members are REALLY good (hence, again, why I would have liked some more of them) and especially Yamai is a straight-up all-timer. As I said, the plot starts off very strong with you meeting the new cast and working out exactly what's going on behind the scenes in Hawaii. The way you get new jobs is delightful (again, MORE please). Dondoko Island is nuts in its scope. The combat is improved in little but impactful ways. There's lots of good QOL.
But most of all ... the Kiryu stuff. It's absolutely fan service, absolutely an apology for the stubborn way that Y6 basically refused to tie into any previous game, absolutely shameless and maudlin. But the farewell tour stuff here hits HARD. No other game series has this kind of history with one character and one continuous story over so many entires for such a long time, no other series has characters that have aged from kids to adults in real time like it's Linklater's fucking BEFORE trilogy. For someone who played the original on PS2 in 2006 and every one since, there is absolutely no way this stuff wasn't going to rip my heart out, if they were gonna go there with it, and they do. They wring out every ounce. But they've earned it! And there are a few moments in here that I have been waiting for all series - for them to cash in on this incredible legacy. They got me on this stuff, I'm fully marked out. But you do gotta hand it to 'em. They may not follow through with getting rid of him, they may not even actually do justice to the stuff from the end of MAN WHO ERASED HIS NAME, but they go big, and his beats in the main plot and even his side stuff are quite successful. They should leave it at that.
And I guess *I* will leave it at this: I liked Y7 a lot, and I was excited that it really felt like the start of something new and great. This does not feel like a real evolution or even continuation of that. If anything should be called "Gaiden", it's this. It's great in the way that all RGGs are great, but it's muddled and clumsy and feels like it's about 3/4ths done in all aspects. Toward the end of this game, I found myself thinking "oh, that's it?" a LOT, and I was not expecting that at all from the get-go. I hope these guys can kind of sort this stuff out for the next one. I don't want JUDGMENT or continued KIWAMI entries to end up being the 'good ones' of this series.
Yakuza Series Ranking
- I'm not exactly doing the math on hours of gameplay or total playable minigames or whatever else, but despite the marketing, this certainly does not feel like 'the biggest Yakuza game yet'. Honestly, there's just not as much new stuff as I was expecting, and actually not as much returning old stuff either. No meaningful post-game content. No unlockable extra party members. Way too few job classes (I couldn't believe you just ... get them all pretty much right at the beginning). Nowhere near the vast feel of Y0 or even Y7, let alone the absurd scope of Y5. This is a feel thing - again, there may technically be more content here. I dunno, maybe my expectations were too high. At least the Hawaii map is big and well done. (NOTE: Since writing this, I have leared about all the standard-content-in-any-other-game ass DLC that was very clearly just sliced off from the finished build and stuck behind a paywall. Awesome. Great stuff.)
- Weirdly fails as a follow up to MAN WHO ERASED HIS NAME, to the point where it feels like this was written by other people entirely, like a different creative team picking up a storyline they didn't particularly believe in the details of. The broad strokes are there, but some stuff seems to be straight up retconned (from a game that came out like three months before this, ffs) and the one major returning character gets done dirty in a way that is honestly just insulting. Big disappointment given that, uh, leading into this was kind of that game's whole deal!
- The story has a VERY strong start in Hawaii (more on that after I get done bitching) but starts to unravel at around the midpoint, and after that, every successive chapter feels weaker and weaker until it ends on - owing to the split party thing - not one, but two anticlimaxes. Much of this falls on the extremely weak villains and their dumb plan. I kept wishing for someone else to be behind the scenes, waiting to spring the REAL plot of this game on us from out of the shadows.
- They chickened out and punted on Kiryu's fate. I mean, we had to know they would, but still.
- The two main characters/two parties/two major maps thing is really clumsy and ultimately quite unsatisfying. The amount of awkward little contrivances and concessions and systems workarounds they have to employ to get it to work make it feel like a mistake. And in the postgame when everyone is together (kind of) it's even worse.
- Ichiban's story is very weak compared to Kiryu's. Nowhere near how good his stuff was in Y7. I still really like the character and feel just fine about him being the MC for the series moving forward, but I don't think he's getting his due in this one. The Saeko stuff doesn't feel right and overplays his buffoonery, and they end up kind of fumbling the storyline with his mom. Oh well, maybe next time.
- The major returning party members from Y7 don't get much to do in the story, and given that, they feel a bit like wasted space in the roster. Like, when I realized we were gonna get Zhao and fucking lame-ass what-the-fuck-even-are-you Joongi Han towards the end of the game instead of anyone new, I was annoyed. They're all just kind of there.
- They STILL don't know what the fuck to do with Majima, Dojima, Saejima, and Akiyama. (Here's an idea .... PARTY MEMBERS)
Complaining aside, there are definite bright spots. The new supporting characters and party members are REALLY good (hence, again, why I would have liked some more of them) and especially Yamai is a straight-up all-timer. As I said, the plot starts off very strong with you meeting the new cast and working out exactly what's going on behind the scenes in Hawaii. The way you get new jobs is delightful (again, MORE please). Dondoko Island is nuts in its scope. The combat is improved in little but impactful ways. There's lots of good QOL.
But most of all ... the Kiryu stuff. It's absolutely fan service, absolutely an apology for the stubborn way that Y6 basically refused to tie into any previous game, absolutely shameless and maudlin. But the farewell tour stuff here hits HARD. No other game series has this kind of history with one character and one continuous story over so many entires for such a long time, no other series has characters that have aged from kids to adults in real time like it's Linklater's fucking BEFORE trilogy. For someone who played the original on PS2 in 2006 and every one since, there is absolutely no way this stuff wasn't going to rip my heart out, if they were gonna go there with it, and they do. They wring out every ounce. But they've earned it! And there are a few moments in here that I have been waiting for all series - for them to cash in on this incredible legacy. They got me on this stuff, I'm fully marked out. But you do gotta hand it to 'em. They may not follow through with getting rid of him, they may not even actually do justice to the stuff from the end of MAN WHO ERASED HIS NAME, but they go big, and his beats in the main plot and even his side stuff are quite successful. They should leave it at that.
And I guess *I* will leave it at this: I liked Y7 a lot, and I was excited that it really felt like the start of something new and great. This does not feel like a real evolution or even continuation of that. If anything should be called "Gaiden", it's this. It's great in the way that all RGGs are great, but it's muddled and clumsy and feels like it's about 3/4ths done in all aspects. Toward the end of this game, I found myself thinking "oh, that's it?" a LOT, and I was not expecting that at all from the get-go. I hope these guys can kind of sort this stuff out for the next one. I don't want JUDGMENT or continued KIWAMI entries to end up being the 'good ones' of this series.
Yakuza Series Ranking