I spent a lot of time editing this review with Pangburn and discussing the game's various aspects thoroughly with him. Thanks again for all the help!

I’ll get my major gripes out of the way first: many of them are due to potential areas of improvement in Yakuza 0’s combat. I admit that I’m not a huge fan of the Style System, which felt underwhelming to me because it usually results in spreading myself too thin while locking the best abilities until the very late game. Money is a bit harder to come by in the early game (unless you can consistently win against the roaming enemy Mr Shakedown, who can just as easily bankrupt you upon defeat if you aren’t prepared with the adequate combat upgrades), and each combat style is tuned to adapt for specific situations (i.e. Rush Style is agile and allows Kiryu to quickly slip behind single enemies and bog them down with attacks, while Beast Style is often better at handling multiple foes by picking up large objects and swinging them for effective crowd control). However, a lot of the valuable defining traits for specific styles (i.e. Iron Gut on Beast Style to guard against knife/gun attacks, or Quickstep Blow on Rush Style for quick evasion into powerful attacks) cost significantly more than previous steps (2 million yen for Rank 2 abilities to 30 million yen for the above Rank 3 abilities), so I felt incentivized to invest equally into the different styles instead of trying to specialize. As a result, my characters felt somewhat lacking through most of the game’s runtime, since I had to split my investments equally between the different styles to accommodate for different situations (and thus often lacking crucial abilities). Eventually, the three-style system becomes effectively superseded once your protagonists finish their main side-quest lines and unlock a “true” 4th style reminiscent of prior entries in the series that combines traits of the previous styles, which to me seems to only further highlight how insignificant progress within the style system can feel.

Enemy variety is also rather bland in the Yakuza games (most likely due to the beat-em-up structure), which in turn further homogenizes combat. Most enemies are simple grunts around your size that will charge at you with standard close range attacks. Some will try and stagger you with knives and swords, a few have tasers on hand, and near the late game, a couple of enemies will have guns. While tasers and guns can stunlock you and force you to mash to stand back up, you can just pay for the corresponding expensive upgrade in each style to nullify stuns altogether. As such, I ended up fighting every enemy as if they were functionally the same, and once I purchased the necessary unlocks, tearing through them like paper became a simple task. The only time I had to accommodate for a different enemy type occurred during specific story missions, where sometimes larger grunts with superarmor appear that actively require baiting and punishing. Otherwise, most non-boss combat starts to all blend together, and it never quite hits that sweet spot between mindlessly mashing to take out scores of enemies or getting tossed around like a salad by guns and tasers.

There’s also a weapons system involved in all this, but it feels rather extraneous. There’s never any real need for weapons given the functional homogeneity of most of the enemies. Moreover, many of the combat scenes in the game are placed in locations with plenty of breakable loose objects lying astray that often serve that exact purpose as is. Additionally, weapons have a durability counter, and to repair weapons, you either have to use Repair Kits (which are obtained randomly from Dream Machines) or trek to the local Dragon & Tiger. The actual fees involved are a trifle considering how much money you’ll end up earning, but having to waste tons of time farming Repair Kits from Dream Machines to fix your weapon in the middle of combat or spend time outside of combat walking back and forth from the Dragon & Tiger is a pain in the ass. As such, I basically never bothered with weapons in-game, save for the one quest with Simon where you have to purchase and farm weapons & materials/recipes from Dragon and Tiger (and that is a whole different time-consuming RNG endeavor altogether, though again, it never felt crucial due to how little I used weapons).

If there’s one silver lining to all this, it’s that the combat never truly felt like a significant barrier to me due to its simplicity. It becomes pretty straightforward to cheese and simplify combat once you figure out the easiest strategies for each protagonist. Majima’s Breaker style was fantastic at stunlocking enemies due to how many hitboxes got thrown out in each cycle, and later on, Slugger became my go-to because the extended X-X-X-Y-Y cartwheel combo broke every enemy’s stance and was actually positive on hit in every story fight I encountered on Normal difficulty. Meanwhile, Kiryu’s Beast style quickly became my mainstay; picking up large objects and batting away foes was a bit too overpowered most of the time. As mentioned previously, the quick crowd control options, alongside better defensive tools such as superarmor, provided Beast Style with most of the utility necessary to clear the majority of the game’s standard fights. Thus, even if combat was uninteresting most of the time, it was at least over quickly enough to where I could proceed with little stress, especially when utilizing stamina drink stockpiles for powering through damage.

I’ll give Yakuza 0 some credit though, as a few of the boss fights were engaging enough to leave a mark on me. The Kuze fights are a huge highlight here, considering that his first fight resulted in my first game-over, and it was extremely satisfying performing visibly better with each consecutive fight, especially since a few of these fights are no-frills 1v1 fights that forced me to rely upon more of my toolkit. In particular, I found Kuze and other bosses to be far more aggressive and willing to combo me for larger damage margins and chipping away at my health while I was knocked down. Defensively, they were more up to par too, with much more emphasis placed upon quick dodges and guards to nullify my lighter attacks. The final boss fight for Kiryu takes the cake for my favorite boss encounter overall given how the different phases mirror Kiryu’s own abilities, and it put a smile on my face when I realized that they were willing to pull the exact same stunts that I had also been abusing in combat. In particular, I couldn’t stop smirking during the second phase of the final boss, when my opponent began picking up tables and chairs to slam and hurl at me. It’s a very visceral yet humanizing way to top off the game, and I do wish that more of the other fights had enemies that were willing to resort to similar underhanded tactics to highlight just how dirty the crime world can get.

That said, you’re not really here for the mostly inoffensive combat: the real bulk of the game is everything else, more specifically the various interactions between every other system in the game including the different connecting narratives and side/substories. Perhaps that is the true strength behind the franchise: no one system stands out above the others, and as a result it becomes something much more than the sum of its parts. It may sound like a weakness, and it is a major weakness of many games that try to do everything at once, yet Yakuza 0 escapes this pitfall because everything is seamlessly and inexorably linked.

A lot of this is in part due to the centralization of progression systems within the game. Everything is linked to exorbitant amounts of money, which is not only thematically appropriate but also results in all grinding leading to the same collected pool. Money can be earned through fights, certain sidegames, and most importantly, Kiryu’s real estate and Majima’s cabaret club. In turn, money is used to upgrade your characters (and weapons) for fights, pay for entering certain sidegames as well as upgrading necessary materials for better performance, and paying for properties and staff in your respective side gigs. I was afraid at first that the existence of all these different activities would result in a million different systems that I’d have to memorize and optimize for different purposes, but since they all feed back into the same resource, everything you do ultimately results in some form of progress towards the same end goal, resulting in a much more focused experience than what I had first assumed on a surface level.

To expand upon the two main side stories, Kiryu and Majima must essentially fight rival head honchos of each section of Kamurocho/Sotenbori through the collection of landshare/influence. Kiryu can purchase certain properties in each area to later invest and gain dividends, while Majima can partner with properties to increase Club Sunshine’s fanbase and gain more notoriety during cabaret club nights. As the player gains more control over each sector, more of the background behind the opposing head honchos is revealed until inevitable confrontation occurs, usually in the form of a minigame/street fight for Kiryu and a “club battle” for Majima where Club Sunshine must outcompete its opposition while enduring enemy abilities. These side stories feed right into the overall progression system, since they provide a reliable source of income as well as an incentive to engage in outside activities and explore the two hub areas for staff and valuable resources. As mentioned previously, the definitive and more overpowered 4th fighting style unlocked from completion is a great cherry on top of this whole endeavor.

Aiding all of this are the numerous substories scattered throughout the two main hubs. No side quests are marked immediately on the map with markers when you first start new chapters; instead, you have to unlock them by stumbling into the correct section of Kamurocho/Sotenbori or by engaging in certain activities long enough. Once you do unlock these side quests, actually fulfilling them is simple enough, since blue question box markers will appear on the map showing you where to head next to progress. The result is that exploration in the overworld opens up fairly organically; the player is incentivized to wander about naturally without any pressure to eliminate all the lit up checkpoints on the map from the start. Additionally, side quests often are completed in spurts, and players often have to travel outside of a given quest’s area to activate its next section on the map, meaning that they have a choice of whether or not they want to continue seeing the quest through at that very moment or spend time elsewhere and return to that sidequest later. Finally, completing sidequests can lead to unlocking other related side quests as well as gaining aforementioned helpful staff, properties, and useful items (such as an encounter finder, to track down street fights more easily). Yet, there’s no single substory that feels so important in terms of personal or monetary gain that players have to go out of their way to fulfill all necessary conditions for it. By doing this, Yakuza 0 never imposes and merely suggests; players can complete and explore as much as they wish with little negative externalities if they choose not to go all the way.

To add on the above, the actual activities themselves are designed in a way where there’s just enough depth to allow for significant improvement if players choose to dedicate more time to their favorite pastimes, but again, not too much depth to where it takes an eternity and a half to master certain activities. For instance, consider the bowling minigame. It’s quite simple to pick up: you can adjust your ball’s weight, starting position, trajectory, and power, with the obvious caveat that heavier balls are tougher to aim but better at retaining momentum. You don’t necessarily need to keep close track of every option to succeed and best your buddies in three-frame sets, but there are nice little side rewards in the form of completion points (CP) (which can be used at shrines to unlock unnecessary yet helpful little abilities such as longer dashing times and more Nouveau Riche encounters to fight for more cash) for bowling ten strikes. Further plays also increase friendship with the attendant there, which will result in a sidequest that allows you to recruit a chicken as staff for your real estate firm once you bowl a turkey. There’s also a separate side mode called Split Game where you have to more carefully aim your ball across special split pin arrangements that allows you to earn more cash and a potential CP. Again, there’s plenty of optional rewards that are great for upgrading your character and systems if you choose to invest a bit of time here and there, but even then, more grindy minigames are optional to the point where they become unobtrusive; as such, you can switch between a multitude of different activities with little consequence whenever your current focus starts to wear you down.

The story can also be thought of as another of the game’s smaller systems, thanks to how it never feels particularly intrusive. After clearing the first chain of events in Chapter 1 as well as the associated tutorials, the main introductions take a step back and you can begin messing around with the aforementioned sidequests and minigames. The game is very good at telegraphing exactly when the player needs to be committed to the story and when they are free to meander about; at no point does the game ever feel like it is forcing you to put down what you are doing at that exact moment in time to return to the main storyline. At the same time, progressing through the story events is greatly streamlined whenever the player needs to do so. Therefore, despite the main storyline’s linearity, the game manages to retain a visage of non-linearity; the wide variety of activities available at any given time allow you to swap between the story and optional content effortlessly at your heart’s content.

Just as there’s a balance between story progression and player-driven exploration, there’s a certain balance struck in the game’s tone that’s present throughout each narrative thread weaving into one another that exemplifies an undercurrent of sincerity. The central plotline jumps back and forth between Kiryu’s struggles escaping the Dojima family after being framed for murder, and Majima’s struggles serving as a blackmailed affiliate of his old yakuza family while seeking release from his gilded cage. Both are constantly caught in increasingly absurd scenarios by old friends and random strangers alike, and play fantastic straight men juxtaposed to the sticky situations that they must resolve. Alongside this, RGG Studio balances frenzied street brawls between topless yakuza members with dramatic scenes of characters pouring their hearts out. Even the substories carefully walk this tightrope between cheesiness and earnestness: one of my personal favorites has to be Stadium Jumper Strut, where you have to escort a guy whose dream is to walk across Iwao Bridge. He begs for Majima’s assistance, for every time he tries, he is beaten up by thugs because he refuses to take off his stajun jacket that’s riling them up. It’s an absolutely ridiculous premise, yet even I had to admit that sealing the deal with the life lesson of “pursuing dreams regardless of what others think” put a smile on my face. Camp meets candor time and time again, and as a result, Yakuza 0 never feels too sarcastic or too overbearing; it’s a cozy and compelling mix that kept me hooked during every story beat throughout.

There’s so much more I could say regarding Yakuza’s imperfections thanks to its many ambitions. There’s a forced stealth section that feels a bit clumsy since you have to guide and protect an escort at the same time. To do so, you must hide amongst crowds to avoid detection by patrolling foes, and this becomes a bit awkward since enemies can spot you from far away and enter/leaving crowds has a noticeably long animation with a forced delay between entering and leaving, so staying out of these optional fights is much more tricky in practice. Majima’s cabaret management progression feels not quite as well-integrated, since it’s actually possible to keep gaining fans by playing the club minigame over and over without purchasing properties, and the final stretch requires a bit more grinding as preparation to avoid your hostesses losing all their HP from the opposing club’s special ability. Finally, special moves can be taught by mentors through their respective side missions, and while Majima’s mentor missions are fantastic (Fei Hu’s lessons are a thrill, having to adapt against his quick Kali Sticks and Nunchakus), Kiryu’s mentor missions feel a bit squandered and too by-the-books. My favorite mentor missions there would have to be Miss Tatsu’s training, which involves puzzles where you have to destroy crates for money while eliminating mannequins with guns. It’s a bit more clunky than expected, since you often don’t have enough time to react and throw/dodge when picking up boxes to attack these targets, but it’s definitely an interesting thought exercise of what could have been and it helps that it’s accompanied by a track that quite frankly puts the main Beast Style theme to shame.

Yet at the end of the day, I have to wonder how much these nitpicks matter in the overall scheme of things. I came into Yakuza 0 wanting to fight Kuze and experience a change in pace, and I left feeling quite emotionally invested and fulfilled considering how much time I wasted cheering to x3 Shine and flaunting my new disco moves to Let’s Dance I Wanna Take You Home. While I have to admit that I can’t see myself 100%ing the game anytime soon, and I’m not quite ready to dive into the rest of the series lest the experience begins to outstay its welcome, I’m more than content leaving everything as it stands. It’s obviously doing something right if I’ve managed to spend over 70 hours messing around with everything that even mildly interested me without any single aspect feeling too disjointed or particularly irritating. My fears that Yakuza 0’s wide appeal was an indicator of numerous hours of padding and shallow interaction between systems appear to have been unfounded, and needless to say, I can wholeheartedly recommend Yakuza 0 despite the rough patches. I’m looking forward to the inevitable YaKuze spinoff where we get to play as the old man in the profession where men tend to die young.