"Same things make us laugh, make us cry."
Video games are hard to make interesting and tense stories for. Because at any given moment in a hyper-serious game I could make the growling angry depressed protagonist spin in a circle 40 times and crouch up and down before 360 no scoping a zombie in the balls. But when the game balances out the silliness of the genre with funny jokes and good laughs, you feel like you are on a fun journey and not a Harry Potter fanfiction where Ron is suicidal and Hagrid does cocaine. But I don't want to discredit the story by saying it only works because there are funny moments in the sidequests to balance it out: the actual story is full of good twists, unforgettable moments, and super fun action set pieces. The writing and cutscenes are so good that I didn't even realize that one cutscene went on for 20 minutes. I was just so into it! At some points, I didn't even want to do any of the various extremely funny and memorable side quests or the addicting minigames. (emphasis on 'at some points.' 10 hours of my playtime was spent at the disco.) I think this is like the only piece of media that had two separate plot twists that made me like, physically open my mouth in disbelief. I've established this already but I'm not a big story guy but this is one of my exceptions. Actually insane.
But no game is just the story .... let's not forget the combat. Two characters, 8 styles, different weapons, heat actions, grabs, upgrades, combos.. there's a lot of depth to it but it was unfortunately useless because Majima has a style where he uses a bat, and it's so ridiculously overpowered that I was just wailing on all these crazy bosses with this same Nightwing-injustice-gods-among-us ass combo and winning. Kiryu was a bit more balanced but all 3 of his styles are just different speeds of punch whereas majima has punching, breakdancing, and baseball bat. Still fun though, and to make up for not having a bat Kiryu can use his heavy style to pick up objects like street signs and couches to destroy anyone. And I really loved the heat actions and how some can be so specific. If you grab a guy on the edge of a bridge or a boat, you can just straight up throw him off. And if you're surrounded, you can spin the dude around hitting others on the way. The bosses are also pretty sick, the combat on 1v1s feels visceral and the bosses have sick intros that make me hyped to fight. One particular repeated fight will remain in my memory as one of the best rivals and one of the coolest antagonists ever.
overall, this game does everything very well. My only complaint was how some enemies have guns and I don't really like fighting against those and I feel they're overpowered. In one room, a guy had a shotgun. I ran to him and knocked him out, took his shotgun, and cleared the room in like 6 seconds. Got a quadruple kill. I guess it's realistic sure but come on! Why can't I just take that with me and maybe buy some more ammo? the final boss is tough but he's still human. Shotgun to the face and he's done for. Another complaint is there are 4 escort missions. I hate these.
Yakuza 0 dares to ask the question, "What if persona 5 was good?" it takes that game, hires writers that weren't Disney sitcom veterans, and tasks them with making stories that rise above high school melodrama. Making the minigames fun and allowing you do to more than one activity before you are forced to continue the story. It follows no formula, creating an unpredictable progression where you don't know exactly what's going to be the loop repeated for the next 100 hours. And finally, it makes the combat fun. Why is yakuza so great? everything! I've finished the story and have 45 hours on the game, but I feel like i've just begun. So many side quests and minigames left for me. I want to keep coming back for more!!!!!!!
Video games are hard to make interesting and tense stories for. Because at any given moment in a hyper-serious game I could make the growling angry depressed protagonist spin in a circle 40 times and crouch up and down before 360 no scoping a zombie in the balls. But when the game balances out the silliness of the genre with funny jokes and good laughs, you feel like you are on a fun journey and not a Harry Potter fanfiction where Ron is suicidal and Hagrid does cocaine. But I don't want to discredit the story by saying it only works because there are funny moments in the sidequests to balance it out: the actual story is full of good twists, unforgettable moments, and super fun action set pieces. The writing and cutscenes are so good that I didn't even realize that one cutscene went on for 20 minutes. I was just so into it! At some points, I didn't even want to do any of the various extremely funny and memorable side quests or the addicting minigames. (emphasis on 'at some points.' 10 hours of my playtime was spent at the disco.) I think this is like the only piece of media that had two separate plot twists that made me like, physically open my mouth in disbelief. I've established this already but I'm not a big story guy but this is one of my exceptions. Actually insane.
But no game is just the story .... let's not forget the combat. Two characters, 8 styles, different weapons, heat actions, grabs, upgrades, combos.. there's a lot of depth to it but it was unfortunately useless because Majima has a style where he uses a bat, and it's so ridiculously overpowered that I was just wailing on all these crazy bosses with this same Nightwing-injustice-gods-among-us ass combo and winning. Kiryu was a bit more balanced but all 3 of his styles are just different speeds of punch whereas majima has punching, breakdancing, and baseball bat. Still fun though, and to make up for not having a bat Kiryu can use his heavy style to pick up objects like street signs and couches to destroy anyone. And I really loved the heat actions and how some can be so specific. If you grab a guy on the edge of a bridge or a boat, you can just straight up throw him off. And if you're surrounded, you can spin the dude around hitting others on the way. The bosses are also pretty sick, the combat on 1v1s feels visceral and the bosses have sick intros that make me hyped to fight. One particular repeated fight will remain in my memory as one of the best rivals and one of the coolest antagonists ever.
overall, this game does everything very well. My only complaint was how some enemies have guns and I don't really like fighting against those and I feel they're overpowered. In one room, a guy had a shotgun. I ran to him and knocked him out, took his shotgun, and cleared the room in like 6 seconds. Got a quadruple kill. I guess it's realistic sure but come on! Why can't I just take that with me and maybe buy some more ammo? the final boss is tough but he's still human. Shotgun to the face and he's done for. Another complaint is there are 4 escort missions. I hate these.
Yakuza 0 dares to ask the question, "What if persona 5 was good?" it takes that game, hires writers that weren't Disney sitcom veterans, and tasks them with making stories that rise above high school melodrama. Making the minigames fun and allowing you do to more than one activity before you are forced to continue the story. It follows no formula, creating an unpredictable progression where you don't know exactly what's going to be the loop repeated for the next 100 hours. And finally, it makes the combat fun. Why is yakuza so great? everything! I've finished the story and have 45 hours on the game, but I feel like i've just begun. So many side quests and minigames left for me. I want to keep coming back for more!!!!!!!