[Expanded Review, Mild Spoilers Ahead]

—INTRODUCTION—

I was super excited to play Yakuza 5. I was warned about its weaknesses I was impatient to see its strenghts. At the end, this has been one the most wild, irregular experiences I had with any Yakuza games. There's a lot of Yakuza's BEST, but also A LOT of Yakuza at it WORST. Yakuza 5 it's full of stupid moments, of unnecessarily long chapters, of constant hand-holding, exposition and over-excess in scope and content. Yakuza 5 it's a HUGE game with HUGE ambitions, and that ambition is is greatest strenght and weakness. It's mere concept is one of the things I most respect, but the one that most frustratedme and the one that most fails for me: the structure of the plot.

There are 5 playable characters in Yakuza 5 and you essentially "re-start" the plot with each of the 5 parts. Each chapter means new mechanics, new mini-games and a LOT of new characters, factions and plot-stuff to introduce. And this word is key: they introduce things, but the plot won't come together till the final chapter. In fact, each time a new part is introduced, the beginning of that particular story will have little to no connection with the other characters. And man, does that make this game frustating and hard to pick up. Seems like the game is constantly saying to you "believe, when all of this comes together (at the end of the game) it will really pay off". But the plot just gets more and more convoluted while you are more and more frustrated, asking yourself "how does this come together and why do this game need a 90 hours build up?". Re-start after re-start of the plot, you begin to be more and more tired of the length of the game, of it's characters that you don't even remember most of the plot and characters because they appeared 40 hours ago. This could work if the stories of the characters were self-contanied, but they also fail as an individual exploration/story, as a lot of energy is wasted on introducing things for the plot, not centering in exploring its protagonist's themes.

But the game explores them, as the main theme of the game are "dreams". The entire Yakuza franchise is about men struggling in a system that doesn't let them live up to their ideals. This saga is about fighting and living for what you believe in, and Yakuza 5 materializes this in the theme of "dreams", and mans does it perfectly fit in this series. But some of the protagonist's dreams are more explored than others.

—KIRYU—

Kiryu it's without a doubt the best block of the game along with the finale. There is actual exploration of the character here, and in his (lack) of dreams: Kiryu is now alone, isolated from everyone he loves in an attempt to protect them for being linked to him. The rhythm of Kiryu's part is slow, the events are the ones of the daily life of a normal man that goes to work and doesn't seem to know what to do when he gets home. There is a lot of melancholy in the atmosphere of Nagasugai (the city of Kiryu) and all of its plot.

The game introduces here,  complementary to the classic "substories", the "side  stories", a huge block of substories related to a mini-plot that explores a mini-game exclusive to each character. Kiryu it's now a taxi driver, and his side stories revolve around that job. Being his chapter the most calm and meditative of all the game, the taxi missions really suits with the tone of Kiryu's story. The mini-game is slow and methodical, and there are sections where you can talk to your clients and deepen even more in how Kiryu feels in these moments of his life.

Then Kiryu's part ends with one of the most over-the-top moments of the entire franchise, and there you go, what a fantastical beginning, one that works as an introduction to the plot and as an exploration of the playable character and his lack of dreams.

—SAEJIMA—

Then Saejima comes in and, oh my god. At the end of Yakuza 4, Saejima gets to build its own family, essentialy, he has a second chance on the Tojo Clan, leaving room to a lot to explore in the sequels. Yakuza 5 thinks that the most interesting thing the game can do its getting him in prison during 2 entire chapters. .In 5 you get to know Saejima’s companions in prison, you get to know more of how Saejima lives there and how the whole prison system works. It essentialy expands 4's idea but at the cost of such a slow rhythm, such a disconnection with the main plot and with Saejima’s dreams and weaknesses being underexplored, resulting in essentially repeating what was already done in Yakuza 4, but worse.

Then there’s another chapter that only focuses on introducing Saejima’s mini-game/side-stories about hunting, and entire character dedicated to introducing . In chapter 2, in fact, there is a whole section of the party of prisoners day-dreaming about how would it be to go to the city and enjoy a day there, and then there is an actual section of 30 minutes of the game introducing you to various systems of the city. Saejima’s part really suffers with this. It seems more interested in introducing you new stuff that in exploring what makes Saejima such a good character. It seems more focused on unnecessarily expanding old ideas that didn't need to be expanded that in exploring new, exciting ways of portraying and exploring Saejima.

Yakuza 5 being about dreams, seems like a real shame not explore his dream of returning to the Dojo and forming a family, even if his true dream, at the end, is to be together with people he believes in.

—HARUKA AND AKIYAMA—

Haruka and Akiyama share chapters, with Akiyama being almost 100% centered on the main plot (I don't even have much to say about his part, it's just good but doesn't explore Akiayama's character asides of deepening in the fact that he is the only one of the protagonist that already has a fullfilled dream ).

I was really excited for Haruka's part because I knew that it's gameplay was a rhythm game (there are "dance battles" and "concerts" as her particular "battle system", along with other mini-games like "hand-shake events", "interviews", etc) and that seemed so fresh that I couldn't wait to play her part. I was also excited to see how Rya Ga Gotoku managed to make a woman a playable character for the first time in the series, one that, (so says Nagoshi) "is for men". And I'm glad Haruka's part exist. It's one of the few games where I feel that playing like a woman actually resonates with the themes talked. The idol world puts Haruka in a situation where she isn't allowed to be herself, but to be a character at the service of his fans. Beauty and personality has to match with the ideal of what an idol (and women in general) be, and Rya Ga Gotoku Studios seem to point to this as a bad thing, but it's so disappointing to know that Haruka can't punch a single blow to any punk, that she is incapable of defending herself and fighting others, that her plot doesn't seem to be able to do talk about anything outside "women themes".

Additionaly, Haruka's dream of being an idol isn't properly explored. She just wants to be an idol because "that is what teenagers dream you know", and the game doesn't question this statment until te very end, (where the game performs and amazing twist that I just loved; I just wished this would have been explored in the rest of her plot). Haruka's plot seem to reinforce the idea that if you work hard enough, your dreams can be possible, and for much of its lenght, I was conflicted with how the game portrayed this. Many people with tons of talent can't achieve his dreams even with all the effort in the world, and I think this effort narrative can be harmfull and deceptive: many times, effort is not enough. But later, Yakuza 5 adds the idea that the unfulfilled dreams of people transform in other dreams, or can ever transform in the will of helping another to fulfill the dream. This made me rethink of how the game portrayed this matter, and make me think about my own struggles to find and fight for my dreams. Many times I feel that I don't have something to fight for, something to dream about, or at least, I don't have the energy or the passion to fight everyday for it. Seeing Haruka fight for her dream day after day was frustrating for me, but also inspiring. Maybe effort its not the only component to achieve your dreams, but is without a doubt a neccesary ingredient.

Haruka's gameplay it's about training, training and training to perform, and even with all the initial freshness of her systems, they get repetitive really soon. Yakuza's combat system has never been super deep or challenging, but in Haruka there is almost no variety, and the alternative strategies when making a concert or a dance battle dreams are pointless. You can repeat and repeat the same strategy and you have no incentive to change it, even if you battle with dancers that perform with completely different genres of music: the way to fight them is always the same. Combat is one of the most polished things in Yakuza 5 in comparison to 4, but Haruka's combat system has a lack of polish in comparison with the rest. For example, in comparison with...

—SHINADA AND COMBAT—

Shinada's combat is a blast. I think that Yakuza's combat has never been very deep or challenging, it just has many options, with traduces not in complexity but in variety, something that ironically suffers when you have multiple characters and you can only access the amount of moves available to them, but this really isn't a huge problem. Yakuza's combat has depended more and more on awesomeness of Heat Moves more than actual reflexes or strategy, and Shinada it's a first step on making combat outside of Heat Moves more deep and fun. Shinada can grab and charge against enemies without using a single Heat Action and still kick ass. His combat is super fun and really shines how much the studio has improved the combat in the series.

Still, the combat has problems in Yakuza 5. There is a new Heat Move named "Climax Heat", an special move that you can only perform after a bar is fulled to it's maximum to perform a Heat action that does massive damage. The ideas is good, but the execution is poorly done. It's very easy to activate a Climax Heat Move by mistake, and fulling the bar again it's panfully slow. The amount of damage that the move provides isn't a great lost, but that also makes that when you finally perform it when you want, the result it's kinda of a letdown. Secondly, the Skill Tree is a major downgrade from Yakuza 4, where you had almost all abilities purchasable since the beginning, and you could form a strategy on which abilities interested you the most. It gave you agency and it was super fun, but Yakuza 5 returns to Yakuza 3's system of "invest points here and you will get some cool ability in the future (maybe)" and I really can't understand why they did that, something that will change again in 0.

Outside of combat talk, Shinada is one of the best protagonist in the entire game. His part really introduces him as a character, deepens in his flaws, his failures and his broken dreams. A decade ago, Shinada lost everything, and now he lives poorly, alone and with the expectancy that life will never get better. Shinada is a loser, a broken and hopeless man that can't stand to think about what he could have been but now can't be. During it's chapters, we see Shinada grow, we see a spark of hope in him. Shinada is a broken and lonely man who, by the end, is allowed to dream again. It's a shame that Shinada doen't appear in future titles of the franchise, becouse man, it's so good.

—FINALE—

Then everything comes together.

I really hate the idea of playing a game till the very end, 90 hours later because then "It really gets good". If a game need 90 hours of my time to be good, then it's not that good, and probably it's not worth the effort. I was constantly frustrated with Yakuza 5 and dropped the game multiple times due to it being so long and so bad with his structure and script, and I haven't even talked about the series exhaustion.

After Rya Ga Gotoku made Yakuza Dead Souls and Binary Domain, the Studio wanted to create "a new, different Yakuza" and, event with the new tone for the game (way more melancholic than the previous ones) and with the existence of a main theme (the dreams of the protagonists), the series gameplay remains almost intact, and the script cannot escape its own tropes. The writer and this time director Masayoshi Yokoyama goes wild in Yakuza 5 with his most ambitious story. The team tried to go to new directions, but at the same time struggled to create something truly new. With each new triumph (the different pace and tone of Kiryu's part) there's another constant reminder of how the franchise repeats and repeats ideas (Saejima getting in prison again), after each stellar moment on the script (Shinada's character, the twist of Haruka) there's a lot of tropes and stuff that just doesn't hit home anymore (treasons, deaths and twists that at this point are more what is to be expected than a surprise). Originally, this was meant to be a game much more focussed on Kiryu and on his personal drama, but that story was finally told in Yakuza 6. Yakuza 5, on the other hand, was the culmination of everything the franchise had done. The most Yakuza game of them all.

The finale is the promise of the biggest pay off in the reseries. And it delivers. The finale isn't exempt of Yakuza 5's problems: many of the series tropes are here for better and worse (there are some truly amazing twists, others don't make sense or are underdeveloped ), but Yakuza 5's finale is the most cathartic finale of the series along with 0. The stakes of the ending are incredibly high and everyone has his moment to shine, to show how the protagonist fight for what they believe in. Combat after combat, twist after twist and payoff after payoff, Yakuza 5 is (surprisingly) capable of closing almost every plot in one of the most exciting and emotional finales the series has ever had.

—CONCLUSION—

Yakuza 5 cannot help but to want to be the most Yakuza game of them all. That it's his strength and his weakness. Yakuza 0 it's similar in length, but due to 5's its structure, script and excess of content, it feels by far the longest and most irregular title of the franchise. I really think that we can't justify 90 hours of irregular game just because then 10 final hours are gold. But as I was fighting for the protagonist's beliefs, as the song "Dream" started to sound as everything was ending, while I was screaming at the TV in excitement at every twist and every big moment of the finale, as tears dropped and my heart melted seeing these characters I've grown to love so much closing the story, I could only think about how much I love the Yakuza series, on how 4 years after beating Yakuza 0's finale, it was happening again, that excitement of ending a 100 hours story and feeling like it was worth every minute.

I know this is the last "pure Yakuza". The series will make a change in tone in Yakuza 6, and after that, Yakuza will welcome Ichiban as the new protagonist of the series. Even with all of his failures, even with all the burnout of the series that this game drags, I cannot help but to be moved at the end of Yakuza 5, the end of the old Yakuza as I knew that I've grown such a love for. I only hope that the series now can explore and develop new ways to understand what is probably my favorite franchise in videogames. As Kiryu says in the finale:

"You have to overcome. Find boundaries, and break them. The only way to grow, is to be challenged"