This is by far one of the best Yakuza games and one of my favorites in this series. I consider Yakuza 5 to be the embodiment of everything that makes the Yakuza series great. There are so many twists and turns that kept me engaged through out the whole thing. I was completely hooked from beginning to end and I loved it.

This game has 5 cities to explore, the most in any Yakuza game, and they’re all packed with hilarious or emotional sub stories. Combat and graphics are also greatly improved on from the previous games.

It's a less refined and focused experience than Yakuza 0, which is my absolute favorite in this series, but does a lot of unique things from a series standpoint that has not been replicated since. And no matter what people say, Saejima's story was very interesting and fun to go through and I enjoyed that they included Haruka as a playable character. While I can see that some may be turned off by Haruka's story, being that it is rhythm game oriented, I thoroughly enjoyed it and felt that, for what it was, they did a great job.

Overall, If you're a Yakuza fan, you will be doing yourself a disservice by not playing this amazing game, because it reminded me again why the Yakuza franchise is one of my absolute favorites.

On a sidenote, after Yakuza 5 I'm even more disappointed that the series switched to boring turn-based combat.