This review contains spoilers
Yakuza 5 takes a lot of the issues with the Yakuza 4 formula and radically shakes things up to make one of the best games in the series yet.
+ The Side Stories are, almost without exception, fantastic. Kiryu's taxi driving and racing was by far my favorite but there's great variety across all the characters gameplay-wise. My only criticism is Akiyama not getting one and instead mixed in with Haruka's.
+ Haruka's Idol Simulator(TM) is one of the most bizarre but fun segments I've played in this series. I honestly would play an entire spin-off game of this if it was properly fleshed out.
+ The story handles the multiple protagonists angle much better than 4, particularly in the finale. Rather than ham-fisting all the characters together and having the final boss be a boss rush, 5 takes more time to build up the connection between the protagonists and antagonists.
- It's SO long. This game takes over double the amount of time to beat than the majority of the franchise's games, coming in just a few hours short of Yakuza 0's completion time. The difference here is 0 is a lot better paced.
- Combat gameplay is very similar to 4, to the point where it doesn't really feel like there's an evolution between the two titles at all other than aesthetic changes.
- I really didn't like Shinada. Sorry. Whereas Tanimura felt like a key component of the cast in 4, Shinada felt to me like he could squeezed in at the last second and could have really been replaced by anyone else. I also wasn't huge on his character itself and felt he was a bit of an airhead without many endearing traits.
+ The Side Stories are, almost without exception, fantastic. Kiryu's taxi driving and racing was by far my favorite but there's great variety across all the characters gameplay-wise. My only criticism is Akiyama not getting one and instead mixed in with Haruka's.
+ Haruka's Idol Simulator(TM) is one of the most bizarre but fun segments I've played in this series. I honestly would play an entire spin-off game of this if it was properly fleshed out.
+ The story handles the multiple protagonists angle much better than 4, particularly in the finale. Rather than ham-fisting all the characters together and having the final boss be a boss rush, 5 takes more time to build up the connection between the protagonists and antagonists.
- It's SO long. This game takes over double the amount of time to beat than the majority of the franchise's games, coming in just a few hours short of Yakuza 0's completion time. The difference here is 0 is a lot better paced.
- Combat gameplay is very similar to 4, to the point where it doesn't really feel like there's an evolution between the two titles at all other than aesthetic changes.
- I really didn't like Shinada. Sorry. Whereas Tanimura felt like a key component of the cast in 4, Shinada felt to me like he could squeezed in at the last second and could have really been replaced by anyone else. I also wasn't huge on his character itself and felt he was a bit of an airhead without many endearing traits.
Elkmane
8 months ago