After enjoying Yakuza Kiwami, I knew the next game I jumped into in the series would be this. Everything I read about it made it seem like it would be tailored directly to my interests by being a detective game set within the open world of Yakuza. However, I have a lot of gripes with this and feel like it could have been so much better with a few changes. Maybe it's pointless to critique a 6 year old game that has a sequel that got universally higher acclaim but video games are weird and I have a lot to say because it's a game I really wanted to love.
First, the good. The story is really engaging and the friends system is super simple but rewarding. Absolutely demolishing rooms full of furniture never gets old. The characters are strong and there's character moments that are genuinely heartfelt and tragic.
Now, as much as I enjoy the combat it can feel very separate from the narrative at times which is fine. It is easier to excuse in Yakuza than when you're a private detective but the random encounters are torturous in this. They're so repetitive and boring and feel like filler.
The first chapter is like a 5-6 hour tutorial and you're not really let loose fully into the open world until some time through chapter two which is disappointing and probably turned a lot of people away before they got to the great stuff.
Unfortunately, the detective mechanics feel very out of date. As much as I love LA Noire, the mechanics in this should feel close to a decade more refined and they just don't. The tailing and drone missions are too manufactured, there's no freedom in the playing. The running sequences with QTE are frustrating. If you let me run free in this environment with options in how I pursue someone that would be really fun but pressing the stick to the left to dodge a group of people gets old after the first time. The overreliance of QTE in action sequences made this feel like a gorgeous graphical update of a 2013 game.
Even with all those gripes I enjoyed a lot of this game and am excited to play Yakuza 0 with the hopes it is more in line with what I would have loved this game to be. Similarly, I still really want to play Lost Judgment.
First, the good. The story is really engaging and the friends system is super simple but rewarding. Absolutely demolishing rooms full of furniture never gets old. The characters are strong and there's character moments that are genuinely heartfelt and tragic.
Now, as much as I enjoy the combat it can feel very separate from the narrative at times which is fine. It is easier to excuse in Yakuza than when you're a private detective but the random encounters are torturous in this. They're so repetitive and boring and feel like filler.
The first chapter is like a 5-6 hour tutorial and you're not really let loose fully into the open world until some time through chapter two which is disappointing and probably turned a lot of people away before they got to the great stuff.
Unfortunately, the detective mechanics feel very out of date. As much as I love LA Noire, the mechanics in this should feel close to a decade more refined and they just don't. The tailing and drone missions are too manufactured, there's no freedom in the playing. The running sequences with QTE are frustrating. If you let me run free in this environment with options in how I pursue someone that would be really fun but pressing the stick to the left to dodge a group of people gets old after the first time. The overreliance of QTE in action sequences made this feel like a gorgeous graphical update of a 2013 game.
Even with all those gripes I enjoyed a lot of this game and am excited to play Yakuza 0 with the hopes it is more in line with what I would have loved this game to be. Similarly, I still really want to play Lost Judgment.