This game really didn't click with me. I've played a couple other Yakuza games and enjoyed them, but nothing seems to be working well in Yakuza 7. The first couple chapters are kind of intriguing as you meet your party members and get your bearings in the new city, but soon after I felt like I was just going from cutscene to cutscene with some random fights mixed in. It also seems like the characters talk in circles sometimes, stating the same thing a couple times over in different ways. The underground dungeon was an absolute slog, and seemed to be the turning point where I started losing interest. It took quite literally an hour and a half of just running through identical looking hallways fighting bland enemies to clear.
I don't really know how this game is sitting at 4.3 on this side and mid to high 80s on review aggregates. I guess it just isn't for me, which is a shame because I typically like Yakuza games.

Hi-Fi Rush never misses a beat. From start to finish this colorful, rhythmic world will pull you in and keep you there. I don't think there was ever a span of more than 5 minutes where I wasn't head bobbing or toe tapping to the beat. The combat is really tight and rewarding when you string together combos, parries, and dodges. It's a technical marvel too, almost all animations in the game sync up to the beat of whatever is currently playing, regardless of what you are doing. Even Chai's idle and run animations will follow the beat. As a game developer who works with sound, it's just a really impressive game. It's incredibly polished and well paced, has genuinely good writing and humor, and even weaves in some fun pop culture references along the way. I would call this GotY if it weren't for the absolute stacked year we're about to have with games. This game is still a banger and a must play, it's short and sweet and constant fun. One of the best games I've played in the last 5 years easily.