Yakuza 5 is probably the most conflicted I have ever been about a game in this series. It excels at so many things and yet there's an almost equal amount of stuff I wish were done better. I'm torn to the point that you could tell me Yakuza 5 is either your favorite entry in the series or the worst one and I would probably see some merit in both views - for me it ends up somewhere in the middle.
It continues what Y4 did with the multiple protagonists and I am still not sure I like this approach. In my opinion they did not end up cracking the code to satisfying multi-protagonist progression / story until Yakuza 0 which came a few years afterwards. This large cast creates a problem with progression since you only get a limited amount of playtime with each character which means levelling is happening at supersonic speed making you an instant powerhouse and then you are forced to start all over again as you switch to a different character. In Y4 each character got around 7 hours of playtime which made it all feel comically fast, while in this one I clocked out at around 10-15. It feels a little better, but by improving one aspect the entire game as a whole started to drag for me. It's not necessarily the length itself, but rather the structure. This approach itself is very difficult to get right, but the feeling of slowness is likely made worse by the main narrative.
In Y4 the main narrative between each of the protagonists was closely intertwined with reveals that keep up a constant level of tension; Y5 acts more like a collection of short stories following the lives of each of our characters, but it is frequently undermined by forcefully inserting points of an overarching story that seems like it has no place in the narrative or reason to exist there apart from "well there has to be some connective tissue". Due to the insistence of all that being there, the personal stories feel a bit unfocused and drag more than they should. It is a shame because the individual tales are really well done. Not only are they interesting, but they are actively supported by all the side content both narratively and gameplay wise.
Something that really works well with that is the addition of Side-Stories, which are a collection of optional tasks, minigames that tie into the journey of your character and are far more robust than substories. Kiryu is trying to hide so he becomes a taxi driver with a fake name. There is actual driving, street races, contained narrative and a separate progression just for that job. Saejima gets stranded in a village during winter and has to learn hunting which comes with a proper system for all that where you out on hunts, and fulfil requests of villagers while trying to uncover a local spooky folk tale mystery. Haruka is an idol, and her entire Side Story is about going on talk shows, dancing, battling rival dancers etc. All of this is the heart of Yakuza 5 and is what makes the game special. I know I come across as really negative up above, but it is only because I feel like if the developers had chosen to go all in with this individual journey approach this could have been something truly magnificent. I understand some of the desire to have it all be connected by a more traditional 'Yakuza' story, but I think that would have worked much better if it was perhaps condensed to a single character and tied to their journey instead of forcing it on every single one of them.
So yeah there are things I hate about this game, there are things I love about this game, but in the end it just wore me down.
It continues what Y4 did with the multiple protagonists and I am still not sure I like this approach. In my opinion they did not end up cracking the code to satisfying multi-protagonist progression / story until Yakuza 0 which came a few years afterwards. This large cast creates a problem with progression since you only get a limited amount of playtime with each character which means levelling is happening at supersonic speed making you an instant powerhouse and then you are forced to start all over again as you switch to a different character. In Y4 each character got around 7 hours of playtime which made it all feel comically fast, while in this one I clocked out at around 10-15. It feels a little better, but by improving one aspect the entire game as a whole started to drag for me. It's not necessarily the length itself, but rather the structure. This approach itself is very difficult to get right, but the feeling of slowness is likely made worse by the main narrative.
In Y4 the main narrative between each of the protagonists was closely intertwined with reveals that keep up a constant level of tension; Y5 acts more like a collection of short stories following the lives of each of our characters, but it is frequently undermined by forcefully inserting points of an overarching story that seems like it has no place in the narrative or reason to exist there apart from "well there has to be some connective tissue". Due to the insistence of all that being there, the personal stories feel a bit unfocused and drag more than they should. It is a shame because the individual tales are really well done. Not only are they interesting, but they are actively supported by all the side content both narratively and gameplay wise.
Something that really works well with that is the addition of Side-Stories, which are a collection of optional tasks, minigames that tie into the journey of your character and are far more robust than substories. Kiryu is trying to hide so he becomes a taxi driver with a fake name. There is actual driving, street races, contained narrative and a separate progression just for that job. Saejima gets stranded in a village during winter and has to learn hunting which comes with a proper system for all that where you out on hunts, and fulfil requests of villagers while trying to uncover a local spooky folk tale mystery. Haruka is an idol, and her entire Side Story is about going on talk shows, dancing, battling rival dancers etc. All of this is the heart of Yakuza 5 and is what makes the game special. I know I come across as really negative up above, but it is only because I feel like if the developers had chosen to go all in with this individual journey approach this could have been something truly magnificent. I understand some of the desire to have it all be connected by a more traditional 'Yakuza' story, but I think that would have worked much better if it was perhaps condensed to a single character and tied to their journey instead of forcing it on every single one of them.
So yeah there are things I hate about this game, there are things I love about this game, but in the end it just wore me down.