This game is important to me for personal reasons that aren't worth getting into but it is a bias I am bringing to it.

I think this is the most ambitious attempt at telling a story this studio ever goes for and they blow it in the final hour. The further away I get from this game, the more disappointed I am in how it ends. But my feelings about it remain complicated.

Because the rest of it, god the rest of it. Well, most of the rest of it. Yakuza 4 is such a wild time. It feels like the writer(s) had a bunch of crime stories they wanted to tell but Kiryu didn't fit into any of them so they made three character archetypes from crime fiction so they could tell those stories too. AND THAT'S SO COOL. I wish more games would do stuff like this.

The gameplay really feels like it's coming into its own here. The mini-games start to become plentiful and they're mostly fun. It's been 2 and a half years since I played it, but I don't remember any annoying gameplay bits like a 5 minute car chase you can fail and have to start over.

Spoilers ahead
Akiyama is an incredible character who enters the series here. Tanimura sucks in a way that is entertaining to watch, and totally counter to the typical Yakuza protagonists. Saejima is a complicated character who went to jail for murdering a bunch of people in a Ramen shop and I think RGG is too clumsy for the scene where he pushes down Haruka not to feel really bad to me.

That is a huge caveat for this game. I do think the context of Saejima as a character is a lampshade they are hanging on it but it really just happens and you're like wtf. Really tells you where the people who make these game's heads are at but that's how it goes.

Ending Stuff
And then they reveal this twist that clears Saejima of the worst thing he ever did and the big showdown is kind of mid and it's like watching an athlete going for it and wiping out and it's just very painful. And you'e kind of a mess of emotions and you start to put your thoughts together about it.
And that's just powerful to me, you know? It's either my third or fourth favourite entry in the series on a given day. I recommend it, but there is pretty uncritical implied sexual assault scene on a minor that I absolutely understand if it swings anyone away from it.