Slarvath
2011
2017
2012
A game that has been completely ruined by esports. I hope everyone who was pushing for games to be considered real sports in the 2000s and 2010s gets kept up at night by all the games thoroughly ruined because of that. When it was good, it was REALLY good, but it's completely impenetrable to newcomers these days and every edge has been sanded off to create a very sterile, very balanced game that vaguely resembles the chaotic and inventive fun it used to be.
2023
2002
1993
2009
The exp scaling ruins the game. The only yakuza game that bullshitted me enough that I didn't want to even finish it. You know exactly what fight. Everything past chapter 9 is an increasing exercise in testing your patience. I shouldn't be overjoyed to be able to turn off random encounters with an equip because every one of them takes 10 minutes due to how obnoxiously tanky every enemy is. There is a good game under here and I hope to god yakuza 8 is better but the good moments just get fewer and far between and the boss of chapter 12 ohkoing my whole party after 7 hours of grinding the same fucking 5 floors of the battle arena is enough for me. This is on top of the fact that while doing every side quest available I was still insanely underleveled at all times because none of them reward you with anything useful, not even exp. God this game is frustrating. It should be a slam dunk, the writing is great and the characters are amazing and the minigames are the best in the series, but the exp scaling giving out .25% of a level up every random battle ruins it flatout.