458 reviews liked by Takumi


This review contains spoilers

I hated this game when I played it at launch, you know. Pure, utter vitriol. It actually made me tap out of the franchise for years until 7. For the longest time, it occupied near-permanent spot in my Bottom 25 list. I've often said that Yakuza was the refuge for MGS fans who were scorned by MGSV, and sure enough Yakuza itself scorned me with 6.

What I wanted from this game was a good Last Yakuza Game. A nice sendoff to a series I'd fallen hard and fast for over the preceding years. What I got wasn't that, it was a relatively lowkey and frankly boring mess with bad combat, droll side content and a complete disconnect from the games that it's meant to cap off. All of these criticisms still apply; the combat is slow and uncomfortable due to being a beta test for the Dragon Engine, a lot of it is just plain boring and the Yakuza Conspiracy at the heart of this game is the franchise's least interesting, the side content is snoozeworthy and god knows it has fuck all to do with the previous games.

Anyway, the thing about growing up is that change usually isn't an explosive shift towards something new, a sudden binary change or what have you. It's walking through life, day by day, not noticing any changes until you stop, rub your face and look behind only to be met with a different life - a different you.

Coming back to Y6 now that I'm much older feels strange. Difficult to articulate.

It is indeed a bad Yakuza game, but I realize now that it's not even a Yakuza game by design.

Y6 is a Kiryu Kazuma game. It's not about Yakuza, it's not about conspiracies, and it's not about clans or supporting casts or whatever:

It's about Kiryu, the guy who leads these games but only really got any meaningful depth in Yakuza 3, and has mostly been carried by side content.

It's about fatherhood, both in the literal sense (of Kiryu as Haruka's adoptive father) and more abstract ones (Kiryu's mentor role to Daigo, a man whose father was murdered by Kiryu's best friend). Mercifully, it avoids a lot of pitfalls that other sad stories fall into by not being a hyper-maschismo "fathers are the most important men in a girl's life! :D" tale nor is it a weird self-insert story by a director who recently became a father (I fucking see you, Ken Levine).

It's about an old man who is at once the worst Yakuza on earth yet also the textbook definition of their ideals. A man who disavows all that nonsense yet is ironclad in his loyalty and would take bullets for those in need. A man who respects his enemies if respected in turn, and who mourns a tragedy regardless of which 'side' it comes from.

It's about the process of blinking and realizing you're in a new world that you'd slipped into by accident; a wrong turn on the road that you can't reverse out of.
His 'daughter' is all grown up, old enough to court men and have children. She no longer just has 'children's problems', but faces many of the same woes Kiryu's compatriots ran into in older times.
The orphans he doted upon in days gone by are now young adults, ready to enter the world he'd sheltered them from. The whacky yet noble Yakuza he spent many years living alongside are now a minority. Besides Majima, Daigo and Saejima it's all unfamiliar faces and the young.
Time has eroded the difference between the Tojo Clan, the Omi Alliance, the Triads and the Jingweon mafia, for they're all staffed by young, ambitious, ruthless and amoral criminals. So deep is their decay that even an ambitious businessman with no scruples can pose as one.

When this game came out 5-6 years ago, I hated it because it wasn't what I wanted; a big glorious send-off to everything Yakuza related. The Endgame of Yakuza titles, if you want to go for the low hanging fruit. I wanted to see and fight alongside/against tons of supporting characters, I wanted characters like Majima and Daigo to have arcs running concurrent to Kiryu's, I wanted the villain to be some ghost from Kiryu's past come back for revenge. And when it didn't give me that, I hated it.

Coming back to it now, I respect it. I respect that RGG Studios opted to go against the expected finale and to create what's basically a character study, for they've always been fans of pushing the envelope and this is no different. Don't get me wrong, most of the complaints up above are still present (The Yamato 2 plot is so fucking dumb, it makes the baby lockers seem sensible), but they're easily ignorable honestly? If you focus on this as a character study you have a relatively compact story where most characters are mirrors to some aspect of Kiryu and the concepts he embodies that also manages to not overstay its welcome compared to the game immediately before it.

It's doubly easier to respect what this game did in hindsight because it set the stage for yet another Yakuza renaissance and a significant paradigm shift for the series. From this game we got two Judgment titles and the utterly mythical Yakuza 7. In an age where most publishers seem content to shit out More Games in an endless status quo, it's actually nice that Yakuza avoided that. I really do hope Y8 is the end of Kiryu.

The combat still sucks tho.

Followup from my last review.

Bumping this one up a bit because, in hindsight, I do honestly think the finale is worth it and in fact would've preferred Gaiden to consist of nothing but the first hour and last two hours.

A lot of the reactionary praise I've seen for IW talks about that game's respect for the series' legacy and... Even putting aside that it's so observably wrong that reappraisals of IW in a few months will say the same thing, I think Gaiden's Important Bits and 6 ultimately do a better job of addressing the franchise's history.

Gaiden, ignoring the faff in the middle, really stands out upon reflection (and in light of IW) because it's perhaps the first and only title in this series to admit that a lot of the past plots were ridiculous. The last hour says it upfront: The dreams of the Yakuza - arrogant, egotistical maniacs playing at modern Shogun - don't mean a damn thing.
There's no real celebration of the Yakuza here. Even compared to Judgment's dimmer view on them, everyone in Gaiden who enjoys being a Yakuza is either pathetic or insane. Yeah it's kinda cringe and on the nose that Nishitani III is a sadistic rapist and Shishido is such a pathetic little man that his final phase is easier than some trash mobs, but what do you expect? Who else would covet the power of the Yakuza? They're reduced to beating up old men and hiding away on a boat.

The final boss especially is great, there's a lot of excellent visual storytelling going on which is unusual for this franchise. Kiryu taking one last scar to keep the Yakuza away from hurting innocents, Shishido's bulk being what destroys the Omi iconography, Kiryu's Daidoji gadgets being useless against Shishido which forces him to rely on good ol' tactics, Shishido standing against the Omi logo but looking tiny... It's just so good, dude.

Don't get me wrong, I'm ignoring a lot of shit. Agent style still feels awful and gimmicky to use, the Daidoji stuff is nonsense, after IW it's so obvious this was written after that game wrapped, the endless callbacks are embarassing, and the soundtrack is wimply.

But, after IW? I'm willing to give it a pass, because at least the awfulness isn't padded out. In-out, 8 hour game. Nice and clean.

Also god First Summer Uika is inhumanely beautiful. What's up with that?

This has to be the funniest marketing gimmick ever made. Honestly. It makes the Hatsune Miku Dominos promotion or the Saint's Row 4 ultimate edition seem tame.

For starters, it's just a copy of Portal with an RTX Remix injector bundled on. It comes with the dev menu. If you want to play Portal 1 for free you can get this, push Alt+X and disable everything. [This ended up not being true, I forgot that I owned Portal 1.]

But if you want to actually experience the shitshow that is Portal With RTX, you can also just open the menu and undo the shitty DLSS upscaler preset the game comes with. Setting it to any of the normal presets massively boosts performance. Yes, the default settings are an attempt to convey to laymen that their RTX card isn't good enough and they need a better one.

As for the actual game, it's a fascinating look into the minds of people obsessed with 'graphics' as a concept to such an extent that it becomes a detriment.

Portal With RTX looks terrible. Just absolute dogshit. I think whoever signed off on this should be forced to do a Drama course in University using only Garry's Mod models and lighting.

The original Portal has a very intentional, meticulously refined aesthetic. It is very bright, cold, and unwelcoming. Almost nothing in Aperture is rounded, with most of the geometry being angular brutalist walls and panels that look about as inviting as a field of landmines. It's very obvious just from 5-10 minutes of Portal that nothing lives in Aperture and nobody has been there in ages. Later on, you literally pull back the curtain of the testing chambers and run through back corridors, maintenance shafts and warehouses which completely turn the aesthetic on its head... By design. Intent. Yes, that's the word we're focusing on: 'Intent'.

Because Portal With RTX takes a sledgehammer to that meticuously crafted aesthetic. Chambers are now much darker, being lit up by overtuned light sources cast by either the few ambient lights, the lights bolted onto doors, or the red buttons. The latter in particular bathe everything in a sickening red glow that's so overdone it makes many Garry's Mod maps seem like professional work. There isn't really much of a difference now between the chambers and the lategame areas as a result.

But.

But.

There's a worse problem.

Whenever I talk about game design to people I'm friends with, I will more likely than not bring up Valve's amazing ability to signpost things without explicitly having a character say "go here", or having a big flashing arrow on the HUD telling you where to go. Most of the time they'll simply have lights, a literal sign, or clever lighting to guide you. Portal 1 in particular was great for this.
Portal With RTX is horrible. The 'modern' lighting gives equal importance to everything, and in a game where the lighting was handcrafted, this means player guidance is at an all time low. I cannot imagine this being your first experience with Portal, or Valve games.
Now, I'm a Portal autist, if you put a gun to my head and told me to run this game blindfolded, I'd be done before you had the gun loaded. For someone whose first experience with Portal is this game, though? They're in for a world of hurt, because in some chambers the lighting is so bad that it can be difficult to see cubes or doors at first. The later areas are sometimes pitch black, which is an awful statement to make about a mod for a game where nothing is pitch black BY DESIGN.

When I say "This is just Portal 1 with an RTX injector", there's no word of a lie there...

...Which means the developer commentary is still there. Yes, you can listen to the minds at Valve Software elucidate you as to how they very intentionally, carefully and almost neurotically tailored every single aspect of this game to perfection, all while playing a mod that's about as carefully created as AI art.

And you know what? AI art is a good comparison, because this feels like AI art. There's no regard for design, or consistency, or that magical keyword intent. Just a manic, soul-destroying fixation on 'looking good'. Beauty doesn't have to mean anything to these people, it just has to look good at a cursory glance. Spiritually, there's no difference between this... """product""", and going onto Midjourney and typing "portal realistic". This is very clearly a product made by and targeted at an audience for whom the word 'better' automatically means 'prettier'.

I was neutral on raytracing before actually getting a card capable of it, not really caring for the whole debate. I found devout shooters of it to be annoying, and devout haters of it to be wasting their time on what I perceived as the little brother to PhysX and HairWorks - two of Nvidia's other gimmicks that everyone replicated with ease.
After this, and seeing how ineffectual it is in Cyberpunk 2077/Mechwarrior 5/Resident Evil 4? Raytracing is a scam, dude. You can do better shit with Reshade, and it's free.

The original Portal is ten dollars. On sale, it usually becomes a dollar. Go play that instead.

RTX? More like FarTX because this freaking stinks.

It feels mean to compare this to its predecessor but Virtue's Last Reward just doesn't have the sheer joy and thrill that Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors had. Its lore simultaneously wants to develop and exacerbate the insanity that 999 spent slowly unspooling, but it doesn't want to approach that level of multifaceted storytelling with nearly the same drama or heightened sense of panic. When I learned of a new element within the story, I didn't feel as strong of a sense of bewilderment or clairvoyance-level realization, but rather a sense of mild satisfaction. That's the thing that gets me about this game, I suppose: It works, but it doesn't tug at my emotions as much as 999 did. The chaos is ramped up but it just doesn't feel as urgent or interesting.

The character drama in particular is maybe my biggest gripe with the game overall. Every conversation is considerably longer and more quippy at the cost of information density, there's this sense of irreverence that feels extremely out of place. Of course, you could blame this on the advent of the Danganronpa franchise and its mockery in the face of certain death, but that series has its moments to refrain from indulging in its hypersexuality and humor in service of a bigger idea that climbs towards a hostile thriller screenplay. Additionally, the irreverence is used to help build onto the dread—were it not for Monokuma's complete and utter disregard for his subjects' lives, there'd be less panic among them.

The characters in VLR, on the other hand, are poised to joke and shove corny banter in nearly every conversation given enough time, such that it stands to kill a lot of the intensity that the holistic story builds. I would much rather a short, important conversation than a long one that stands to remove any given amount goodwill I have for the main characters. This lack of brevity is also not helped by the gargantuan amount of time that it takes between various novel segments, showcasing a very annoying dot moving across the map for every single possible migration of the characters. At a certain point in my playthrough, I started scheduling for these intermissions and texting friends over actually trying to remain immersed with a medium that ejected me from immersion to begin with.

That's not to say it's a bad game, far from it—once again in no small part to the thoughtful escape room design employed with a similar (but not exact same) grace as its predecessor. The increase in difficulty is something I rather appreciate, even if it comes at the cost of breaking immersion sometimes. I especially appreciate the safe system, though it has its drawbacks with certain room-end puzzles. The broader story itself, divorced from being attached to the game and the individual writing choices I dislike, is excellent scaffolding around the original lore that 999 set up. It's just a shame that this story had to shake out this way, because as a game it fails to excite me beyond its lore and individual chambers.

EDIT, 23-MARCH-2024:

My neglect to mention the very casual misogyny present in this game is starting to bug me greatly, so allow me to comment on the reality that Sigma and the rest of the characters either are victims or enablers of horrific womanizing. In a shocking departure from 999's relatively minute jokes about sexuality that are unimportant, minor facets of individual characters only appearing once or twice, Virtue's Last Reward takes the bold move to make Sigma a sexual harasser. In every possible route, he is poised to interact with at least one of the female characters with a variety of dehumanizing and, frankly, horrible sex pestery. He even remarks that Clover (who in VLR is small and skinny but an adult) is seemingly jailbait.

Misogynist characters are not inherently detrimental to a story if it is done with the tact and angling that it deserves. I hold the idea that depiction is not necessarily endorsement of the depicted. However, VLR's main character being an incessantly horny poon-hound who can be led to do just about anything with the promise of someone's panties getting stripped off is so irritating after 20 hours of playing the game that it ceases to be worthwhile as a facet of a character worth exploring. There is no benefit to it in this story.

I haven't done every route yet
but this might be the funniest fucking VN ever made https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847812378628116/1218758562726281307/Untitled.png?ex=6608d45c&is=65f65f5c&hm=eefd55b36d8340c6e66f51f9c172437c2c24cf45b29fdd72418a83bd79614bb5&

All jokes aside, it's a cool and very important piece of history. Can really see how many VNs were inspired by it like its immediate successors including Kamaitachi No Yoru or Tegami, let alone later VNs. If nothing else, Otogirisou is an important history lesson to experience for any VN fan imo, and it's extremely easy to get the first good ending in ~2 hours without a guide.

Even in a silly group reading setting, I was scared several times by some of the pixel art and noises. The credits music in particular is rather beautiful.

I might type more when I read the other routes but anyways enjoy the fan translation title screen for now
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847812378628116/1218734760340226190/image.png?ex=6608be31&is=65f64931&hm=678cd0abdcbf0adbe13ca61b6a38b6aade5180cf40ecaa1cdbdae8afb7f108a2&

Incredible things were happening on the Super Famicom in 1992.

"Are you ready for the sexualising minors in your story lesson?"

Kazutaka Kodaka gulped.

Katsura Hashino nodded.

Nisio Isin blinked nervously.

"Yes, Gen Urobuchi" they said in unison.

Foram 83 horas, 83 horas conhecendo esses personagens, seus dramas, suas vidas, e depois, o significado que cada um deu pra continuar em frente. Quando comecei a jogar Persona imaginava que o jogo ia ser bacana, mas nunca pensei que ia me marcar nesse nível.

A mensagem que esse jogo carrega, vou segurar comigo durante minha vida inteira, nada me preparou pra reta final disso aqui, quando menos esperava eu já tinha chorado mais com aquele final do que com qualquer coisa que já vi/joguei na minha vida inteira.

Hoje, dia 12 de março, minha jornada com Persona 3 Reload chega ao fim, no futuro vou lembrar desse jogo com muito carinho, porque agora, quero só eternizar meus momentos com ele em um lugar, não importa onde.