One of those early PS4 titles I bought but never actually played more than a few hours of, which apparently was a third of the game now that I've beaten it. They certainly don't make breezy open-world games like this anymore - for better and worse. I actually do miss when the genre was just an excuse to have a big playground to mess around in with fun movement abilities, which is easily Second Son's biggest strength. But it also has little meat to it, both in terms of content and story, and even the three different powersets you're given are all essentially reskins of one other.

I was also hit with a huge wave of anti-nostalgia when the first thing the game asks you to do is perform actions with the motion controls and touchpad of the PS4 controller. Glad PlayStation games largely moved away from that and fast, because it was never fun.

A fun, compelling, stupid game that's worth playing. The side content is fun (although the real estate stuff was kinda dull) and the main story is great. Combat is the usual you get from RGG, kinda clunky but fun. The balance seems even more insane than normal, though. Enemies often guard or just attack straight out of knockback so I ended up relying on the same few safe combos. Majima's Breaker style is especially broken, dishing out insane damage while making himself nearly impossible to hit. It's not balanced in the slightest, but destroying a boss by breakdancing on him is admittedly very fun. Much like the other Yakuza games I've played, it's a mess, and a fun one at that.