+platforming and handling is definitely ahead of most early genesis titles, thanks to tighter control, a light physics system, and the ability for chuck to flutter in the air to nail tight jumps. a particular touch I like is that when running off ledges, chuck does full cartooney coyote time where he continues to run on air before freaking out and attempting to get back
+some lovely fm synth tracks here, with no grating noises or what-not
+the amount of special items that can be used for buffs or special attacks at a moment's notice is smart, even if the implementation in a menu is a bit cumbersome. it would be interesting to see a version of this game with a 6-button controller to alleviate this
+boss design is much more forgiving overall than contemporaries, though a couple have truly frustrating projectiles.
+I was worried I would dislike the "find the important item in the third stage of each area to progress" gimmick, but it actually adds some much-needed spice. the item is usually out of the way but not too out of the way, and it encourages light exploration in a positive way

-throwing the head is a neat idea but you get it so rarely and lose it so quickly. would've made more sense to lose it on death instead of just getting hit once
-much to my surprise, there is persistance in the level objects, from breakable blocks to items to temporary platforms. this is good in some cases (keeping you from having to break through walls after dying or letting you know which item capsules you've already searched) but overall is a bit of a drawback. the big issue here is that later levels often require you to make your way on falling blocks across insta-death hazards, and after a certain number of retries you'll likely not have any of these platforms left. it also prevents you from getting heads, items, or most crucially health drops after you've found the boon once, making retries more taxing. while persistance would be great in a platformer this old, the implementation was not done well
-certain enemies just are not built for chuck to deal with, since you get no knockback on enemies when you hit them. there are multiple that both move fast and take multiple hits, and there's no good way to stop them in their tracks without expending items. on that note: the ghosts that hide in the item capsules are absolutely infuriating

it feels like basically every design choice in this game is novel or forward-thinking for the time but implemented in such a way that it detracts from the experience. it's a shame too, as the core design here is significantly better than most other genesis games of the time, and gives a non-sega flair to the action game scene on the system. it's definitely worth trying a couple levels, or messing around with the much cuter magical hat game that is similar to this in japan on the mega drive.

Not without it's faults but widely overhated and another example of why Yakuza is continuously a top tier gaming experience. Okinawa setting does wonders here, allowing for a new, more laid back story and environment that makes this game feel like it's own thing compared to the prior games - for the first time, Kamurocho feels cramped, crowded, and unappealing, as Kiryu's perspectives begin to shift. And while the story occasionally veers too far into being convoluted, it's refreshingly small scale and personal, making the stakes feel just as large as before.

Gameplay is more dated then jank, still solid stuff but clearly a product of being an earlier game in the series, but it forces you to actually get good at the game despite the constant blocking from enemies. If any big problems here it's all in the villain group here who are wasted, along with a potential game changer of a reveal that doesn't go anywhere interesting. Outside of that, this is another winner for Yakuza.

Really great start to the Kill the Past series. I kinda thought there'd be more of a puzzle element but its kinda dropped outside of 1 every 'Transmitter' case or so. My only other issue is that the placebo half of the game is pretty slow. Good scenes here -especially towards the end- but its super repetitive just checking emails and wondering if the next scene will have you going to 1 of 4 other locations. Really odd since this half kind of serves to explain the oddities of the transmitter case but honestly I kinda enjoyed the more surreal nature of the transmitter cases, kept me intrigued throughout the first half. Wasn't sure if you were supposed to do the placebo cases after each corresponding 'transmitter' case and looking it up online didn't really give me a good answer to that either. Great music, great presentation and a really good narrative overall, just kinda slows down in the placebo half. Really excited to see what FRS & the 25th ward offer.

This is partially a review of the game itself but also a bit of a PSA about the fan translation of the game that was released a few months ago.

The game itself is better than I was expecting it to be. The combat is a pretty different system that attempts to make it much more like an actual MMA game with different fighting styles and making each one play a bit different. The story (as far as I got, I quit after about 10 hours due to technical frustrations- more on that later) is largely unremarkable. You play as Tatsuya (who I did not find to be particularly likable) and you fight people until you learn to become a better person while also discovering a secret plot within the Tojo Clan. The vast majority of side content is untranslated which is unfortunate because I think that is where the Yakuza games hold quite a bit of charm and where some of the most interesting world building is done.

Now, about the fan translation. Enough of the game has been translated where you can play through the entirety of the main story but most things outside of that have been left untranslated (and because of how the translation was done, the original Japanese text has been replaced with asterisks, meaning you can't even get a rough machine translation without a Japanese version of the game). That on its own wasn't enough to dissuade me from trying the game out but the translated version also has a lot of technical issues. Several segments of the game crash, opening certain menus can cause crashes, starting certain substories can cause crashes. Most of it can be worked around but it because so tedious and frustrating to deal with that I eventually tapped out and decided to wait/hope for a better and more complete fan translation to appear in the future.

So, overall, I would only recommend playing the game through this fan translation to the most diehard of Yakuza/RGG fans. Are you absolutely desperate to return to Kamurocho one more time and are willing to put up with all kinds of technical issues? Well then this game is there for you.

Maybe the most unfortunate thing is that I highly doubt this game will ever get a re-release or a remake. In interviews, it's never been brought up whereas RGG Studio have talked about wanting to do something for Kenzan and Ishin. So it seems this game and its sequel may be lost to time.

I played this in tandem with Disco Elysium and tbh I forgot how goddamn boring of a game this was, made for a good palate cleanser after any session of the former game. FO4 is considered either fairly disappointing or just quite bad due to its dumbing down on a lot of RPG mechanics (on top of a lot of other things). Yet going back to this game made me appreciate FO4 somehow since at least I thought some of the new additions in 4 were neat. There's really no reason whatsoever to go back to this when New Vegas exists. Hell, I thought by getting the DLCs I'd at least be adding some spice into this second playthrough but nah it just allowed me to get end game material at like, level 8. The biggest positive I can say this second time around was that it somehow managed to not crash on me every hour or so, god's blessing be upon me i guess. Overall it's just a really bland, monotonous and mind-numbingly easy game to go back to. Even Fallout 4 has stuff like factions and uncapped levels to entice another playthrough but if you go through GOTY (hell even if you've just played vanilla FO3, the dlc isn't anything you need to bother getting unless you want to sit through 2 hours of bad gunplay to get a Gauss Rifle and the best Power Armor in the first few hours of the game), you've pretty much seen everything. Not helped by the fact you can miss ~50% of the game and still get level capped, so why bother doing any other questlines. Here's a list of areas/questlines I didn't do because I didn't need the exp/weapons/money/karma nor did I want to waste anymore time with this than need be.
-The Agatha quest (I've never done this despite hearing this is one of the few good quests)
-The entire Arefu quest (other than getting the bobblehead here)
-Anything Oasis related
-Anything Tenpenny related
-The Canterbury Commons quest
-The grayditch quest
-The big town quest
-Anything Rivet City related that wasn't the main questline
And despite missing a good chunk of the game's locations and side quests, I capped my level and had a skill spread average in the 90s. And this was without getting any of the 'add bonus points into X skills' perks that were completely removed in NV. It was just an extremely mindless experience.
But at least Fawkes is good.

+this game basically presents four mini yakuza games with a finale tying everything up, and it's all the better for it. trying to stretch a single plot over 45 hours of story would be a death sentence
+after putting kiryu at the end of y4 with little relevance to the plot, they made sure to put him front and center here, and he's got one of the better stories of the bunch. his loneliness and listlessness as he attempts to provide for haruka and morning glory from afar is a standout arc for him
+the half-step engine upgrade here (that would be used for ishin, 0, kiwami, and fotns following this) is quite good, and makes this one of the better looking ps3 games in my opinion. all the character models look much less like action figures and the level of detail in each city is staggering
+haruka's dance sequences may be my favorite thing in the whole game, with both her main performance minigame and dance battle minigame being the best rhythm games in the series. her story is an unflinching view at the idol industry, and haruka's timid optimism matches her mentor mirei park's bipolar violent/cold streak that hides a yearning for motherhood. haruka also gets briefly kidnapped, and the scene actually feels important and not like lazy filler!
+the princess league competition and japan dome concert are some of the coolest moments in the series. winning feels like a significant accomplishment (esp since losing has lasting consequences), and the performance preceding the final battle serves as a greek chorus richly laying out the thematic underpinnings that encompass kiryu and the villains. truly amazing sequence
+I've always wondered what a game where you're penalized for disobeying the rules of the road would be like, and the kiryu taxi driving sequences nail it. my only complaint is that there's so few missions!
+saejima's hunting sidestory is an interesting and oddly relaxing mode to play in. the area is just large enough to explore without having to commit too much time to it, and hunting larger creatures feels suitably tense without being frustrating
+the improved batting cage minigame feels like its best incarnation, and shinada's sidestory revolving around it shows off the mode rather well
+substories across the board are on par with yakuza 0, if not in wackiness than certainly in quality of writing and difficulty of the prompts. the ones that come to mind immediately are the magical girl idol that akiyama manages for a day, shinada working at the convenience store, haruka having dinner with her vain classmates, and kiryu's acting one (admittedly basically the same as in yakuza 3). substories are also instantly visible on the map, in a major QoL move for the series (one that would be rolled back a bit for later entires)
+the comedy routine minigame is infamous in this version for its difficulty, but I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the translation and feeling of getting prompts correct. iirc the team that localized the remaster couldn't improve it and instead just added a meter that indicates when to press the button, which definitely could have been used here... also just lowering the score required to pass would have been useful. none of them took me more than a few tries to get right though
+baka mitai appears for the first time here, and I got a real kick out of kiryu crying into his drink over the morning glory shibu inu. the saejima/akiyama versions are lovely as well, the akiyama VA in particular has a great voice!
+the ramen cooking minigame... I had no idea about this one going in and enjoyed it quite a bit. I honestly would play it sometimes just for the hell of it
+getting to play as akiyama in this engine was an absolute godsend. he's like the rush style from 0/kiwami on crack, especially with his new launcher/aerial rave move he gets. shinada is also pretty fun to play, and I like how he can grab in the middle of a combo to deal with guarding enemies
+the two omi captains watase and katsuya are great, especially katsuya who reminds me a bit of mine from yakuza 3. I wish they got more screen time, though katsuya gets plenty of great moments bumping up against dyna-chair during the haruka/akiyama section.
+this game might qualify for the least amount of random deaths in a yakuza game, surprisingly enough. you can tell that they sort of know what people expect tho, given how many close scares they throw in throughout the story
+the stakes are so damn high in this game... it truly feels like a game worthy of its length, roster, and size. it's also the first entry that really reflects on how far the series has come and the unquestionable legend surrounding kiryu and his exploits

-issues I have with the combat in 0/kiwami begin to appear here, though it's still reliant on a lot of mechanics from 3/4. encounter rates are much higher, and the combat feels less click-y than any in the older games (akiyama being the exception ofc).
-saejima's special throw is virtually useless, considering how many ways there are to deal much higher damage without expending heat gauge. special moves in general feel overly situational especially as bosses are virtually immune to all of them
-the bosses in this game aren't exceptional, especially as this game worsens the yakuza 4 problem where the entire game feels like its at an early-game difficulty thanks to how often you must switch between characters. anyone who's gotten to this point in the series will likely feel disappointed tackling these compared to previous entries
-majima is supposedly a pivotal character in this game but is incredibly underutilized. he literally appears once at the end and clears up little of the mystery surrounding the plot even though he supposedly was a major player behind the scenes
-the story as a whole... yakuza 4 is incomprehensible in a way that makes it feel sloppy. this game, on the other hand, is confusing in a different way that makes it feel unfinished. the main villain has flimsy motivations and the explanations given for his actions fail to account for parts of plot given prior (what the hell did shinada's section have to do with anything?). there are multiple unexplained plot threads, and the whole game ends without the usual "things go back to normal" scenes that yakuza games tend to have (though this isn't necessarily a bad thing). the game sort of implies that there was supposed to be a third omi alliance lieutenant vying for the chairman position, but he's only mentioned briefly and dies off-screen. characters in the finale often routinely discover or figure out things they have absolutely no reason to know, with no explanation on how they figured them out
-saejima's section has two chapters where you're stuck in prison, with brief dream sequences in tsukimino to chop up the otherwise linear gameplay. the third chapter is entirely hunting-based in a mountain village, leaving most of his actual action to the fourth chapter. this makes his section feel unnecessarily long, and his interactions with kitakata feel like a dead-end for the plot. as I've implied earlier, the only sections that matter from a plot perspective are kiryu's and haruka/akiyama's
-the drag racing minigame is stiff, which is confusing to me given sega's racing game pedigree. thankfully they're very easy thanks to heat actions you can pull off right before the finish line that make losing nigh impossible. I also was disappointed at how many of the submissions in kiryu's sidestory were text-based, given how fun the actual taxi missions are
-the snowball fight minigame is laughably bad, what a shockingly poor FPS engine. thank god the trophy requirements are very slim for it
-the final boss fight is an infamously stupid twist, and a big difficulty spike as well. it's nowhere near as hard as jingu, but it's odd to have a boss with over 10 health bars and a goddamn healing ability after the previous bosses rarely exceeded 2 bars.
-performance on ps3 is not that great, especially in kamurocho, fukuoka, and kineicho. not really an issue given the remaster however

this game is absolutely an incomparable opus, and in some ways a manifesto on what a yakuza game should be. it's riddled with some of the series' highest highs and some pretty low lows, but as a package it's undeniably a fantastic game that is worth stomaching even the worst entries in the series to reach. it's an absolute monster too, with my playthrough clocking in around 80 hours just to reach the end (though I did the vast majority of the substories and finished every sidestory). this is also where I feel like the characterization began really taking off for this series, with much less of a focus on devising characters to tell a plot, and more on fleshing out the characters and making them appealing. a titan of a game I'm glad to finally have completed.

+I hadn't played through a game on my actual GBA in quite some time, and god does this game look good on it (the 101 variant specifically). the screen never feels squished and every sprite has a lovely amount of detail to it.
+control here is nice and tight, and it all works well with the limited controls. I was worried I wouldn't be able to pull off wall-jumps on GBA d-pad but I had no problems at all
+the chozo statues destination indicators are a polarizing feature, but I do appreciate how it streamlines the experience. after all, streamlining experience seems to be the name of the game here... most times it probably was not necessary, but I will say I probably would have wasted quite a lot of time trying to figure out what to do after getting the hi jump (specifically returning to brinstar to get the varia suit and then immediately returning to norfair)
+adding on to the above, while you're always told where to go, you often are not explicitly told how to get there. it's useful to have a rough idea of where you're supposed to be without given a route, and a lot of the fun comes from poking around an area until you find specific items or a secret passageway that will get you where you need to go
+in a lot of ways, this feels like taking the skeleton of the original metroid and overlaying all the good things from super metroid on top of it. it's not a bad thing at all!! having a new quickie metroid on the go is never a bad thing

-the game was never going to be long given the small size of the original game, but it's still a little shocking how quickly you can get to tourian blind. this game would be much better if they had taken out the space pirate section and added a third boss/area to the game after ridley instead
-mother brain is no fun to fight... this was the only area where I died over and over again. again, it's just an element from the original recreated here, but it could have been nice to have a proper boss fight instead
-the power grip is a bit stiff. it doesn't always grab when you want it to unless you're very clearly holding a direction on the d-pad into the wall (this is especially annoying when getting chased by space pirates), and when you're actually on the ledge it can be touchy for when you're trying to jump off, jump up, or climb up.
-the zero suit section sucks so bad... the stealth is so poorly implemented and it disrupts the pacing of the game tremendously. it feels like you're really intended to run away from space pirates for most of it, like why not actually let me fight back if that's the case. once you get the suit it's not much more fun either, since the enemy variety is virtually nonexistent

I loved it up until mother brain and then didn't like anything past that. I also don't feel much reason to go back and do all of the 100% backtracking since you can't do it until right before the final boss anyway... again the pacing is very odd. other than sour ending it's a very fun mini metroidvania to blow through in a couple of days, and it was fun for me to pull out my gba for the first time in years as well.

+I love the premise here, it's especially shocking at the beginning when you don't know very much about the world and the setting. the juxtaposition of brutality and levity is sharp
+the game makes many attempts to tackle weaknesses with the Ace Attorney series, and some of them are definitely successful. I appreciate how interactable objects in the environments are shown, how it won't let you leave areas without getting all the information neeed, the limited number of evidence supplied for each argument sequence, and many other things I can't remember at the moment
+the music is godlike... takada really outdid himself here
+the way the secrets are spooled out over the course of the game is well-done imo; overall the pacing is top-notch. it helps that later chapters have short investigations and long trials, and each trial usually has some oddity that reveals more about the universe of the game
+I also enjoyed the ending quite a bit. they absolutely stick the landing, and the way the mystery clears up in the final chapter is rewarding
+playing on windows has one big advantage: the mouse makes aiming during the trials a breezy process. I really would not have enjoyed playing this with a controller I think

-I really don't like being constantly led around and fed info by byakuya and kyoko... it feels like makoto not only lacks any agency but is also a complete dullard. it doesn't make me feel like I'm solving the case when the two of them are doing so much of it for me, and being incredibly condescending to boot. it's even more annoying when they (specifically byakuya) make obvious mistakes...
-specific annoyance: why are there argument sections where another character says the contradiction, and I have to turn their argument into a bullet and use it on whatever they were responding to in the first place. the reasoning wasn't my own! how would this not be better just as dialogue, or with actual evidence I can use for my own contradiction
-the rhythm minigame is broken on the pc port, as far as I'm aware. whatever the case, the beat to click along with is not properly in sync with the music. I really should not have played this game on Mean difficulty...
-the cases in the middle dip in quality... I think there's frequently a slump in these kinds of games so it's not really a surprise to me here
-a lot of the characters are pretty one note. esp as more people get picked off, I feel like the main survivors are not that great of a group

dr1 throws a lot of ideas at the wall, and the core design is novel and rock-solid. it's enough to carry this game beyond the deficiencies in characterization and the overabundance of needless gameplay additions/minigames, and it makes me very excited to dive into the later entries as I know they are considered improvements on this initial formula. first games can always struggle a bit to make all the concepts gel, and at the very least this one manages to pull through with a lot of heart and a really fascinating premise.