Two months ago, I finished Lost Judgment. I started Yakuza 5 back in the third week of August, and it’s now December. I took a break from Yakuza intentionally, so I’d be fresh for Lost Judgment and so I could let Y5 breathe a little. As a result, it feels like I’ve been playing this behemoth of a game for my entire life. As befitting of the game, this review is going to be very long, I expect. But, in short, one of RGG Studio’s crowning achievements and a great experience overall. Spoilers ahead.

I’m going to tackle this by chapter, since that makes the most sense. So, first up: Kiryu. This game starts off a lot more cinematic than maybe any other game in the series, or even Judgment. There’s a lengthy cutscene showing Suzuki / Kiryu’s daily routine from waking up, seeing his girlfriend(!?), going to work at the taxi company, and finishing out the day at a ramen shop. It’s incredibly well-done, and sets up the idea of each chapter as its own individual story. The framing for Kiryu is great - separated from Haruka and the other kids for an unknown reason, arguably at his lowest point. IMO this very intentional pacing goes a long way in making this game hit home. It’s not present in every character’s section, but it does a great job differentiating this from the rest of the series, especially Yakuza 4. Kiryu’s story is compelling, with him trying to avoid the responsibility of helping the Tojo after seeing Daigo, and then avoiding the Tojo guys that investigate Daigo’s disappearance. It introduces Watase, who’s a very fun character and one of the stronger Omi guys in the series. Kiryu’s section features two great fight sequences: the rather good fight in the branch Omi office and the absolutely incredible and infamous Kiryu vs 100 Tojo officers. What a great way to cap off his section.

Every character in Yakuza 5 has their own bespoke minigame tailored to their story. Kiryu’s is taxi driving and taxi racing. The game actually breaks these up into two parts, “story” and “side” missions. In Kiryu’s case, the story is about taxi racing, and the side is about taxi driving. I found the latter honestly pretty aggravating, and I couldn’t be bothered to do more than the introductory one, but the former is great fun. RGG managed to make a serviceable driving physics engine, relatively similar to Mario Kart, once you get to know it. The story of this section is quite good, and it cemented my intention to do the sidestories for each character.

Kiryu’s location is Nagasugai, and it’s probably in my top 3 or 4 locations in the series. It’s well-realized, pretty big, and feels different from Kamurocho. It also feels graphically impressive, and is a real step up from Y4’s Kamurocho. The ramen minigame is super fun (even if I only did it once), and it just feels like a lived-in city. Collecting the garbage is a funny little way to bring that home, even if the garbage is just the same shine effect for every ground thing in the series. Overall, Kiryu’s section feels like a mini Yakuza game. If you had just packaged it for $25 with all the substories and content in the city and ended it after the final fight, I’d be alright with it.

Saejima’s section starts off terribly, repeating the prison sequence from Yakuza 4 for no real good reason other than the plot demands that Saejima be back in prison. It’s a scary prospect and worried me that the game was about to nosedive in quality, and, while it does for a few minutes with the minutiae of prison fetch quests and nothing but uninteresting dialogue, the prison sequence is far better than Yakuza 4’s, and serves a much better purpose. Saejima’s escape with Baba is a terrific portion of the game, and leads to the bear and the mountain. The arc of Saejima helping look after Baba and investigate the town is excellent and aside from the next chapter, one of the bigger departures from the norm that the series has ever done. You have a very small “city” part with the village and a larger open world with the mountain, and that’s it. It feels claustrophobic and open, and Saejima is even more of an outsider than usual. One minor complaint I have about this section though is actually in its localization. For anyone aware of Hokkaido history / culture, the village is clearly a Matagi village, bear hunting and animal worship included. In fact, they SAY Matagi at one point (either Saejima or a villager), but the localized subtitles cut it out, and just refer to them as “ritualistic hunters” or some such thing. I get that when Yakuza 5 first came out, there was still the belief that gamers in the west didn’t care about Japanese culture or history, and the game itself almost didn’t release, sure. But this is Yakuza 5 Remastered, released in 2019, and the team did go back and make changes to the script in other locations, so it’s very disappointing that they left this cultural tidbit unknown to people who don’t speak Japanese. Putting that aside, I love this section and the hunting minigame. Again, I only did the main story and not the side ones (which are more like hunting substories, really), but going up against Yama-oroshi is really satisfying and the gameplay of the hunting is quite well done. I lost about a week to just playing an hour or so of that a night. Saejima’s actual plot-relevant section in Tsukimino is pretty forgettable, as is the stuff with Baba. Tsukimino is a bit weaker as a location than Nagasugai, IMO. The mountain is so weird and fresh by comparison to everything else in the entire series that Tsukimino’s relatively standard layout is a bit less interesting. The pervading snow and Christmas feel is a nice touch, as is the snow festival, but I just didn’t find myself getting too attached to it on the whole. Combat-wise, Saejima is a bit more interesting than he was in 4, although he quickly becomes completely OP with the Herculean Strength ability, which renders him immune to all flinching and interruptions when he’s in heat mode. It makes every boss afterwards a bit of a joke, honestly. Otherwise he’s got more cool double finishers and charged moves, plus the ability to pick up big stuff and swing people around. His heat actions are pretty brutal. Both he and Kiryu are absolute demons in this game, you genuinely feel for the random goons they dispatch.

Haruka’s section is probably the single best “chapter” in the studio’s history. What an incredible stroke of genius it was to take the relatively rote formula expected of a Yakuza game (beating up dudes, running around town, etc.) and completely turn it on its head with a character that the audience has developed a bond with over multiple games. To get mechanical for a second, it just goes to show how ingrained certain parts of the yakuza formula were by this point that by the simple act of removing them you get some really fresh perspective. Haruka being able to explore Sotenbori and do stuff at her own pace without running into punks every 8 seconds is such a minor thing but it adds so much. Haruka’s idol training is brutally fun, including both the surprising variety of side stuff and her mainline Princess League story with its rhythm game gameplay. And it’s not just fun, it’s a very smart twist on the perspectives of the main characters. Much in the same way that it worked for Judgment with Yagami as an outsider to yakuza struggles, Haruka is not going down the path of the Tojo Clan. Her perspective and approach to the world is vastly different from Kiryu and the gang’s. Her story is interesting, too. The characters introduced in this section are some of the best in the game, and the twists and turns of the chapter are exciting. Mirei Park is a fascinating character, and her connection to the broader story is both surprising and clever. And then Haruka’s section gets even better! Akiyama comes into the fold! Some people complain about his inclusion being too minor, but I disagree. Akiyama lends such a grounded personality to any scene he’s in, and acting as Haruka’s guardian (especially when things kick off) is a great bit of fanservice and character building. Akiyama is, notably, a slacker and something of a ladies’ man. Having him buck up and protect Haruka when it’s necessary is a great bit of growth - arguably better than some of the other mainstays of the series have ever gotten. Haruka is a badass in her own right, this section makes that plenty clear. She lives on her own in Sotenbori, works and trains really hard, and takes no shit from anyone. The part where Katsuya explains to Kanai that Haruka is essentially a hardened yakuza from her years around Kiryu, Ryuji, Nishiki, etc. is fantastic.

Shinada is super weird. He’s obviously the odd one out in terms of his connection to the story and because he’s the only new character. I was sort of ready to be underwhelmed by his section but it’s pretty good overall! It focuses a bit less on the yakuza politics and little more on the individual story of Shinada, which is compelling. His side activity is sort of meh, but it’s not terrible. I wish he had had a real baseball minigame, but I think that’s something in Y6? Shinada’s part is quite funny, and Takasugi, the lender that hounds Shinada for the length of it, is a really great character. The details of the Nagoya family were lost on me a little bit, if I have to be honest, the game refers to a bunch of people by name several times and I had forgotten who they were. Shinada’s weapon trainer is fantastic, Ayanokoji is a funny guy with some really fun fights and a hilarious arc. Shinada’s city, Kineicho, is probably the weakest in the game, lacking the quality worldbuilding and layout of Nagasugai and also lacking the definitively different vibe of Tsukimino. Ultimately it kind of just feels like a mini Kamurocho, which is in turn a little disappointing since you’ll be in Kamurocho in a couple hours for the finale.

The finale is weird. Firstly, it’s 5 chapters long, so it’s like multiple finales wrapped together. The first ones are basically just giving the context for why each character comes back to Kamurocho, which means that Kiryu’s first chapter is like 8 minutes long. Shinada and Akiyama meet up, which is cute. The 3rd chapter finale is the first real one, with the big rooftop fight between Saejima, Kiryu, and Watase and Katsuya. I really like this fight and the leadup to it, just very stupid meathead stuff, reminiscent of 2’s ending. The part afterwards is pretty bad, however. Maybe the weakest cutscene in the whole game, where Kurosawa’s plan is revealed and Y4’s gun shenanigans return as every person on the planet shows up on this roof to shoot each other. It sucks. But then the real finale starts once Shinada is brought into the fold of the main gang. The finale finale is pretty darn good, IMO. RGG does the smart thing and switches between several perspectives throughout it, giving us a bird’s eye view of what’s going on in Kamurocho. The first cutscene is EXCELLENT - Kiryu and Akiyama fighting outside the Millennium Tower is a real highlight. To get negative for a second, Y5’s final bosses are all… mediocre. Saejima’s fight is just Majima, which at least is explained sort of okay by the game (it’s still pretty dumb though), but it’s not an interesting fight. Shinada’s fight is thematically interesting, as he and Baba are very different people. Baba is running from the responsibility of his treason against multiple people and grappling with his past while looking to give up on his future. On the other hand, Shinada has never shied away from responsibility, and cannot abide Baba’s threat against Haruka, even if he doesn’t go through with it. It’s a pretty dull fight though, since this is the 3rd or 4th time you fight Baba and he doesn’t make for a fun antagonist for Shinada’s moveset. Akiyama’s final fight is awesome from a context perspective, with an all-timer cutscene after it, but the fight itself is dull as hell. Kanai is a boring character to have be the final boss and his gameplay is just lame. Not very hard but not very fun. Then… Aizawa. The guy who really shouldn’t be the final boss. His fight is, again, very cool from a setting and QTE standpoint, but it’s not that cool narratively and I found it absurdly easy. Playing this game on normal was perhaps a mistake as Kiryu’s upgraded tiger drop shreds Aizawa at insane speed. The final scenes are interspersed with Haruka’s moments on stage, as the whole finale has been. After the fight with Aizawa, Haruka reveals her intent to quit the idol biz. While I really don’t have the problems that some people do with her decision making and choice here, I think it was a missed opportunity from a gameplay perspective. They already made the effort to overlap Haruka’s last song with the final fight, so they really should’ve made it a playable rhythm section. Haruka is the only protagonist that doesn’t get a “final boss” and I think the game suffers for it. I’m sure it would’ve pissed the people who disliked her gameplay off even more, but I don’t care. The after credits cutscene is nice, and seeing Haruka and Kiryu reunited after the whole game apart is great, although I felt like a full 5-protag final cutscene might’ve been more effective.

To give some broader thoughts on the story, I think it’s alright. It’s quite strong in the individual pre-finale chapters as a mystery, slowly unwinding on this unknowable plan. It builds like this throughout the game and then just… sort of… stops. The game more or less ties up every detail, but it ultimately just comes down to “a guy wanted to take over / crush the Tojo and Omi(?)” and doesn’t get much more interesting than that. The bigger picture stuff with Park, Majima, and Katsuya is not so much a new thread but a get out of jail free card. Majima doesn’t refer to Park or Katsuya in the ending, so it basically just served the purpose of setup and tying up the loose ends of “why did that guy do that?” instead of making any real meaningful addition. On the whole, I felt like each individual chapter was better than the finale, and the slow drip of plot content in those chapters was pretty effective - Kiryu finding out about the Omi and Majima, Saejima hearing about Majima and getting expelled from the Tojo, Haruka being let in on Park’s past and Katsuya’s ambitions(?) with Akiyama at her side, and Shinada hanging out with Daigo. Those individual stories are probably better than the sort of disappointing Kurosawa and Aizawa team that ends the game, but that’s okay. Yakuza 5 is essentially a collection of 4 separate games and stories with a broader interconnected plot and I’m alright with the broader one being just whelming. It felt like there were several moments where a cutscene could’ve been added to help sell various parts of the finale, but I imagine that at a certain point RGG just wanted this behemoth of a game to be done, so that’s fine.

Quick bullet points of other positives that don’t fit into any section: Taiko no Tatsujin!!!! The photography guy! The chef guy (who is a real professional chef)! Santa Saejima! The karaoke options! The Akiyama dance battles! Shrimp Shinada! The substories are really good!

I know I’ve forgotten tons of stuff. This is a MASSIVE game, almost to its detriment, and it’s a given that I can’t mention everything. I have no idea what my final time ended up being because the suspend feature on PS5 breaks the gametime tracking in the Remastered Collection, but I’m sure it was upwards of 70 hours. Despite that, I ended up getting only ~32% completion. Insane.

This is the game that essentially closed out Yakuza as a massive, multi-character experiment and led directly to the end of Kiryu’s story (through both 0 and 6), and what a way to go out. There are parts of the overarching story that don’t land perfectly, sure, but the individual stories do work. The oddities of the universe are the best handled they’ve ever been, the writing is consistently funny. It’s ambitious, maybe even dangerously so, but it succeeds on those ambitions 9/10 times. It wormed its way into my brain and has some of the best character moments in the series, as well as remarkably solid gameplay from start to finish. Not to mention the absurd scale of the content available. I may have been a little all over the place in this review, but I want to be clear that this game was like a drug for me for 3 months and I think it’s excellent. I ended up making a lot of memories with this game, oddly mostly about food. We had salads one night after I started Kiryu's section, I played Saejima's hunting section nightly while we worked through this gigantic cake someone bought us, and we had tacos from this new place on the night I finished it. It's weird how you can attach memories to parts of games like that, but it really does add something to the experience. Overall, one of the strongest efforts in the series, and easily my favorite mainline entry, just ahead of Yakuza 3.

Up next: Ryu Ga Gotoku Ishin!

I finished Judgment earlier this year in my binge of RGG games. I was in the middle of Yakuza 5 when I stopped to take a break and play some other stuff before Lost Judgment came out. I wanted to give this game its due time and not rush through it, so I took about a month to play it, and "finished" it today. I logged 48 hours, having completed the main story, 7/10 school stories (which I plan to go back to ASAP), and the majority of side cases, with a couple not done. Suffice it to say, this is one of RGG's best games, with the best gameplay the studio has put out to date, a killer story, incredible visuals, and an amazing soundtrack. This will probably be a fairly (very) lengthy review. Spoilers for character archetypes and general plot details ahead, but no names associated with deaths / crimes.

The first thing I'd like to cover is the general differences between this and the first game. Judgment is one of my favorite games, but that's with the caveat that the gameplay is not without its issues, and the story carries those weaknesses. Lost Judgment improves on every single detriment that plagued the first game. Annoyances like the constant Keihin Gang fights are completely gone, and tailing missions and chases have been cut back drastically, as well as improved. Tailing missions are relatively harder, with your targets being more on alert, and you have more options for hiding in public, as well as contextual cover. Chases are sort of the same, albeit less common. Of the ones that do exist, they might go on for ~30 seconds too long, but that's pretty minor. Ijincho is a wonderful playground, just like in 7. In fact, when the game actually wrangled me back to Kamurocho for story moments, I was a bit disappointed. It wasn't until the first time that happened that I realized how much I enjoy Ijincho and how much it makes this game feel different from the previous. There are a couple places from 7 I wish could’ve been included in this version of the map that aren’t, but that’s the RGG way, I suppose. Being able to skateboard around is a godsend. It makes traversal faster and more fun. I was expecting it to be absolutely awful (RGG historically has an inconsistent relationship with their physics engine) but I was completely wrong. The new gameplay additions, stealth and climbing, are just okay. They don't show up much, and when they do they're short sequences without much opportunity for failure. The best new inclusion is probably either the detective dog or the Buzz Researcher, which enables the Chatter scraping from the first game to act as a source of side cases. Probably the most interesting way to go about getting side cases in the series' history. I didn't play much of the Master System games but they're a neat inclusion.

Combat was improved massively. Snake style is one of the best and most fun styles in the series' history, and has great utility. All of Yagami's moves are faster and more easily comboed, and switching styles is now nigh-instantaneous. Boxing style (DLC) is fantastically fun as well, and upgrading it alongside the story it's associated with is neat. In fact, it may be too strong, since it burned through the final bosses. Mortal wounds are gone, but mortal strikes exist to enable the mortal counters, which are fun and add a level of tension to any boss fight. There are an insane number of upgrades, and the change to SP (notably, increasing it by 5000% over the original) matches that. I think this game might be, overall, easier than the first game, and there are one or two chapters where I really felt there needed to be a boss fight and there wasn’t one, but the game gives you ample opportunity to play around with the new combat system. The finale includes a rather lengthy fight that definitely helped me drop some of that concern. Overall you have a massive amount of options, tons of variety, and a real sense of power in Yagami’s moves. I got to see a section of Judgment purely by chance yesterday at a friend's house and it was good to see just how different (and worse) that game's combat is by comparison.

Talking about the story is difficult since I don’t want to spoil it, but I’ll try my best. If you want a TL;DR: It’s very good and very interesting, with good villains and interesting motivations and investigations. To be more in-depth, it weaves a very interesting tale of bullying and murder across multiple years, creating this giant web of events and people that are hard to piece together. The Ehara case makes for a great stepping stone, and the first chapters are genuinely head-scratching. They transition into the bigger story well, and the events that ramp it up are cool and have some great setpieces. This game also deals with the fallout of Yakuza 7's story in some pretty interesting ways, which I'm not sure I expected. Yagami (who I haven’t really talked about) is as good a character as ever. His pursuit of justice is central to this game’s plot and his writing is fantastic. He’s funny, witty, and above all empathic. Kimura’s performance here is even better than the first game. I’m curious as to how Greg Chun does, but I haven’t played the dub.
To use the puddle / lake analogy, Lost Judgment is a medium depth lake that's very wide, whereas Judgment is a slightly deeper lake that's less wide overall. Which is to say that Lost Judgment goes more places and has more threads than the original does, but the key moments in the original may surpass it in "surprise factor". Although, a caveat: some of the things that LJ deals with are darker and more complex, and the bullying angle is really front and center, giving it a grounded vibe. In fact, the story itself unravels in more natural and interesting ways in LJ, really taking its time to even include moments where the gang is unsure of where to go or what to do. The original's story could, at times, make large leaps in logic to the next story beat, which helped with surprising the audience, but makes the story less believable overall. Lost Judgment's story evolves in very natural ways, and the conspiracy that's unraveled is shockingly realistic in origin, even if that origin ends up having a little less “amaze” factor. There are some really fantastic chapters in here, with a couple that either retread on something or don’t go anywhere, but they’re still consistently good. The beginning 2-3 chapters are incredible, as is the finale, with Chapter 7 being maybe one of the strongest chapters in RGG’s games.

Characters are what really shine in Lost Judgment. The gang from the original all return, and all receive interesting development or new circumstances. Having Yagami, Kaito, Sugiura, Higashi, and Tsukumo all working together is a blast, and the team is genuinely written like a bunch of friends, teasing and all. Making Tsukumo and Sugiura one of the factors that kicks off the game was really smart, and them introducing the gang to Ijincho makes perfect sense. The Genda Office team returns, and Saori, yet again, steals the show. She takes a real central role in this game, spearheading the law side of the cases at hand, and aids in the investigation at times as well. She's just as fun and well-written as the first game, with some new patter with Yagami and Hoshino as well. She’s easily the strongest female in RGG’s history and makes for a fantastic addition to the cast, as opposed to Mafuyu, who still does nothing in this game. Why are you even in this series? The biggest new addition is Tesso, who quickly makes himself into a lovable guy, despite his sharp claws. Loved seeing him and hope we do see more of him in the future. The school characters are all really good as well. Sawa-sensei makes for a fantastic inclusion to the case, and her interactions are really human and believable. The assorted students are good, the bullies, while not central to the story for the majority of the game, have good development and their inclusion is definitely interesting. RGG has never written teenagers very well (when rarely they did), so including them in the plot makes this game stand out. The BIGGEST standout at school is Amasawa, the head of the MRC and deuteragonist in the school stories. She’s interesting, cool, and endlessly funny. She and Yagami make for a great team across the many hours of that mode’s content. As does her dog, Ranpo. Back to the main story, Kuwana is a very cool character as well, his motivations are interesting and his interactions with Yagami are gold. I’ll be slight about the antagonists and their motivations, but rest assured that the leaders of RK (one in particular) are really cool, and definitely rank in the series’ best villains. The final boss fights are fantastic and the soundtrack absolutely knocks it out of the park. I’m not sure if I prefer those fights to the final fight in Judgment (as well as the final boss theme), but they’re definitely comparable, at the very least. All in all, this is probably the strongest cast in the series, and increasing the number of characters after the first game was a good call.

The side content blew me away. I’m not quite done with Yakuza 5, but the School Stories are very similar to that game’s system in the sense that they are completely bespoke stories with fleshed-out minigames and progression to complete that is entirely separate from the main game. Their setting is amazing, too. Seiryo High has got to be one of my favorite locations in the series, up there alongside Ryukyu’s market, K2’s golden temple, and Judgment’s ADDC. It’s lovingly rendered, with some great attention to detail, and genuinely begins to feel real after awhile. It’s also really pretty at night, the gym in particular. Standouts for the stories include the dance club, boxing, skateboarding, and biking. If there’s one criticism I have, it’s the inconsistency in length across the stories. The ones I’ve highlighted are the longest (1.5 - 2 hours+), while some like esports and photography clock in at less than 20 minutes. Robotics club is the low point as far as gameplay is concerned, and I have to admit that I got pretty frustrated at a couple points. The game does a bad job explaining that mode in particular, which stinks as it’s the most in-depth of the whole set. The sheer scope of it is ridiculous at first, but ultimately if you upgrade for speed and give your controlled bot a powerful hammer and the AI some guns and speed, you’ll be fine. Capturing the enemy base itself is the main objective, NOT territory control, which the game doesn’t emphasize. Once I had those things figured out it was mostly smooth sailing, but still a relatively clunky gamemode that overstays its welcome. The actual story tying these differing modes together is interesting and offbeat, with its own set of characters and politics. Amasawa and Yagami are the glue that holds it together, and I think it’s very much worth the player’s time. Side cases are overall better than the first game, and maybe the most consistently good side cases in the series. I went through the list and genuinely only a handful are cheap or forgettable. Standouts: SRC’s Hunt for the Truth, Body Model Walks at Night, Dueling Dojos, Forbidden Taste, Chaos of the Masked Writer (this one is crazy good IMO), and Dastardly Detective: Seiryo High. Haven’t fought Amon yet, but I might.

I just want to briefly highlight the presentation of this game. I think this is the prettiest the Dragon Engine has ever looked, and it really helps sell some of the sequences. Historically, RGG games have a couple tiers of cutscenes: unvoiced with minimal movement, unvoiced with movement, voiced with movement, cutscenes with dialogue, and the full-on pre-rendered cutscenes. In LJ’s pre-rendered cutscenes, facial animation is some of the best I’ve ever seen, period. There’s one sequence in chapter 3 or 4 that blew me away, and I genuinely forgot for a minute that I was playing a game and not watching a live action drama with Kimura in the leading role. There are some subtleties here that are seriously impressive. The direction is more impressive too, with some combat sequences that feel right out of Jackie Chan films. When this game wants to wow you with a cutscene, it really does. The soundtrack is phenomenal as well.

Lost Judgment feels like an iteration in the Judgment series, which is a good thing. It feels like a sequel, not a DLC or a separate series. Kimura made his acting name on dramas like HERO, so this game's iterative nature feels like an episode or a movie in a detective / lawyer series. Judgment was an origin story, both for the series itself and Yagami, tying the events of the case back into his own history and character motivations, something Yakuza could never really do with Kiryu. Lost Judgment was never going to be able to match that kind of writing as a sequel, but it succeeds in spite of that, crafting a game that is wholly separate from the threads of the first while building on everything that made that game great. I feel like there’s probably things I forgot to talk about, but I suppose that’s inevitable. I’ll just end by saying that Lost Judgment was everything I wanted it to be from the day it was announced. It improves on nearly everything from the first game while being its own separate thing. It’s endlessly FUN to play, the side content is massive and engaging, the characters are something special, and the story is on par with the first. I hope this isn’t the last we see of the Yagami Detective Agency, and I'm looking forward to the Kaito DLC!

A week ago, I finished Yakuza 3 Remastered, which I liked a whole lot for how much it changed up parts of the formula and told an utterly bonkers story. I finished Yakuza 4 Remastered today, and unfortunately found it my least favorite Yakuza / RGG Studios game to date.

Story-wise, there's a lot to talk about. It's doled out in these little doses in each character's part, telling a bit of the wider story at a time. The wider story in question, though, is haphazard, boring, and kind of stupid. The events in question that the game centers on are not inherently bad, but their meaning and future effects that the game spins out definitely are. The antagonists are mind-numbingly boring, and by the end of the game, I felt like I hardly knew or cared who the final villain(s) were. It's not that I didn't understand what was going on, I just didn't care. The way it tries to tie in Yakuza 1's story is very dumb, as is the one twist that everyone talks about, as well as the constant betrayals and behind-the-back gunshots. Some of the story sequences here are embarrassingly predictable, and what isn't predictable is pretty dumb. I gave Kiwami 1's story some shit for being pretty cliche and predictable, but that game still has a memorable villain (Nishikiyama, not Jingu) and tells its story competently. Plus, it was the first game in the series, whereas this game comes after both Yakuza 2 and 3, so there's no excuse of inexperience.

The new characters are a mixed bag. Akiyama is utterly fantastic. He's interesting, cool, and has a very unique fighting style. The start of the game is actually pretty strong thanks in large part to him. If this game were all Akiyama, it would be awesome. Saejima is not terrible in his own right, but his part is short and linear, with several very dumb beats in it. His fighting style is completely uninteresting, being a heavier Kiryu with a focus on charge moves (which Kiryu has had before, at least in 0-K2). There's one particular chapter of Saejima's that is extremely obvious filler, making you run about avoiding cops in a maze-like path. It's dumb. Tanimura is my least favorite of the group, and I'm happy he doesn't return. From the get-go, he's a total asshole. He's a corrupt cop who acts like a douche to everyone but 3 people of Little Asia, and his personal story is stupid and short. His fighting style is ok, but it really could've had more work put in to the actual parrying, since he doesn't have any unique follow-ups after a parry beyond a heat move or two, and his slow budget-Kiryu moveset doesn't make up for it. Kiryu is still Kiryu fighting-wise, but his story is also tacked on, and it feels like he adds nothing to this mix. With regard to the multiple characters, I bet this game was way more impressive before 0 came out. Having played 0's version of the multiple character perspective on one event formula, this game's version just seems weaker.

The bosses are a particular low point for the series. While combat in 3 was not great, it still had some fun bosses, especially at the end. Bosses in 4 are slippery, annoying, and have arsenals that include a combo breaker + stun + high damage move. 4 even rips the penultimate fight right out of 2 - it's not an homage, it's just a lazy repurposing of the settings / aesthetic of a great fight. The actual final fight was fairly enjoyable IMO (the obvious 4th part of the gauntlet was awful just like everyone says, but not as much as I expected).

Probably the biggest ??? for me was the actual map, since Kamurocho is the only location in the game. It's expanded slightly with the addition of the rooftops and the sewers / underground, but they're usually more empty than not. The stuff under Millennium Tower is neat, the other stuff not so much. The parking lot especially is just completely wasted space. The other added locations like Little Asia did nothing for me as well. Obviously it's not fair to compare to 0 or Kiwami 2, but ultimately, it all still feels like a step backwards from 3, with Okinawa being a standout new location in that game.

The side content was... fine? What I played of the substories (motivation was at an all-time low) was actually pretty good, with some really lengthy and interesting writing in some of them. The minigames are pretty whatever - ping pong is the coolest addition but it's not really ping pong at all. I will say, 4 has my favorite set of Karaoke songs. Saejima's training is pretty funny and weird, but Akiyama and Tanimura's are pretty lame. The latter having a god-awful shotgun boss at the end of it.

I feel like I've touched on everything I wanted to say more or less, so I'll end it here. To me, Yakuza 4 feels like a weird diversion from the series with not enough attention to the story and not enough new content. I get what people like about this game, and ultimately it's still a yakuza game so I can't hate it, but it feels like the weakest of the set by far. That said, I've heard great stuff about 5, so I'm excited to get on to that behemoth of a game very soon.

Last week I finished Judgment, using it as a palate cleanser of sorts after 0-K2. I was eager to see what Yakuza 3 had to offer after hearing about Okinawa and some varied opinions on the story / whole experience. Although at first I found myself sort of unsure of how I felt, I came out really positive on it.

I know that some people really don't like the story and, in retrospect, I can see why, but it totally worked for me. Excluding 0, 1 and 2 are basically variations on the theme of inner yakuza politics and war, with 2 being the more mature and interesting look at those themes, IMO. 3, on the other hand, is this absolutely over the top romp that integrates all these different things. While, yeah, there is a guy who gives you 20 minutes of exposition halfway through the game, I think it does genuinely do a good job balancing the grounded, intimate story of Okinawa and Morning Glory against the insane outer story. It reminds me a lot of Takashi Miike's film Dead Or Alive 2: Birds, which may have been the inspiration for Kiryu's retreat to the countryside as well as the presence of the "vibes".

Graphically, there's obviously a large drop from the Kiwami engine and especially from the Dragon Engine, but Yakuza 3 has some standout parts regardless. While this is probably the overall blandest Kamurocho I've played, the neon lights have a signature glow, the HUGE number of people on the streets are a welcome addition, and the skyboxes are really pretty. But aside from Kamurocho, Okinawa is absolutely gorgeous, and Ryukyu is probably the best explorable area in the series yet. The shops, the street, Kiryu's hawaiian shirt, they all add to the incredible vibes of the first half of this game.

Aiding the insane vibes are the cast of characters. The whole Ryudo family is a treat, with Rikiya obviously being the star of the show. The kids of Morning Glory, while slightly annoying at times, are endearing, and their problems serve as a nice contrast to what Kiryu usually deals with. Haruka's role is really well done too, as she becomes the adult when Kiryu isn't around, which is a good evolution of her story. The new characters in Kamurocho are slightly mixed, since Kanda is basically just a rehash of Shimano with some new quirks, but Mine is just fantastic. Easily one of the best antagonists / new characters in the series, up there with Ryuji for me, maybe even better. [Name Expunged] is sort of a dumb inclusion, but that just adds to the over the top story, so he gets a pass.

The combat is one of the weakest parts, but it's not unbearable. Since this game isn't a Kiwami, it's obvious how little there was in the upgrade tree originally, and how you don't have that many options in combat. The essence moves are neat, and Tiger Drop is very strong in this iteration, so there are some things to take the edge off.

Substories and minigames are a mixed bag. Some of the substories are fantastic, like the acting school one (which has a full-on cutscene ending, not something you really saw in K1 or K2) as well as some of the stuff around Ryukyu. Minigames were pretty bleh though. Coming off Judgment didn't help, but it's mostly stuff that was in 0-K2, which made it feel fairly same-y (granted, Yakuza 3 originated several of them). Cabaret, for example, is downright awful by comparison to its 0 / K2 iteration. Revelations, though, are a great addition that add a good amount of zaniness to the world and give a compelling reason to learn new moves.

Yakuza 3 is probably the most off-kilter of the games I've played so far. Its combat is the weakest, it's the least attractive, and the side stuff didn't engage me all that much. On the flipside, the story ramps up the insanity, the new characters are good, and the vibes are second to none. I sort of treated this as just a Story+ run, clocking only 25ish hours (the least in the series for me), but that was honestly probably the best way to experience it for me, especially since the upcoming games are significantly longer. All in all, Yakuza 3's "experience" is superior to its gameplay, but that's just fine by me.

About 3 weeks ago I finished Yakuza Kiwami 2. As a sort of palate cleanser before moving on to Yakuza 3, I decided to go back and restart and finish Judgment. Wow, what a fantastic game.

Just to begin, Yagami is a standout protagonist, even for RGG. Kimura's performance is exceptional, and his voice work is so varied and funny by comparison to Kiryu's stoic manner. Judgment wears the inspiration of HERO (one of Kimura's most famous roles) on its sleeve, and it's almost impossible to think this could work as well as it does with someone else.

The thing that stands out the most about Judgment is the story. While I enjoyed 0 and K2's stories a lot, they were mostly retreading classic yakuza film tropes and their writing can be a little finicky or below par at times. Judgment's story, on the other hand, blows them out of the water. The narrative is tightly crafted and intentional in a way that the mainline games don't quite reach. Where sometimes it feels like Kiryu is just a guy roped into insane situations, Yagami's past and his character motivations are central to what unfolds in Judgment. The mystery unfolds in interesting and surprising ways and the conclusion feels earned. There's one midgame mission / chapter in particular that blew me away both from a gameplay perspective but also the narrative importance and subsequent reveal it carried. Beyond that, Judgment does a great job of telling a story in Kamurocho separate from the Tojo Clan. I love how these events feel like one link in the chain of behind-the-scenes Kamurocho history. The supporting cast is extremely strong, and I look forward to seeing Kaito, Sugiura, Higashi, Saori, Genda, Mafuyu, and others in Lost Judgment. Kaito and Saori in particular are just stellar.

One thing that really sets it apart is just how much it focuses on Yagami as a citizen of Kamurocho, and a real member of the community. Side stories are equally bizarre as in the mainline games but lack the one-and-done aspect that could sometimes make them feel like filler in Y0-2. After you complete them, you oftentimes become friends with the person in question, either allowing for new items or side stories or even allies in battle. As you do this, Yagami's "city reputation" grows, and you get access to new cases and people. Even just giving every one of these characters an actual name goes a long way to making Kamurocho feel real.

Combat is just as good as the mainline games, if not better. Yagami's combo paths are rewarding, and the sheer amount of options you have in a fight is staggering. EX actions, EX mode, flux fissure, wall jumps / attacks / grabs, team combos, unique EX actions, the list goes on. The mortal wounds system is slightly annoying at times but I think it's an interesting change that does actually add a layer of complexity to fights.

Despite the lack of karaoke, the side content is fairly engaging. I was skeptical of drone racing at first but it is genuinely a lot of fun.

I did waver a bit on what to give this. From a gameplay perspective there were a few irritations that were tempting me towards a 4.5, but ultimately the story and presentation won out over those. Stuff that pretty much everyone else has mentioned, like the Keihin Gang mechanic and tailing missions. The latter isn't egregious by any means but the mechanics never evolve beyond the tutorial section and they can routinely be the most tedious and boring parts of any case or story mission that involves them. The former is just an unnecessary complication for the street fights that offers little reward. There's also even more minor stuff like the gameplay / fighting tutorials that pop up after fights with no option to remove them, even when you're 20+ hours in. Also, there were far more camera glitches here than in the other Dragon Engine games, which is odd. Sometimes it's just an EX action not triggering the camera but I did also have 3-4 cutscenes break on me in that way.

Really just a fantastic experience all around and I'm even more hyped for Lost Judgment. Up next: Yakuza 3 Remastered.

Two weeks ago I finished Yakuza Kiwami and, while I liked it a lot, realized there were quite a few things that made it fall short of 0 / 7, in my mind. Yakuza Kiwami 2 not only surpassed it, but reached the heights of the franchise for me. This is an improvement on literally every single thing about Kiwami 1 in my book, and an absolutely stellar experience with only one or two minor quibbles to add.

I think the story is one of the most impressive points. Kiwami 1's story was fine, if showing its age a bit with all the obvious trappings of a mid-2000s crime story, random Chinese triad boss included. Kiwami 2, on the other hand, feels fresh and original by comparison. The Omi vs. Tojo conflict is well done, Ryuji is a far better antagonist than anything in 1 (outside of Nishikiyama, who isn't really the antagonist, or at least never really earns that role, in my mind), and the supporting cast is far better employed than they were in 1. The story moments right before the ending are a little twist-y for sure, but they're relatively well thought out. The final moments of the story, along with the epilogue, are utterly fantastic. It does far more to earn the emotional payload than Kiwami 1 did with its ending, and it's a stellar one even without that context.

The story is really sold on the increased presentation values of this iteration, thanks in large part to the Dragon Engine, which makes this the prettiest Yakuza game in the first 3 games, and on the level of 7 and Judgment. Honestly, maybe prettier than those thanks in part on its reliance on Sotenbori.

The combat is fresh and loose, which is exactly what I wanted after Kiwami 1. Some people don't like the styles being dropped, but melding everything into one worked for me, and the massive (and all-in-one!) move / upgrade list is a nice bonus. The only complaint I have about it really is that it's actually way easier than K1, albeit for the right reasons. You don't lose health in cutscenes like in K1 (whose idea was that?), your defense and offense stats help buff you up, and enemies don't heal. That said, I honestly could've played on Hard, because Normal was a cakewalk, even in the final chapter's fights.

Substories are fun and inventive, unlike in K1, and it means a lot. Kiryu gets into the wacky situations the series is in part known for, and they're often times making good use of the somewhat limited options available to a game like this. Highlights for me: Voice acting, Yakuza Sunset 4, Komaki School vs. Kawauchi School, Be My Baby (of course), the rooftop couple fight with Haruka, and others I'm probably forgetting. Clan Creator and Cabaret management are both good-ish, and I put more time into Cabaret than I expected I would. Might actually go into premium adventure and finish it at some point, because it is endearing. A little lacking in options after 7's real estate mode, but good nonetheless. Clan Creator is a hilarious concept but honestly pretty dull overall. That cutscene introducing the villains of the project is absurdly long and the whole thing is just not super interesting. A step down from Majima Everywhere, IMO.

So, yeah... I liked the story a huge amount, the characters are hugely improved over K1, the combat is a ton of fun, the world is gorgeous, and the whole thing is just an absolute blast. I haven't done the Majima Saga yet, since I wanted to write this up while it was fresh in my mind, but I'm really looking forward to it. I had a fantastic time with Kiwami 2, and I'm looking to either finish Judgment next, or move on straight to Yakuza 3 Remastered.

7/29 Edit: I played Judgment but decided to do Majima Saga as well. Enjoyable little jaunt and a good addition on RGG's part. The combat is nothing to write home about, but the added context for Majima's situation in 2 is nice, as is the extra background on the major Omi players from the main game. The fanservice-y stuff really makes it though. Glad they put this in.

Earlier this week, I finished Yakuza 0. I forgot to write a review, but I might in due time. I started Yakuza Kiwami the same night, and burned through it in ~4 days, clocking about 35 hours playtime (I think the Kiwami playtime tracker is broken on PS5 thanks to suspend). I liked it a lot, but it's pretty obvious where the cracks are from being not just the first game in the (rather ambitious) series, but also being a product of the early 2000s.

The story is the best part of Kiwami, but it has a couple notable faults. It feels like it falls prey to some of those standards of mafia / crime stories from the period, including the addition of a mysterious Chinese Triad member, along with backstory with Kiryu. It's sort of strange to me that they didn't retcon this into 0 somehow, as its presence in Kiwami is then sort of confusing. But there's other stuff, like the inclusion of Jingu, who comes out of nowhere and has essentially no character, sidelining the story as its main antagonist. Majima, despite his presence in 0 (which I knew ahead of time was the case) is really not here beyond the Majima Everywhere system, which does present some of the best moments in the game itself, but his absence is nonetheless really noticeable. After the death of someone important to Majima's side of the Tojo Clan, Majima... sends you a text? So weird that he wasn't present for that cutscene. The stuff involving Haruka is mostly good, although the stuff with Yumi mostly falls flat since she, like several other endgame characters, is absent for most of the game. The stuff involving Nishiki is the main draw, and after the added context of 0 and the changes I hear were made to the story of Kiwami, it is pulled off incredibly well. The climactic sequence with him is the peak of the game, IMO, and his performance is excellent.

I actually did way more than I expected, since I admittedly skipped a fair amount of content in 0 because I had put off finishing the game for so long and was just ready to get it over with. I probably shouldn't have, since Kiwami's substories are, for the most part, pretty mediocre. By my count something like 75% of them consist of someone trying to scam Kiryu, and then 8 seconds later putting their head through the pavement. Rinse and repeat. There are a few standouts, like the BAD-ass Dads or Takashi and... Kyouka?, or a couple others, but by and large they're pretty forgettable.

The combat is a weird issue, since I don't dislike it at all, but at times completely despise it. I played a bit of the middle part of the game on easy because I was getting so sick of the bosses and guns. I played the ending on normal, which was mostly fine, albeit the penultimate fight with the military guys was aggravating as hell. I got as far as the tiger drop in Komaki's training and 100%'d the three other upgrade trees, but sometimes it feels like they don't really do a whole lot.

Majima Everywhere is, as I mentioned earlier, the highlight of the game, IMO. Majima's character alone adds a lot to this game's feel, since the substories and main plot are fairly lacking in terms of enjoyable characters, especially by comparison to 7 and 0. The higher rungs of ME events are some of the most fun I had in the game, with the actual most fun moment in the whole time I spent with it being zombie Majima, followed closely by Goromi. The grind is maybe a little too long but I ended up getting to SS rank by the time I went off to do the final mission, so it's not an insane number of fights left before the tree is completed.

Overall I liked Kiwami but its status as a fresh coat of paint on an old game shows, especially in the story department. But regardless of that, it's still an entertaining romp and a good "starting point" for Kiryu's saga and I'm really looking forward to seeing where it goes with Kiwami 2. Probably later tonight.

I started Persona 5 on release day, April 4th, 2017. So, if you do the math, it took me just two weeks shy of 4 years to beat my first playthrough. Now, that’s actually more like 3-4 separate week or two week long periods where I played it consistently for a few hours every day, but it’s still pretty unforgivable. It’s the longest JRPG and longest game I’ve played to completion. I love it. Its style, characters, music, world, and hidden secrets all captivated me through to the very end.

For me, the best part about P5 is its characters and character interactions. The cast, like other Persona games, is really good and mesh together in very fun ways. They feel organic, even if the whole “everybody is magnetically pulled to the protagonist” thing can be a little obvious at times. Ann and Ryuji are incredibly strong characters and make the backbone of the group. Yusuke and Makoto are great additions that really shine in their own ways. Yusuke in particular is a little underrated, IMO. Futaba is good in her own way, even if she’s maybe the most tropey of the group. Haru is… cool, but she really entered the story way too late to make an impact on me. Morgana is Morgana. The side characters are strong too, with Hifumi, Takemi, Kawakami, Iwai, Sojiro, and Sae all being very cool additions to the story who make an impact on Joker. Joker, who, I haven’t mentioned yet. Obviously a mute protag is a staple of the series, which has its own ups and downs. Despite that, Joker is well-characterized and always appealing, even if his lack of dialogue can be achingly glaring at times. I didn’t mention everyone because honestly my first playthrough was a pretty big mess. I didn’t max all confidants, and more importantly, started certain confidants way too late because I didn’t know they existed. Something to fix on a future playthrough. Regardless, the characters are what make the game. If Ryuji and Ann weren’t so likeable, the story might have just fallen flat on its face from the start. Everyone else adds something in their own way and builds the web of connections that defines modern Persona. The sequences of the group just hanging around, like at the walkway that acts as their hideout for a bit, are some of the strongest in the game, and leave more of a lasting impression than parts of the story do.

Combat is…. Good! But good lord are there some issues with it. One of the most glaring to me is the ammo issue, which Royal fixes. Absolutely unbelievable they shipped the game with non-refilling ammo. It makes guns feel useless, which is especially bad considering how much of a thematic role they play in defining the Phantom Thieves. Otherwise, I think there aren’t too many major gripes with the combat itself, I like everything about the movesets and minor focuses you can make for each character. The weakness system and subsequent all-out attacks are some of the most stylish and satisfying moments in any game I’ve played. Combat against regular shadows is usually pretty fulfilling, but bosses can be annoying at times. The final boss has no weaknesses, and as a result felt to me like a total departure from the rest of the game, and not in a fun way. Wailing on the enemy with moves and buffs and debuffs isn’t bad, but the game teaches you and excels at making the weakness system, down system, and AOAs feel good and important. Whatever, it’s no major slight against the game, it’s just kind of lame. There are changes I’ve heard about in Royal that make me happy, like changes to technicals and even some of the fights. P5 can be a little frustrating at times because enemies get priority in using ailment / status effect skills, when you don’t. At all. But overall, again a pretty minor problem that doesn’t take away too much. Combat at its best is slick, fun, efficient, and makes you feel like a badass, especially when you’ve got a shadow at gunpoint.

Style is probably the thing that made P5 famous, and for good reason. It just… OOOOZES style in every single respect. P4G (what I’ve played of it) is similar, but not on this scale. The opening cutscene, the start screen in the subway, the loading icons, the visual flairs, the menus, the menus, the menus. Good god, Persona 5 makes you realize that every other single game you’ve ever played has the most boring menus known to man. It’s not just that they look and sound incredibly unique, they’re also structured in such an interesting way. It can be a little confusing at first, but if there’s info you want, you can probably get to it through a number of consecutive menu jumps. There’s visual flair absolutely everywhere, from picking up items and getting text messages, to buying things from vendors and the day-to-day time passing animation. It goes a long way in making the 100 hours never feel like a drag. There are a number of ways in which Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE is kind of like a Persona 4.5: the dungeons are less like P3’s Tartarus and P4’s castles and more like P5’s palaces; the combat rhythm, while more complex, echoes P5’s; but in particular one thing I liked about it was how the text conversations (either due to the writing or just the localization, I’m not sure) were written very realistically, it really stands out how Tsubasa texting you feels like a real person and not a game character. P5 isn’t quite at that level, since text conversations can be lengthy and somewhat formal, but they’re still good. Add to all of that the incredible music that punctuates every single thing you do. Shoji Meguro’s work is really excellent, and it adds so much to the experience.

So… what next? I’m going to give it some time to breathe, since coming off a game of this length and of this weight deserves it, but I’m looking forward to more. I bought Royal back around this past Christmas, and I think that’s the next step. My first vanilla playthrough was, as mentioned, very imperfect. There’s so much I missed with regard to the confidants of vanilla P5, as well as just general knowledge of game systems I didn’t have on my first playthrough, PLUS all of the new content in the form of new confidants, palaces, mechanics, and the whole third semester, so it almost seems like the perfect way to experience P5R. That’s not even to mention the fixes made in Royal that I’ve heard about, like the ammo change, additions to gun customization, status effects, etc. Oh, also, I played P5 with the English dub, since I started it before I knew any Japanese. I'll probably do the Japanese audio for Royal, but I'm not decided yet. The English cast is really good, I'm not sure I want to play again without them. We’ll have to see about Strikers, I haven’t really made a decision on when I’ll pick that up, but it does seem like it would fit best after a Royal playthrough? Maybe, maybe not. In summary, Persona 5 is a game I’m in love with. The characters and story are so well crafted they’ve already left an imprint on me. I’m sure Royal will end up being the superior experience, but for the time being, 10/10.

Usually wouldn't log the same game twice but since Champion Edition was a separate purchase for me I'm going to give it a new review.

I never really got over how badly they shafted the original buyers of the first version of the game, since I paid full price for it then and was only treated to Arcade Edition coming out a few years later and then Champion edition after that, both with no free upgrades for pre-existing buyers. That said this is easily the best version of the game from a value standpoint and it's probably the best the game has been. the slow trickle of characters and stages and game mechanics has really revived what was at one point totally floundering. I always enjoyed Street Fighter 5 but there were things about it that I didn't like. Most of those things have been ironed out at this point, and with fan favorites like Dan and Oro coming as well as the extremely exciting Rose and Akira from Rival Schools, I'm very happy with the roster as it stands.

Champion Edition is still kind of a kick to the teeth since it contains SO MUCH value that other versions didn't have, but this is a game I'm happy to say I really like now.

This was my first taste of the Danganronpa series and I had a lot of fun! There are a lot of imperfections, though. Lots of gameplay elements I don't love, from the early trekking through the school (PSP controls jfc), to the rhythm minigame in trials, etc. Sometimes I felt like the argument section of the trials could be a bit convoluted - like, I know WHAT is wrong with this statement, it's just hard to tell HOW I'm supposed to make it happen. The hearts system can be a little annoying, especially since longer trials will put difficult sections back to back while leaving no moments for getting more hearts. That said, I finished with all As on every trial so maybe I shouldn't complain. Story-wise, the strongest part IMO is the characters themselves, since the overarching story didn't go anywhere I didn't expect, especially after the blatant hints you get early on. That's not all that surprising though, this being the first game in the series and all. It's easy to see why this was a success, from the style to the characters, this was just begging to be developed a little bit more. Excited to play 2, and eventually v3, since I hear their stories are more interesting. Overall, a fun foray into an interesting world and an introduction to the gameplay modes and recurring themes, wrapped up in a somewhat straightforward story but accentuated by a great style, FANTASTIC music, and a good cast of characters.