i feel like both this and yakuza 6 were made to flex a lot of skills for rgg, but this was way more enjoyable than y6 even if it also had some bloat/pacing issues. i agree that the finale is a hard carry for the rest of the game, but i enjoyed my time with it. i'm also probably fond of it because the ending is also a great companion to yakuza 3 in terms of narrative, but also because takaya kuroda is also allowed to flex his range and give us another immaculate performance of kiryu at his most emotional.

docked some points for the mentioned bloat / deliberate slowdown with the pacing and also lack of new game plus. people want to replay short games that were gonna be dlc that were originally gonna be a small chunk of infinite wealth / a flashback, let them