Having only played Yakuza 0 prior, this game doesn't reach the same levels of quality but for a 1st entry it still has its merits. The story is pretty good with some interesting conflicts, the map has an odd mix up coziness and insecurity which I like, and the combat while not very well refined is a solid foundation for future games. However, you get interrupted by street thugs all the time and the loading times can get on someone's nerves do to the amount of battles you're thrown into.

Some aspects of the plot or the characters are also not well developed and that won't be the case until 0 (and to a lesser extent Kiwami) so I'd recommend playing 0 first. Between this and Kiwami I can't tell you which one I prefer because as of now I haven't played the latter.

(Played through the Restored mod which replaces English dub with the more faithful JP sub + some other improvements.)

I went into this game hearing about how good it was, and reached the end exceeding my already high expectations.

The combat is fun, the characters are fun (Majima the goat), the game is filled to the brim with sub-stories and side minigames (some of which are admittingly frustrating haha) and I sadly had to skip some of them in order to make progress through the story. Because the story is clearly the game's strongest component and a fantastic prequel all things considered.

This game alone was my introduction to this franchise and it alone was enough to solidify myself as a fan, now all I gotta do is to play through the other entries.