This review contains spoilers
too flawed to be good.
i finished game on hard mode, with no healing and weapons used, and i did thought I definitely got better at the game, but, sadly, even with restrictions that i put on myself, access to the rest of the tools did made game SO much easier, especially in a late game. i accidentally cheesed last boss with heat actions, so it skipped through his third phase entirely. and game allowed me to do it! i wasn't punished for using it at all. I was really upset, especially because last boss on majima was so much impossibility harder, then anything that was in a game before. he punished you for dodging around, for trying to do combos, to guarding, for using multiple styles. there wasn't clear path to deal damage, without taking damage myself. and game told me multiple times in tips that MAYBE i should use a heavy weapon?? i legitimately think that fight was the only time where it was designed with using weapon or healing as nessesary and i really really didn't enjoyed it. (I got lucky multiple times in a row and still beat it like that though). i don't think it's a bad thing that game had a fight like that, but it kinda makes me more upset with combat system overall, where with tools that are based of skill among them there's tools that just ment to devalue all your efforts and is as simple as press a button to minus half of the enemy hp lmao or you got good at awaiding enemy attacks? well that other guy just healed here lol. wish it was better. not to mention A LOT of just technical issues: imput read feels unreliable, insane hitboxes, gumble with how some bosses just wont take a hit even if they're not guarding aka gumble on hyperarmor. makes you kinda sad that people say THAT'S the best realisation of yakuza games combat.
i also didn't enjoyed that major updates for styles were ment to be open trough "side quest" estate and cabare bullshit, especially considering how damn long it takes to finish it all. while doing real estate, game literally sucked me dry out of joy. and i liked cabare mini game, but doing it 20 times? no thank you
some of the character writing is phenomenal, but, unfortunately, story not nearly as good as these characters deserve. interpersonal relationships written poorly, especially considering how much drama and impact builds on these relationships between characters. in some places this level of writing is enough for event to emotionally move you, unfortunately, it's not works everywhere and some major character deaths or backstory dump could not be less interesting.
for me, clearly, story was hugely more about majima, then kiryu. even though they made sure that kiryu's part was important, majima's part was not only important, but also where emotional core at. and i almost felt like kiryu was out of place here. i know that it meant to be a backstory for this legacy character and character himself is really enjoyable(especially how he turns out in substories), but compare to how personal and grand(chuckle) majima's story is, how he from humble prisoner-cabare manager gets his freedom, his choice, his newfound glory of being who he is, kiryu's part seems just like a chapter of his story, and not the most important one. maybe, just maybe, some legends ment to be just legend. and it's not always suppose to be, that legend has a lot of entertaining story value.
also, liberal moral about "killing people is a line you shouldn't cross" seems to me hilarious at best and hardcore hypocritical at worst, considering how brutal gameplay is and how much near-death violence almost evey character inflicts just by existing. And both characters actually didn't need to kill for vengeance at all, because law was on their side. question wasn't "should I kill a guy who destroyed my life, because it's my last resort for justice?", and as it wasn't that, I just don't understand, why would they still bring it up and made this character consciously choose not to kill? my opinion about both kiryu and majima would be higher, if they would understand situation, make decisions not to kill this people, because there's no need for that, but still be determine to kill as a last resort in this situation. because it wasn't about just blunt bloodlust, it was honest-to-god revenge in a story about japanese organised crime in 80s!!
speaking of yakuza stories, maybe it's contrarian opinion, but while having likable characters as a part of yakuza, I don't think that game romanticising it too much? pictures of hyperviolence, organisation meetings, collections, hierarchy of ranks, families clashes — it all still looks fishy and not like it would be your prime job application choice. i overall pretty pleased that yakuza metanarratively starting to cramble internally here a little bit already, which causes it to be demolished entirely in seventh part. but while I pleased, I might say that organised crime is alive and well in real world, so it kinda seems unreasonable to me? i feel that instead of crumbling down yakuza would evolve with the time, like it actually does in real world. this plot point actually looks to me like would be adressed in the future games.
need to specifically mention, that I'm upset about sagawa's death, because he was such a good character (who i hated btw), he fit in the story so well as majima's "leesh" and i wondered if there would be place for him in a franchise if yakuza 0 was actually first game in the series instead of, lmao just googled it, 6th one. damn. same things could be said about oda and tachibana, but their deaths was at leat plot point and not just blund «there's no place for this character in the next games, so well time to die» bs.
as i write this, I played through first few chapters of kiwami and I don't think at all, that same character that I encountered in kiwami are logical continuations of characters I left in y0, at least narratively not, that's for sure.
i mean, I would recommend this game for majima and makoto part and some of the side content, but overall it left me bitter, because of how high my expectations for successful skill-based combat system was, which this game did not provide to me.
i finished game on hard mode, with no healing and weapons used, and i did thought I definitely got better at the game, but, sadly, even with restrictions that i put on myself, access to the rest of the tools did made game SO much easier, especially in a late game. i accidentally cheesed last boss with heat actions, so it skipped through his third phase entirely. and game allowed me to do it! i wasn't punished for using it at all. I was really upset, especially because last boss on majima was so much impossibility harder, then anything that was in a game before. he punished you for dodging around, for trying to do combos, to guarding, for using multiple styles. there wasn't clear path to deal damage, without taking damage myself. and game told me multiple times in tips that MAYBE i should use a heavy weapon?? i legitimately think that fight was the only time where it was designed with using weapon or healing as nessesary and i really really didn't enjoyed it. (I got lucky multiple times in a row and still beat it like that though). i don't think it's a bad thing that game had a fight like that, but it kinda makes me more upset with combat system overall, where with tools that are based of skill among them there's tools that just ment to devalue all your efforts and is as simple as press a button to minus half of the enemy hp lmao or you got good at awaiding enemy attacks? well that other guy just healed here lol. wish it was better. not to mention A LOT of just technical issues: imput read feels unreliable, insane hitboxes, gumble with how some bosses just wont take a hit even if they're not guarding aka gumble on hyperarmor. makes you kinda sad that people say THAT'S the best realisation of yakuza games combat.
i also didn't enjoyed that major updates for styles were ment to be open trough "side quest" estate and cabare bullshit, especially considering how damn long it takes to finish it all. while doing real estate, game literally sucked me dry out of joy. and i liked cabare mini game, but doing it 20 times? no thank you
some of the character writing is phenomenal, but, unfortunately, story not nearly as good as these characters deserve. interpersonal relationships written poorly, especially considering how much drama and impact builds on these relationships between characters. in some places this level of writing is enough for event to emotionally move you, unfortunately, it's not works everywhere and some major character deaths or backstory dump could not be less interesting.
for me, clearly, story was hugely more about majima, then kiryu. even though they made sure that kiryu's part was important, majima's part was not only important, but also where emotional core at. and i almost felt like kiryu was out of place here. i know that it meant to be a backstory for this legacy character and character himself is really enjoyable(especially how he turns out in substories), but compare to how personal and grand(chuckle) majima's story is, how he from humble prisoner-cabare manager gets his freedom, his choice, his newfound glory of being who he is, kiryu's part seems just like a chapter of his story, and not the most important one. maybe, just maybe, some legends ment to be just legend. and it's not always suppose to be, that legend has a lot of entertaining story value.
also, liberal moral about "killing people is a line you shouldn't cross" seems to me hilarious at best and hardcore hypocritical at worst, considering how brutal gameplay is and how much near-death violence almost evey character inflicts just by existing. And both characters actually didn't need to kill for vengeance at all, because law was on their side. question wasn't "should I kill a guy who destroyed my life, because it's my last resort for justice?", and as it wasn't that, I just don't understand, why would they still bring it up and made this character consciously choose not to kill? my opinion about both kiryu and majima would be higher, if they would understand situation, make decisions not to kill this people, because there's no need for that, but still be determine to kill as a last resort in this situation. because it wasn't about just blunt bloodlust, it was honest-to-god revenge in a story about japanese organised crime in 80s!!
speaking of yakuza stories, maybe it's contrarian opinion, but while having likable characters as a part of yakuza, I don't think that game romanticising it too much? pictures of hyperviolence, organisation meetings, collections, hierarchy of ranks, families clashes — it all still looks fishy and not like it would be your prime job application choice. i overall pretty pleased that yakuza metanarratively starting to cramble internally here a little bit already, which causes it to be demolished entirely in seventh part. but while I pleased, I might say that organised crime is alive and well in real world, so it kinda seems unreasonable to me? i feel that instead of crumbling down yakuza would evolve with the time, like it actually does in real world. this plot point actually looks to me like would be adressed in the future games.
need to specifically mention, that I'm upset about sagawa's death, because he was such a good character (who i hated btw), he fit in the story so well as majima's "leesh" and i wondered if there would be place for him in a franchise if yakuza 0 was actually first game in the series instead of, lmao just googled it, 6th one. damn. same things could be said about oda and tachibana, but their deaths was at leat plot point and not just blund «there's no place for this character in the next games, so well time to die» bs.
as i write this, I played through first few chapters of kiwami and I don't think at all, that same character that I encountered in kiwami are logical continuations of characters I left in y0, at least narratively not, that's for sure.
i mean, I would recommend this game for majima and makoto part and some of the side content, but overall it left me bitter, because of how high my expectations for successful skill-based combat system was, which this game did not provide to me.