these are just early thoughts from a replay, but i'm really starting to get yakuza 5 this time around. having to unlock block breaking is annoying and i still think the saejima segment is incredibly shoehorned and pointless, and that rgg studios in general has not known how to meaningfully utilize saejima at all since 4, but by skipping his cutscenes that don't immediately tie into the larger plot on a replay it just becomes about as mild of an annoyance as the incessant tutorials at the start of 0. the game beating you over the head with dreams as a theme is also a little annoying and certainly heavy handed, but when the game has stories like kiryu's and shinada's (and even akiyama's and haruka's!) in it why would i even care? shinada's segment is literally the best part of this entire franchise, and other than 0 and 8 i feel like kiryu's chapter in 5 is maybe the flat out most interesting look into the man's life, and the way his fighting style becoming more brutal gives a look into his psyche at the time of 5 is some of the coolest shit ever.
yakuza 5 is also maybe the game in the series that follows the "a real man... oughta be a little stupid" mantra ryuji posited in 2 the most, and to that end it really feels like one of the most "yakuza" yakuza games we've gotten. maybe not as strong a story as its follow up, but absolutely a game that embodies the strengths of the series better.