I'm reading the creator's (Frank Lantz) book now and decided to try this game. I'd heard vague whispers of it over the years that were never expanded upon. I didn't understand it for a few minutes, started to understand, then fully understood (obviously not true) at 30 minutes and am now obsessed.

I have to think about it a lot more, but I just had my coffee and am procrastinating from my actual job due to ADHD, so here's an essay anyway.

It's fun because it's a combination of the raw psychology behind what makes us want to engage with its systems and the absurdity of capitalism/market economics. By telling you nothing it forces you to make sense of it in real time through trial and error which is extremely mentally satisfying as a game while giving you a high speed education in supply and demand, market manipulation, and capital.

From a game design perspective it's also a proof of concept that "nothing" can constitute a game. It challenges you to consider what a game is and that maybe everything is a game. That then helps you understand the violent psychology behind Wall Street capitalists without having to empathize with them because they're clearly sociopaths.

It's a lightspeed existential nightmare capitalism simulator, which is essentially life but faster without the risk of starvation.

10/10 would buy paperclips

Incredibly fun game with no cruft. Took about 24 hours to get 83% completion. Might poke around for a couple other things, but I'm very satisfied and have no desire to collect every little thing.

Edit: spent 2 more hours and got to 90% which is everything worth doing as far as i can tell. there's one aggressive jump/dodge psycho puzzle room that i might take care of out of spite but yeah. good game, meh story, mostly garbage collectibles but generally the boring crap isn't behind a wild sequence of violence.

Great game with well developed mechanics that don't over-do it. The game's design overall shows incredible restraint and visual sign-posting that aids the player in solving the dimension-bending puzzles allowing for solutions to be intuitive rather than forcing the player to hold complex information in their head for extended periods of time.

The length is great and the game continues to build on its mechanics throughout - together this propels the player through the game with an even momentum that makes it hard to put down.

I went through this game in 3 sittings over two days and was satisfied with the experience when it came to an end. I appreciate that there's nothing hidden/miss-able and that the experience is complete after a single playthrough. I could see this kind of puzzle solving expanded upon in a longer more narrative game, but it would have to maintain the careful restraint that this concise experience presents.

I only take a half star off because the majima everywhere system is fun, but it's a crazy amount of work between that and komaki techniques, you might as well not engage with dragon style at all.

at the same time, i loved every second of it and i'm going to play every yakuza game without question holy shit. i can't believe how much of a sleeper series this is in the west.

37 hours and ONLY 41% COMPLETION? This game doesn't even have horrible collectibles! every single thing is fun and funny or emotionally engaging.

this game and the yakuza of it all exists more as a space than a game to me. it does so so many things and has no hesitation in any of it. this series is inspiringly confident in communicating positivity and that being what makes you the coolest mf ever to everyone around you - THE BEST SHIT