edit: I was at chapter 5 of the og version of the game. I shelved because of grind, then decided to return and finish it
The biggest reason for me to shelve this at the time is the GRIND. So I wanted to unlock skills to make the combat more bearable, how do I do that? Playing 100 man battle 50 times. This is not an exaggeration. This is the fastest way without including a rng way.
Then I wanted to upgrade my weapon, how do I do that? Materials that drop from mini dungeons that returns from dead souls of course!... Of course rng included! %1 chance to drop this item that item... So you need to play mini dungeons 50 times at least to get materials you wanted as well too! How nice of that??
Second reason is I found the combat not engaging. I thought it will become better and it did but focusing on unlocking skills with the slow as heck progression system made the progression flow unbearable for me. After Getting to 60 level, unlocking a new level takes at least half hour. Then it goes up to 1 hour just to unlock a new level.... frustration... (Yakuza 0 have a similar problem but At least you can punch big money enemies to get instant upgrade money in yakuza 0 at least. But not here.)
After putting myself to endless grind torture, at least I can talk about the combat more in depth now
Combat
Lock on: it feels really loose for some reason, or Ryoma/Kiryu turning speed is so low. If you use any style that have longer animations, you will realize that if enemy moves right or left just a couple of centimeters, you will miss and you will miss again. The amounts of charged or heavy attacks I miss just because enemy decided to walk a bit to the left is too high to count this fact diminished my enjoyment.
Sword style: instant guard ability makes this a good style for the one on one combat. But it's shit at group combat. Charging attacks protects you from stun but at the same time you get continous damage from other enemies and if I don't carry multiple health items, it just becomes a chore to use against at groups. But at least there is more than one combo it does have, compared to the other styles. But there is no reason to use it if it's not against a boss fight because of a shitty lock on and slow combos.
Wild Dance style: this style have good range also you have instant dodge so it's good to use it for the group combat. But there is things that ruins this style for me. One is this dodge have almost nonexistent invisibility. So there is always a one ranged or fast enemy that ruins your damn combo. Other one is, it feels really limited what it could do. You spin for attacking... And shoot at the end. There is nothing else to do other than that. Feels like a demo compared to the yakuza 0 majima's breaker style.
Gun style: feels like designed for the people that really want to skip combat. Just go to a corner and press shoot button. If you are so much badly bored, just equip a high damage gun. Also have only one combo. maybe rather than creating entire style for it, just include into the wild dance as a heavy combo? it would be a better choice I think.
Hand to hand: this is the weakest style against anything. To compensate for that, it does have a tanimura guard that makes you invisible against any attack, but unfortunately it's short, you can unlock a longer version that makes pretty essential but until that point, it feels worthless like the kenzan one. Because damage is low and combo speed is low as well... So there is no reason to use it until filling with lots of skill points. When you "unlock" that skill points in the first place of course. Have fun with that.
Main story
Kind of a drag at times, kind of a blood pumping fun at times. Pacing is similar to yakuza 5 unfortunately. But one thing that saves it compared to the yakuza 5 is there is only one character's story so you don't start, stop, start and stop that halts pacing to a crawl. I had fun with the story, especially beginning and the end(to be exact, starting from ch11 and to end gets super crazy and saves the entire game for me). But the middle part sucked. All of it was talk to that, talk to this kinda missions.
Also finale part does not make a lick of sense too. But if you enjoy with the fanservice you will enjoy the finale even if it does not make sense. One thing I really enjoyed a lot is, unfinished yakuza 5 characters used differently to show their other sides. They were entertaining to say the least. So main story is more on the plus side for me.
Side content
Substories are meh on this game, they are pretty short as well. There is one that I really liked that is about a family tries to find a place to bury their poor dog's corpse. That one tingled the feels, I wish there is more like that. Other than that, classic money scumming substories and I will beat you old man type of substories. Nothing too suprising.
Friendship returns with vengeance. Chop 500 wood, eat 30 times, give item 15 times etc. They are not fun and once I realized that, I left them to rot. Because they are repetitive. Also for some reason almsot all interactable npc have a friendship meter. No thanks.
Another life. This is similar to y0 Kiryu's business minigame. In this minigame, someone called "Haruka" wants your help to pay her debt. Yes that haruka is in this minigame for some reason. Then you travel to the house, select vegetables to plant, when they become big, collect them. Then sell them. I did it until completing the Haruka's trust meter. Probably this is the only game that I completed Haruka's trust because of a minigame tied to it. Also it gives you special small cutscenes so I had more of an incentive to go through with it.
Mini dungeons. They are labyrinths that have lots of enemies and also a mini boss at the end. Gets ridiculous as the floors go up and in the end every basic enemy one shots you for some reason. It would be an interesting challenge like dead souls, if you didn't need to return again for materials. That garbage requirement sucked the all enjoyment for this side activity for me.
Crafting. You give the materials, then create the weapon. Unlike kenzan, every weapon have it's own special seal. So new thing is, you can mix and match the seals to create your own overpowered build. Like ability to not get stunned or breaking guards faster etc. It can look unimportant at first, but if you want to go minidungeons and amon, you have to look up what seal does what. Because they are that brutal.
There is also courtesan minigame that you can play rock paper scissors and chicken race. I only did chicken race because to get money faster near the end of the game. But at least there is no romance hostess's this time I am glad.
Amon. For some reason this time amon isn't a pure challenge boss, he is also a level grind boss too. You do so little damage to him that it's almost comical. But he kills you in 2 hits, if it's special attack then it one shots you. I went insane trying to complete this amon, because I didn't "grind enough". Then grinded more and beat him. I got the full invinsibility with limit break on brawler. Then got the sword's parrying disarm ability with limit break. Yet his second phase was so brutal that he keeps one shotting me even with that. Then I found a cheese way, try to get a invincibility parry to yourself when the second phase starts, then try to do sword's light+light+charged heavy combo. If you manage it amon will be down. Then do it again and again, if he manages to hit you while getting up, just use heal and continue your combo immediately. Eventually he will down and get destroyed hopefully. But I have to say, I hated this incarnation of amon. It feels cheap with forcing you to grind.
So I would say, sidecontent is a mixed bag.
Conclusion
Meh combat
Meh sidecontent
Enjoyable story that isn't paced very well.
I enjoyed more than yakuza 5 but probably matches with yakuza 4
The biggest reason for me to shelve this at the time is the GRIND. So I wanted to unlock skills to make the combat more bearable, how do I do that? Playing 100 man battle 50 times. This is not an exaggeration. This is the fastest way without including a rng way.
Then I wanted to upgrade my weapon, how do I do that? Materials that drop from mini dungeons that returns from dead souls of course!... Of course rng included! %1 chance to drop this item that item... So you need to play mini dungeons 50 times at least to get materials you wanted as well too! How nice of that??
Second reason is I found the combat not engaging. I thought it will become better and it did but focusing on unlocking skills with the slow as heck progression system made the progression flow unbearable for me. After Getting to 60 level, unlocking a new level takes at least half hour. Then it goes up to 1 hour just to unlock a new level.... frustration... (Yakuza 0 have a similar problem but At least you can punch big money enemies to get instant upgrade money in yakuza 0 at least. But not here.)
After putting myself to endless grind torture, at least I can talk about the combat more in depth now
Combat
Lock on: it feels really loose for some reason, or Ryoma/Kiryu turning speed is so low. If you use any style that have longer animations, you will realize that if enemy moves right or left just a couple of centimeters, you will miss and you will miss again. The amounts of charged or heavy attacks I miss just because enemy decided to walk a bit to the left is too high to count this fact diminished my enjoyment.
Sword style: instant guard ability makes this a good style for the one on one combat. But it's shit at group combat. Charging attacks protects you from stun but at the same time you get continous damage from other enemies and if I don't carry multiple health items, it just becomes a chore to use against at groups. But at least there is more than one combo it does have, compared to the other styles. But there is no reason to use it if it's not against a boss fight because of a shitty lock on and slow combos.
Wild Dance style: this style have good range also you have instant dodge so it's good to use it for the group combat. But there is things that ruins this style for me. One is this dodge have almost nonexistent invisibility. So there is always a one ranged or fast enemy that ruins your damn combo. Other one is, it feels really limited what it could do. You spin for attacking... And shoot at the end. There is nothing else to do other than that. Feels like a demo compared to the yakuza 0 majima's breaker style.
Gun style: feels like designed for the people that really want to skip combat. Just go to a corner and press shoot button. If you are so much badly bored, just equip a high damage gun. Also have only one combo. maybe rather than creating entire style for it, just include into the wild dance as a heavy combo? it would be a better choice I think.
Hand to hand: this is the weakest style against anything. To compensate for that, it does have a tanimura guard that makes you invisible against any attack, but unfortunately it's short, you can unlock a longer version that makes pretty essential but until that point, it feels worthless like the kenzan one. Because damage is low and combo speed is low as well... So there is no reason to use it until filling with lots of skill points. When you "unlock" that skill points in the first place of course. Have fun with that.
Main story
Kind of a drag at times, kind of a blood pumping fun at times. Pacing is similar to yakuza 5 unfortunately. But one thing that saves it compared to the yakuza 5 is there is only one character's story so you don't start, stop, start and stop that halts pacing to a crawl. I had fun with the story, especially beginning and the end(to be exact, starting from ch11 and to end gets super crazy and saves the entire game for me). But the middle part sucked. All of it was talk to that, talk to this kinda missions.
Also finale part does not make a lick of sense too. But if you enjoy with the fanservice you will enjoy the finale even if it does not make sense. One thing I really enjoyed a lot is, unfinished yakuza 5 characters used differently to show their other sides. They were entertaining to say the least. So main story is more on the plus side for me.
Side content
Substories are meh on this game, they are pretty short as well. There is one that I really liked that is about a family tries to find a place to bury their poor dog's corpse. That one tingled the feels, I wish there is more like that. Other than that, classic money scumming substories and I will beat you old man type of substories. Nothing too suprising.
Friendship returns with vengeance. Chop 500 wood, eat 30 times, give item 15 times etc. They are not fun and once I realized that, I left them to rot. Because they are repetitive. Also for some reason almsot all interactable npc have a friendship meter. No thanks.
Another life. This is similar to y0 Kiryu's business minigame. In this minigame, someone called "Haruka" wants your help to pay her debt. Yes that haruka is in this minigame for some reason. Then you travel to the house, select vegetables to plant, when they become big, collect them. Then sell them. I did it until completing the Haruka's trust meter. Probably this is the only game that I completed Haruka's trust because of a minigame tied to it. Also it gives you special small cutscenes so I had more of an incentive to go through with it.
Mini dungeons. They are labyrinths that have lots of enemies and also a mini boss at the end. Gets ridiculous as the floors go up and in the end every basic enemy one shots you for some reason. It would be an interesting challenge like dead souls, if you didn't need to return again for materials. That garbage requirement sucked the all enjoyment for this side activity for me.
Crafting. You give the materials, then create the weapon. Unlike kenzan, every weapon have it's own special seal. So new thing is, you can mix and match the seals to create your own overpowered build. Like ability to not get stunned or breaking guards faster etc. It can look unimportant at first, but if you want to go minidungeons and amon, you have to look up what seal does what. Because they are that brutal.
There is also courtesan minigame that you can play rock paper scissors and chicken race. I only did chicken race because to get money faster near the end of the game. But at least there is no romance hostess's this time I am glad.
Amon. For some reason this time amon isn't a pure challenge boss, he is also a level grind boss too. You do so little damage to him that it's almost comical. But he kills you in 2 hits, if it's special attack then it one shots you. I went insane trying to complete this amon, because I didn't "grind enough". Then grinded more and beat him. I got the full invinsibility with limit break on brawler. Then got the sword's parrying disarm ability with limit break. Yet his second phase was so brutal that he keeps one shotting me even with that. Then I found a cheese way, try to get a invincibility parry to yourself when the second phase starts, then try to do sword's light+light+charged heavy combo. If you manage it amon will be down. Then do it again and again, if he manages to hit you while getting up, just use heal and continue your combo immediately. Eventually he will down and get destroyed hopefully. But I have to say, I hated this incarnation of amon. It feels cheap with forcing you to grind.
So I would say, sidecontent is a mixed bag.
Conclusion
Meh combat
Meh sidecontent
Enjoyable story that isn't paced very well.
I enjoyed more than yakuza 5 but probably matches with yakuza 4