Holy Majima, we have now 4 protagonists! And the forth is bad!

It's a diferrent aproach, they tried to make something and i kinda like it. Akiyama and Saejima are so good that is not even funny. The police boy... no. You can see i don't even remember his name.

They have different combat styles that are enough to make a little variation. Saejima destroys blocks and this makes me happy. Again, bosses fights are shit. The last one? With the worse character? Why?

Story is... yeah it is a story ever made. I just want to talk about a little scene that made me very uncomfortable, even if they triy to justify later. If you played you probably know. Thank god is isolated and Saejima becomes an amazing character later on.

Yakuza 4 is not worse than 3, but it is disappoint to say the least. We got some great new characters and this is the only one thing i am happy to remember the game for.

Fierce loyalty to a sworn brother can be twisted to justify unspeakable acts.

I was really split on Yakuza 4 for my whole playthrough. On one hand, playing as four different protagonists made for a more complex and compelling story than earlier entries in the series. On the other, resetting your player character after every quarter of the game felt like there was little point in investing in their abilities or side quests. It's a bit like how Samus always loses all her powerups at the beginning of a Metroid game, but it happens every 4-5 hours here.

The story really was good though! For as much as I would have preferred one protagonist to upgrade and focus on, the way everyone's story events come together at the end was satisfying and impressive. More than any of the other 4 RGG titles I've finished, this had a strong theme throughout the tale, concerning just how far people are willing to go for a partner; the sacrifices they're willing to make, the people they can justify harming, and if they'd betray that sacred trust to help themselves. It's great!

But uh what's up with the face models here?? The wackiest aspect of the story is that there are regular flashbacks to 25 years in the past, and everyone looks exactly the same! I know that when we look at pictures of teens from the 80s they all look older than their age, but not like this! Age is this weird, nebulous thing in Yakuza, punks have always called Kiryu "old man" despite looking the same age as him, but it's hilarious seeing both the Saejimas not change at all between their late teens and mid 40s. RGG is anything but ageist! 50 is the new 20!

And just like that this series bounces right the fuck back. I'm so glad this game doesn't play like absolute dogshit. It's actually fun to play! Well. Let's back up a second. Yakuza 4 means there are 4 playable characters for some reason. Akiyama is an incredibly fun start to this game with his fighting style being fun to control. Then it goes to saejima who is just sort of okay to play as. Who leads into Tanimura who is also just okay to play as. Which ends as kiryu who is always fun to play as. 2/4 characters are fun to play as while the others are just okay. So it loses me in the middle gameplay wise. But all my issues from 3 are gone. Enemies don't block as often, it actually feels like im powerful this time, and heat actions actually feel like they do damage. The story as always in these games is just spectacular. You would think having 4 characters would make it all over the place but no they actually managed to make it all intertwine very well. This games story is just twist after twist so thats pretty fun. This music this time around has a lot of jazz for no reason but it fucking rocks. Overall, a very good bounceback after 3 but still lacks a little in the gameplay.