listen man im used to plotholes in yakuza and i’ve learned to love how messy and chaotic their stories can be. i want to love this so much because the cast is fantastic as usual and there are some very well done emotional beats but holy fuck i can’t get over how bad they botched this story. it’s not even “silly” stupid like rubber bullets or falling from a 20 story building and surviving or getting shot point blank in the head and also surviving. it’s just outright bad here. no loose ends tied, a lot of “so what the fuck was the point of that” moments. this also made all the events in gaiden just feel completely pointless. and it made the new poster boy for LAD games feel like a side character. there’s just so much im not happy with in terms of story and characterization

that being said, it has by far my favorite turn based combat system ever. just a straight up improvement in every way over 7. the substories were great too, especially ‘let it snow’ which is probably my favorite substory ever now. i wasn’t a fan of their dungeon redesign, it just feels copy pasted and claustrophobic and getting through it was more of a chore than anything else.
going around hawaii for the little social link bonds was also really fun. the conversations they have almost always make me laugh or smile and i happily did every last one. i just wish the story didn’t fall flat on its face

yamai is literally my goat btw top 3 with akiyama and majima PLEASE don’t do him dirty in future games