At first, I wasn't exactly sure what to think of this one. The first few hours of the game were pretty solid and it felt good to be back in the world of Yakuza, but around the latter half of the game I honestly felt like the pacing was a bit too slow but... hard to judge for, because there were some engrossing and solid moments to boot as well and the closing chapter was pretty decent, too.
What I disliked the most about this installment in the franchise was the gameplay, and not just the combat, the combat itself was actually pretty solid, the best yet on the Dragon Engine. Everything else was just... kinda draining, very repetitive and often times unnecessary. I absolutely despised the tailing missions, no clue why they put that into a Yakuza game, and they were pretty poorly designed too, felt more like unnecessary time padding. Mortal wounds is one of the absolute, if not, the worst additions to this series they've ever cooked up. It made things so much more unnecessarily harder than they really had to be, it was such a pain having to scrounge up enough money to be able to get rid of mortal wounds (because I regrettably often blew a lot of it), but this should NEVER be an issue. I shouldn't have to struggle with keeping my health bar in check, it's such a tedious design that I hope is done away with in Lost Judgment. The combat, while the best this engine has seen, also felt a little dumbed down in the way of heat actions, didn't feel like there was as much of a variety both in what heat actions I could previously use in the series and even what weapons I could use. No sharp objects, no guns... I get trying to take the series a bit more serious, Yagami not being killer, removing the ludonarrative dissonance but in all honesty... who actually really cares? It's Yakuza, I'm sure no one actually takes Kiryu in the other games "killing" people that serious lmfao, but I digress. Combat as I mentioned was really nice, though. Style switching coming back was what I needed so much in this series again, it made it a lot less repetitive than it was, even though I ended being absolutely fed up running into street thugs in free roam for the first time in a Yakuza game.
This might be the second best narrative in the series, behind 0, it was really intriguing, engrossing and really grounded too, which is a first. I really enjoyed the new cast of characters, Yagami and Kaito were really great and Hamura was a great antagonist for what little screen time he had. Really enjoyed the narrative overall, what I didn't enjoy though was the unnecessary main story time padding they had in between a few chapters. Honestly really stupid shit like "omg, who ate Saori's cake?" or having to save Kaito from an old childhood friend, though I did like the one where Kaito had to babysit a kid for a bit and sure, some of these are nice character moments but... would have been much more appreciated as side content instead of being stuck in my face every so often. It was jarring when something really big would happen and then the time padding would just kind of ruin the whole vibe, was not a fan. But a great story, nonetheless, even if I got a bit restless in some of the latter chapters, the final chapter really took it home overall.
What else can I say really? It's like any other Yakuza game, but better. It's a great experience and probably a really good introduction to the series too. I just wish RGG would learn to stop putting bad things in good games, ever since I've played 0 it's been impossible for it to be topped because every other game just always has something that brings it down a notch, they always get a great formula and taint it somehow, it's such a weird trend. More and more it makes me feel like Yakuza 0 may have been their lightning in a bottle, but I still have a small chunk of the series to go... I really hope there's another title that blows me away.
What I disliked the most about this installment in the franchise was the gameplay, and not just the combat, the combat itself was actually pretty solid, the best yet on the Dragon Engine. Everything else was just... kinda draining, very repetitive and often times unnecessary. I absolutely despised the tailing missions, no clue why they put that into a Yakuza game, and they were pretty poorly designed too, felt more like unnecessary time padding. Mortal wounds is one of the absolute, if not, the worst additions to this series they've ever cooked up. It made things so much more unnecessarily harder than they really had to be, it was such a pain having to scrounge up enough money to be able to get rid of mortal wounds (because I regrettably often blew a lot of it), but this should NEVER be an issue. I shouldn't have to struggle with keeping my health bar in check, it's such a tedious design that I hope is done away with in Lost Judgment. The combat, while the best this engine has seen, also felt a little dumbed down in the way of heat actions, didn't feel like there was as much of a variety both in what heat actions I could previously use in the series and even what weapons I could use. No sharp objects, no guns... I get trying to take the series a bit more serious, Yagami not being killer, removing the ludonarrative dissonance but in all honesty... who actually really cares? It's Yakuza, I'm sure no one actually takes Kiryu in the other games "killing" people that serious lmfao, but I digress. Combat as I mentioned was really nice, though. Style switching coming back was what I needed so much in this series again, it made it a lot less repetitive than it was, even though I ended being absolutely fed up running into street thugs in free roam for the first time in a Yakuza game.
This might be the second best narrative in the series, behind 0, it was really intriguing, engrossing and really grounded too, which is a first. I really enjoyed the new cast of characters, Yagami and Kaito were really great and Hamura was a great antagonist for what little screen time he had. Really enjoyed the narrative overall, what I didn't enjoy though was the unnecessary main story time padding they had in between a few chapters. Honestly really stupid shit like "omg, who ate Saori's cake?" or having to save Kaito from an old childhood friend, though I did like the one where Kaito had to babysit a kid for a bit and sure, some of these are nice character moments but... would have been much more appreciated as side content instead of being stuck in my face every so often. It was jarring when something really big would happen and then the time padding would just kind of ruin the whole vibe, was not a fan. But a great story, nonetheless, even if I got a bit restless in some of the latter chapters, the final chapter really took it home overall.
What else can I say really? It's like any other Yakuza game, but better. It's a great experience and probably a really good introduction to the series too. I just wish RGG would learn to stop putting bad things in good games, ever since I've played 0 it's been impossible for it to be topped because every other game just always has something that brings it down a notch, they always get a great formula and taint it somehow, it's such a weird trend. More and more it makes me feel like Yakuza 0 may have been their lightning in a bottle, but I still have a small chunk of the series to go... I really hope there's another title that blows me away.