like a dragon thoughts

To preface, I've never played a Yakuza game. There's some obvious nods to past games about 75% of the way through that I still thought were cool. If you like open world games, you'll like this game. If you like JRPGs, you'll like this game. If you like crime drama, you'll like this game. Like a fairly typical RPG, this game starts off slow. I was questioning if I would like the game in the first few hours. The characterization is a bit too exaggerated and the Ichiban, the main character, had things I liked and didn't like. His unending loyalty to his Yakuza family did not personally resonate with me, but over time I grew to appreciate his tenacity, both in scope of his own story and his past.

Once you're dropped into the open-world city of Ijinsho, things really start to open up. The characters you interact with, overall, have great personalities. Most side-story arcs border from the serious, all the way to the level of ridiculousness. For example, you here a baby crying, only to find out it's a Yakuza patriarch in a diaper in a "business" that treats adults like babies. Including feeding them milk from a bottle. Many of the side-stories are so ludicrous that, even with my own humor derived deep in absurdism, I couldn't help and break out laughing. The overworld is littered with things to do. Mini-games, one-to-one accuracy arcades with Sega games like Virtua Fighter 2 and 5, Fantasy Zone, UFO catcher games; pachislot, blackjack, poker, hostess clubs, batting cages, indoor golf ranges, kart racing, etc. I'm sure these are typical of past entries. And you'd think sometimes that with so much content, some parts may be half-assed. Never in all of my 74 hours of playing the game I thought that something was half-baked, or half-done. One of the only negatives that come to mind is that when you encounter groups of enemies, often times their animations are copies of each other and you look like you're fighting robots sometimes. Oh and about the enemies, even more ridiculousness. You fight homeless people, a lubed up guy with an inflatable pool raft, a sign-spinner, the fact the game teeters between reality and silliness is astounding.

I'm not into crime dramas particularly, but the story consistently caught me off guard. Every chapter surprised with the exception of one time where I was like, oh this character did this thing; I was constantly surprised. The writing is top-notch. Nothing in the script falters. There are times where characters on the "bad" side will let their enemies live to often, out of pity. Sometimes I felt like those were plot devices that were overused. Like oh, the hero lives to stop them again in the future. And the characterization of Ichiban's tenacity and unending loyalty, even to the very end of the game, didn't make me 100% like him for his personal righteous actions and words, but I did appreciate his efforts of finding solace and goodwill in others after continuously beating the shit of them.

A few of other miscellaneous points that I think may drag the game down a bit. There were a few points where I was grinding in the game. There's technically only 3 "dungeons" and a battle arena. And the game encourages you to go in there to level up. There's points in the game that take large level leaps, and it's kind of required to level up a bit. The dungeons are kind of weak in design. They remind me of Dark Cloud where I was wandering down hallways of nothingness and enemies. In regards to leveling up, there are 2-3 bosses that are just ridiculously overpowered in the main story. And they can easily wipe you. I also frequently needed money to strengthen and craft weapons. So there was a point in the game where I was using a mini-game to grind out millions of yen. And this would take an hour or so each time, depending on how deep I wanted to go into weapon strengthening. The last dozen side stories I felt were a bit lacking. There are a little over 50 side-stories and the last dozen are either kart racing, which ramps up to be really difficult in the end part, and romance side-stories that are very obtuse and hard to trigger.

Overall, the gameplay loop is extremely satisfying. Once you get into things, you'll often be wiping out enemies in a battle in a round or two. The main characters are in their 40s or older, which brings an interesting persepctive. The gameplay and writing are outstanding and if you need a long, story-driven RPG like game. This is it. I bought this game on sale a couple months after it released and it's a bargain for the amount of quality content in it.