Yakuza 0 Reviews

  • agsmithagsmith17,854
    05 Jan 2024
    0 0 0
    What an amazing game. I can't say enough good things about the games I've played in the Yakuza series so far, and Yakuza 0 proved to be a fabulous entry. I'm genuinely excited to continue to sink hundreds of hours of my life into these games, and picking up 0-6 for $35 thanks for a Steam sale has given hundreds of hours of entertainment for literally pennies per hour. I specifically sought out as many games in the series as I could afford after playing Kiwami on PlayStation 4. These games are good enough that I bought seven of them based on 100 hours of play in just one.

    First, the controls. I use a DualShock 4 paired to my PC through Bluetooth, so keep that in mind. Controls are smooth and intuitive, and I was happy to see that the game would automatically shift from Xbox icons to PlayStation icons. I did, however, encounter an issue where occasionally the PlayStation icons would revert to Xbox. I'm familiar enough with the game's controls that this was rarely an issue, but QuickTime Events could be confusing. It would probably prove much more frustrating for someone with less experience in the games.

    Graphics are great! Even on my older hardware, images are crisp and clean. Kiryu, Majima and and everyone else look fabulous and relatively lifelike. Cutscenes are gorgeous; putting my controller down and enjoying a 20 minute cutscene is just an enjoyable experience. I did encounter some tearing early on (chapter 3's introductory cut scene), but this only occurred as I tried to stream the game to Twitch.

    I really enjoyed this game's soundtrack! The game is set in 1988, and the hard driving guitars, goofy dance tunes, and big ballads reflect that. As an American, I'm not sure when disco fell out of popularity in Japan, but disco plays a role in the overall soundtrack as well. I'm not a Japanese speaker, so I don't understand a lot of the lyrics, but the music is enjoyable to bop along to while trying to ace karaoke or dance minigames.

    The story is absolutely a mob drama. I audibly gasped, exclaimed, or groaned several times, and that's not something that often happens as I'm playing. Seeing the younger versions of Kiryu and Majima made the plot behind Kiwami even more intriguing. Watching Makoto Makimura, Wei Han Lee, Tachibana, Oda and the intricate interactons behind the yakuza families themselves kept me going.

    I usually don't discuss side content in reviews, but this game deserves it. There is SO MUCH to do. I would purchase a spin off that focuses specifically on Pocket Circuit with expanded races, tracks, car selection, etc. Majima's cabaret club business was interesting and enjoyable to play. Kiryu's real estate business wasn't quite as interesting to actually play, but the story was neat. I really puzzled over whether Pleasure King was meant to be a negative representation of a trans woman, as the character does say some downright evil things at one point. I believe strongly in trans rights and fair representation, so this bothered me at first. After a little research, it looks like PK is simply a cross dressing male character who is a major ass. It's all good--he gets clobbered, eventually. In any case, add to these things I've mentioned 100 side quests, many other mini games, the ability to go fishing, a variety of move trainers... you've got an immense amount of enjoyable, playable content. I didn't break down scores for each section like I typically do, because overall, I rate the game 10/10. The only issue I encountered that might affect that was a save-related inventory bug. I ended up with a bunch of slick tires cluttering up my inventory of wearable gear (which makes no sense).

    I bought the game on sale in a bundle, but even full price of $20 is a steal for the amount of amazing content you get. Sega has really outdone themselves with this wonderful series, and I look forward to eventually reviewing each entry individually.
    5.0
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