The Yakuza games were the kind of titles that I just really didn't have time for back in their day. That isn't because they looked bad, or weird in any fashion, (I mean, they did look weird but that's beside the point) but simply because they just didn't really exist in my world. I would read a mention of them here and there or see a screenshot in the incredibly overpriced gaming magazines that I used to buy, but I never saw these games in the shelves at stores or on digital storefronts once those started to become a thing, and so I never really had the opportunity to pick one up and look at the back, let alone consider playing the thing. As such they faded from my conscious as probably just another niche title that I'd never get around to playing- hey, I probably wasn't missing out on anything anyway. That changed around about in 2015 with the lead up to Yakuza 0, the prequel to the popular franchise which was doing the rounds. I'm not sure what it was that particularly changed about this entry, but this was the kind of game that I was actually seeing previews at during E3 and getting snippets of in interviews. In hindsight I guess this was a renewed effort by the publisher to push this localisation effort out to the wider world, but at the time it felt like I'd been missing out for years on weird and wacky game.
In fact, 'weird and wacky' seem like heavy understatements when it comes to assessing how those first trailers made Yakuza 0 look, because they seemed all shades of off-the-wall bonkers. You had characters on motorbikes wielding pipes next to Yakuza men in little booths watching soft-core videos- melodrama mixed with absurdity, it all just looked wild! Unfortunately for me, this was a title that ended up being an exclusive on a console I didn't have at the time so I wouldn't have the opportunity to play Yakuza 0 for myself. That was until 2018 where, for the first time ever, the action-adventure brawler franchise would make it's way onto the PC, with really bad controls. (In fact, the game even tries to coerce you into plugging in a controller every time you boot the Steam version.) Following a couple glowing reviews and an abundance of curiosity, I decided to pick up the title for myself one day. Such dumb luck had landed me with one unexpected masterpiece in 'Nier Automata' (A game I knew practically nothing about when I played it) perhaps I could get lucky again. And now that I've finished the game in it's entirety (2 years later; I had a prolonged break) I have to wonder if my gut instinct with games could be transferred over to racehorse betting; I could make a fortune!
Yakuza 0 is quite simply one of the most unique, fun and charming action adventure games I have ever played, and I loathe the fact that I've never given this franchise the time of day before. It's honestly a crime for me to have laboured so long under the impression that this was an unimpressive series that I wouldn't like, in fact there's only one expression appropriate for such a weak mindset; Baka Mitai. I am so enamoured by this game, in fact, that I'm going to consciously make an effort, throughout this review, not to spoil the major plotpoints of the story, despite this title being relatively old, because simply no one should be deprived of the opportunity to explore this game fresh. And yes, it may be a bit pre-emptive for me to say, in the intro paragraphs, but I absolutely recommend this game to anyone who has a stomach for the dramatic and the weird all tied together in one package.
Additionally, I think it's fair to point out that unlike some previous localisation efforts for Yakuza games, Yakuza 0 does not, as far as I am aware, have an English dubbing pack. Now if you know my opinion on subs vs dubs, you'll know I'm a proponent for case-by-case judgements, but considering how this is a game set in Japan, with Japanese characters who work for of a Japanese crime syndicate, I favour subs anyway. Also, the English localisations that I have heard from previous entries seem to make really rookie cultural mistakes, such as having Kiryu refer and introduce himself as 'Kazuma' (his first name) wherever he goes, which simply isn't how things are done. Now perhaps I find myself leaning more towards the Japanese voices also because of my interest towards Anime, but my official excuse is a leaning towards authenticity. (And I'd like that one in the books, your honour) And just to note; the localisation efforts for Yakuza 0, in subbing instead of dubbing, is truly sublime for reasons I'll get into later, so you're missing out on nothing by not having English voice actors.
Intro
As a prequel, Yakuza 0 takes place 17 years before the events of Yakuza 1, following the fresh-faced antics of one Kazuma Kiryu on the streets of Kamurocho, Tokyo and his unlikely foil in Goro Majima, from Sotenbori, Osaka. Throughout the game it's fairly clear that Yakuza 0 intends to tell the story of the way in which these rookie Yakuza members evolved into the distinct and (in Majima's case) garish folk that they are in later entries, but whilst such origin stories are almost always home to contrived convenience and eye-rolling nods to the audience (Watch 'Solo: A StarWars story' to see this at it's worst) Yakuza 0 interests itself in telling a rounded narrative with genuine character development in order to take it's cast from A to B. Aside from a little fan service nearer to the end, you come out of this title feeling truly closer to who these characters are as people and invested in their lives. And note this is coming from someone who has mere ancillary knowledge of the later games anyway, and I still ended up loving these relative strangers by the end. (And to think they managed that in a plot about real estate. Damn.)
In this story, Kiryu and his sworn brother Akira Nishkiyama, are both relative newcomers to the Yakuza way of life, having followed the example of their mentor, the illustrious Shintaro Kazama. Kiryu in particular seems to base as much of himself as possible after Kazama, seeing him as the ideal man and idolising him as this sort of father figure that he never had. (Being raised as an Oprhan) This is all despite the fact that Kazama wants a better life for Kiryu and tries his best to distance himself from the kid, even going so far as to reject his application to the Kazama family forcing Kiryu to join the powerful Dojima family instead. Kiryu's story really kicks off in a strange reflection of his introduction to the original franchise, as he is framed for the murder of a man he never met in the middle of an empty alley right in the heart of Kamarocho. Who'd have imagined that the legacy of the Dragon of Dojima would start in such a fashion?
Majima, on the otherhand, starts off his adventure in stark contrast to his later person, as opposed to being early on in that journey as Kiryu was. For a man who would later become known as 'The Mad Dog of Shimano' it's almost unbelievable to see him in his forced servitude position as the beginning of the game. After defying his superiors and royally screwing up in the eyes of the family, Majima is punished harshly and all but excommunicated from the Yakuza, his only lifeline being kept as a working horse for Shimano within the district of Sotenbori. As we meet him, Majima is a consummate professional renowned as the genius manager behind the popular Hostess Cabaret, The Grand. He toes the line, respects his elders, and basically kisses every boot he can in order to earn the opportunity to rejoin the Yakuza, and it's that desperation which leads him to accepting an order to cross one of biggest lines of all; he's told to perform a hit. What happens next will proceed to define the rest of his life.
These two are backed up by a truly magnificent cast of side characters, all of whom pop and come to life through the spirited acting and generous script, which seems to carve out enough room for practically all of them. For Kiryu's story you have the lieutenants of the Dojima family who all show vastly different sides of the Yakuza lifestyle, Kuze, Awano and Shibusawa as well as Nishkiyama; whilst on Majima's end of the spectrum you interact with a variety of other personalities, a few outside of Yakuza life altogether, with my personal favourites being Sagawa, the man in charge of keeping Majima in check, and Nishitani, who is... wow, he's just so much to process... All of these characters are fully realised and have their own development paths whilst shining on the main characters and influencing the people they are to become along the way. (I think Nishitani in particular has a significant effect on Majima.) This is the way that characters should be written, I applaud the team who worked on this!
Gameplay
As a brawler, the gameplay of Yakuza mostly revolves around beating up folk on the street, but there's a lot of nuisance involved in that. Rather than just being your typical Arkham clone, (and because this franchise existed before Arkham) there's an impressive number of combos, dodges, limited-use weapons and special 'Heat' attacks in order to keep the combat feeling fresh and interesting from the beginning through to the end. Fighting is fun to pick up but, in higher difficulties, challenging to master, with a solid mix between extrinsic rewards (becoming stronger to take more hits or do more damage) and intrinsic rewards. (learning new combos and the correct times to utilise them.) Things especially shine in the many boss fights of the game, wherein it becomes imperative to switch up styles as they switch theirs, but even then mastering timing and dodging is the utmost key to success.
Yakuza 0 in particular introduced 3 different fighting styles which could be switched to at will and all benefitted different roles in combat. For Kiryu there is Brawler, the typical punching style; Beast, a style characterised by seamlessly using improvised environmental weapons that handily deals with groups; and Rush, a boxing-esque style with a focus on landing a flurry of blows and dodging attacks. Majima, on the otherhand, has Thug, a similar basic style like Kiryu's; Slugger, a style characterised by the Baseball bat he lugs everywhere and focused on delivering huge amounts of damage; and Breaker, a style literally based on breakdancing wherein Majima just Breaks about the battlefield delivering crowd control. Everyone of those styles features it's own growth system which grants new abilities to them, making them more useful as you go. Progressing down these trees, however, requires ample amounts of money, which is where the wider world of Yakuza comes into the equation.
You see, one of the defining characteristics of the Yakuza franchise isn't just the combat but the world itself. Both Kamarocho and Sotenbori are absolutely dripping with side activities for the player to partake in, as well as restaurants, pharmacies and general stores all begging for your money. If ever you grow tired of pursing the main events, you can break to go disco dancing, or do some karaoke. If you think you'll need a pick-me-up for the next fight you can buy some restoratives in the local store. And if you need some extra capital you can sell some knick knacks at the pawn shop. The game does a great job at making the city around you feel like a whole breathing ecosystem of activities that you'd genuinely have trouble getting bored in. The only thing holding it back is the age of the engine and the design practises involved. Having to load when entering each tiny store is tedious, no matter how quick the load actually is, and the camera sometimes gets stuck when exploring some of the more narrow streets. Additionally, once you hit the late game you'll start bumping into dynamic crowds that want to fight you all the time, to the point where it becomes honestly annoying to fight them all. The game tries to alleviate this by introducing a distraction tactic to get around these crowds, but 9 times out of 10 you'll accidentally run into these groups anyway and it'll be too late to pull of the animation.
Another key pillar of the Yakuza games are the side stories, because it's inside of these non-plot-driving pursuits that the majority of these game's weirdness stands out. Every single side story in this game is unique and interesting, with a few introducing some really unique characters and scenarios. We're talking everything from challenging some dance enthusiasts to a disco-off to teaching a dominatrix how to be demanding. There's a mission where you infiltrate a cult, one where you help a man propose through a crossword and one in which you have to pretend to be the boyfriend of a random person on the street. Every single one of these missions run the gambit for being memorable stories you'll reflect on here and there. What's more, at some point in the story these side quests become a lot more relevant when you activate the metagames.
That's right, Yakuza 0 even features two metagames which become the player's main source of income about midway through the story. For Kiryu this is the Real Estate business which tasks players with buying and managing various business over Kamarocho in order to foil the plans of 5 billionaire tycoons and for Majima it's the Cabaret Club business in which he has to turn his managerial talents towards making a small time Cabaret Club into a contender against 5 big competitors who have swallowed the local market. Each one of these metagames has their own narrative and characters to get invested in, with boss fights and an endgoal. (Although they are considerably more formulaic than the main game in storytelling) The side stories get involved here because certain missions will end with characters deciding it would be in their best interests to join up with your business and become important assets. This means that the road for completion actually rewards you with tangible benefits to your businesses as you go along; which is great because both of these business minigames are surprisingly well fleshed out and even sometimes challenging to get the best out of.
The only notable gameplay gripe I have regarding Yakuza is more a reflection of the way in which a lot of Japanese games are in general, and that's the presentation of a lot of the side content. Basically, whenever there's a cutscene we are treated to these lovingly rendered scenes that are beautifully animated and acted, but all non-vital exchanges are achieved through text boxes and the odd grunt from the characters. I know this is the style of these sorts of games and some could even find it charming, but to me it just brings back memories of those really tired MMO's with their endless paragraphs of uninteresting gibberish. Now admittedly, Yakuza 0's NPCs all have much more interesting things to say than your typical MMO NPC; but it would still be a lot more immersive and engaging if these characters actually had a voice to listen to.
Now before I wrap things up, because again I'm skipping over the story analysis, I must take a moment to commend the absolute god-tier localisation effort that went into this game. Making things understandable for foreign audiences is the basic part of their job, which they pull of perfectly, but where they go above and beyond is in the flawless translation of personality behind the characters. Great translation isn't perfectly literal but manages to convey intent and emotion, and having seen a lot of translation jobs I can confirm that this isn't always achieved, making some characters in stories come across as a lot more dry than they actually are. This isn't even remotely a problem in Yakuza 0, as the team do a wonderful job in nailing personally, attitude and context in every single exchange; it's a truly commendable effort that's absolutely worth pointing out. I don't know if I would have loved these characters nearly as much as I did without their hard work.
In conclusion
When I approach a video game I do so with varying expectations in order to treat all titles fairly, yet everytime I come with the hope of engaging gameplay, interesting characters and a story I want to live through again and again. Not every title lives up to that, yet Yakuza 0 easily did in every single category. When a narrative manages to hit such emotional highs that it manages to choke me up in a few places, even make me feel genuinely sad for characters in others, I know I have something special on my hands. Whatsmore, the gameplay and animations felt absolutely great to play around with, and everytime you nail a brutal combo there's a level of satisfaction that easily eclipses some other games that tried similar fighting systems like (sorry to throw you under the bus) Sleeping Dogs and Saints Row 2. Even having just beat this game a few days ago I'm so excited to start it up again with 'Legend' difficulty literally the second after I'm done with this review, that's how good it feels to play.
As far as B-tier games go, Yakuza 0 is easily in a class of it's own and honestly I think it's a crime these games don't get more funding. If you took the resources that went into putting out Ubisoft's yearly Far Cry or Assassin's Creed games and put it into making a Yakuza game, you'd easily get a AAA title worthy of contending with some of the greats in history. I truly believe that the only thing holding this team back is the tools at their disposal. These guys actually managed to make the art of seeking 100% competition fun to me again, and I thought I'd lost that feeling after years of games numbing me down with endless aimless collectathons. With all that in mind, and judging Yakuza 0 as a B-tier title, I have to give this game an easy A Grade with an implicit recommendation from me that you need to play this game if you haven't already. Even if you ignore all of the side content and just hit the main story, you'll be blown away by a genuinely stellar product that excels in almost every department. I can happily say that after this title I am absolutely sold on the Yakuza games and am ready to charge through the franchise now that they are being remade under the subtitle 'Kiwami'. (Which apparently means 'Extreme') My closing remarks; Buy this game, honestly. The industry needs more titles of this calibre, with this amount of passion and love behind it, and I cannot recommend this game enough.
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