Yakuza 6: The Song of Life Review

Little Baby Iwami

Alas all good times must eventually come to an end and the endless journeys of Kiryu across the Yakuza world meet their finale with this, the very last Yakuza game, if we consider 'Like a Dragon' as a turning point for the franchise, which I am choosing to do. It feels like such a big step from where I started, as a nobody totally blown away by a prequel game, chasing the direct narrative sequel to that game for nigh on five years now. You probably know by now that 0 impressed me to no end, from it's gameplay to it's surprisingly complex narrative, and that has been a standard I've compared the entire franchise to entry after entry. Although as the Kiwami games were remakes of games written back when video game narrative were an afterthought, and the original 1-5 released before 0; this has been my first opportunity to see if RGG is truly a studio that only get better with every release.

'Yakuza 6: Song of Life' was marketed as the very last game in the franchise to star Kiryu Kazuma, the franchise holder for so many years; but just like when Hideo Kojima tells informs you about his imminent retirement or some other such gibberish, you can take that promise with a grain of iceberg-sized salt. Still, with the idea that this was going to be the bookend of one of the longest serving video game icons in modern gaming history there was a decent degree of expectation floating above the door of Yakuza 6 when everyone entered. How would Kiryu's journey be made to feel satisfying? Will the story touch on the right level of drama and conspiracy to do his end justice? How will Kiryu finally go out? And who is that Baby the man is lugging around in all the images?

Now of course, having kept decently abreast of this franchise I love so much I did not go in quite as blind as your average player. I knew the baby to be Haruto, son of Haruka- and I knew the narrative would largely revolve around tracking down the cause of a car accident that Haruka was subject to. What I perhaps did not expect was for these two plot-threads to be the spearhead of the game in it's journey across Japan as it's narrative blossomed into, admittedly, one of the most crazily impressive threads I've witnessed out of a franchise which is somewhat renowned for it's webs of conspiracy. But we'll get to that all in due time. First we need to get to the brassiest of brass tacks when it comes to the man of the hour; how does it feel to step back into the shoes of Kiryu?

So we return once more to the Dragon Engine, for the second time since Kiwami 2- and with that comes an increase in refinement and in bugs. I swear I hardly remember more than a few odd quirks of animation when playing Kiwami 2, on a pathetically underpowered rig too! Here I am, much stronger equipment, watching the physics on defeated enemies just die every other fight- maybe I turned the frames up too high, I can't make sense of it. But at least I can finally relate to all those memes about the insanity of the Dragon Engine making bodies float up into heaven or exploding rooms full of objects for no reason. I've pretty much seen it all at this point, and it is pretty annoying truth be told. Still, it looks very smooth and the game enters and exits combat without a second of delay, which is magic to a man who had to endure the Remastered games over the past year.

But there is one larger problem with the Dragon Engine games, isn't there? One of my biggest complaints about Kiwami 2 was the horrendously limited moveset for Kiryu now that the new engine controls had removed styles and style-switching altogether, the games after Kiwami 1 perfected it! Kiwami 2 Kiryu has only the bare basic 'Dragon of Dojima' fight set spruced up only with charge strikes, environmental heat actions, improvised weapons and the Tiger Drop. And I am so very sad to inform you we're right back to the dark ages with Yakuza 6. Yes, Kiryu has totally forgot all the cool ways he once knew how to fight in and as such 3/4ths of the gameplay options are gone compared to the offerings of 0 and Kiwami 1. There's very little situational gameplay choice beyond 'get the enemy to connect with your fists' and the bigger boss fights are limited in the ways they can test you when there's only really one play style to cater for. (6's bosses have nothing on 0's.)

And yet I won't condemn the new combat quite as much as with Kiwami 2 because there have actually been some slight improvements. Most notably being the Heat system, which when activated now kind of acts like an 'every style' fury mode reminiscent of the old styles. You have the sweeping crowd control potential of 'Beast', the flurry speed of 'Rush' and the beatdown potency of 'Brawler'; whilst still retaining the basic benefits of the 'Dragon'. It makes 'Heat' mode actually worth bringing out and often for the way it changes up what Kiryu has open to him, albeit at the consequence of making him bizarrely invincible until the Heat runs out. It's not what I want, but it's a compromise. I can work with compromise. Mostly.

Still beyond the technical, the Dragon Engine is a spectacular looker, down to the stich weave of Kiryu's blazer there's a height of fidelity I've yearned an entire year to experience again, not least of all for the fully voiced cutscenes for every character, even side quest characters. (I'd forgotten Yakuza ever got big enough to be able to do something as crazy as that!) Of course, this new level of fidelity excellence is used to great effect in the brand new sleepy rural-town stomping grounds of Inaba. Huh? I said that wrong? So I did- I mean the cozy small-town vibe of Moiroh. Huh? Again? Dang, I guess it is somewhere else, huh? Despite the feeling it made me feel, we're not actually in either of those legendary small town Japanese locales from fiction, but rather the very real Onomichi located in the Hiroshima Prefecture- very far away from the skyrise haunts of Kamurocho.

With this shift to the more personable small streets and close knit communities comes a refocus of Kiryu's story into that of connection with who he has tried to become and who he has always been underneath it all. I think this might be the first game since Yakuza 1 where Kiryu finally admits to being a Yakuza first and foremost under all of his play at 'distancing himself' from the syndicate. Albeit, his version of the Yakuza is some sort of honour-bound brotherhood of justice seekers that seems increasingly ludicrous the longer this franchise trucks on revealing how anomalous his convictions are amidst his, very criminal, organisation- but we love Kiryu's brand of Yakuza-ing the same way we love Luffy's brand of Pirate-ing. They are both fundamentally wrong about what it is that they do, but that moral misunderstanding is what makes the pair so loveable.

Of course, this refocusing is needed in a narrative that so heavily relies on the importance of familial connection, particularly as Kiryu scours the world searching for the father of his adoptive daughter's son presumably so he can beat him to an inch of his life for impregnating a 19 year old. But how did this come to happen in the first place? Well, actually that was kind of Kiryu's fault if you think about it. You see, Yakuza 6 starts with an wrapping up on the finale of 5 with the surprise arresting of Kiryu for pretty much no reason considering he literally doesn't commit a single crime in that game beyond, at best, excessive self defence. Kiryu chooses to go to prison for 3 years in order to erase the recent surge of publicity which Haruka has become subject to ever since her very public retirement from Idol work and simultaneous announcement of her ties to the countries most notorious Yakuza member.

Now the reason I'm going into such detail about this is because I need you to understand how moronic the beginning of this story is. Kiryu is worried that the press are going to go after Haruka, and so volunteers to abandon her for 3 years forcing the teenager to face the brunt of the gutter press all by herself! His reasoning, stupid as it is- he thinks he needs to 'atone' for the crimes he didn't commit so that he can "Make sure (she is) never ashamed to call (him) family again." Which is insane because guess what- she never was! Hell, she shouted out their familial ties on national television to which Kiryu himself acknowledged was an extreme act of affirmation and pride. He literally thinks nothing through and this entire game would have been avoided if Kiryu just learnt how to not jump on other people's swords for literally no reason. K be tripping sometimes, I swear...

So in Kiryu's absence Haruka found herself assailed by the press all alone and ends up running away from the Morning Glory orphanage (Who actually looks after those children? With the adults constantly in jail and the head girl either off touring or in hiding- how do these kids feed themselves?) in order to 'protect the kids', because I guess Kiryu's example of "running away fixes problems" has started to rub off. Three years on and it's up to Kiryu to unravel the mystery of where Haruka ended up, why she was discovered as the victim of a hit and run- oh, and to discover the father of Haruka's son so that Kiryu can punch them through a plate-glass door. You know, your typical Yakuza-ing affair just as we all expect it.

Along the way Kiryu comes into contact with a plethora of side stories which, coming off the back of both Yakuza 5 and 0, are finally fully back to the level of excellence I expected from when I first touched this series. See, even when the actual objective itself is simply running around Kamurocho fetching items for a little girl, the genuine heart behind the character writing imbues the moment with a special touch of magic. I'm of course talking about the insanely sweet mission 'Haruka's Biggest Fan', but the same can be said of all of Kiryu's side stories. 'I, Hoiji' is another one I particularly liked for it's bizarre sci-fi dystopian twist. And then there's the mission that introduced me to Yakuza 6's particular brand of entry specific minigame.

Live Chat, huh? I'm not sure what I expected. Yakuza 6 marks Kiryu's introduction to the concept of an Internet Cafe- in the year 2016- and what does he do with it? He uses it to watch actual-human cam girls and be a very active member of the chat as they tease and slowly strip. I'm no stranger to sexual minigames in Yakuza titles, they're usually some of the most standout moments! (I'll always hold close the memories of Telephone Club from Yakuza 0.) There is an ineffable aura of awkwardness when the girls are FMV, however, particularly when they are stripping for Kiryu's 'helpful' chat interactions, which he types with crab hands like an actual pensioner, such as "YES! YES! YES! YES!" and "IT'S GROWING!" followed by the objectively bad recovery: "MY DESIRE!". For such a tacit 'gentlemen', Kiryu really slips into the 'old pervert' role seamlessly, doesn't he? 

The best of the new minigames, however, start when Kiryu lands in the sleepy town of Inaba- I mean Morioh- I mean Onomichi. Majima's construction from Kiwami 2 has been replaced with the lightly more complicated 'Clan Creator' mode which pits Kiryu in a tactical role as an army builder breaking through enemy defences with construction strike groups whilst building up his own 'clan' which kind of feels like the Yakuza family he never started under the Tojo. He even calls them 'Kiryu Clan', like he's an OG 'Lil Pump' fan or something. (As though Lil Pump fans are real...) Clan Creator is one of those surprisingly overdeveloped minigames that this franchise loves so much, albeit one that is a little bit shockingly easy even at it's highest levels. There seems to be a slight bit of online event based connectivity tied to this mode, so perhaps the actual challenges were relegated to timed and distributed events that stopped being circulated years ago- but the main questline was embarrassingly easy to push through for me.

Just as with Majima Construction this mode features a plethora of real-life Japanese star cameos, digitised into the Dragon Engine. The narrative of this Clan Creator mode is pretty standard and I don't think the character personalities stood out as well as they did for Majima Construction, not least of all because we don't have the Majima Construction song after every victory. (A loss I feel to this day.) But it's a fully developed meta-game which varies up the gameplay experience fully in a way that few other video games can dream of replicating. So once again, a Yakuza minigame has earned my utmost respect for being fun enough and committed. If nothing else, it's fun to watch NPCs crush each other at your command instead of getting your own fists bloody for once, isn't it?

I'm not sure I can extend that same gratis to the Baseball minigame, however. Not because it's not as committed or full throttle as the clan creator, but maybe because it is that committed. Kiryu is expected to manage an amateur baseball team to the fullest extent of that charge. Meaning he has to track down and schmooze potential players, arrange each member with their optimal field position and batting order, and then take part himself three times a match. It's... a lot for someone who has no interest in the sport. No amount of tutorial (Which they don't bother to give) can really ease you into the breadth of those roles and once you start hitting the actually challenging matches there's little else to do except look up a guide from someone who actually knows Baseball. (And I thought the Baseball stuff would tone down after Shinada took his early retirement...)

The expected Hostess minigame is back to the boring 'wine and dine' girls version, instead of the 'Cabaret Mogul' game of 0 and Kiwami 2 which stole our hearts. And there's also a 'making friends at the bar' minigame which does a, at this point not so surprising, job of fleshing out the lives of the community that makes up Onomichi- giving depth to the tight knit town and Kiryu a place within them. (Which he'll no doubt forget about in subsequent games when he never returns, the knave!) And Karoke is back, obviously, bringing with it two new absolute bangers. 'Today is a Diamond' is one of my favourite beach-style new songs and the female-led 'Like a Butterfly' is brilliant for Kiryu's overly enthusiastic contributions alone. ("FLY LIKE A BEAUTIFUL BUTTERFLY!"- Kiryu sang calmly.)

Of the new main cast I'm excited to say that just about all of them stand out as memorable and worthy additions to Kiryu's journey! I never liked Rikiya and the small-time Ryudo family that Kiryu gets involved with in Yakuza 3 for being too one dimensional and underdeveloped, which why it's so interesting how when they pull of the exact same premise for Yakuza 6, with Nagumo and the Hirose family- I felt so endeared to them throughout. I think Yakuza 6 just did a better job building up the family and the people within it with genuine personalities and tied narrative stakes, along with the fact that their Patriarch, Toru Hirose played by the actually world famous 'Takeshi Kitano', is hilarious and spellbinding in the same fantastic performance. (So glad that Kuroda-san managed to convince Kitano to get over his video game prejudice for this role, the game wouldn't be the same without him.)

Someya is the new 'Young Tojo upstart' character for this franchise, borrowing his premise from Yakuza 3's Mine, further solidifying this game as a remake of Yakuza 3. (Which I support, 3 was the franchise at it's worst) And once again, Someya has a little more human in him than Mine, although to be fair- Mine is literally written to be a man squeezed dry of all human personability through his trials and tribulations to become 'successful' in spite of his rough beginnings- for which Kiryu has to 'beat' humanity back into him. Someya is more instantly detestable with some curiously subjective beats in his later story that aren't designed to utterly 'redeem' him per se (hard to redeem some of his past acts) but rather enriches who he is. There's also Joon-Gi Han, a fabulous and memorable Korean club owner that entwines himself in the narrative and just happens to look curiously like one of the front cover characters of 'Yakuza: Like a Dragon', but he can't possible because... I'll need to look into this.

In the late story, Yakuza 6's narrative blossoms into an impressively laid out conspiracy plot that entirely leap frogs it's Yakuza 3's equivalent. Whereas that game's version of 'conspiracy' was vague ramblings about 'arms dealing' tied back to that damn 10 billion yen from the first game that this franchise took forever to move on from, as explained in one of the most mind numbingly static 'exposition' scenes in fiction; Yakuza 6 brings the drama! There's an interesting conspiracy, with genuinely impactful consequences that is revealed with the appropriate level of pomp and spectacle needed for it to sink appropriately in. It's only a shame we don't get multiple character perspectives as we did back in 0, but with the number of side characters and ancillary villain narratives the game was juggling I can forgive the team for that. 

From the outset Yakuza 6 billed itself as the final bowing out of Kiryu Kazama as a protagonist for the franchise and in that effort I will admit they did a spectacular job drawing from all the best parts of his life and focusing on what makes him who he is. We get to see the man who will do anything for his family, the consummately noble Yakuza whom I suspect hasn't actually done any real Yakuza-ing since the opening cutscene of 0, the ineffable gentlemen who wins the hearts and minds of literally everyone who stands in a room with him for too long (the guy is a Mindflayer or something, I swear...) and the occasional raging pervert who manages to woo the socks off of every woman in the adult entertainment industry through sheer force of will.

What I've touched on are all the greatest aspects of the Yakuza 6 package, because that is what has shined for me the most. On the otherend all I have are gripes, such as the 'Trouble Mission' mechanic adapted from Tanimura's Yakuza 4 police scanner, is just as disruptive and annoying as it quickly became in that game. The RIZAPP minigame asks a lot of time investment out of the player for a mere workout minigame- food hunting across the city is a huge time sink. That one chapter you have to deal with crying Haruto made me get over the wonder of childbirth in under two minutes, screw that minigame, and screw Death Stranding for stealing it. And this game easily has the least climatic Amon battle, made so by the fact that this is the only time Amon has featured a single health bar. But all those gripes are overshadowed by the fantastic moments- the great 'New Generation versus Old' standoff battles with Someya, observing the three-way battle for Kiyomi's largely disinterested heart from the thirsty side cast, and fighting street thugs whilst dressed as the big headed Onimichi mascot. (Or crying ugly tears at the conclusion to the Onimichi Mascot side questline. They didn't need to go that direction with it!)

In the end we are left with an emotional and grand exit for our lead protagonist as the curtains close to black, before we're greeted with so many post credit cutscenes that for a moment I thought we were going to get a 'Phantom Pain' style reveal of a whole second half of the game suddenly unlocked. If there's one gripe I have with the ending, it's that this franchise cannot help itself but to spoil it's own cliffhangers, just as they did back in Kiwami 2. At least the moment they chose to leave on, post post credits, was enough of a heart tugger for me to somely nod and admit it would have been a fine way to close Yakuza. Were it actually the end. Which obviously it isn't. This franchise will never die and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Summary

I've had my ups and downs with the Yakuza franchise, mostly ups with the exception of Yakuza 3, and it's actually with a surprise that I recount how it's heights were it's chronological beginning and finale. (Literally all that holds back Yakuza 4 is the time it was released, if that game got a Kiwami re-release it would easily jump to being the best of the franchise.) Yakuza 6 proves, deftly, the theory that RGG is a studio that manage to improve, noticeably, with each and every entry despite how rapidly they pump out these titles; and they do kick them out quickly. Yakuza 6 has grace, emotion, humour, grandiosity, pathos, heartbreak and even a potential tear jerker moment here or there. Nothing quite got me like that Niskiyama moment from 0, but some of those final few cutscenes have me struggling. This isn't just a recommendation, it's a demand that you play this game if you have any interest in quality action games at all. It's just sublime, memorable and would have been the perfect swansong if this franchise hadn't blown up to such a point that to stop here would have been plain silly. With that behind me, all I have to do is lay down the arbitrary mark of an A+ Grade- one of the best games that I've played, easily. If I didn't have 7 looming on the horizon I would probably have stuck around to complete every single last side activity this game had to offer. (Except, maybe, it's increadibly challenging 'Puyo Puyo' arcade) But as it happens 'Song of Life' just ignited my passion to jump forward and finally get my hands on the the next caretaker of the franchise, see how things are like on the Ichiban side of the fence for a change.