Well…. shit. This is gonna be a challenge to review.
I’ve already prefaced my lack of experience with the series. And I’ve noted that People wanted me to play this stuff. Idk, maybe folks actually value my opinion, or they might want to take the series down a few notches and im the only dickhole with the balls to shit on it. Bah, im just tooting my own horn.
Fuck all that tho, what’s up with the offensive title!? Well, if you played this game, you’d assume the book and the movie was inspired by it because these assholes just keep showing off how filthy rich they are. Every character is loaded with cash, so much so that I felt I was under assault. Sega pretentiously hammering into my skull that im broke and thus have no reason to live, because I lack the money, resources, and sex appeal of these fictional lifestyles of the rich and criminal. Every rich fuck expressing criticism and outright contempt for those trying to make an honest living. And how you can just throw around money and have people run to it. Fuck Yakuza, they should’ve called this game the Wolves of Tokyo.
Videogames are supposed to entertainment for poor people, so this goes to show out of touch Sega really is, or Japanese people get off to their sense of unwarranted self-importance. It’s so cartoonishly displayed that the main characters are so rich that they’ll literally throw money at everything. It’s quite s turn off. I often take issue with Japanese Entertainment as they occassionally make their characters out to be these unstoppable titans who can’t be brought down from their haughty towers, and any attempt to do so is met with failure by the characters you’re supposed to be rooting for. Whether it’s Ash Ketchum vs Paul, Kazuma the Shell Bullet vs Ryuho from Scryed, Asbel vs Hubert from Tales of Graces, etc. Though there’s no specific rivalry like that in this game, it’s not helped that these rich fucks go out of their way to shit on people, making you hate them even more.
Hell it’s not just the rich characters, everyone is an overly judgmental asshole that you can’t help but want to murder! I’ve never played a game where you’re surrounded by so many people who have unrealistic expectations of you and how you should act in the world (Well, maybe except for Tales of the Abyss and Symphonia 2). Merely brushing passed somebody is enough for them to get into a shouting contest and escalate into a physical confrontation. Kamurocho is an unholy asshole factory not unlike New Bordeaux, but except for racial prejudice, in this bat shit universe, everyone hates you for the mere fact that you were born as they’ll find any excuse in the world to punch you. Must be that passive aggressive stint that Japanese society has being exaggerated to cartoonish levels. Gee, I wonder how many people are gonna get tired of me bagging on Japan?
Ofcourse, this game subverts that by having almost all of these rich cats meet these horrible fates one-by-one, and you’re still left disappointed because most of those horrible fates were mot done by your own hands…. and you have what Is essentially Mass Effect 2. A bunch of characters the games makes out to be these impossible badasses that you can’t ever hope to top in your miserable life, but get taken down a few pegs by their daddy issues, and can all die horribly if you weave it so. It begs the question of why this game flaunts it’s money so damn much if all the people who break bread get fucked up anyway. Could be some pretentiously subversive message that money isn’t everything as one blond nobody in the game points out. Time and people are far more precious than money, which explains why so many people waste it. Is that why the game so aggressively pushes rich people? To say that “Fuck you” money is a joke?
I don’t know. And clearly I’m rambling. Yakuza 0 came out…. I guess last year? And serves as a prequel to the series. I think it goes without saying that prequels generally suck. You have to put up with characters that you’ve known through out a series being mere shells of their former selves. Completely different characters, even. Prequels by their nature are chained to one goal. Exposition. So a lot of what goes into prequels are acts of contrived subplots meant to explain why events in titles that came before the prequel actually occur. In other words, giving you answers to questions you never had or cared to think about. Or you get the completely random prequels that just focus on characters that didn’t change all that much to begin with, and comes off as this side story that just happens. These are often the better prequels.
Yakuza 0 is like some bastardized hybrid of those 2 extremes. It’s supposed to explain events that led up to how certain characters have the roles they do, but also has some estranged plot about the Japanese Mafia trying to kill each other over an empty lot. Since I don’t know shit about Yakuza beyond a non-canonical zombie spinoff, this game is a massive info dump of heavily convoluted subplots that are designed not to give you important information for the rest of the series, but to throw you off every…. fucking…. time.
Kazuma Kiryu is a 20 Yakuza Rookie who is framed for the murder of some retard who didn’t pay his pills. As a result, he requests for expulsion to keep his…. patriarch (?) From getting in trouble for Kiryu’s non-crime. Unfortunately for Kiryu, that’s the Yakuza’s goal to fuck over his patriarch, so Kiryu has to join a real estate firm (don’t ask) to figure out what’s going on. Meanwhile, Goro Majima is a genius manager who can make any business a fuck load of money no matter what the situation is. However, this to him is punishment for some shit he did 3 years earlier, and he desperately wants out. And he gets that chance by taking on a hit on a blind girl… but instead, he falls for her and tries to keep her alive instead, marking himself for death in the process. All of this is related to an empty lot that could very well determine the future of the fictional town of Kamurocho and the Japanese Mafia itself.
This game treats itself as this big mystery thriller, but in a hollow attempt to lead you astray, Sega ends up making a very stupid story. They’ve spent so much time trying to convince their consumers of falsehoods over the years, they tried to apply those same tricks here, and it ends up with some inconclusive threads. Does anyone know why Oda sold out Tachibana to Shibusawa throughout the game? Or what Shibusawa’s real goal was in regards to keeping the blind bitch alive? Or having inside Tachibana but never acting on the information gained. Or… anything regarding Shibusawa, really. Or why Majima went nuts at the end? Or why Wen Lee was really involved in the gang war with the Korean Mafia and how Tachibana was even involved (it’s very vague how connected Lee was with Tachibana) Or why we really needed to explore Makoto being a sex slave… see that’s another thing. The amount of subplots in this game is enough to be side material, but is treated as important information. Makoto being blind could’ve been unrelated to a slave ring, but that was primarily done to set up this “man with bat tattoo” subplot where it leads to Oda having sold her into slavery because he needed money, but there was another scene where Tachibana was shown to have a bat tattoo, but it’s only shown to be a gang sign, and he was never involved in that shit… even though Makoto’s flashbacks show a purple tattoo that Tachibana has, but Oda’s is green, you see how they try to throw you off?
The story is at best fucking convoluted. It’s hard to follow after a while because there’s over a million details that get piled on top of each other, you need a goddamn flow chart to remember all the details. And even then, none of this matters Because most of these characters get murked off anyway, leaving a lot of shit to be unresolved or fully explained. In other words, contrivance for the sake of contrivance. Though I will give the writers credit for at least keeping the story interesting enough to keep warrant my attention, it’s equally as frustrating because it feels like a lot of details are not available.
Now, I mentioned before that I found the whole “jump from one character to the next” style of storytelling this game has, and while it becomes less irritating as the game progresses, being that the stories become more interconnected, there is the Annoying bit on chapter 18 where im on this boat trying to save the blind idiot, and I make it passed all that shit to the end… just to take an extended break from that level to futz around with Majima fighting with Awano and Lao Gui. I gotta do this first before continuing on with Shibusawa’s motives. I was pissed off cause I really wanted to know what this dude was on, but before that, I had to go through a dungeon and 2 boss fights. Goddammit! were my exact words. I guess Sega thought we were stupid and wouldn’t be able to connect all the dots between both stories and thus forced us to play through both characters, constantly shifting back and forth after 2 chapters. And when we’ve been sucked into one character’s story, we take an extended Break from it after a goddamn cliffhanger. Who would’ve thought that this game would be such a horrible tease?
Annoying plot structure aside, you also get the impression of clear bias and favoritism. Because Majima is the fan favorite, he is given the more interesting side of the story, having to decide whether or not to kill a blind girl, having to maintain cover from his own boss, comic relief, it’s a well done narrative on his part. Not to mention that his punishment is to be surrounded by hoes :P. Kiryu, on the other… is just an errand boy who gets shat on by everyone who knows him. He gets beat on regularly, has zero personality, and zero character development. He runs into far more interesting people who also treat him like shit, most of his conversations devolve into philosophy mumbo jumbo, and has to be taught lessons of proper business etiquette like WHAT FUCKING CHAIR YOU HAVE TO SIT IN AT A GODDAMN RESTAURANT!!!! Man, Kiryu got screwed. Hated Oda, so glad he died! He also has to fight some asshole 5 times who thinks Kiryu isn’t “Yakuza enough” cause that makes sense. Kiryu is shackled with the bullshit “coming of age” story while Majima gets the exciting crime thriller shit.
All that being said… the sidequests are the best stories in the game!
Which is…. kinda sad when think about it. A story about teaching a dominatrix to be more aggressive… is more interesting than a bunch of gangsters murdering people over a small back alley space sandwiched between 4 towering buildings… yeah, I can see that. As weird and bizarre as some of these sidequests can be, they’re actually quite fun, though a lot of them tend to get real preachy like the Hollywood director talking about how hellish entertainment is and should be. Well ofcourse it is when you use terminology that’s like speaking another language! What the fuck was I supposed to think when you say “Erasuble” and not look at the eraser!? Somehow I guessed right when it came to “grocering” a food item. What kind of show were they making where you have to display a food item on a table for eating? And why would a producer be hands on with the production, and take shit from the director?
Also, if you’re female, I’d recommend not playing this game. At all. There’s a lot of shit here you wouldn’t approve of. Lets just say “It’s Japan and they don’t give 2 shits how women are represented” and leave it at that. Now that that’s out of the way, WOO HOO, TITS!! GROPING!!! WOMEN THAT ARE CLEARLY UNDERAGE… er…
So, another city-based open-world game with several checklists of missions that’s sure to be ignored after the first 4 chapters. Hell, having to keep up with 2 different sets of sidequests between 2 storymodes that switch up on you again and again, that’s no good. Well, you certainly can’t complain that there’s nothing to do in the bonkers world of Yakuza 0. The only thing you can’t do is watch porn videos. 😛 But even if you wanted to ignore all the side material, the game doesn’t let you. During the course of the game, after becoming heavily invested into the story after 4 chapters of suspense, the game arbitrarily tears you away in favor of teaching how to… run business minigames. For Kiryu, it’s carving up districts to gain money from businesses on these streets, and for Majima, it’s running hostess clubs and managing hoes. The latter is, surprisingly, unfun as the minigame requires you to give each customer the right girl or they’ll be pissed off. Kiryu? Press a button, wait, and money!
Either way, you can’t skip this, and for the game to spend a good 15-20 minutes with this shit after you’re more interested in the story is a dick move beyond words. These are methods of which you can make more money, but because battling enemies, selling off plates, and completing quests are faster, less tedious and far more lucrative, makes these mandatory tutorials all the more infuriating. There’s absolutely no reason for this nonsense other than to pad out an already artificially lengthy game. It’s more obnoxious than the forced karaoke minigames.
Aside from side shit, you have minigames that I didn’t play. 😛
Now for the battle system. Well, unlike a lot of beat em ups on the market, Sega took the logical choice and not have combat drag out for long periods of time just to show off it’s combo counter, the kind of bullshit that was started by Devil May Cry where overly long combos were the main draw of the game. Combat is kept simple and fun. 3 different attack styles for both characters which doesn’t really matter because for each character, only one style matters most for them. Again, Majima was shown favoritism because his Breaker Capoera style is completely broken. He can steamroll the whole game and you wouldn’t even notice. For Kiryu, his shit is rarely effective, and it never feels like you’re doing enough damage in a single string to warrant his 3 styles in the first place. That being said, having 3 different styles to use is purely cosmetic as only 1/3 of them are actually any good.
Combat itself is fun and visceral, being able to beat the snot out of all the assholes who pester you throughout Kamurocho is a wonderful thing. No one is off-limits to the asswhoopins you have planned for them (except dickhole Sagawa) so w/e anger you have built up can be unleashed! unless they have guns and knives, snd then you’re properly fucked. I should’ve expected some events in the game to feel cheap and relentless, and firearms are the bain of my existence. There’s also QTEs for when Sega wants to feel outdated in chasing that RE4/AAA claim to fame. QTEs suck, they don’t make the games any better, they just exist.
If you want better moves, you have a leveling system that requires you to piss away tens of millions of dollars to upgrade your abilities. Since money is easy to get, this isn’t too big of an issue, but I hoard shit like crazy so…
Other than that, Yakuza 0 is a lengthy game that’ll keep you busy with all it’s numerous nonsense to do. Though, if you’re just now getting into the series, I would NOT recommend 0. I repeat. NOT recommend 0. The game is just tedious, padded out out the ass, and has some really unlikable characters.
Instead, get Kiwami! No character swaps, a Kiryu that doesn’t take shit from no one, a less convoluted plot, better fighting system (buffs everywhere), and…. pole dancing Majima!?