Yakuza 0

This game is honestly insanely good. When I first played Zero, I was really new to the Yakuza franchise and was still getting to grips with the lore. Thankfully, due to this game being a prequel of some sorts, if you're interested in playing the Yakuza series but don't know where to start, this game is your answer.

The storytelling and the pace of this game is beyond fantastic. It has everything, intense highs and devastating lows, great comedic timing and the silly charm that the Yakuza series is well known for. It really is a game that you can just boot up and goof around in. I'll do my best to avoid spoilers for the game in this short review since I truly believe that everyone interested in the game should play it for themselves.

Beautifully crafted and insanely fun. Yakuza 0 is one of, if not my favourite game of all time. This is the first game to ever render me a sobbing, wailing mess.

10/10, fantastic and beautiful.

Yakuza 0 is an action-adventure game that is the sixth main entry in the franchise and serves as prequel to the original game. The game takes places between December 1988 and January 1989 in Kamurocho, Tokyo and Sotenbori, Osaka. Players can control charismatic protagonist Kiryu Kazuma and eccentric Majima Goro. The story revolves around an empty lot in Kamurocho that is owned by a young woman living in Osaka who suffers from psychogenic blindness and is mercilessly hunted down by criminal organizations.

This game convinces on numerous levels. The game play is very addictive as players can incarnate the franchise's two most skilled fighters in this game which makes for extraordinary and unique fight sequences. These characters also have a more humane touch this time around since they are much younger than in the other games and trying to help a helpless innocent woman you can't help but rooting for.

The story is also intriguing as it comes around with several conspiracies, turns and twists that will keep players on the edges of their seats. The number of characters here is more impressive than in many television series featuring multiple seasons.

This game also helps us understand how the two lead characters became the people they are in the other releases of the franchise. Regular players will discover sides of these characters that they would have never expected to witness.

It also oozes with atmosphere and brings Japan in the late eighties to life in authentic fashion with less modern suburbs, elegant discotheques and tons of addictive arcade games. The accompanying soundtrack completes the authentic immersion.

This game once again offers value for money, with the main story taking more than thirty hours to be completed while finishing the numerous different side stories might take far over one hundred hours.

While not being the franchise's most memorable game, it serves its purpose as a prequel exploring the main characters' origins extremely well. This is why this game should certainly please regular fans of the franchise. However, it would also serve as excellent starting point for new fans who could then continue their discovery of this extraordinary game series chronologically.

S tier, 10/10. Such a brilliantly over the top game. The story goes in so many different directions and is just a joy to watch. The combat is satisfying, I loved Majima's set the best and the baseball bat the most. Kiru's beast mode was great too. The open world was perfectly condensed with interesting side missions and plenty of things to do.

The infamous kareoke songs are brilliant, the race car game was exceptional, my favorite was however the dancing, just perfect. It did definitely drag at the end and felt a bit repetitive with the combat but there are so many great story moments and things to keep you playing. The last mission is so great and is such a brilliant set piece ending.

The customisation of your character however is very limited and pretty much non existent. The side missions are great but it is very easy to miss them as you have to explore in so many different areas. This is both good and bad as it forces you to explore but is just very time consuming and fustrating for me personally. I did go back to complete the side missions I missed in free roam mode but it just felt really repetitive and tedious to wander around the streets, exploring every inch of this place just to find a questline. Majima's story goes a bit all over the place after the incredible introduction. Over time it definitely got better but was weaker compared to Kiru's.

I haven't played the later games but several characters such as Kiru's best friend who felt like a major character didn't have much of a role. I'm sure that he is more important in the later games but i am very hesitant to play them, as I feel this style of combat and exploration could really get old after a while. I was interested in the story but I just looked up a video online, which definitely made me want to check out some of the games, I probably will but at a later date.

I did get this game because of Dunkey's review and am glad to say I enjoyed it allot more than him. I do agree with most of his points but the story is definitely better than he made it out to be. I'm not angry or anything I just wish he enjoyed it as much as I did.

In all a game I really enjoyed and just wanted to keep on playing and playing till the end. Definitely one of the most fun games I have played.

Yakuza 0 is nothing short of a miracle. This game was born from SEGA giving one final push for the Yakuza series to succeed in the United States and boy oh boy, did they do it. It's a cinematic roller coaster of action and emotion.

This was the second game I played in the series. Yakuza Kiwami, the remaster of the first game that was published after this one, was my first. I really recommend playing them this way, mostly because meeting the two protagonists and going on that adventure with them gave me ten times more investment in this story (But don't blame yourself if you can't get through Kiwami. It's short but the story is still full of holes from the original).

Speaking strictly of the story, once you hit the end of Chapter 2 you're hooked. Every two chapters you switch between the two protagonists, Kiryu and Majima, and their respective cities, Kamurocho and Sotenbori. The writing on both sides is immaculate. Once those two chapters with that character come to a head, they're left caught in a situation that leaves you wondering what happens next. But the best part is that switching to the other character doesn't feel like a dip in tension because you were already excited to find out what happened to them since last time. It's a very well-balanced approach to the dual narrative structure.

The cinematography isn't half-bad either. The tone for this title is much more serious (at least in the main story) than its brothers and sisters. There's moody lighting, excellent expression capture, period-accurate environments (did I mention this game is set in 1980's Japan?), and other details that create a believable atmosphere. I'm a huge proponent of using motion-captured cutscenes to tell a story versus using in-engine mouth flapping and dialogue boxes, and this is the Yakuza game that probably delivers the most on that front. Every other cutscene is mocap, and nearly all of them are played real-time with the detailed models (which means they can run at 60fps). There are so many scenes that crank up the intensity to 11 and catch you off-guard and it's wonderful.

Surprisingly, the combat is not my favorite out of the series. You have your staples like separate fighting styles, impactful heat actions, etc. But it has some mechanics like the depleting heat bars and abilities costing money that might throw off a gameplay-focused gamer. I still adore it, but if a remaster happened in five years I'd hope they change some things.

If you're looking for a great game that keeps you on the edge of your seat and has amazing presentation, you found it. It's probably my favorite piece of media in the entire world.

This is honestly a top 5 game for me at worst, I finished it recently due to a friend recommending it as a starting point and this was perfect for that

The game is all over the place and messy in the perfect way, one moment I'm laughing at something stupid, the next I'm angry at a character in the game and wanna beat them with the wrath of god, then I'm emotional devastated over something because let me say this games ending hurts

The story is paced well and constantly has my investment each chapter, plus the characters were all brilliantly written, with my favourite of the bunch being Goro Majima, this is all further complimented by the simple yet satisfying melee combat system which can make you feel like an absolute badass at certain points

Either way I'd 100% recommend this game as a start to Yakuza as it really shows you the bond between two characters Kiryu and Nishiki before Kiwami, which makes that games story even more impactful, as well as making Majima more than just a funny guy used for comic relief

"This truly was our Yakuza 0" - Goro Majima.