Update Two Hundred and Fifty-Two: 20 November 2018
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
There are games you play and have a decent enough time. There’s games you play and enjoy. There’s games you play that move you, that leave a lasting impression, and maybe even change you.
And then there’s Yakuza 0—somehow all of that and then some.
A new installment of the long running Yakuza series, Yakuza 0 is a prequel set in 1988 during Japan’s bubble economy. Series protagonist Kazuma Kiryu is a fledgling yakuza and barely an adult when he gets swept up in machinations far, far, far beyond what he can control. The other half of the game’s split story stars Majima Goro, a young man trapped in a gilded cage, very different from how he appears in the other Yakuza games. He’s given an opportunity to step back into the world he was exiled from… if only he has the guts to take it.
I found it a perfect place to step into this rich universe—while Yakuza 0 has a lot of references to later games, they don’t feel out of place. It’s the right amount of foreshadowing, planting the seed that will eventually bloom into characters you run into and meet later. The overarching stories, starting separate and becoming entertwined, was awesome. Dramatic as fuck without ever really going too far or feeling like an asspull, the game’s able to balance the unraveling of several plots and establishing interesting characters with emotional depth. Majima Goro ended up being far and away my favorite character in this game, and possibly for this entire year, and it’s a really fun and unique position to be in to get to know him from a very different starting point than long-time fans did, and to see how he turns into the man he’ll be in the future games. This incarnation—relatively good-natured, kind to children, underdog ponytail Majima—will probably always be ‘my’ Majima, though. Him cleaning up well and being absolutely fucking smokin’ helps, too.
Oh yeah, did I mention? Everyone in this fucking game is a knockout. Everyone’s in suits. Everyone’s handsome. Dudes get roughed up and rip off their shirts to reveal their cut bods and huge tats on the regular. The models are gorgeous, able to be so realistic without falling into a strange uncanny valley I find with a lot of other games shooting for realism (like, for example, Horizon: Zero Dawn). It’s amazing, and it’s helped incredibly by the absolutely crazytown bananapants animation. I can’t overstate just how lovely the facial animation is in the FMV cutscenes in particular, able to get tiny nuances that make the performances REAL as hell and magnetizing to watch. The characters in-engine are expressive enough, but, man alive, those FMV scenes are a real joy to watch.
And watch them you will! What I wasn’t prepared for was just how many cutscenes this game had. It’s routine for me to not touch a controller for twenty or thirty minutes during the ending of a chapter and the beginning of the next one, and everything past the point of no return probably took a good five hours to get through, with not that much of that time fighting. I love that kind of shit, it just surprised me! I did like the combat in this game—it’s fluid and fun and full of character, between the different fighting styles you learn and all the different hardcore heat actions you discover as the game progresses, stylish and silly and sick and everything in between. The fighting was able to be a kind of background thing that didn’t get in the way of the shit I wanted to focus on.
There is a lot to focus on. There’s so much shit to focus on I literally don’t know where to begin, except: the side/optional stuff tended to be the perfect light, sweet complement to a heavy, dramatic story. If you wanted to just play your drama straight, you could—there still would be some laughs, but it’d be overall pretty somber. What makes the game shine, though, is just how perfectly balanced the absurdity is against the serious drama. It’s an amazing, endearing, earnest mixture that captured my heart from the word go, from the very moment early on in the story when Kiryu stepped up to sing karaoke with his sworn brother… and halfway through the song, it became a music video starring the two of them, singing and playing electric guitar in full rock star getup. Yakuza can be serious, but it doesn’t take itself seriously, and sweet fucking jesus does it work.
It’s been a while since I’ve been so wholeheartedly swept up into a game, and it’s a really, really uplifting feeling. I was also lucky enough to have someone come along with me for the ride—BLAEO user Shax was there from minute one answering my questions and taking in all my reactions and goofy jokes. He’s been so passionate about the game and the series, which helped me get more into it in turn. It was so wonderful to have someone to talk to in depth about it as I was playing through it, culminating in him watching the ending again along with me, a huge distance apart and right there at my back all at once. It was awesome.
Are there flaws? Yeah. I would’ve liked to have had the protagonists (especially Majima) be more proactive than reactive. The game has just as many sexist qualities as you’d expect for what it is. There’s some quality of life things that would have made playing different minigames less aggravating. But consider also:
It runs like a dream. It’s funny as hell. I wasn’t expecting there to be romance in it, let alone a romance that punched my heart out of my chest and shot it into the sun. Oh my god I haven’t even talked about the substories, or the music. I want to play it again immediately but with Madison this time so I can watch this game put her in the fucking ground. We’ll get on that after the Missing, which we are actually playing.
Play this game.
Next up: It’s currently 7:31 am and I haven’t slept and god I hope this review makes sense I tried really hard to make it coherent and I think it’s time to take an abrupt 180 turn to switch things up. I’m going to be focusing on games that came out in 2018 until December, when I’ll be tackling all my SG wins for the year!
See you soon!
Thanks for the shout out! <3
Of course, kyodai. The whole game is special, and you being there made it even moreso!
Added to wishlist, thanks for the great review!
Oh, I’m so glad it was coherent! Thank you for the kind comment c:
I still haven’t played a single Yakuza game. I really want to start now since I’ve heard nothing but good things about the series.
I think you’ll enjoy Donut County. Hope you have fun
Oh yeah, this made me a diehard fan. I have money set aside to pick up Kiwami as soon as it releases on Steam. I got Yakuza 0 on a moderate discount, and I have to imagine it’ll be similarly discounted in the upcoming holidays sales. The game itself is also set in December, so it’s right around that time!
I think I will, too! It looks right up my alley, and it’s also Something Completely Different, which is what I need after playing a very long game.
Haha soon after we talked about you playing it earlier than anticipating, it made me happy to see you playing it so often. You were clearly in the deep end. :P Glad it was everything you’d hoped it would be and more!
I actually saw a few negative reviews mentioning the looong cutscenes and I wasn’t sure how “bad” it was. I normally take breaks every 20ish minutes or so, so didn’t want to /have/ to sit through an hour long one without being able to get up/pause or save it. I enjoy cutscenes, I just don’t wanna be stuck there if y’know what I mean.
It amazes me how cheap the game is, considering its length and the quality (based on the footage I’ve seen/reviews). Did it crash at all on you? Anyways nice review as per usual (are you sure that was written after no sleep?? u should see my tired ramblings :P), enjoy Donut County!!
I AM SO IN THE DEEP END!
Jaffa, u kno what I’ve been doing since I finished? Vacuuming through every Yakuza/Majima blog on tumblr and saving all kinds of fanart and gifsets. I read this fucking amazing fanfiction and I’m going to read more. I might even draw again myself, I’m so inspired! I got it BAD
I’m the same way - I get a little antsy, especially during long games. The cutscenes are all able to be paused, and the game ran so light I was able to easily alt+tab out, do something else, then alt+tab back without a hitch. Hell, most of the time I wouldn’t even pause because the game (for me) stops running when its in the background, essentially freezing the action only to resume immediately when you tab back.
It didn’t crash at all - not only that, the loading times (which weren’t many) were a second or so each. No glitches, ran effortlessly.
Ha! You’re a kind critic. My GIRLFRIEND was like ‘hey, look this over again after you get some sleep, you made some errors’ and I was like SURE I WILL. I’ve made some real disjointed reviews before, but I really wanted to be methodical about this one because of how much I had to say about it - and there’s still tons of aspects I haven’t even touched.
I probably will enjoy Donut County… once I get back into playing games instead of inhaling fanfiction.
It’s definitely magical when you’re so invested into something, such a warm, comfy feeling. And thankfully the internet is this amazing place with endless content to help in your binging. :D Saw you’ll be playing it with Madison now, hope it brings an added level/perspective to the playthrough! Glad you’ve got some stuff planned in the meantime to avoid burnout.
That info was suuuper helpful to know, really appreciate the heads up. Was definitely my main concern.
Haha well first read it at after posting it was 3am when I couldn’t sleep myself. So I’m maybe, possibly not the best editor to rely on. But it couldn’t have been that bad, I was totally oblivious to any and just hyping myself up for the game along with everyone else reading your review. :)
Caught up in the excitement of the review \o/
I’ve always wanted to try the Yakuza games, and your review only proves how much I believe I will love it (now I really really believe :3).
Thank you for such a crazy, yet in depth review, much like the games I’m sure. Luckily Yakuza Kiwami came out free for PS Plus members :D, now only to find time…
Hope you got some rest somewhere between all that playtime and typing, thanks again for the review and good luck on your current tasks and in the future installments (I can only assume this is the next course of action)! ^_^
Having my review match the spirit of the games is an unbelievable compliment you gave me, Bangledeschler, thank you!
I’m trying in vain to hold out for Kiwami on the PC, but there’s no release date and I need more of this shit RIGHT NOW so bad I’m seriously considering buying all of them I can on the PS4.
I did indeed (though it took me two days to reset my sleep schedule, I’m good now) and I appreciate the wishes of luck! I wish you luck as well, whenever you decide to start your Yakuza journey!
Before this year’s E3 I’ve never heard about Yakuza. When I checked the trailers for Yakuza 0 my initial reactions were: “Hmm, looks like a lot of ‘random humor’ - not sure how I feel about that” and “Looks too brutal for me”. Do you think I still should try playing at least one game in the series to see how it goes or maybe judging by these first thoughts you could say that it’s really not for me?
I think you absolutely should give it a try, especially considering when the sale comes up it’ll end up being for around 13 US American dollars - an absolute steal.
As for your points:
“Lot of ‘random humor’”
The humor is more absurd situations, not ‘lol tacos mongoose milkshakes’. It’s, in the words of Yakuza’s director, ‘doing stupid things really seriously.’ And, most importantly, the humorous parts of the game are all optional. All the minigames where Kiryu takes mini racing cars too seriously, where you dramatically play old arcade games, or where you fight off a randy old lady and lose - they’re all not necessary and, to an extent, easy to miss. The main plot is very serious and dramatic - crime drama with some noir influences. There’s some humor in the main story, to brighten things up here and there, but the only ‘lol random’ bit is every once in a while Kiryu or Majima will say ‘holy shitballs’ or something, which some people dislike but I’m like… they’re young men in their early twenties, they’ll say dumb shit sometimes.
“Too brutal”
There is a LOT of violence in this, yes… but it’s very ‘idealized’ violence. Everyone’s a big punching bag, but surprisingly few people outright die. It’s over the top but not brutal - it’s too fantasy-like to be brutal. You have an option to turn the blood off, which I did because the blood texture looked p bad. Majima and Kiryu get roughed up sometimes… and then are pretty okay a couple of scenes later. It’s no more brutal than a standard wuxia or western action film is. It’s by far less brutal than standard, say, FPS games. The BioShock games, Fallout, etc, are WAY more brutal than this with how bloody and gristly and explodey they can be.
I don’t typically stan for games like this, but, like, as I write this Madison’s at a part of the game (I’m replaying it with her) where Kiryu and a new companion of whom he isn’t quite sure he can trust are having a heartfelt conversation in a car while delicate, melodic guitar music is playing. The phrase ‘gentle soul’ is used. It’s just as sappy and emotional as it is dramatic and fighty. I’m getting so much out of the story by watching it again, picking up more nuance and seeing how things were seeded. While the humor and OTT fighting are important parts of it, the whole is greater than its sum. Does that make sense?
It does :)
Thank you for taking your time to write a substantial answer! I’m not 100% sure whether I’ll like the game or not, but I enjoy trying out a variety of different things gaming scene has to offer. For now the game lands on my wishlist and if I ever manage to clean my backlog a bit (or if it gets bundled) I’ll at least give it a try ;)
Oh, please, you’d have to pay me NOT to talk at length about Yakuza 0 - Madison’s at the finale and we should finish it tonight and I’m loving it a hell of a lot the second time around - because of how much I enjoyed it.
That’s totally fair - you might win a GA for it, too c; However you pick it up, whenever you do, it’ll be waiting for you to try it out.
It’s almost a year since you reviewed this wow. I decided to actually buy this game soon so I thought I’d read your thoughts considering you have the others and wow was that a lot of text
This is actually much shorter than what I could’ve wrote! Yakuza 0 is my favorite game, period, of all time. What an incredible flagship for an incredible series.
I hope you enjoy it even a fraction of how much I did.
Noted… How should I pick this up :3
How? As fast as you possibly can and with extreme tenderness.
It’s also on the PS4, but the PC version is beautifully fucking optimized. I was able to even idle this game bc it ran like nothing. I was shocked. Absolutely zero issues.