Yakuza

Ranking

This is how I would rate them as of the current point in my playthroughs.

1. Yakuza 0
2. Yakuza Kiwami 2
3. Yakuza Kiwami 1
4. Yakuza 4
5. Yakuza 3

As I am currently playing Yakuza 5 it won't yet appear in the ranking above.

Yakuza 0

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I finished this game roughly 2 years after starting it, the time was right and I finally pulled through. Oh boy am I happy that I finished this game. The story was phenomenal, truly one of the best stories in games I have played so far. When a game gets me to completely drop amazing minigames such as the cabaret club czar and the real estate royale (Although simple, I had my fair share of fun with it) and solely focus on finishing the story, that is something worth remembering.

Sadly, I never did finish both of those minigames. If I am being honest, the story of Majima Goro hold much more emotional weight than the one of Kiryu Kazuma, and in parallel, the combat of Majima felt superior to the one of Kiryu (The final sequence with Kiryu right before the final boss battle felt like such a drag).

Considering the cabaret club czar is also superior to the real estate royale, Majima really the actual main character of Yakuza 0. Pocket racing is something I completely missed, but I will talk about that when talking about Yakuza Kiwami 1.

Yakuza Kiwami 1

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I started with Kiwami 1 right after finishing Yakuza 0, but shortly before the release of Hogwarts Legacy (Yes, I bought that game, I am sorry, but I didn't finish it, the story was lacking something major to make it interesting, had antisemitic undertones, and the performances was abysmal. The only thing I really liked about that game was being able to walk around Hogwarts and it's surroundings. Anyway....).

This dilemma lead to me starting the game in quite a rush, and later finishing it the way I started it. As I played this game in a rush you can imagine that I didn't really focus on sidecontent at all. I liked the story, seing Nishikiyama turn into an antagonist was quite sad, while the I liked everything surrounding Haruka very much, there is just something about her that brightens my mood. I did play pocket racer this time around which was surprisingly fun, and made me realise that it would have been even better if I had already played it in Yakuza 0.

One major point that dimmed the whole experience, was that Majima Everywhere was broken after the first few encounters, meaning I had absolutely no encounters until the end of the game. I still jokingly call it "Majima Nowhere". As I expected it to be an integral part of the game (because it was always advertised as such), it was a weird experience not interacting with this system for almost the whole game. When I realised in the final boss encounter that certain abilities exclusive to Majima Everywhere would have been quite useful, I was quite dissatisfied with the whole game. While this is certainly something most people probably don't encounter, it made my first playthrough of Kiwami 1 worse than it should have been and I feel deprived of said first playthrough that should have been.

Yakuza Kiwami 2

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After I finished Kiwami 1, I went on to play Kiwami 2 and that was quite the stepup from a tech standpoint. I know, the Dragon Engine is a controversial topic in the Yakuza fandom, but if I am being honest, I liked that. Yes, the combat felt more "sluggish" (for the lack of a better word) but to me that isn't really a bad thing, it has its own game feel. Being able to walk in and out of shops without a loading screen improved Kamurocho and Sotenbori in a big way for me personally, it just ties everything together and allows me to dive into the world deeper than before.

The story felt solid, I really liked Sayama as a character and her relationship with Kiryu and how that developed. I did do much more sidecontent this time around, and I did finish the cabaret club, unlike with Yakuza 0.

Majima Construction is a different story though. Being forced to watch a 13 minute cutscene (I probably could have skipped, but I did watch it anyway, so...) that was completely irrelevant to the main story with the only interesting thing being that all of the characters are played by japanese wrestlers I know nothing about was really, really unnecessary. The gameplay of Majima Construction didn't really speak to me either. All in all a very good game, and the last bonfire before I dove into the mess that Yakuza 3 is.

Yakuza 3

Well, where do I start. The Kiwami games are remakes and Yakuza 0 was released three years after Yakuza 5. Yakuza 3 is just a remaster, a remaster of a game from 2009 that is. Coming from Yakuza Kiwami 2, the graphics of Yakuza 3 are harsh, and so are the animations. And not only graphically, but everything.

The combat, oh boy. Quite hard, and some QTEs without a short pause before it, meaning that if you are in the midst of a rush combo, you will instantly fail the QTE as it gives you time to react. I mean who thought of something like that, it's insanely frustrating.

Ok, let's continue with the story. The pacing is absolutely abysmal. I get why we spent that quality time with the kids but it just feels so out of place, it's insane. You are in the middle in the story, action everywhere and then you spent half an hour fixing family problems, like what the hell? Something like that just kills the suspension. Besides the pacing issues, the whole story just isn't very good. Convoluted and confusing describes it very good.

I think I don't have to explain why I really rushed this one. Bad story and outdated tech isn't the best combination. I also did almost no sidecontent, the hostess maker was also not really fun (for me at least).

Yakuza 4

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I have to say I liked this one, but probably primarily because of the characters. Akiyama is just the best character there is, next to Majima. Saejima is also quite the interesting guy, as he tightly ties into Majimas backstory we partially explored in Yakuza 0. While Tanimura doesn't quite fit the bill (he is a cop), I think he still a likeable character who wants to avenge his father (or generally find out what happened back then).

The tech felt more solid as in three, but probably just because they cut Downtown Ryukyu and focused more on Kamurocho, which got a verticality upgrade. Combat was definitely easier than in 3 and felt more solid.

And now to the story. What the hell did I just witness? A more convoluted and confusing story than ever. Just that the whole of Kiwami 1 basically is part of the greater plot makes it worse. Although it is elegantly solved (and kinda makes sense), I have played two Yakuza games between these two and don't remember every last detail. The game defenitly gets points deducted for that mess.

All in all I quite liked this game (mostly because of Akiyama, his fat stacks at the end are just the best, the whole character is just god tier Yakuza logic). Once again I left out large parts of the sidecontent, just like with 3, but this will change with Yakuza 5.