Yakuza 0

Expectation: A serious crime drama that involves an Ex Yakuza.
Reality: Spend 95% of your time dedicated to running around the city, getting roped into socially awkward situations, getting into fights agaisnt people that just wants to fight you for the sake of fighting you, dancing in the disco, singing karaoke, and manage real estate/

Yakuza 0 is the best Real-Estate Management and Cabaret Club simulator with a Yakuza action adventure minigame ever made.
Yakuza 0 is an unapologetically explosive, bombastic, and absolutely fabulous adventure in the shining lights of 80’s Japan and with the sheer amount of content in this game per the price itself, it is a must for fans of open world games.
+Pros
+Story
Yakuza 0 follows the origin stories of two series regulars Kazuma Kiryu and Goro Majima. It explains their starting relationships with several other characters who appear in future Yakuza games as well as showing their individual growth to becoming the legendary characters long time fans are more familiar with. Basically, if you're intimidated to dive in because it may be difficult to understand the story don't be, the in game story is just beginning so it's relatively easy to understand for newcomers.
As for the stories themselves, although they play out mostly like a dramatic Japanese soap-opera with lots of yelling and intense zoom ins, they are actually quite interesting with many twists and turns, betrayal, and even a tragic romance which leads to a very interesting and compelling narrative that also isn’t afraid to amp up the machismo factor whenever you’re having a shirts off, hand to hand brawl with one of the big Yakuza bosses.
+Combat
For those of you more familiar with the Batman: Arkham series with the punch a lot of enemies and then press a button to counter when you’re about to get hit combat system here you’ll find the combat in Yakuza 0 to be completely different despite them both being 3rd person action fighting games.
For example, Yakuza 0’s combat system is a lot more interactive with both Kiryu and Majima containing several distinct fighting styles to defeat a lot of enemies in a truly satisfying manner.
Whether it be Kiryu’s straightforward pummeling to beat a group of enemies or Majima’s fabulous breakdancing you’ll find the fighting in this game to always be fun as hell and satisfying once you get used to the rhythm.
My favorite part of the combat system however is definitely the mechanic of “heat actions” where once you build up enough heat meter, you can do some wild actions to deal tons of damage to whoever so happens to be unlucky enough to be in your way.
Here’s some examples.
Oh and there’s no counter button to instantly respond when attacked unless you either count Kiryu’s Brawler style to punch back instantly after getting hit or later on with another style you unlock so if you get jumped from behind and get comboed by multiple people expect to actually take some damage.
It shouldn’t be too much of an issue however as later on you’ll be able to easily solo twenty enemies or more once you unlock all the styles.
+Soundtrack
Yakuza 0 has an amazing soundtrack to really get into the groove when you’re pummeling hordes of enemies, fighting an epic boss battle, or just tryin to groove at the karaoke bar Yakuza 0 has it all.
A couple of my favorite examples of how good this soundtrack is.
+Graphics
1980’s Japan never looked better as the towns of Kamurocho and Sotenbori come to life in a high resolution fashion. In-game cutscenes for Yakuza 0 are all very well done too as you’ll often be staring at the character models for long periods of time as this game’s cutscenes can go on forever so it’s always nice to make sure they look good.
+Minigames, minigames, and more minigames!
It’s honestly quite insane just how many games within games Yakuza 0 has as you have access to so many arcade games, sports games, gambling/card games, arena fights, and special battle challenges you’ll honestly never find yourself without something to do in the game.
Personal favorites of mine are the racing minigame, blackjack, bowling, and of course Majima’s cabaret club management minigame but there’s honestly so many games to play you could easily blow a couple hours just messing around with what each town has to offer.
+Sidestories/Side quests
If you’re more familiar with games like Grand Theft Auto you may come to the conclusion that despite having massive open worlds, besides going on massive killing rampages and doing main story quests, there’s actually very little interesting people to meet/ things to do postgame (At least that’s been my play experience the moment i’m done with all the main quests and have nothing left to do but hunt down the last few interesting people really).
Here though you can’t go more than two blocks before meeting an individual that may or may not be the most sane but regardless they need your help for some reason or other. These sidequests can range from a simple task, like helping a television crew film a commercial, all the way to the more wacky ones like helping a statue use the restroom or helping someone get a pizza.
Either way you'll never find yourself without something fun or wacky to do during your playtime.
-Cons
-Slight Issues with the PC Port
Be warned there may be a few issues regarding this PC port in particular.
During my playtime I encountered a few issues here and there, some minor some more gamebreaking.
1. Static audio ingame when talking to NPCs.
2. Inventory glitch where your entire inventory gets messed up and replaced with other ingame items.
3. Freeze into crash and since the game only lets you save at phone booths it is super painful to lose all that progress but if you get an autosave it’s not as bad but still.
-Minor Incovience with Kiryu’s Real-Estate Management Game
Later on you’ll unlock Kiryu’s real-estate side game where you can purchase various properties all around Kamurocho for some more cash later on than you initially invested.
The problem being that there’s really no big indicator telling you a property is available for purchase unless you actually walk up right next to it so it becomes part guessing game, part process of elimination as you walk around all the possible buildings for purchase until you find one that you can actually buy.
Edit: As others have noted if you want to have an easier time be sure to change your settings so it's much easier to find real estate properties to purchase.
-Very Slow Start
The first two-three hours of Yakuza 0 can be a bit of a slog to get through as you don’t have access to any of the big selling points and the game’s mechanics are slowly being released to you bit by bit.
Stick with it though as it really starts to pick up around the mid-end point stages of the game.
Final Verdict:(9/10)
Yakuza 0 is an excellent open world game with too many minigames to count, lots of interesting people to meet, and of course a main storyline that’ll really put some hair on your chest with all the macho brawling.
Overall, if you’re looking for a fun game to play with a lot of content to mess around in, considering the price of this game, you’ll definitely get your money’s worth and more.

REAL YAKUZA USE A GAMEPAD

I have never played a game that skates the line between absolute absurdity and genuine emotion like this before.

I hate myself for not starting the series earlier

joseph joestar would forgive the japanese if he played this game

This was the first game I played from the Yakuza franchise, and I was blown away. The Story is brilliantly written, there's plenty of sub-stories to play, the combat is very smooth and satisfying and there's ton of extra activities to do ranging from Bowling, Darts, Karaoke, Baseball and more. If you haven't played any Yakuza game before, definitely give this one a try, you won't regret it.