I've always wanted to do a Yakuza retrospective. But I've never had an audience. And forcing a friend to listen to me talk about Yakuza for 2 hours would be cruel. But now I can pretend I have an audience since i have my own website. Lets Go .
I'm going to go in the order I think the games should be played. There is release order... but unless you play the ps2 games, that means youre starting with the third entry from 2009. So I'm going to go in the story's chronological order. And I'm also going to rate each game lol ! But it should be noted that like, a Yakuza 2/10 is like a 7/10 game overall. in my opinion... Well, it's all in my opinion. Let's go ! Also I'll try to keep this roughly spoiler free, since I want whoever is reading this to play it, if they haven't.
Yakuza 0
The 2015 prequel set in the 80s features a young Kazuma Kiryu and Goro Majima become the Dragon of Dojima and the Mad Dog of Shimano. The two are wrapped up in Yakuza conspiracy over a tiny empty lot in the center of Kamurocho. Kamurocho is the main city of the Yakuza series. It is a pretty typical Red Light district in Tokyo. It is based on the real life Kabukicho. The Yakuza series does a great job of immersing you in to Kamurocho, and if I woke up in Kabukicho tomorrow, I could probably better navigate it than my own town... Which isn't the most flattering thing. Anyways! This game is interesting because despite being called Yakuza for most of it's time in the west, and despite revolving around the Yakuza intensively, this is the only game where the playable protagonists are, yknow, actually in the Yakuza for the games duration. Oh, right, I should mention, the Yakuza are criminal organizations in Japan. They're also real. Kind of like a mafia, I suppose.
Anyways, this game was pretty much the break out hit for the Yakuza series in the west. It catapulted it from relatively unknown to a sensation. This game does pretty much everything right, so it makes sense why it would be such a success. Every staple of the Yakuza series is perfectly nailed here. The story is one of (if not the) best in the series, the combat is on point, and is the game to introduce different fighting styles, the side content is really well done, the substory writing is incredibly sharp, the soundtrack is at it's best... This game's legacy is so great, that the series almost can't seem to move on from it. You can spot callbacks everywhere to this game, more so than any of the others, including even the game that STARTED the story.
This is also the first game to have fan favorite Goro Majima as a playable character. Well, the first mainline game. There was another game... about shooting zombies with guns. If Yakuza revived the series in the west, that zombie game nearly killed it. Anyways, Yakuza 0 is probably one of my favorites. I probably wouldn't call it my number 1 favorite, but I might call it the BEST game in the series. But being the best doesn't automatically make you my favorite.
Combat
Combat is one of the main selling points of a Yakuza game. Does this game do it well? Yes. Kazuma Kiryu gets 3 styles: Brawler, which is a pretty standard moveset for the series. He punches, he kicks, he grabs, he dropkicks. That isn't to say it's fun, it is. Perhaps the funnest, in my opinion, because despite seeming simple, it is probably the most fleshed out. That said, I don't have much to say about it. Then, there's Rush style. This style is very fast, unleashing incredibly long combos in only a few seconds. That said, your attacks don't do as much damage as the other two styles, and you'll be knocked down easier than the other styles. Rush is also very nimble, allowing you to dodge many times in quick succesion. This style is very fun because you just get to do so much so quickly. And then, theres Beast. Your attacks are slowed down massively, but those attack do a LOT of damage, and sweep through groups of enemies. In this style, you're so strong that you can pick up motorcycles like they're nothing. In fact, when near objects, Kiryu will automatically pick up objects when you attack, and give enemies head trauma with them. Your dodges become sluggish rolls, and your block is replaced with a stance that causes massive damage reduction. It won't matter, though, why avoid getting hit when they can't get you down anyways? Switching between the styles is very fun, and makes sure the combat doesn't get repetitive nearly as quick. Another thing that helps things not be repetitive is having a whole other character you play as...
Goro Majima. This suave guy with an eyepatch is way more calm and collected than you'd expect if you're a fan of the Yakuza series. But his unhinged side can be seen through his gameplay. Like Kiryu, he has three styles. Starting with Thug, this is a pretty standard moveset as well, albeit more interesting than Brawler. Majima doesn't play by the rules, putting enemies in chokeholds and trying to poke out their eyes (you'd figure he'd be more sensitive to that). Besides that, his attacks are pretty nimble, and he can actually chain his attacks infinitely if he keeps doing light attacks, which is a feature unique to Thug in this game. Majima also has Slugger. With slugger, he uses a bat. A metal baseball bat. I don't know what to say about it, but uh, that's what he does. This is a pretty heavy hitting style, and also the first fighting style of the series where you always use a weapon. And last but not least, is Breaker style. He breakdances. He literally attack people by breakdancing like he's a beyblade.
But yeah. Majima definitely has a lot of variety in his gameplay. Both Kiryu and Majima are fun, but I think Majima is definitely more novel, lol ! Switching between these 6 styles is definitely a lot of fun though, and it made the combat in this game stick out greatly in a good way.
Side content
Yakuza 0 also has good side content, which I'm sure is another thing that helped it stand out. I mentioned in the Games section the RC cars and karaoke, which are some of the most iconic side stuff, but there's a bunch more as well. You can manage a real estate business or a Cabaret club, you can play classic Sega arcade games from the 80s, mahjong, poker, blackjack, fishing, darts, pool, and more. You can even see women in bikinis fight eachother. Yeah... Yakuza IS about a red light district after all. Yakuza also features little side story missions called Substories. These range from funny to sad to fanservice and everything inbetween. And I'd argue Yakuza 0 has the single best substories in the series. The writing is just so good on some of them, and a lot of them are iconic in and of themself. Off the top of my head, a funny one is when someone asks Majima to pretend to be their boyfriend so they don't get exposed for lying. And Majima is exactly how she described her imaginary boyfriend, including the eyepatch.Conclusion
Also, at the time of writing this, a "Director's Cut" of Yakuza 0 is planned to release on the Switch 2. So now might be the perfect time to look in to getting it ! Also I have 100% in this game , which is pretty hard to do since like I said, there's so much side content.Yakuza Kiwami
This is the 2016 remake of 2005's Yakuza on the ps2. Built off the framework of Yakuza 0, this game shares much of the same DNA. It is pretty much the original story told with a Yakuza 0 coat of paint. That isn't to say it is a bad game by any means. It's just... not my favorite. It's important though. It let's us view the original game that started the story and which everything derives from, without needing to force your way through a ps2 game. Basically, the legendary Dragon of Dojima, Kazuma Kiryu, takes the fall for his friend who murdered his boss, Sohei Dojima. Kiryu goes to prison, only to find out that friend turned out to be going Evil Mode, so now it's time for Kiryu to step in and clear his name and stop his friend. This game also introduces Sawamura Haruka, who Kiryu treats almost like a daughter, and would become one of the most integral characters in the series. In this game she's a 10 year old girl. There's not really much else to say, because the game is pretty derivative of Yakuza 0.
Combat
This game features Kiryu's styles from Yakuza 0, as well as a new fourth style, Dragon. The Dragon style is meant to be most similar to his iconic fighting style from previous games, before he had multiple in Yakuza 0. The combat is still mostly the same. It also introduces the "Kiwami" mechanic, in which bosses begin to regenerate health, and you need to perform a special heat action in a specific style to stop it. It's a little janky and annoying. Heat actions, by the way, are special cutscene moves you perform in many many different ways by expending your heat, a gauge that fills up as you deal more damage.Side content
This game doesn't add too much side content on top of what Yakuza 0 had. The substories aren't quite as strong as Yakuza 0's, but to the games credit, most of the substories were written 11 years beforehand. The main side content new to this game (and different from the ps2 release) is the addition of Majima Everywhere. Majima would appear in random places, and continuously defeating him would allow you to unlock more abilities for the Dragon style. This very silly characterization of Majima made him somewhat of a comic relief character, and is probably the most flanderized he gets in the series. That said, I still think it's a pretty cute mechanic.