There aren’t many games quite like a Yakuza title. It’s barely possible to comprehend the level of “turn-it-up-to-11” that resides in the disk of a single copy of Yakuza 0. To pack all the content and craziness you get into a simple Blu-Ray is sheer madness. To then have the balls to put some of the things it lets you do in a videogame redefines bonkers.
For those who haven’t played a Yakuza title before, let me describe an hour in Yakuza 0. First, you leave your real estate dealings in the hands of an actual chicken (called ‘Nugget’), play some mahjong, get ambushed by an army of Grease (the movie)-wannabes, teach a timid dominatrix how to be mean to men, race a toy car around a track, make inappropriate conversation with girls in a phone club and then watch two barely-clothed women belt the living daylights out of each other while you bet on it.
That’s not even the craziest example.
For those who’ve never even heard of the franchise before, it’s not inaccurate to say that the series is like a Japanese Grand Theft Auto. For most of its 40-hour story Yakuza-0 is set in two different areas of Tokyo. These are cityscapes designed for debauchery, and in the game’s 1988 setting that means beer, booze and babes.
Yes, Yakuza-0 takes everything that you might attribute to the word ‘misogyny’ and pours it… not quite down your throat. This is an 18+ game, for an 18+ reason. Any number of things in the title could have convinced PEGI to give this an 18 rating, but if you believe the information printed on the case it says it’s for Bad Language, Gambling and Violence.
I mean, what did we really expect for a game about a famous Japanese crime family in the 80s which heavily features gangsters and Yakuza-culture? Also, because it’s the 80s, I’d like to invite everyone who is currently up on their 2010+ political correctness high horse to jump down. I’ll tell you when you can get back on.
I’m sure there’s a handful of people who are going to pick up this title and be a combination of confused, disgusted and deeply offended by what they see here. However, all you need is a little bit of common sense and the ability to know that this isn’t some game about animals or magical forest creatures for kids. This is human-on-human brutal violence, it features a cast that’s almost entirely male, and for the most part does a brilliant job immersing the player in a believable setting and world.
Yakuza’s main story is a tale of deception, betrayal and gang violence. Protagonists Kiriyu and Majima both have ties to the Yakuza, and are put in a position where they need to fight to survive. Their struggles to make a living and stay safe in the debaucherous underworld of Tokyo is an enthralling tale that I really believe is one of the better ones in the last decade. This is helped by brilliant voice acting, a dash of melodrama and a bonkers combat system which lets you literally smash a motorbike into someone’s rib cage.
The main bulk of Yakuza-0’s story focuses on origin. The protagonists feature in other Yakuza games, but this is a perfect starting point for the series, and was designed with elements of player accessibility in mind.
That said, most of the gameplay is anchored in an open exploration section, where the player can roam around Kamurocho and Osaka as they please, getting into brawls with drunk locals, eating out at restaurants and doing side quests. However, this is not an open-world game. The similarities between this and the Grand Theft Auto series (post GTA II) end there. Yakuza features two dense areas that are packed with things to do and see, and are mostly void of open landscape. This is a city, and you are here to stay.
The narrative itself is only a small part of the experience, as the majority of the Yakuza-ness comes in the form of side-quests, deep and complex mini-games and that old JRPG favourite – grinding.
Money is king in Tokyo, and having lots of it is necessary for any up and coming Yakuza. In lieu of skill points, Kiriyu and Majima improve their abilities by literally investing money into themselves to learn and gain new skills. Money is earned by fighting bad guys, who spew notes like violently bursting pinatas as the double-headed dragon of protagonists smash, slice and pummel them into sweet, sweet yen.
That money can also be used to purchase food, drinks, and other services and activities around the city, which range from karaoke, disco dancing and playing classic SEGA games to watching videos that are supposed to be softcore porn, but just look like the Instagram story of your average wannabe model. Okay, now you can get back up on your high horse. This game is fucking insane. It’s also voluminous, as there’s so much to do that you can sink hours into mini-games that you shouldn’t really care about. Take the darts game for instance, which is well-designed enough to feel like more than just a mini-game. Once you get good, you start betting crazy amounts of money on yourself, while getting progressively drunker to the point where you’re aiming at three casually floating dartboards trying to figure out which one is the actual bullseye. There are of course, less… PC minigames than this, but most of the content that anyone would be in a position to be offended or outraged by is completely optional.
Granted, the main story is practically devoid of female characters – but none of those that are there are presented poorly or in an overt and over-sexualised way. But… if you start going around doing side quests, playing mini-games and literally walking into the building marked on your map as ‘Erotic videos’ then you’re going to come afoul of something a lot less wholesome.
It’s because most of this content is optional that I have no strong feelings about it either way. I’m not particularly interested in it outside of a completionist standpoint, nor am I shocked to my core. I’m playing a game set in Japan’s equivalent of the Red Light District – I’d be an idiot to be shocked that there was some ‘Adult’ entertainment available.
I often criticised some anime games for buying too much into their fan service, and interrupting the story with unnecessary sexulisation just for the sake of it. At least in this setting, it feels like it belongs, even if it is a bit awkward.
Yakuza 0’s biggest issue is less one of social and cultural expectations and more one of there being too much to do. It does not surprise me that the game’s Platinum trophy has only been achieved by 0.6% of players, as one of said trophies is to achieve 100% completion.
This game represents both a skill barrier and a grind and it’s going to take in excess of 100 hours to even come close to getting the Plat.
There are also some flaws outside of the usual trophy hunting woes. The first, and most notable is that weapon durability feels remarkably low. By the time you reach the end of the game, weapons are either a must-have or useless because they are so weak compared to just brawling in the street with your barehands.
Then there’s the game’s aesthetic. The graphics in the cutscenes and for the main characters are okay to good, but the randomers on the street and some of the buildings feel like polygonal shapes that were built for the previous generation. Some of the level design feels this way too, with key story moments being poor escort missions that force you to either cumbersomely drag your way through combat, or cheese the entire situation with a shotgun.
Then there’s some difficulty spikes that are just brutal, even on the standard difficulty. To call Yakuza 0’s combat a ‘brawler’ feels disingenuous to games like Devil May Cry V that are also tarred with that brush. Compared to the finesse and flourish of a dedicated combat-based game, Yakuza’s moment-to-moment fighting feels massively over the top, but you never feel good at it. It doesn’t give you that same sense of “I am awesome” as other games do. The clunky targeting and lack of real in-depth combos do hurt the game’s appeal as a fighter.
Outside of that, there’s just a lot of mini-games, each of which require you to have detailed real-world knowledge of how they play. The game’s attention to realism actually hurts how it functions as a game. Granted, there’s an argument to be made that I should just learn how to play Mahjong, Shogi and other games of Eastern-origin. But, I already know how to play pool, darts, Poker, Blackjack and still had to do some of the dancing challenges more than five times to even get close to finishing them.
Conclusion
Yakuza 0’s biggest problem is that once you’ve cleared the story, there’s just so much to do yet you aren’t given any focus. While doing certain side quests I worked hard and was driven to reach certain landmarks and goalposts. However, for some of these activities there is no such draw outside of raw completionist behaviour.
Perhaps to put it bluntly, the excellence of the game is dulled by sheer volume of content and the associated fatigue with continuously trying to experience it all. I believe Yakuza 0 could have done with just a few bits here and there removing to provide more focus. This is an amazing game that represents insane value for money in the current market, but it’s by no means for everyone. The lack of an English dub will put some people off, even though the voice acting is amazing as is, then there’s the over-the-top… everything. Kiriyu reacts in the same melodramatic way when he’s picking up the telephone as he does smashing a man’s face through a urinal. There’s just no pause. The entire experience expects you to be at full throttle and never let go. For the 100+ hours this will take to get close to a completionist run, I suspect more people than not approach the ‘burn out’ phase of gaming before the achieve everything. While this may be one of the better games currently available on any platform, I would not recommend this being the only thing you’re playing at any given time. Even the best of us can’t handle this much “turn it up to 11” for so long a period.
Fatelighter 
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