Why Do People Love the ‘Yakuza’ Series?
I was severely turned off by the Yakuza franchise before I had even tried out a game in the series. The constant cheer pressure to play the game coupled with the abundance of absurd GIF memes from various entries in the series left me disinterested at best and cynical at worst. That cynicism manifested in my first session with Yakuza 0, the prequel that published between the release of Yakuza 5 and Yakuza 6, and I nearly stopped playing after about five hours. I was reluctant to sink my teeth into these characters and this world, but a friend gifted me this copy of 0 on Steam, so I felt obligated to at least push through my initial discomforts. I cannot overstate how wrong my first impressions with the Yakuza series were and how glad I am that I pushed through, for I fell in love with the entire experience by the end.
One of the biggest issues I felt early on with Yakuza 0 was a lack of connection to the game’s central characters, particularly the protagonists, Kazuma Kiryu and Goro Majima. While this prequel does an admirable job of situating itself within the pre-established canon of mainline Yakuza games, I had no idea why I was supposed to care about Kiryu and Majima at first. There is an intrinsic sense of needing to know more about the characters than the opening chapters provide in Yakuza 0. And now that I’ve wrapped up my Yakuza Kiwami and Kiwami 2 playthroughs, having spent roughly 100 hours with these characters thus far, I am entirely confident that I would be more invested in Yakuza 0’s introduction if I played it again.
In addition to my detached and disoriented feelings towards Kiryu and Majima, I also initially bounced off some of the conceits of the game’s presentation. I knew the game would be delivering voice lines entirely in Japanese, but I failed to realize how much text is not voice acted throughout the game. Some of my favorite games have no voice acting at all or, like Persona 5: The Royal, split the voice acting similarly to Yakuza 0. But the double-whammy of partial Japanese voice acting and text reading initially grinded my enthusiasm to a halt.
Mistaken First Impressions
In retrospect, much of my initial resistance to the presentation of dialogue in Yakuza 0 arose from streaming the game; I felt like I could only focus on either the game or people writing messages in chat, but not both. I had played several games on stream with Japanese voice acting as well as games that required me to read the entire script – neither of which were issues on their own. The balance of Yakuza 0 and chat was something that took an extra few streams to feel fully comfortable with, but I have completely gotten over it now that I am so invested in the characters, story, and world. Now that I’m starting the third game in the series, the streaming flow has fully settled in and is something I actively look forward to.
Before continuing to unpack my mistaken first impressions with the series, it’s worth noting that the environments in Yakuza 0 are stunningly realized, featuring endless neon signs reflecting off rain-dampened surfaces like sidewalks, roadways, and motorbikes. Though the game lacks a photo mode, you could hit your screenshot button around every corner and find something visually impressive. But despite all this visual splendor, I hated spending time in the city.
Traversal in Yakuza is entirely confined to walking and running through the city. This is not an inherently bad thing. As the city’s open world leans into density rather than scale, you can jog from corner to corner within about two to three minutes. There are even taxis serving as fast travel points at various edges of the map. But again, my problems arose as first impressions.
The reason that traversal was so grating at first was because both main characters are severely limited in their running endurance at the beginning of the game. Holding down the “run” button for five to ten seconds results in either character coming to a panting halt – not an ideal way to get around when your two feet are the only method of transportation. To account for this lack of endurance, the game presents both Kiryu and Majima with multiple skill trees: different trees serve to enhance each character’s myriad fighting styles. There are also completion points that you obtain when you progress through the world, checking off tasks like substories and mini-games. These completion points can gradually unlock longer running times for each character. By the end of the game, running through the streets was a breeze.
The Brilliance of Yakuza 0‘s Substories
The final aspect of Yakuza 0 that I bounced off at first is the presence of substories. I didn’t know this going into the experience, but substories are part of the lifeblood that makes people unendingly enthusiastic towards this series. I was annoyed by these substories at first because I would be on my way towards the next glowing pink symbol on the mini-map to progress the main story when all of a sudden, I’m being whisked off into a subplot with an unnamed character for 25 minutes. If you’re picking up Yakuza 0 just to see the main story, as I initially was, you might experience the same frustrations that I did here.
I’d encourage anyone who is interested in the Yakuza series to dive deep into the substories, for to say they are endearingly written (and localized) would be an understatement. My general philosophy towards open world games, particularly massive ones like Horizon Zero Dawn, is that the best content will be present in the main story. If the main story isn’t interesting, then I won’t engage with the side quests. There are games with masterclass side stories like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt but I tend to believe they are the exception. Yakuza 0, and the series as I have so far experienced it, is an exception.
While I found the main story of Yakuza 0 to be compelling, heartfelt, and meaningful, the substory content didn’t initially click with me because each encounter felt random. At first, many of them have no obvious benefit to your character or the progression within the story beyond the item you receive at the end. Thus, being interrupted on the way to your objective can be annoying. But I was going out of my way to seek them out by the game’s end. This shift in attitude towards the side content arose when I stopped taking the idea of making progress in the game so seriously – perhaps a lesson I could do well to learn from with other games.
Whether you are morally reprimanding high school girls for selling their panties to strangers, training a self-doubting dominatrix, or helping a stubborn kid cross a territorial bridge in a letterman’s jacket, Yakuza 0’s substories are always ridiculous and absurd – to the point of being endearing. The game is completely self-aware of how over-the-top it is, and that self-awareness enables the wild tone shifts within Yakuza 0 to stick the landing without ever feeling jarring. One moment I might be on the brink of dramatic tears, the next I might be laughing uncontrollably. The magic of this game is that everything somehow works together.
Yakuza 0’s central cast of characters adhere to the “tough guy with a heart of gold” archetype, something present in many other games like Sleeping Dogs that explore the inner machinations of criminal organizations. Though Yakuza 0‘s name frames these characters as yakuza – people eager to break the law and harm people to achieve their ends – neither Kiryu nor Majima are actually members for the duration of the game. I believe the reason so many people adore this series is because of the compassion and willingness to care for others that both protagonists display in Yakuza 0, however deranged some of their actions and life circumstances may be.
Plenty of the cast surrounding these dual protagonists are morally murky people with dark, criminal lifestyles that directly impact the day-to-day life of Kiryu and Majima. These protagonists are repeatedly tested, like when Majima is ordered to kill someone and eventually refuses to, despite the massive costs to his personal status. What connects the player to these protagonists, then, are the acts that defy those darker characters that antagonize these moral conflicts, the resulting acts of which reveal a sense of moral integrity clinging to this world.
The Ambition of Yakuza 0‘s Game Design
Yakuza 0 is not the most technically impressive game, but everything about it feels made with love. From the aforementioned lifelike city to the immaculately dressed characters, nothing lacks attention to detail. The stylized combat animations, like Kiryu swinging a motorbike into a street ruffian’s skull or Majima breakdancing his way through a crowd of menacing thugs, never get old. And then there’s the frankly nonsensical number of minigames like karaoke, a SEGA arcade, and dozens of gambling activities from poker and mahjong. Not to mention Kiryu’s potential real estate empire and Majima’s ever-expanding cabaret club management, both of which can be expanded far after the credits roll. It’s as though Yakuza 0 has the ambition of five games in one.
Sometimes, when a game tries to be too many things at once, it falls apart under its own scope. I found this was not the case for my time with Yakuza 0. Just when something (like running around the city) was getting old, I could shift gears and pivot to something equally enjoyable. Sometimes I would complete three story chapters back-to-back and need a breather, so I would head to the karaoke bar for a few songs and a quick laugh. On my way towards that karaoke bar, I would notice a collectable object, which would remind me that I needed to upgrade my completion points abilities. On the way to exchange completion points, a substory would start, and so on. Everything in Yakuza 0 flows naturally together in a way that feels like a genuinely fun distraction is always right around the bend.
Compelling Characters and A Dramatic Narrative
The story of Yakuza 0 largely centers around Kiryu’s motivations for leaving the yakuza and Majima’s motivations for trying to be accepted back into it. Along their respective paths toward redemption, a series of outside forces and circumstances forces much of the plot’s tension around a property known as the Empty Lot. The city’s various yakuza are in a war to acquire this McGuffin property, as it holds the key to who will control the city for years to come. Without revealing too much, protecting this empty lot and the person who owns it becomes a central focus of much of the game.
The story is also bifurcated between Kiryu’s perspective and Majima’s perspective. Neither come into direct contact until the end of the game, but so much of their stories brush up against each other that this dichotomy works well to sell both sides of the story. Playing as Kiryu felt entirely different than playing as Majima, even down to the way the run animations reflect their respective physiques. Considering how invested I became in their characters along the way, I got goosebumps when Kiryu and Majima finally met towards the end of the game.
An Addicting Combat System
Combat was what brought Yakuza 0 into sharp relief against my initial impressions, despite the lovable cast and absurd gameplay in between. As aforementioned, Kiryu and Majima have distinct fighting styles. My favorite styles were Kiryu’s Beast style as well as Majima’s Breaker and Slugger styles. Beast style allows Kiryu to pick up environmental objects and swing them around wildly – a great strategy for quick crowd control. Majima’s Slugger style features a vast array of dynamic ways to swing his baseball bat to devastating effect.
Majima’s Breaker style is perhaps the most fun I have ever had during combat in a third person action game. Not only are the animations incredible, often making me burst out laughing as Majima spun like a top on his head, legs spread. But the combat style is extremely effective at knocking down enemies in groups, following up with some quick heavy attacks when springing back to Majima’s feet. I used Breaker style almost exclusively once I unlocked it.
And then there’s the music, which brought together the entire experience for me. Without opening up the game’s soundtrack on YouTube, I can instantly hear the wailing guitar riffs of the introductory video that plays before reaching Yakuza 0’s main menu. When I picture Majima swinging around in his Breaker style, I instinctively feel the winding up of distorted synthesizers as the combat themes kick in. And when thinking of the story, the ominous and investigative percussion, bass, and piano from “Unrestful” start to drone underneath my thoughts.
The whole way through, I found myself complimenting Yakuza 0’s music and sound design. In a similar (but subdued) way to Persona 5, the associations I made with the music were deep and lasting, leaving me with something to return to over and again when I want to feel like I’m back in Kamurocho. Amidst the cult following of the Yakuza series, no one prepared me for how much the music would help define the moment-to-moment experience.
Diving Into the Rest of the Series
The dramatic change in my opinion towards this series is remarkable – a case study in itself. I was looking forward to beating Yakuza 0 so I could say I’d given the series a shot before dismissing it. As of this writing, I have since purchased the entirety of the Yakuza collection and finished both Kiwami games. I’m itching to get into the rest of the games, including the upcoming Yakuza: Like a Dragon.
I worry that many people feel the same way I did before playing Yakuza 0 – reluctant, resistant, recalcitrant – and therefore won’t play it. I also worry that my newfound evangelism for the series will contribute to the overenthusiastic feelings towards the series that steered me away to begin with. After finishing it myself, I believe Yakuza 0 is the perfect entry point into a beloved series. You will know by the end whether the series is for you or not.
It’s a wonderful feeling to pick up a newer game – say a remake, remaster, or in this case, a prequel – and upon finishing it, realize that there is an entire series of games that can give you a similar feeling. When I finished the first Witcher game, for instance, I proceeded to binge through the rest of the games, Netflix-style. In this instance with Yakuza 0, I cannot wait to spend dozens of more hours with these characters and setting that I have grown to love so well. After uncovering the façade of Yakuza 0, I finally understand the outpouring of love and good will towards this righteously beloved series.
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