Thoughts on: Yakuza 5 Remastered

Yakuza 5 is considered to be one of the best entries in the franchise. To me, it’s the least enjoyable one so far.

As before, Yakuza games are open world action adventure titles with beat ’em up combat and cinematic stories. And just as the previous wonderful entry in the franchise, Yakuza 5 is divided into several parts, with each represented by a separate character story. Except now every character gets their own city (well, a district in one) to explore, sometimes even more than that. There’s more of everything – more minigames, more mechanics, more things to do. Each character has their own mini-story, explored through unique mechanics, in addition to the overabundance of substories (the side quests of the franchise). And everything is (kinda) tied into one grand theme, that the game beats you over and over the head again – following your dreams and carrying the legacy of others.

And I can understand why Yakuza 5 is so liked – it is the best implementation of the gameplay ideas first introduced in Yakuza 3. Arguably, even better than what was done in Yakuza 0 and Kiwami, apart from the combat mechanics. Oh though the opponents no longer get bloody and beat up like they did in 3 and 4 for some reason. Everything is finally done well – chasing/escaping mechanic is fun, first person view isn’t annoying, revelations are just QTEs with no vague choice at the end, substories are streamlined in the best possible way, leveling up is simple, but engaging and much much more. There’s also so much stuff to do for those who like the optional activities in the franchise. Personally, I found the hunting story to be the most interesting one, but others might find more things to love. And it’s all so big and ambitious…

But I like the series for the characters and the stories that they carry, and in that regard, I found Yakuza 5 to be mostly filler with some really stupid moments in-between. Kiryu doesn’t want to be in this story for most of the time, and I don’t either – his story has been done since 3, yet the story here is mostly centered around him and Haruka. Who basically has no character and never had, being a side-kick for Kiryu’s story. Yet, she’s arguably the most important character of this game. Saejima’s story says nothing at all, but at least you get to punch a bear a few times. Akiyama is, as always, the best, but he’s severely underutilized. Shinada is kinda okay, but incredibly one-note and doesn’t have much to do with the story, nor has the charisma of Tanimura from 4. And the plot is so full of itself, so incredibly stupid, while taking so agonizingly slow to develop…

I dunno, sometimes I think that maybe the fact that Yakuza 0 was my first personal experience with the series and that game is still the high point of the franchise storytelling, is affecting my ability to like the rest of the games. But then, I really cannot see myself enjoying Yakuza 5 even without 0. In 4 I was so excited to follow every character in their stories that I didn’t care that the main plot was kinda silly. And in the first three games I was very interested to see how the series evolved and the character of Kiryu with it. Even if his solution to all problems is always “start punching people until the problems solve themselves”. Plus 3 had a genuinely engaging story, despite how painfully slow it was told. But here? I just couldn’t care. Until Akiyama showed up and gave me a much needed boost to be able to stomach the rest of the game.

Your experience may be different – if you like “hanging out” in the world of Yakuza and just do activities, sing karaoke, run around and punch people, you might love this a lot. This game is more or less all about that. And they did make the gameplay feel really great. But it didn’t click for me at all.