Yakuza 0
Released: August 1, 2018
Game Length: 65 Hours
Grade: A-
Preliminary
Finding a Game: Here I am wondering what game I should play next when a thought crossed my mind: "How about I give No Man's Sky a try? They just came out with another update. Surely it has to be good now, right?" After playing for around 3 hours, I was stuck on a barren planet trying to find some resources with no more room in my inventory for roughly an hour. So I moved on and thought, "What about that one game - Horizon Zero Dawn? Surely it must be good to have the complete version and their final 1.10 patch after 3 years of porting it over from the Playstation 4 to Steam with a sequel around the corner? Who cares if it requires 8GB of RAM and 100GB of storage! If my computer ran Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, surely it could run this game too! Even No Man's Sky requires 8GB of RAM." I ignored the warning when booting up the game, but my computer couldn't keep the game stable enough to last through the first cutscene. That's when I found out about all the technical problems HZD had in the past. I tried various workarounds for a few hours until eventually I decided to give up.
Game Sale: Then something interesting happened. Humble Bundle came out with a Yakuza Remastered Collection Bundle for around $40. I've heard about the series over the years, but I was always a bit weary about its content. All I have to do is mention that it is a Japanese game and you can already get a picture of what type of content it has. These type of games tend to go a little overboard in the "Anime" department, if you know what I mean. Unfortunately, the Mature Content Description on Steam wasn't very helpful. Most of the reviews I've read online talk about certain "optional" content having women in glamour shots, scanty clothing, and risque positions. Since we are going through a rather lucrative area of Japan, I chalked it up as traveling to the shadowy areas of Las Vegas. If blood gets you squeamish, you can tone down the setting to "Mild" from the Options Menu. As for the rest of the game, one person stated, "If you are alright watching the introductory video, then you have pretty much seen the worst the game has to offer." So I rolled the dice and figured I'd start with Yakuza 0 - the one game that comes first chronologically in the series and considered the best overall. It is also perhaps the best introduction into the series.
History: I should be a bit forward that Japan originally came out with the Yakuza series way back in 2005 on the PS2. They came out with 5 games before deciding on creating this one on the PS3 in 2015. It only became available on the PS4 in America in 2017 with no changes to the original format. The only minor difference I could find is a tweak in Lao Gui's character with his picture being edited out from the box art here in the Chinese version (Spoilers: You can see the differences in gameplay here). The game continued to be produced for the PC in 2018 and Xbox One in 2020. Why is the series gaining some attention now? Because not only did they remaster the first two games within the following years of the prequel's release, but they also released a solid port of the The Yakuza Remastered Collection for PS4 in 2020 and PC just last month. For someone looking to boot up a series, this is the perfect time.
Main Game
Campaign: Since this is a Japanese game, one thing you must be aware of going in is how the main campaign is setup. You can choose to progress through the story, ignoring every side mission, and still end up alright. The game takes liberties for you to advance your character by unlocking special abilities, weapons, and health through the use of a character wheel. It is possible to play through the game simply by using a ton of potions from your inventory. Each chapter will reward you with a progressional amount of money to spend that will cover the most basic of these skills. However, you will be juggling between two characters - Kiryu and Majima - every two chapters. You will be taking each character through their own city with their own set of abilities, side-missions, and inventory. Many of these chapters are neck-deep with you just sitting back and watching things unfold. I generally turn off my controller and watch about 30 minutes of video before being prompted for a response. But this is ok! The story is very enthralling with a ton of moving pieces. There are a total of 17 Chapters that will take you around 40 hours to complete the main campaign if you manage skipping everything else.
Procedure: You may ask, "Are there specific times where I should focus on the side-content instead of the story?" Chapters 2 & 3 are perhaps the best times to explore everything around you. Not everything will be available, but it will most certainly get you through the most basic of side-missions with nice rewards that back up your gameplay. Once you reach Chapters 6 & 7, you will unlock business opportunities for your characters. It might seem daunting to overtake the dozens of hours required to finish both storylines, but it is most rewarding to gain some additional cash to pour into your skill trees half-way through the game. If the price tag is too high, you can wait to finish some things until you reach around Chapters 12 & 13 when you get some nice mission bonuses. The next break in the story won't come until half-way through the final chapter - right before "the castle run" - unless you are one of those people who don't mind doing stuff after beating the game. The main advantage of waiting up until this point is the ability to freely switch between characters. You will also be able to transfer any items you have (not counting equipment), buy and sell weapons with both characters, and "invest" large sums of cash back-and-forth between the characters. Just be aware that waiting until the end to finish the side content will severely limit what abilities you have for most of the game.
Extended Content: If you are playing Yakuza 0, then there is a good chance you have access to all the DLC content. I'd make good use to send both characters to the Shrine and talk to the clown, Bob Utsunomiya 0, to receive all your added bonuses. Selling off the plates you receive to the pawn shop will set you up real nicely early in the game. Those fun little weapons you get are pretty rad too. Sadly, the outfits are only available after you beat the game. There is this sort of quasi "Premium Adventure Mode" where you are allowed to continue wandering around town doing whatever you want after the credits roll. There really isn't any added benefit in waiting to do content after the game ends other than being able to equip different outfits.
Ending: It is just too bad that I didn't care for the ending as much as I hoped. The battles were great and the showdowns between the main characters were pretty epic, but the whole thing felt like some sort of giant interlude to properly tie the game with the rest of the series. Maybe I'm just tired of them spouting "not being able to kill people" when you literally fought off hundreds of guys, sometimes even using lethal means and weapons, with them simply being able to walk it off like nothing happened. It also sort of leaves you with a bittersweet conclusion when you realize not everyone has that "happy ending" they teased about for half the game. Make sure to stick around after those unskippable credits for one nice tearjerker scene. If I had one major complaint, it would have to be how they setup the firing sequences. Something about the enemy being able to deal immense damage by shooting you from a distance through a pack of their own people was immensely frustrating.
Businesses
Real Estate Waiting: When following Kiryu's story, you will eventually be able to set up a real estate business to build up some much-needed funds. Other than a few small interview side-missions from the start, there really isn't much to this mini-game. You run around buying places around town and utilize your crack-team of people earned throughout the game - paying investors help build up income, managers can help or hinder the amount you get when a payday is due, and security guards that will attempt to hold back any gangs that could "freeze" your assets. This can be frustratingly difficult to do as there is no way to know where these places are on the map, leaving me to run my body across every inch leaving a greasy smear all along the frontage as I searched for stores that could have easily been marked within the Business sub-menu. They could have at least explained what the symbols meant in the guide. Every now and then there will be a little "friendly" competition event that wagers 10% of the share or 100% of the area. Otherwise, all that is required of you is to spend a little bit of time roaming around as you wait for the cash to pour in.
Cabaret Club: A good amount of the game revolves around Majima's unique entertainment career. His business fascinates me for the sheer point that it is still so mainstream today (although many do frown upon its existence). It would be very hard for me to explain all the intricacies of the business. However, it is very clear they do not take it likely when being compared to the sex industry. As you can see from Majima Goro's grand introduction to the game, they follow a strict "no-touch" rule between the guest and hostess. Things get even more interesting when distinguishing between a cabaret and cabaret club or host or hostess club. Fortunately, the game adapts multiple mini-games to teach you all about being a manager to one.
Setting up the Club: Very similar to the real estate business, you get recruited into managing Club Sunshine and bribing
hiring a list of bronze-level girls off the street. They have the
minimum requirements to entertain the poor guests that pop in from the
Mars District. From here there are a few things you can do - you can
expend points at the shrine to hire more girls, complete some side
objectives for some volunteers, thank "frenzied" guests to increase the
number of overall fans, or partner up with the local businesses for more
guests. Eventually you will be introduced to a rival and receive an
invitation for an all-or-nothing cabaret battle. Essentially this means
that you have to perform admirably during business hours without any
unhappy guests or gift expenditures while your opponent demoralizes your
girls employees. This whole process seemed rather unproductive
when I could have been earning cash while doing nothing with Kiryu's
real estate business until I realized you get 1 billion yen each time you defeat a rival. That's right - one billion yen. You get ten billion yen and Majima's 4th final legendary fighting style once you clear all five billionaires.
Training & Makeover: Although all of the women you hire level up with predestined stats after each session with the guest, only the platinum girls obtained after winning a rival battle (and Yuki) can be modified to fit different areas. The first part is setting up a special training session. This includes deciding on what to say during a friendly chat with the woman and participating in a few miscellaneous mini-games. Even though I was terrible on trying to woo the girl, they still seem to gain a level even with a failed lesson. I also had a tough time with the makeover session. It is easy buying your favorite aesthetics for the hostesses, but I didn't like how they arbitrarily assigned the stat modifiers. For example, simply equipping pearl earrings over the heart earrings changed all modifiers - raising sexy and beauty values while lowering cuteness and funny values. Some things benefited you tremendously when paired with certain outfits or hairstyles by raising a virtue and not lowering another. This caused some very... interesting combinations that I felt were ultimately inferior to the fashion choice I originally dressed them up in (despite them maximizing three out of the four virtues). You can save the configuration of your outfits into one of many slots, but I really wish there was an option to name them within each slot instead of your basic Outfit 1, 2, 3. I also would like to point out that the song that plays during the makeover session is a little over the top if you ask me.
Weapon Seller: Here we are with Majima getting yet another mini-game over Kiryu. There is a hidden agency that tracks down certain things across the globe. That's the developers' way of instituting a crafting system. The problem is that there are just way too many steps involved to try and unlock everything. You must pay for your agent, pay his travel fee, add an additional fee for a higher success rate, and then hope he comes back with something useful. He can bring back weapons, equipment, recipes, and reagents. I did this maybe 30 times before realizing just how many different things I had to search for. Even if you receive a recipe, you still have to resend the agents back into the field a good number of times just to get the items to craft it. I must also mention that the weapons can only be used a set number of times before you have to pay to get them repaired (unless you paired up Majima's calm weapon abilities with the calming towel).
Mini-Games
Pocket Racers: I am amazed at how devoted the team was in setting this portion of the game up. The concept is simple: you customize your little car until it can surpass all the other cars on the track without going over the edge. There are a ton of different parts to choose from and a lot of trial-and-error involved. Equipping a super fast motor will cause your little car to fly off the rails unless you can weigh it down with some other parts. If a circuit includes a few jumps, you might want to add some suspension. Just beware that some parts can cost upwards to 10 million yen each. Eventually, the races got so demanding that it felt like there was only one specific set of parts that would work. For some added fun, you can also replay races in the driver's seat of your little vehicle (1st-person view). However, this option isn't available during a proper race since you still need to react when your car loses balance.
Karaoke: I found great pleasure in singing a song in this game. The timing of the beats that ran along with the words was brilliant. The way your character suddenly transforms while the song played was rather humorous to watch. You can even cheer along one of your dates from the telephone club. I do have one minor gripe: for a limited selection of songs, I would have liked the option to sing every song available. Instead, you can only sing or cheer from just a couple of choices.
Disco Club: Now for what I feel is the highlight of the whole game - the dancing mini-game. I have never seen anything like the way you dance your little ghost around on the tiles while a song is being played. You have your normal options of participating in select songs during missions, dancing alone, or bringing in a date from the telephone club. Even though the completion menu states "high score" under each song, you simply need to gain three stars within each category in order to obtain completion points. You also get to dance along an eerily familiar figure to a song that might sound like something from the 80s. This game can get brutally difficult when you compete with some of the faster dancers.
Gambling: There is a small place you can go inside to find a casino that has all your Western-type gambling. These include Blackjack, Texas Hold Em, Roulette, Poker, and Baccarat. Otherwise, you can find a lot of your standard gambling over at the homeless area. These include Cee-Lo, Cho-han, Oicho-Kabu, and Koi-Koi.
Arcade: Two video games - Space Harrier and Out Run - are both requirements in a couple of befriend quests in order to unlock the other two - Fantasy Zone and Super Hang On. There is also a few missions related to picking up plush toys inside the UFO Catcher.
Fishing: For someone who likes fishing in a lot of games, I am quite surprised how much I disliked it in Yakuza 0. You choose the pole, throw out bait for a new wave of fish, cast the line near one of the shadowy blobs in the water, wait until the red portion of the bobber goes underwater to press a button, and then mash a few buttons to pull it out. All of this is quite fine, actually. The problem comes when those blobs don't really define what you are going to catch. It might look like a fish nibbling on your hook, but then you suddenly pull out a wallet with a small amount of cash inside. I went online to see if I was doing anything wrong. No, it seems like those blobs are purely random and dependent on the fishing spot you choose. On top of that, it wasn't as rewarding as I had hoped.
Telephone Club: Unlike the cabaret clubs, the Telekura or "telephone clubs" was pretty much made to setup dates between couples. You pay the front desk a fee to sit by a phone and converse with a woman over the line. It is kind of like your standard Hotline setup. In fact, there is a whole separate mini-game where you can collect hidden telephone cards over the city and turn in for a cash prize. The problem is Kiryu "imagines" what the girl looks like as you discuss rather personal details about each other... which means the background is always panning across the body of a young girl in a small bikini. We are treading some pervy waters here. Definitely something I wish they have gone without.
Cat Fight: I would have never imagined such a thing existing, but there is an underground bunker where women fight each other while wearing their own role playing persona. I didn't really stick around to find out more about it, but I hear it is reduced to a simple rock-paper-scissors fight with a little bit of button mashing.
Time Wasters: Of course I can't cover everything you can do in the game. There is a bar you can go to in order to play darts or pool. Visit the bowling alley for a friendly match with one of the staff members. If you are a masochist, you can try your hand at the batting cage. You can play against the pros of Shogi and Mahjong. There's also the coliseum you can go toe-to-toe with certain fighters, but that one doesn't become available until much later in the game.
Side Missions
The Craziness Begins: There are 100 substories between both characters. The majority of these are unlocked by chapter 7. Some include revisiting "friends" around town while others might require you to simply complete certain main objectives in the story. But for the most part, these stories involve some sort of wacky shenanigans your character will have to participate in. I recommend you experience them yourself, but you can also check online for some of the fan favorites. A lot of these missions will set you up with quizzes with multiple answers to choose from. Though you need not worry if you choose incorrectly for the game simply adapts to your answer with a hint of disappointment thrown back in your face. This process can be quite educational as you learn a lot about the culture and their terminology. You learn how certain liquors are prepared, what goes well with certain meals, how ruthless an Obatarian is, how they view Yankis, how the Marusa acts like the IRS, what it means to lose your bontan, how hard it is for a Chinese person to speak Japanese, how you properly grocer the food, and what it means to get something that's shrink-wrapped from a vending machine.
The Setting: The cities that the game takes place in are based on real life cities in Japan. Kamurocho is based on the real life Kabukicho in Tokyo while Sotenbori is actually based upon the real life DÅtonbori in Osaka. The real life districts are actually way more populated than they are in the game. Yes, the Japanese do drive their cars like the Europeans on the left side of the road. Although the concept of the pocket tissues has no bearing in Yakuza 0, it is based upon one of Japan's various marketing strategies.
Other Notes: As much as I would like to write down every little detail about the game, I am only going to list a few things that I included in my notes. Without the desire to complete every single thing in the completion list, I only managed 67% after playing 80 hours despite completing about 80/100 substories. This is because a good portion of the achievements required you to play every "fun activity" they stuck in the game until you earned a set amount of profits. The good news is they added a bunch of things to help complete certain objectives - a cloak to help you get sober quicker, an item that shows people in need, shoes that will prevent you being stopped by every mob in the city as if you were a Pokemon trainer, Bottomless Stomach perk so you can eat ten burgers at a restaurant if you want, and a card watcher device that beeps when near a hidden item. The saving system is very rudimentary since you must manually save and select the saving slot. It does not automatically direct you to your last saved file, forcing you to shift through the 24-hour stamps for the right one. You must quit to the title screen in order to quit to desktop. Real Yakuza Use a Gamepad. Japan sure has this obsession with going all out with their cuisine in their games, don't they? Certain items can only be obtained from the Dream Machine like the firecrackers that you so lovingly shove into someone's mouth after lighting the fuse. There are a few portions of the game where I got lost as they don't necessarily point you to where you need to go next. This can get annoying when you must remember where to go during a side mission.
Summary
Review: Yakuza 0 is a Japanese game through-and-through. It has cute girls, local cuisine, accurate representation of their environment, cartoon violence, long videos with no interaction from the user, and satirical humor covering over a lot of different taboo subjects. The game thrives in the chaos giving you plenty of things to keep you busy and entertained. As much as it brings me joy to discover something new every time I turn a corner, I still found myself running into some overly complex systems that could have been better refined, made easier, or expounded upon. Although the graphics still uphold to today's standards, simple things like an updated save system or a more helpful UI would have made a much better overall experience. Still, I was in awe with the interesting story-telling and the amount of things you could do outside the main campaign. It was nice having a solidly built game with outstanding translation-work and hardly any bugs or technical glitches to worry about. I'd recommend this game on the condition you are prepared for a wee bit of culture shock if you aren't familiar with this style of game.
2-8-2021