Yakuza 6
Released: March 25, 2021
Game Length: 32 Hours
Grade: C+
The Situation
Release Date: Although Yakuza 6 is technically the last game that highlights Kiryu Kazama in the series, it isn't exactly the most recently developed game. A long, long time ago, Japan actually developed quite a few games for the PS3 and PS4 consoles. When it comes to the English versions, Yakuza 5 came out in 2015, Yakuza 0 and Yakuza Kiwami (remake of the original) came out in 2017, and Yakuza 6 and Yakuza Kiwami 2 were released exclusively to the PS4 and Xbox One in 2018. These games were only recently placed on Steam as part of The Yakuza Remastered Collection.
Yakuza Lite: Unfortunately, this means that the team that developed Yakuza 6: Song of Life had to take some liberties in developing the new engine. In order to fit in the time to design these new features, the crew had to sacrifice a lot of things that utilized the old engine. For example, You cannot equip weapons. In fact, most of the previously available types of weapons were cut from the series. There are still a few standard weapons that can be grabbed from the ground or from enemies - pistol, knife, katana, and hammer. Unfortunately, everything you grab will have a durability of three uses or fall apart instantly when using a heat move. The moves themselves are very generic and repeat for the majority of things you smash upon your foes. So don't be expecting to spin a crate on someone's head anymore. What one thing I did find interesting is that all the lights are source-generated. If you happen to grab a light stand and swing it around, you will see its light flashing around the room like a disco ball.
Content Removed: There is also oddly a lot of mini-games missing as well. As noticed in my Yakuza Kiwami 2 review, you won't be finding a Bowling Alley or Pool Table around. Golf is mysteriously absent. Instead of your standard sea and river fishing, they have now introduced a Pokemon Snap version of spearfishing underwater. I don't remember ever seeing the option of playing Shogi. I didn't see a Photo Booth, probably because you can take pictures with your phone now, or UFO Catcher in any of the arcade centers. There is no coliseum or casino! You can still visit one section of the sewers and the new Little Asia area pertinent to the changes of the story, but you won't be able to visit Purgatory, Kamurocho Hills, sections of the Hotel District along Park Blvd, or the entire Champion District. You are able to see inside Stardust, but only when the story demands it. Chase Sequences have been reduced to simply following the target in the normal city environment.
Feature City: There is something strange with the drinks you get from the vending machine. Instead of being stored in your inventory, Kiryu can be seen physically holding it in his hand and with an icon to the right of you on the screen until you press the 'B' button. He will continue holding onto it through pretty much anything - cutscenes, elevators, dashing, substories, etc - with the exception of maybe story transitions and talking to a Taxi driver. They will provide you with a buff, though it was pretty hard for me to know exactly for how long. Sometimes the buff will only last for a couple minutes while some Defense drinks consider how many times you get hit and Attack drinks being based on how many times you land a hit. You can forget about trying to plan your buffs ahead of time since interacting with objects clears out enemies on the screen and you can't consume a drink while in a battle. The menu interface has changed as well. Pausing the game will bring up your cell phone with various menu options. You are only able to equip two things through the "stats app", not in the items section. In order to access the map, you now must press the Select Button. The new map interface has the names of streets, categories for each type of place you can visit, and a waypoint marker you can pin into the map that shows an arrow on your mini-map. Although seeing cars drive down the road was a concept originally introduced in Yakuza 5, the new thing you can do now is "catch a cab" when one passes by you on the road.
Setting Changes: The good news is that there are lots of improvements to the overall health of the game. Just by looking around the city, you will notice the sheer height of some of the buildings and how many now have back-alleys, emergency stair-cases, elevators, miscellaneous offices, and shortcuts through other buildings. There is the new hunger gauge with high-definition shots of food you can drool over at the restaurants. The new fighting physics now allows you to destroy things just by walking into them or swing people around like rag-dolls. You can take photographs and move while in first-person mode. People will look at you, make peace symbols, or brush off their coat while you prepare a shot from your cellphone. Movement is reversed where before you automatically traversed around the city while dashing to now pressing the dash button while using "stamina" to wherever you need to go. There is a Field-of-View Slider and a toggle to change the amount of blood to a mild setting. The game auto-saves and gives you the option to manually save anywhere without the help of a phone booth. If you press Alt + F4 in game, a confirmation box will appear to warn you about saving before you exit. Exit To Windows has been removed (mainly because Alt + F4 does the job) and replaced with a Quit Game option that brings you back to the splash screen. Summaries of the previous games can be seen in a slideshow presentation under the Memories category in the main menu. There are various tooltips that display during transitions, but the loading time is so fast that I normally don't have time to read all of it. You now retrieve your bonuses from any of the convenient stores instead of Bob (the Clown). You can get drunk and weave around only when your alcohol level is at its maximum (9).
Story
Substories: Yakuza 6 has some wonderful substories, especially when it comes to technology. I became the local mascot. I chased after a flying drone, tracked down a runaway Roomba, and held in my hands a phone helper app that became sentient. I encountered a boy and girl who switched bodies like in Freaky Friday and a girl claiming she went back in time like The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. There were some nice callbacks to the Snake Triad Family and Haruka's singing career. You have to follow an influencer around town as he does dumb things for online views. The totally radical and not bogus substory of Pocket Circuit Fighter, complete with loud-shouting action and racing music, was perhaps the best of them all. But there are some really jarring issues with how they presented the substory system this time around. There are a total of 51 substories (with the Jo Amon fight being the last one available). I count roughly 30 of those substories to be mini-game related. That only leaves 20 actual stories split between two cities. As much as I enjoyed the quality of the "actual" substories included in the game, it kind of makes the cities feel more hollow than any of the previous games. Just to compare, Yakuza 3 had a total of 119 substories.
Dynamic System: The other major problem Yakuza 6 has is the way they developed a sort of natural approach to finding things. This means that you won't be initially finding markers on the map to show you where to go next. Long gone is the system of walking up to people when you are ready to start something new. Nope, substories and events will interrupt whatever you are doing and start a cutscene without your approval. If you were tracking down a TROUBLR point, consider it failed. Did you want to go straight to the next main mission point? Too bad. Tons of these things require certain substories to be completed before they unlock as well. You can't recruit baseball players until you actually become a manager by completing the substory first, you can't feed the cats on the street until you find the Nyan Nyan Cafe, and you can't recruit fighters for the Clan Creator until you complete certain missions beforehand. The saddest part of all this is that the map will not have these locations marked until the substory is completed first... which also isn't marked.
Campaign: The main story had its fair share of ups-and-downs. I decided to go about the Hard difficulty with a good steady challenge. I loved the fact you got to see all the orphans grown-up and a new section of Little Asia. I don't like how the writers crammed in the little "tutorial" of things happening from Chapter 3 in the beginning. I really liked how Kiryu gained people's respect by not forcing them to reveal the truth right away. I liked how they presented the required privatization of smoking in the main city with literal areas that said "Smoking Section" on the side. Then around the middle of the game, I grew tired of Team Hirose. The captain is "dumb as a bag of rocks" that constantly switches loyalty and personality on a dime when it befits the situation. Haruto sort of becomes this baby that gets passed around, actually being thrown around at one point, to the point where his presence is practically non-existent after Chapter 4. As much as I liked going through the ruins of Shangri-La left from Majima's truck tearing open a hole in the middle of the place, I found the sub-plot of Yuta Usami pretty unrealistic. If the guy really needed to the restroom, why couldn't they just go to New Serena? They end up there anyways. There aren't any scenes with Majima, Daigo, or The Florist. The secret of Onomishi was hyped up so much so that absolutely nothing would match up with its reveal. Even then nothing is really done once it appears for everyone to see. Then of course they had to include that stupid cliffhanger at the end of the game that wraps up the whole series. Oh well, at least the updated graphics made it all look nice.
Cabaret Club
Card System: A lot of things changed for Yakuza 6 hostess chat system. If you are looking for someone to chat with over in Onomichi, all you'll find is a bunch of guys at the bar. The Men's Entertainment Booth is rather useless without any credible information to find there. Instead, go directly to Club Shine in Kamurocho and walk down the steps to pick out one of five lucky ladies. I hope you upgraded the relevant stats and made sure to equip the bonus affection equipment before starting a conversation. Once a lady introduces herself, there will be a series of cards laid out in front of you. Although Kiryu does not verbalize what is contained on the majority of these cards, the lady will respond accordingly. It is quite alright to use stupid cards if you want to have a more comical response, but be prepared to follow some sort of plan or you will be stuck hearing those same replies over-and-over again. Six cards can be used in a session with up to two extensions that provides you an additional two more cards to use each time. Ultimately, your goal is to build the relationship counter through using a list of the same style cards. However, there isn't any sort of penalty for randomly choosing every card available until it reaches the highest affinity. Every time the bar reaches a new tier, the hostess will speak for herself.
Hostesses: There are a total of five girls to choose from. Riona is probably the least interesting out of the bunch. She spends so much time talking about how much she has to do to keep her appearances as a hostess that she forgets to mention anything useful about herself other than liking Western music. On the contrary, Erina might be the most fascinating character out of them all. The amount of backstory from how she is having a hard time knowing how to treat men because of being raised in an all-girls school, becoming a movie buff from attending film club, and knowing a lot about the city is phenomenal. She will mention how much she knows about Pocket Racing and listening to Haruka's music despite her substory being based on the simple fact that she eats a lot. Hikaru is a soft-spoken girl whose contrast of innocence and bluntness makes her fun to talk to. She gave me a good laugh when her response to her best feature was "I'm pretty proud of my butt." Sadly, my bias shined through when she told me she wanted to become an idol. No matter how much I adored her gullibility and charisma, I did not approve of her goals. Sora surprisingly had the interesting feature of diving into the Japanese culture of anime and video games. She really liked to talk about cosplay to the point of wanting a sewing machine to make her own clothes. Sadly, her ultimate goal was to find a husband willing to go back to her home in Taiwan with her family. The last hostess Saki really likes her sake. Originally being part of the volleyball team as a kid, she grew to be a professional wrestler. The problem is that it doesn't pay well, to the point where she has to pay for her own injuries just to keep going. Though if you keep conversing with her, you will learn how feminine she can be to the point of writing down certain types of fantasies she has into that little journal of hers.
Additional Content: At some point, you will want to seek out certain cards and use the correct chat choice to list off sections of a hostess's profile page. Each answer will reward you bonus points. Gaining a business card somewhere around "Gold" standing will allow you to play Darts or sing Karaoke after sending the "Wanna' Get Drinks?" sticker to her phone. Although it doesn't contribute much to the relationship, watching the music video that plays in the background can be worth it. The "Diamond" standing will initiate the girl's substory and a little smooch cinematic on the top of the roof (which is the same sequence for every girl saying different things).
Main Mini-Games
Calm the Baby: This only happens during Chapter 3 of the main story, but essentially you have to do one of four moves to help calm the baby. Pay close attention to the baby's head and hands to figure out what you need to do. A good player can even listen carefully to the noises that comes out of the baby's mouth. If you aren't good at babysitting, you can also wait for Kiryu to say what needs to be done. I easily surpassed the game with a minute out of the two you are provided, but the number of times you have to do this will depend on how long it takes you to get through the area (which might be around eight times).
Baseball: In Chapter 4 of the main story, you will be dragged into managing a baseball team. It is essential to get this started when the substory begins or you won't be able to access a lot of other things. The only time you can do this is taking a Taxi during the day in Onomichi. If you are a true baseball fan, you will be able to have no problem assigning the right team. If you are like me, this entire sequence is a pain in the butt. There is no tutorial that explains the batting abbreviations, what the arrows signify, who would be good in what field, and where each person must be placed. The only time you can access a tutorial is during a game, and it only explains the process of recruiting players. The game forces you to lose your first round no matter what you do. To get better players, you must do a series of tasks like bringing specific food and items in from Kamurocho or merely paying a man one million yen. Outside the few chances you get to step up to bat, most of the game is automated. Even after recruiting every good player available, I still wasn't able to win. So I just gave up after unlocking the final "Gorgeous" team.
Clan Creator: The Kiryu Clan (named after the Tojo Clan) is Yakuza Kiwami 2 Clan Creator if it was strictly offensive instead of defensive. You can "deploy" six main characters or up to a hundred standard henchmen. Half of the missions are contained in Onomichi while the other half is in Kamurocho. The mini-game is extremely easy, especially if you used any of the codes for the better players - and there is a ton of them. Gaining legitimate characters requires actual progress and finding the right thugs in the area to fight. Almost all the abilities are pretty nice to use except for "Dropkick," "Diving Head," or "Warrior of Love." Building a proper hierarchy can help build up your army, but only the six you choose for your Strike Team will level up and have their abilities available in a match.
Bar Chat: Onomichi doesn't have a hostess club. Instead, you get introduced to New Gaudi. This fun little bar allows you to participate in quick and witty conversations with a couple guys to learn more about their lives. You can play Darts to woo Mama or Karaoke to grab the attention of one of the customers. Don't worry if you fail the chatting sequence after choosing four incorrect responses. The sequence simply starts over, giving you another chance. Each one of these events with their corresponding substory is great. You'll hear stories about a concerned father, a depressed vendor, and a retired wrestler.
Karaoke: Karaoke has been changed from the simple side-scrolling button-pressing mini-game to the side-swiping music chords. You can sing by yourself, interject the generated singing from the stereo system, or bring along a hostess on a date after you build-up your relationship. I must warn you though - you will be stuck singing Tonight or Today is a Diamond after your date sings Like a Butterfly (Saki and Riona), Brand New Stage (Erina and Hikaru), or Fork in the Road (Sora). The 6th song Hands only becomes available after you beat the game.
Spearfishing: As amusing as it was to fish in the series, Yakuza 6 takes the cake by mixing up the formula. In a Safari type setting, you will plunge underwater and shoot spears at the various aquatic fish that swim past you. Depending on the type of spear equipped, you will be given a set number of spears before you are forced to reload. If you fire without a spear present, you will essentially "jam" your weapon and force a reload that takes twice as long. Fire at any of the hidden treasure caches to get some nice rewards. There are three environments to explore with their own individual boss fights with a squid, octopus, and shark respectively. Unfortunately, you cannot unlock the other two zones until you finish the baseball substory. I recommend getting the spear from completing all the bar conversations too.
Arcade Games: Yakuza 6 goes the extra mile by including 6 different arcade games: OutRun, Puyo Puyo, Fantasy Zone, Space Harrier, Super Hang-On, and Virtua Fighter 5 FS. Even though they provide you a couple of difficulty options, I still found each one of them pretty hard. If you played Yakuza 0, then you would be familiar with four of these. It is worth playing Virtua Fighter 5 as it is exclusively found in this game. On the other hand, Puyo Puyo is easily forgettable as the challenge to play against the computer is outrageously difficult.
Nyan Nyan Cafe: If you find yourself going upstairs in one of the buildings to the southeast of Kamurocho, you'll be greeted by a woman arguing with a man over how his cafe doesn't have any cats. You know what that means? It is up to Kiryu to buy canned cat food and feed it to various cats across the cities. There is a total of 19 cats you can find. Each one likes a certain type of food and their relationship meter will reveal their feelings on the food you present them with. If you listen carefully, you can hear one meow when they are close by. Once the owner or his assistant picks up a cat, you will then see it inside the cafe. Each one will hang around their own little spot in the restaurant. Sit down on the couch and Kiryu will pet the one that jumps in his lap. So kawaii.
Safes: Unlike the locker system in the rest of the series, there are approximately five safes in each city you can open for an equipment item (except for the one by the Batting Cage). Somewhere in the crevices of the area around the safe is a key to open it. Each and every item in these safes are worth checking out. So if there is one you can't find, I suggest using the guide. There is one additional safe on top of New Serena that requires a promotional code from the comic series on their website. If you can't access their website, I suggest looking up the code from the previous link.
Non-Essential Mini-Games
Batting Cage: Yep, the Kamurocho Batting Cage is still there. Don't confuse this with the baseball mini-game in Onomichi. The Challenge Courses are fairly straight-forward as you need to clear a certain number of "runs" in each course. This means that you can still "send a person to home" if you hit a home run in a following swing. There is also a Home Run Course that challenges you to "hit it out of the park" on each and every swing. Though I don't feel like the rewards were worth the effort. No matter what you do, all you get is either a potion or a plate you can sell at the Pawn Shop.
Rizap: So there is this gym that lets you do a couple of training exercises in exchange for points. You pick two of these button response games out of six every session. After each session, you are then texted a "hint" of what type of food you should eat. Let me tell you, figuring out what to eat is impossible. My first meal required "standard light meal with eggs, meat, and vegetables" to which referred to the Sandwich Set at Cafe Alps. Check here for a full list. You can do this a total of 12 times.
Troublr: Reminiscent of Yakuza 4 radio system, Kiryu will be able to receive a problematic text of something going down in his vicinity. Most of these are recycled encounters where you duke it out with a bunch of thugs hassling a civilian or track down someone that is up to no-good. Then you got that one crazy one when the terrorist sends you a series of pictures of where their bomb was placed that doesn't help you in any way. Most of these are just ways to keep you busy by making you go to a specific location. The thing that I hate most about these encounters is that some interactions will automatically fail the mission. I suddenly started a substory... fail. Of course it doesn't really matter one way or another since another one will plop on your feed soon after.
Shrines: In the town of Onomichi, there are three different activities you can do that provides you with optional buffs like the drinks from the vending machine. The shrine to the far northwest of the map gives you a bonus in exchange for an item. If you travel further up the hill, you can draw a ticket or throw some coins into a box for other periodic bonuses.
Live Chat: As if all the other risque things from the Yakuza series wasn't bad enough, they just had to introduce Kiryu to the Internet. While walking down one of the roads to the western part of town, a man will try to convince you to join him for a chat session. If you choose to accept, you can meet this perverted man in a nearby public computer office. Then you can pay to participate in one of two channels in one of three different Mantai Internet Cafes where you watch girls in bikinis. Why am I suddenly reminded of the Twitch debate on Hot Tub video streams?
Spirit Photography: I have no idea why the developers chose to send me a hint about this mini-game on my cellphone at the very end of the game. It would have helped me to know about this as I picked up those unusual portraits all around town. So the thing about this activity is that once you pick up a photograph of a character long gone from the series, you can immediately take a picture and see the "spirit" of the person transposed on the image. Once you have the valuable item in your inventory, taking a photograph in three other locations will reveal more images. That's about it. There isn't really any reward for doing them.
Other: You can play a game of Darts against increasingly difficult opponents. Sadly, I still could not get past the intermediate player. Mahjong is back with the fun option of simply participating in matches to reach the tournament... if you have the patience for that. So instead of implementing a UFO Catcher and Key Finder, they decided to combine the two. Only available in Premium Mode after completing the main story, Kiryu can spot UFOs flying around using a "UFO Finder" from the Pawn Shop.
Miscellenous Notes
Battle System: Other than all the things I added at the beginning with the removal of weapons and including vending machine drinks, there's a couple of other things I noticed that wasn't as smooth as I liked. Grabbing weapons off the ground was a tad harder than I remember from previous games. As much as you can use the environment against your foes, much of it can be destroyed simply by touching it whether it is on the ground or in your hand. You can jump off the side of a building without getting hurt. There was an actual point in the story where I fell in the water and died because I didn't run fast enough. Bigger objects like bicicyles, benches, or barrels deal insane amount of damage compared to your standard blows. There is no waiting time when engaging enemies. They can even sometimes attack you while you are waiting for the text to disappear from your screen.
Summary
Review: Yakuza 6 brings to the table a nice and shiny new game engine with an updated user interface, neat photography features, and better graphics. Both the size of the buildings and the look of the food are now more accurately displayed. There's a few interesting substories and mini-games to explore. However, the content we are normally presented with in any of the previous games is practically cut in half. They removed Pools, Bowling, UFO Catcher, the Coliseum, the Casino, signitature heat moves, and the ability to equip unique weapons. The whole game is an odd duck that has less of everything from its predecessors. I might have played 45 hours and completed 189 out of 285 awards, but the game is barely stitched together with several glaring issues bleeding from its transformation. I'd give this game a pass.
5-16-2021