I often see Yakuza 5 at the bottom of people's lists of their favourite games in the franchise, and I can absolutely understand where some people may take major issue with this entry. Most prominently is the length. Yakuza 0, which in the modern day is many people's entry point to the series, is the only similarly long game up to this point, but it is pretty evenly split between the two protagonists, each with three fighting styles and bespoke side activities that span 80% of the runtime (Real Estate for Kiryu and Cabaret for Majima). Yak5 steps up the ambitions of Yak4 by swapping Tanimura out for Shinada, and then adding Kiryu's daughter in as a playable J-Pop idol for a not-insignificant portion of the game. The forced tonal and pacing whiplash of the Haruka sections, while significantly more fun and involved, reminded me of my least favourite necessary evil of Yak3 - the orphanage sections. Being forced to play an entirely different management sim in the middle of my beat em up action game was jarring in both instances, but RGG has at least learned from the feedback to Yak3 by allowing a lot more player freedom in their approach to handling Haruka's rise to fame. However, repeat playthroughs would definitely strain even my patience for the tedium of checking handshake events, TV interviews and dance battles off the ever growing list when I could instead by unravelling possible the most complex Yakuza plot to date. The story in this entry is, without a doubt, incredibly well handled for how many moving parts it has, and how much of it is obscured for at least 40 hours of runtime. Without spoiling too much, Yakuza 5 addresses the clear flaws that have developed in the management of both the Tojo and the Omi clans over the course of the last 5 games, with power vacuums of all kinds being formed in the wake of powerhouses like Kiryu, Saejima and Ryuji Goda. It all comes to a head in the final 2 hours of gameplay, as has become standard, with in my opinion one or two too many twists pulled off at the last minute. One major character is given a backstory no one expected, especially given their role in Yak0, but through careful headcanon I have managed to move forward, inconsistencies abated. Another lesson learned, this time from Yak4 was to put Kiryu as the first player character, in a brand new location. Same-same really, Kiryu is angry at the situation in which he finds himself to allow Haruka to pursue her dreams, but accepts that keeping his kids safe is the priority. The taxi driving/racing segments were surprisingly fun, and Nagasugai in the city of Fukuoka was a perfectly acceptable first city to explore. Saejima continues his trend from Yak4 for having the absolute WORST pacing to start his otherwise awesome gameplay. Another fucking prison section, with admittedly a FAR better overall storyline and concluding fight. Between his inevitable prison break and winding up at the next new map set in Sapporo, Saejima has to face the forces of the Hokkaido mountains, where gods and beasts alike challenge what stands as my favourite playstyle in terms of Heat Actions since Majima's Breaker in Yak0 - their brutality is unmatched. Tsukimino itself is nothing too special, and I spent very little time there - I genuinely can't even remember a general layout, as much of Saejima's more fun sections are based in his final sections in the area and where I am running wildly through the streets, or in the mountains, with a shotgun in hand. Haruka brings us back to Osaka's good ol' Sotenbori, a favourite only rivalled by Kamurocho in terms of utilisation across the games. As the home turf of the Omi clan, it only makes sense that this deeply clan war-based story would feature this city, so much so that Akiyama's plotline is ALSO based here. By Chapter 2 of Haruka's section, she has met with Uncle Aki and both are investigating a mysterious murder alongside fostering Haruka's burgeoning J-Pop career. The fun of fighting as Akiyama with his rapid kicks, flawlessly choreographed was exactly what I needed after Saejima's slow brutality and alongside Haruka's measured, beat-based "combat" sections. Now, to be entirely honest, I can see myself hating being FORCED to repeat the Haruka sections if I ever had to do them again. BUT for my first time playthrough I 100%ed her entire roster, fought every street battler, and maxed out almost all my stats. I genuinely and thouroughly enjoyed the direction in which they took her character and her gameplay, and I appreciate how integrated she ended up being to the overall much darker plot. As I stated earlier this is, to my mind, a far better executed and fleshed out version of the orphanage sections of Yak3. They both serve their purpose to the overall emotional investment in Kiryu's family by the end of the game, but by allowing the player to BE Kiryu's family, while they come to terms with that fact, rather than just be shown how the children react to his life lessons was far more effective from a narrative point of view. Shinada really drew the short end of the stick to start with. The only brand new protagonist, in a new city (Kineicho, Nagoya), entirely unrelated to any other series leads with an, at first glace, completely surface level character motivation and plotline that did not tie back to the main narrative at all. All that, and he was the FINAL character to be introduced before the endgame. In an ironic twist, like his actual narrative, he was set up to fail, but knocked it out of the fucking park. Shinada's fighting style, while not my favourite, certainly had it's merits, and I didn't even bother to fully max him out and equip him with other weapons. Even severely depowered, he was very fun and engaging to play as. Eventually, Shinada does get wrapped up in the main plot, from several unlikely sources, and holds his own alongside legends like Kiryu and Saejima. His batting and chicken racing minigames did not interest me, so not having to complete side objectives I did not enjoy certainly improved his standing with me as an addition to an already stacked roster. The final act of the game saw a surprisingly complex web of backstabbing, spying, lying and powerstruggling brought to a head in an actual cohesive manner. The feeling of an actual unravelling mystery was greatly improved by my guide through the series genuinely not remembering large portions of the game, so the plot was a mystery even to him. Theory crafting as a duo was a very rewarding experience as more threads were pulled and stitched together. Overall, Yakuza 5 took Yak4's ambition and detail-dense plot and iterated both to hitherto unforeseen heights. Behind Yakuza 0, Yak 5 has become by second favourite game in the franchise. Kiwami 2 was prettier, but Yak 5 has three of my favourite characters in the entire franchise, fleshed out and playable for over 80 hours of game time. As the final game in this engine, I could not have asked for a better send off. 8.5/10 - ambitious, flawed excellence
Expand the review