Yakuza 4: (52:01) Although there are better games in the series—both in terms of story and gameplay—this game will always be one of my favorites. It was the game that made me a lifelong fan and it kept the fires burning for nearly five years as we waited for Yakuza 5 to come West, something that seemed almost impossible back then. So this is definitely the game I’ve played the most, making the changes in the Remastered edition stand out more than the ones in 3, which actually had way more changes. Tanimura is really the biggest change, given his total redesign and new voice. The other changes are pretty small, such as slightly different dialogue in what are very familiar scenes for me. The effect is all a little jarring, like watching your favorite movie and having a new actor play one of the leads while everyone says their famous lines a little differently. However none of it is bad, just different, and I continue to love this game, rubber bullets and all. This was the first game to have multiple playable protagonists and Akiyama and Saejima quickly became two of my favorite characters in the entire franchise. Everyone is fun to play as once you learn their fighting styles and the minigames are varied and character-specific. The boss fights are a bit of a letdown at times (I kicked Majima’s ass so hard and fast this playthrough that he didn’t have time to bust out his special moves while that final fight with Tanimura mostly came down to a fight between him and a nameless, annoying bodyguard because I slaughtered his boss so quickly). However they were still experimenting with different fighting styles in this game and it shows in the next one, especially with the enhancements to Saejima’s style. It’s hard to judge this game as people come to it now, without the history behind its original release as the possible last Yakuza game in America, but I think it still holds up.

Yakuza 3: (37:25) Ultimately this is my least favorite game in the entire franchise, which isn’t to say that it’s terrible or doesn’t have great moments, but it’s never going to be one that I spend a lot of time on. Mine is one of the most interesting antagonists they ever had, the combat is fun (despite some annoying aspects that get smoothed over in 4 and 5), and Okinawa is a great new location for the series. I wish it got as much attention as Sotenbori in later games. However I really don’t care about the story. The real estate shenanigans in this entry were powerfully boring compared to the other games’ real estate shenanigans, I wasn’t invested in the Kazama twin or the CIA angle (although I enjoyed the Richardson fights), and while Kiryu’s paternal relationship with Haruka is my favorite part of their characters, I truly don’t give a shit about the orphanage or any of the other children there. At several points the game forces you to find one of these children to solve their dumb problems and all I could think about was how bored poor Majima seemed the whole game and how Kiryu could be fighting him more. Plus I hated how they drop-kicked Kaoru to the curb, never to be seen or mentioned again. I guess that would take away from all the exciting real estate discussion and the interpersonal drama between children that Kiryu will straight-up abandon for good two games later.