Yakuza 5 (2012)

I'll be honest, Yakuza 5 is the worst one I've played so far.

At first, it was a bit conflicting, because one thing I kept wishing for the series was variety. Well, I got variety right here, and let me tell you, I don't like it.

It was a bit conflicting to come to the realization that I don't like this. The game opens up very well and the whole Kiryu part was fine. Classic Yakuza, of course. I LOVED the taxi substory. Off to a solid start!

But then we get to Saejima part and that's the SLOWEST moment in the game. Even the minigames suck. Things don't shift much in the next part, which is Haruka's. Just... what were they thinking? I'm glad she shared her chapters with Akiyama, because he steals the whole game. His chapters are the best, his fighting style is great, his story fits just right. But then the game crashes hard when we come to Shinada. Everything about him just feels out of place, to be honest. Some new side characters, like the main villain, Saejima's prison gang, and Park-chan, ALMOST captivated me, but they weren't enough.

Yakuza 2 used to be my least favorite, however, the story/side content were its saving grace. But with 5, the story feels absolutely forced and kinda set apart from the others. It's a huge mess! It never amounts to anything meaningful! Akiyama is the only one that felt in-character. Haruka's idol fluff was extremely boring, Saejima's felt repetitive and fruitless, Shinada is absolutely useles, and Kiryu was... ok, I guess.

And while things do improve in the Finale, the ending is horrible. Abrupt, emotionless, with a few plot points left out in the open.

It's a shame, because this game looks and sounds beautiful! The main story is weak, but almost every sidequest is either fun as hell or very creative. I LOVED all the cities I got to visit and I wish I could just explore them forever. The atmosphere is great and, as usual, the soundtrack shines! The combat, on the other hand, was a bit of a hit or miss. I'm used to that, I guess. Yakuza's combat is usually iffy.

I know that people love this game, but I just couldn't. Playing with Haruka and Saejima was pure torture. And the game is very long too! That usually doesn't bother me, but the lack of fun factor just made me almost drop it.

I just hope Yakuza 6 picks it back up again.

Yakuza 5 Remastered, reminds me of that classic Simpsons bit where Homer gets sent to hell and is forced to eat donuts… lots of donuts. To say that Yakuza 5 has a lot of content would be a disservice, this game is literally bulging at the seams with things to do and can easily take hundreds of hours to reach 100% completion. Even if you simply want to enjoy the story, Yakuza 5 easily dwarfs past games in the series. This is the biggest Yakuza game yet: there are 5 playable characters, 5 different maps to explore and 4 core mini-games each with their own unique mechanics and leveling systems. Yakuza 5's wide scope of content unfortunately hurts the game due to a lack of focus and direction.

The story meanders in a typical Yakuza-like fashion. If you’ve played any of the other past games in the series you should come to expect betrayals, secret relationships and shirtless fights on rooftops. The problem is that Yakuza 5 is like a typical Yakuza game but on steroids. There is an excessive amount of long cutscenes that it feels like you are watching a Japanese crime drama rather than playing a video game. The story is also completely incomprehensible. There are multiple characters who are somehow supremely gifted actors, have the ability to think 10 steps ahead and can keep relationships secret from close friends for almost two decades. Hideo Kojima would have probably blushed at reading the script because of how ridiculous it is and how it doesn’t explain away things with sci-fi bullshit (nano-machines).

The gameplay in Yakuza 5 is similar to its predecessors. The combat is a beat-em-up action fighter with special devastating Heat actions that can be unleashed by building up the heat meter. New to Yakuza 5 is a special Red Heat action that’s unique to each character. Kiryu for example can expend his heat meter to temporarily become invincible and can unleash unblockable attacks. Outside of combat, there are the usual side-missions which often lean on the goofy side, such as dealing with an annoying newspaper salesman. Each main protagonist except for Akiyama, also gets their own mini-game. What I like about Yakuza 5 is that these mini-games are integrated with the main plot unlike in previous entries where our heroes get randomly asked out of the blue to run a hostess club or do some other ridiculous task.

The remastering effort for Yakuza 5 feels unfinished. At times the game looks worse than Yakuza 4 Remastered. There are numerous main story cutscenes that are left unpolished and look very dated compared to the in-engine graphics. There are visible glitches, like NPC shadows clipping through the environment or side characters talking without moving their mouths. There is also an inconsistency in the player models. For example when Kiryu is wandering the streets of Kamurocho his model is highly detailed with fluid animations. However when Kiryu is driving his cab, his model is noticeably less textured and his animations are very rigid.

Yakuza 5 stumbles into the same problem as Yakuza 4 by breaking the game up into 4 parts. Each part has you play as a different character, in a different city/town and with a completely unrelated storyline. The progress you make for one character does not transfer over to other characters. I abhor this fragmented structure because it discourages the completion of side quests. Keep in mind that the time spent leveling up a character is reset once you are done with their part. All 5 characters do meet up in the finale with their levels persisted, but only Kiryu and Saijama get worthwhile conclusions.The other 3 characters get pretty lame endings that don’t leverage the skills you’ve built up during their storylines.

If Yakuza 5 only consisted of Kiryu and Haruka’s story, the game would have been an easy recommendation. I found Kiryu's part entertaining, especially when doing his day job as a Taxi driver. I also found Haruka’s story unexpectedly engrossing due to its realistic depiction of the entertainment industry. There are producers who want sexual favors, rival idols who will do anything to get ahead and “friends” who want to capitalize on Haruka’s newfound fame. I simply did not find the other three characters' stories as compelling and they were a slog to play through. I was still happy that I played Yakuza 5 remastered as it had some of the biggest highs and biggest lows I’ve ever experienced in the Yakuza franchise.

My Yakuza Ranking:

1. Yakuza 0
2. Yakuza Kiwami 2
3. Yakuza 5 Remastered
4. Yakuza 4 Remastered
5. Yakuza Kiwami
6. Yakuza 3 Remastered

If this game was just the final boss by itself it would still get five stars but the fact that there's a whole longer-than-full-length game attached to it is actually so swaggy.

Obviously this game has a ton of problems but the fact that a game of its length remains so consistently great for way longer than it has any right to kind of makes those problems look miniscule by comparison. The undoubtedly worst part of this game is the Saejima prison section that, if I recall correctly, takes up 3 of his 4 chapters. This normally would be a slog but luckily I did not get any sleep the night before I played it and I had a fun challenge trying to get through it while losing consciousness for a few seconds about once a minute. IGN PLEASE FUCKIGN HIRE ME.

I really liked the main story in this one and all the character stuff is great. My main issue is there is TOO MUCH!

I did about 90% completion and it took nearly a hundred hours! I do not like doing all the minigames and such, just substories, side gigs, and masteries. If it was not such a grind to get that last 10 percent but I have no interest in karaoke, baseball, pool, darts, gambling, etc...

I felt more inclined to do more than in 4 but I still I wish it were more focused. This is more of a "me" problem for sure. Also, the final round of the Jo Amon fight felt more bullshit than usual.

I mean, if you are into the series this is more of it and it has some interesting wrinkles, I really liked the hunting and idol segments from a change-of-pace standpoint. The same issues with other entries in the series are here as well. Random combat is still too often or too hard to avoid.

Anyway, interested to see where it goes with 6.

It took me almost two years, but I finally did it: I've played every Yakuza entry in Kazuma Kiryu's saga available on PlayStation 4 as of this writing, plus Judgment, in order of their North American re-release. I had no idea when I started Yakuza 0 on New Year's Eve of 2017 that I'd fall in love with the series this hard.

So how did Yakuza 5 fare? It is, after all, beloved by many a fan for building on the structure of Yakuza 4 while expanding its scope to four locations, all culminating in one of the series' most epic finales.

Eh... it's okay. 🤷‍♂

If Yakuza 4 is a delicious entrée in which all the ingredients compliment one another, Yakuza 5 is a multi-course meal where all of those same ingredients are served in isolation, with much larger helpings. If you're a big fan of, say, tomatoes on their own, then this may be your favorite entry. If you're not, then parts of this game are going to be kind of a slog.

That's not to say there's no fun to be had. While they were pretty repetitive, I enjoyed seeing Kiryu's, Saejima's and Haruka's side stories through to the end. The story is largely pretty flimsy (I saw the big twists coming a mile away, and I think the writers pulled a muscle reaching for newcomer Shinada's relevance to the overall plot), but there were plenty of smaller beats that kept me engaged throughout. And there's a ton of trademark substory silliness to enjoy.

But in a series with such high highs, this just didn't measure up for me. I'm glad the team decided to focus a bit more in subsequent titles.