Yakuza 0
Beats up your heart along with the baddies
Why
- Typically Yakuza drama with heart
- Side stories are also typically fun, the cabaret club in particular
- Deuteragonist structure used to brilliant effect
Why Not
- Bosses have a lot of health & huge difficulty spikes
- Kuze epitomises 'How many times must I teach you this lesson old man?'
- Majima is too much of a real person for later games to make sense haha
Impressions
After playing (and loving) Like a Dragon I decided to jump back to where it all began for some context on the world and its characters before continuing. Despite the shift from JRPG mechanics to beat'em up and the absence of the 一番 protagonist I can definitely see why this is considered the best of the series; in addition to setting up Kiryu and Majima as the legends they become. It was so good I have a tough time not immediately jumping into Kiwami, thus setting myself on the dangerously life-consuming course of playing (at least) 6 consecutive Yakuza games rather than the truckloads of other brilliant games out there.
If you've played a Yakuza game before you know the overall details of what to expect from 0; a wildly melodramatic but somehow emotional plot supported by whacky side stories and memorable characters. Unlike other entries in the series 0 doesn't just have you play as Kiryu; you'll spend an equal amount of time playing as his eternal foil, Goro Majima. Neither have earned their animal-based sobriquets yet though, which don't seem to affect Kiryu's personality much but leads to an absolutely wild difference between the Majima I know from Like a Dragon and the one I played as here. Not an unwelcome one, especially since the story probably wouldn't work with Mad Dog Majima in his place, but I definitely spent most of his first chapter wondering when the real Majima would show up.
Having been introduced to the series with Like a Dragon's JRPG-style combat I was apprehensive about switching to beat-em-up, a style of combat I never really enjoyed. The first (of so, so many) fight with Kuze had me seriously considering whether I should just drop the game and stick to the Ichiban series, but I'm glad I didn't. That first fight is brutal because you lack upgrades and have been fighting helpless flunkies up to that point, so the giant difficulty spike and unwillingness to just let you beat him up without retaliation is a brick wall to the face. I'm glad I persevered because the game is absolutely amazing overall, but I'll definitely say the boss fights are not my favourite part of the game. Regular mobs do nothing to make you engage with the combat system, then bosses expect you to be an expert at it in addition to having new styles you need to adapt to. Some kind of actual elite enemies using boss mechanics rather than 'big yakuza with weapon' would have gone a long way to smoothing out the difficulty curve I think, but switching to easy and popping pills like Charlie Sheen got me through them to the interesting parts just as effectively.
Overall a brilliant entry in the series, and one which ensured I'll be following Kiryu's story to its conclusion before joining up with Ichiban and the gang again. Not that Kiryu's story ever seems to really end... but by the time I get there maybe I'll be one of the fans they're fanservicing by keeping him around. Sadly it's no longer possible to pick the original version I played up on Steam since it was delisted in favour of the Director's Cut, but if you can find another way to get it definitely do so. It's a classic, and not just within the series.