Recent reviews by Gué

A bit clunky at times, and at one point I was entirely lost as to where to go next.

The game does not offer a real navigation system, just a crude outline for a map, and you're supposed to figure it out yourself. The area are designed in a way to naturally guide you as to where you're supposed to go next, but it was still hard for me on some specific areas. It has been a common complaint, and I believe the developer launched an update to clarify some of these areas.

I overall like the choice of not holding our hand in navigation with any UI or anything, but I can see how that could be a turn off for some people.

The gameplay is overall fun, but very clunky at times, which can be frustating. I think the team at ACE has a good concept here, and I hope they'll expand on it on a sequel. There's a really good core here.

The game isn't very long, but it is a good time. There's some extra, stronger versions of certain bosses that you can optionally fight around the world if you find them. These are pretty fun.

I like the approach with all the different faction we can join, and the improvements with the jetpack system, but everything else felt like a step down to me.

I don't particularly like the new melee combat in this game, the story is a mess, exploration doesn't feel as rewarding, since most of the money you get will come from selling weapons, and ultimately the game just felt too long, with the second half dragging along with boring "Go here, kill a bunch of enemies" type missions.

I did complete the game, and I did overall enjoy my time with it, but I don't see myself replaying it very often, I'd rather just play Elex 1 again.

Despite this being the 3rd game in the series, this is the oldest Yakuza game in the series you can play on PC. Yakuza 0 is a prequel, and Yakuza Kiwami 1 & 2 are both remakes. This game, although a remaster, does not fix any of the QoL issues of this game. So keep in mind that this will still feel like a 2009 game.

With that said, there's still a lot of the Yakuza formula to enjoy here, and there's a good experience to be had with this game.

Here's what I think previous games players will notice the most:

• No running. There's 1 set speed for the entire game. It's not walking speed, thankfully, but it's not newer Yakuza games run speed either. You'll be at this speed for the entire game, except for special "Chase" and "Run" sequences.
  
  
• "Chase" and "Run" sequences. You'll encounter these throughout the story quite a bit. You have to either chase a target, and tackle them an X number of times, while avoiding or jumping over obstacles to gain ground on them. Or, you get to be the runner and have to avoid getting tackled X amount of times, similarly avoiding and jumping over obstacles to avoid them catching up to you. I personally didn't mind these, (although I think there's a few too many in the main story), but I know some people do.
  
  
• Fighters block a lot. Fighting in this game will feel a bit different. Mashing your attack buttons won't do anything, enemies will block everything. This doesn't mean they are invincible, you'll just be required to switch up your strategy a bit. Mixing up heavy attack combos at the very edge of the hitbox will make them not be able to block. Grabbing weaker enemies and hitting them against other enemies will also work (Although heavy enemies you can't grab). Sneaking behind their backs will also mean they can't defend, and you can wail on them indefinitely. So keeping them on their backs and without falling to the ground is a good strategy to maximize damage. Counters also work really well. Combat can be a bit frustrating, especially early-on with some bosses when you don't have a lot of moves yet, but after that initial hurdle, you sort of "get" it and get into your zone, and it becomes clear how combat is supposed to work.
  
  
• The first few chapters might feel a bit slow. The first couple of chapters in the game focus on Kiryu and the orphanage. These will not be very action packed, it's mainly Kiryu helping around the orphanage and it serves to introduce all the children he takes care of. I personally didn't mind it, and I found these missions very endearing, and necessary to build the emotional side of the game's story. But I've seen a lot of discourse, and many people dislike it and would rather that the more action packed parts kicked off a lot sooner.
  
  
• Minigames are not as good. These are the worst minigames in the series, mainly due to the jank of being a 2009 game. Every newer game in the series has better versions of the minigames encountered here.

Overall, I enjoyed my playthrough of this game a lot, and I felt it built up very well to the Penultime chapter (Emotional climax of the story) and the last chapter (Almost purely schlock, very entertaining).

I did most substories, all the hitmen missions (side-story related with battling multiple strong opponents, fun way to test your battling skills without fighting actual in-game bosses), and completed the story on hard.