I'm going to start off by saying ignore the playtime it shows for this game, as I played most of it on offline mode and apparently that doesn't count. That being said, I did complete the game and did tons of side quests.

Yakuza 6 is a game that I put off for a long time because I did not want to burn myself out, having played Yakuza 0 to 5 in a short period of time due to how hooked I was to the franchise. I saw that some people like the game, and others consider it to be mediocre - and I always found latter a strange thing because I didn't think they would just drop the ball like that after such consistency.

When I finally played the game, however, I began to see why people feel that way. But do I agree with it? That's a different question.

Yakuza 6 is the perfect example of how uniquely fun a franchise can be, where even something that's not amazing can still be better than most of what else you can play in the genre. The drama is there, the characters aren't boring, the gameplay is serviceable, and there's a lot to do in terms of spending dozens of hours into the experience.

However, it does fall short as a Yakuza game, compared to its own predecessors. The story lacks a hook and you don't really feel engaged until the very last act. The combat is perhaps the most underwhelming in the series besides 3 and vanilla Y1/Y2. It's not bad, but there's not a lot of variety and it begins to feel same-ish. The physics are glitchy as well, and the bosses are easily cheesable. It clearly met a deadline and the results can be seen.

But the game does have its highlights too. Last act of the story is pretty fun, the characters grow on you even if they aren't as cool as what we had for the last 3 games, and the second city in the game is very calming to explore. I certainly recommend this game both for itself and for the importance that it has in Kiryu's saga - given that it later continued.

I'm going to start off by saying ignore the playtime it shows for this game, as I played most of it on offline mode and apparently that doesn't count. That being said, I did complete the game and did tons of side quests. Yakuza 6 is a game that I put off for a long time because I did not want to burn myself out, having played Yakuza 0 to 5 in a short period of time due to how hooked I was to the franchise. I saw that some people like the game, and others consider it to be mediocre - and I always found latter a strange thing because I didn't think they would just drop the ball like that after such consistency. When I finally played the game, however, I began to see why people feel that way. But do I agree with it? That's a different question. Yakuza 6 is the perfect example of how uniquely fun a franchise can be, where even something that's not amazing can still be better than most of what else you can play in the genre. The drama is there, the characters aren't boring, the gameplay is serviceable, and there's a lot to do in terms of spending dozens of hours into the experience. However, it does fall short as a Yakuza game, compared to its own predecessors. The story lacks a hook and you don't really feel engaged until the very last act. The combat is perhaps the most underwhelming in the series besides 3 and vanilla Y1/Y2. It's not bad, but there's not a lot of variety and it begins to feel same-ish. The physics are glitchy as well, and the bosses are easily cheesable. It clearly met a deadline and the results can be seen. But the game does have its highlights too. Last act of the story is pretty fun, the characters grow on you even if they aren't as cool as what we had for the last 3 games, and the second city in the game is very calming to explore. I certainly recommend this game both for itself and for the importance that it has in Kiryu's saga - given that it later continued.