This game is so close to being perfect. Killer gameplay, beautiful graphics, funny side-missions, as well as a fantastic well-written main story. I easily became immersed in 80s Japan and by the end I genuinely didn't want to leave the characters behind. Good thing that there's like 6 other Yakuza games to play!

I will say that some of the cutscenes and especially the heat moves are extremely brutal and almost sadistic, but it's not really any worse than a kung-fu movie, and the characters all just seem to walk it off, like getting your neck snapped and your spine bent over a hand-rail is nothing really lol. Then, immediately after paralysing some guys, you can go sing karaoke, or have a heartfelt moment with some kids, or win random plushies from an arcade crane game!

Just don't try to 100% it, or it will drive you insane with all the dumb RNG-based minigames that you have to complete. The Dragon and Tiger equipment search in particular is an utter slog that made me feel bad for my computer, which must have started wondering why it had to keep rendering dense 3D graphics just for me to ignore them all and spend dozens of hours on a dumb idle game instead. Do not put that crap in another game please Sega.

Overall though, I really loved this game and will most likely come back to complete it again on Legend mode for the final 2 achievements. If you want to get into the Yakuza series, or are just looking for something to do instead of buying GTA V for the 4th time, you should definitely start with this one.

This game is so close to being perfect. Killer gameplay, beautiful graphics, funny side-missions, as well as a fantastic well-written main story. I easily became immersed in 80s Japan and by the end I genuinely didn't want to leave the characters behind. Good thing that there's like 6 other Yakuza games to play! I will say that some of the cutscenes and especially the heat moves are extremely brutal and almost sadistic, but it's not really any worse than a kung-fu movie, and the characters all just seem to walk it off, like getting your neck snapped and your spine bent over a hand-rail is nothing really lol. Then, immediately after paralysing some guys, you can go sing karaoke, or have a heartfelt moment with some kids, or win random plushies from an arcade crane game! Just don't try to 100% it, or it will drive you insane with all the dumb RNG-based minigames that you have to complete. The Dragon and Tiger equipment search in particular is an utter slog that made me feel bad for my computer, which must have started wondering why it had to keep rendering dense 3D graphics just for me to ignore them all and spend dozens of hours on a dumb idle game instead. Do not put that crap in another game please Sega. Overall though, I really loved this game and will most likely come back to complete it again on Legend mode for the final 2 achievements. If you want to get into the Yakuza series, or are just looking for something to do instead of buying GTA V for the 4th time, you should definitely start with this one.