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Yakuza 5 Remastered (2019, Playstation 4) Review


BACK WITH A VENGEANCE


Also for: Playstation 3, Windows, Windows Apps, Xbox One, Xbox Series


In its most ambitious entry yet, Yakuza is finally back to compete in the big leagues. With a solid story, fantastic characters, a staggering amount of things to do and an abundance of maps, Yakuza 5 shows great confidence in the direction the series is heading. Its success is hard-earned through years of diligent learning. Ryu Ga Gotoku studio finally gets a good grasp on how to tackle multiple narratives. Each of the initial four main story parts, out of five, has different protagonists. They tell intriguing, mostly self-contained stories, and it's only when they come together in the final act that the plot somewhat confounds me.

Up until that point, the game constantly reinvents itself, using building blocks from previous entries and adding some new. Every part of the game has its own flavor, as if colored by its particular leading guy's (or gal's) personality and battle approach. Kazuma Kiryu, the series' main protagonist so far, is the player character for the first part. His chapters are the easiest, him being a fighting Tojo clan legend and all.



He has left his old life behind to work incognito as a taxi driver in Nagasugai. Although some customers give him hell, he has kind colleagues and a supportive boss. Whatever earnings he can spare, he transfers to the kids of his beloved old seaside orphanage in Okinawa. But his tranquil life only lasts for so long. After a work shift, word reaches him that his friend, Daigo Dojima, who's the head of his old Yakuza clan, has disappeared. And it just so happens that Kiryu was the last to see the Tojo chairman. His story deals with that disappearance and leads Kiryu on a path that eventually converges with the other protagonists' stories.

The main characters mostly consist of familiar faces. We have Taiga Saejima - the wrongfully accused death row inmate - and altruistic loan shark Akiyama, both great characters returning from Yakuza 4. Haruka, Kiryu's adoptive daughter, is trying to become a pop idol. She has been a side character in the series since the first game (not Yakuza 0), but this is her long overdue breakthrough as a character. She has the most inventive and interesting storyline, exploring the darker sides of show business. We also have a fine new addition in Shinada, a retired professional baseball player. He is let down by a mediocre, weapon-based fighting style, but his story is great, adding a penniless working-class man's perspective on things.



Yakuza 5 might break the series' record for longest running time, but it's still well-paced, restricting the side activities within each part to a manageable size. Almost every character has their own elaborate side story (with its own leveling mechanic), plus a dozen or more substories. Add to that tons of unique as well as shared mini-games. They're all completely optional, but as usual, they're so much bloody fun that the distractions feel like the game's heart and soul.

Saejima's mountain-hunting side story drags on a bit, and the VR training missions, which transfer the main game's fighting mechanics to a side-brawler, are horrendous. Apart from that, Yakuza 5 has some of my favorite side content of the series. Kiryu's taxi missions are surprisingly fun (remind me to never drive in Japan), and Shinada's baseball missions provide some great insights into his sad backstory. But as a huge fan of previous entries' karaoke mini-games, for me Haruka's pop idol storyline is where the game shines. 



Naturally, the young girl doesn't fight. Instead she partakes in dance battles and singing competitions. Over fully animated performances in the background, you chime in through a rhythm-based mini-game that determines the outcome. She also meets reporters, goes to fan conventions, and does some odd TV appearances - anything that gets her media coverage and expands her fan base. Her songs are great, as are the karaoke entries. Just listen to "Ring" and "Bakamitai" and tell me I'm wrong.

Every other character follows the traditional Yakuza mold with main story and street brawling. I won't dwell on the fighting mechanic, because it's identical to earlier games. The only tough battles belong to a few obscure sidequests. Each character has his own combat style, with Akiyama's rush-inspired kicking being the most fun to play. Kiryu is a fighting connoisseur, capable to withstand everyone with his crazy amount of moves. Saejima's reliance on raw power over finesse makes him the most tedious fighter.

Since Shinada is a new protagonist, his weapons-focused style is unprecedented (they later imported bits of it to Majima's thug-style in Yakuza 0). A new weapon progression system helps him a little. It increases your skills with weapon types you use, and incites you to pick up makeshift arms like bikes, trashcans and traffic cones off the sidewalks. Even though he's the weakest fighter, he's not dull to play - it just means his fights are the most difficult. Interestingly, being a former baseball player, he refuses to wield a bat in combat out of respect for the equipment.



Out of the four combative protagonists, Shinada's story is also the most intriguing and best told. It contains one affecting scene in which a person is deceived by his friends. But instead of the expected argument, the victim responds with a heartbroken stare, which we see from the point of view of the betrayer. In a game series often overindulging in dialogue, the restrained effect of that scene caught me off guard.

Ryu ga Gotoku studios has always had a knack for modeling cool, charismatic characters, but here they also begin to truly shine with great, multifaceted personalities. At its best, Yakuza storytelling is elevated through the power of individual scenes rather than the overarching plot. A long, free-roaming video game is not a particularly good format for traditional narratives. I believe that's why the substories feel so essential to the Yakuza experience. They are short, perfectly condensed to around ten minutes, and still convey all the necessary emotions and provide some meaningful gameplay.



In Yakuza 5, my favorite might just be Saejima's hilarious food delivery substory. He's stuck in a snowy Sapporo around New Year's, when he stumbles upon a food delivery guy who's slipped and injured his back. Saejima accepts to deliver the food in his stead. The lazy customer is standing just about 50 meters (54 yards) away, looking straight at you. The street is so slippery with ice, you have to slowly walk all the way to him. But the kicker is that other pedestrians come sliding down the street on their backs, in full speed, spinning like helpless bugs. They'll cause you to drop and spoil the food unless you avoid them. I was crying with laughter throughout, but still caught one passer-by yelling: "At least this is the right way home!"

Moments like these linger, as do individual scenes and even shots from the main story. But no entry, apart from Yakuza 0, has an overarching plot that I distinctly remember. I think I might have expressed it differently in the past, but now I realize that a Yakuza game is exactly as good as the sum of all its parts. Yakuza 5 has so many great parts it's an essential addition to any gamer's resume.



Ryu Ga Gotoku studio seems to love inventing bizarre tales of urban life. This time they all revolve around the central theme of dreams. Haruka, with her life still ahead of her, represents everybody's hope of realizing the crushed dreams of their own past. The other four protagonists long to see her succeed where they couldn't. Her story is perfectly placed smack-dab in the middle of the game, giving us a respite from all the physical violence.

Although the Yakuza 5 I played is remastered, the visuals are uneven on a technical level, and the invisible walls start showing their antiquated cracks. But the game more than makes up for that through the high level of detail in the environments. Aside from Yakuza Kiwami 2, this game might be the most absorbing the series has ever been. The storefronts, streets and parks are teeming with life. Just looking through hundreds of screenshots to accompany this review, I realize a lot of them tell a story of their own. People gossip about current affairs, and some of it pertains to your story progress. This does not only help the cities come alive, it also refreshes your memory of past events.

Unfortunately, Yakuza 5 arrives near the end of the long-running Kazuma Kiryu-saga. A lot of people will never experience it, because they'd have to spend hundreds of hours getting there. Not all of the time leading up to it will be this absorbing. But when you're struggling with the lesser entries in the middle, just remember: Somewhere close to the end of the rainbow you'll find a game to rival the masterpiece, Yakuza 0, that got your journey started.

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