Yakuza 0

Yakuza 0 (Known in Japan as Ryu ga Gotoku 0: Chikai no Basho, and roughly translated in English to Like a Dragon 0: The Place of Oath) is an open world action adventure beat 'em up game developed by Ryu ga Gotoku Studio and published by Sega for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4.

The game serves as a prequel to the Yakuza series focusing on its two major characters Kazuma Kiryu and Goro Majima, in a intertwining story of a ruthless real estate war over the "Empty Lot" during the late 1980s.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) Firstly, it's best that we tackle this as soon as possible; the story, which is deep, compelling, and unique. As a prequel to the first Yakuza game, veterans and newcomers get to experience the origin stories of two of the most iconic and most memorable characters of the entire franchise in a "dual story" format; Kazuma Kiryu and Goro Majima.
 * 2) *(The following content features semi-minor spoilers for Chapter 1: Bound by Oath, Chapter 3: A Glided Cage, and Chapter 4: Proof of Resolve)
 * 3) * Kiryu's story begins at December 1988. As a low-rank member of the Dojima Family during that time, one night, Kiryu would collect a debt that a salaryman, by beating him in an empty lot in the middle of Tokyo's district of Kamurocho. After getting the money successfully, he decides to go out with with best friend and sworn brother, Akira Nishikiyama, for a night of fun including karaoke, drinking, and ramen. Everything seemed well for the two. That was until the next day, TV news reported that the salaryman who was beaten by Kiryu yesterday was found dead, as the police was investigating the murder. As if that wasn't enough, the Dojima Family requested Kiryu to report in the family's offices. Once Kiryu made it there, he met the family's three lieutenants; Daisaku Kuze, Hiroki Awano, and Keiji Shibuwasa. They inform about the murder and how Kiryu is the one to blame, suggesting to turn himself in to avoid the police from looking into the family's operation. However, Kiryu learned from them that the salaryman was killed by a gunshot, and not beaten up, so he insists that it's a framed murder, but without success. Turns out that the place of the murder, the Empty Lot, is actually in the middle of a massive redevelopment project (the Kamurocho Revitalization Process), that the city of Tokyo is planning to commit, and the Dojima Family wanted to acquire the land for the Tojo Clan to sell the land in an inflated value, and the murder complicated these plans. Alongside with that, Kiryu was also told the patriach of the family, Sohei Dojima (who at the time was arrested by the police after a raid on a gambling house he operated), would offer the position of Family Captain to whoever acquires the Empty Lot. This meant for Kiryu that one of them is behind the murder, so not only do they want to frame him to resolve the issues, but to also hold responsible the current Family Captain and foster father of Kiryu, Shintaro Kazama, removing him from the family as well. After a series of events (that we won't get in touch to avoid complications and spoilers) occur, Kiryu sets to stop the lieutenants from getting the Empty Lot, and clean his name from the framed murder.
 * 4) * A similar case could also be said for Goro Majima too. After failing three years prior from assassinating Yoshiharu Ueno (a character that is shown only in a flashback and later chronologically appears again in Yakuza 4), Majima was set into an entire year of physical torture and getting exiled from the Shimano Family. Now, under the orders of his boss, Futoshi Shimano (patriach of the Shimano Family), Majima works as the manager of Cabaret Grand in the district of Sotenbori at Osaka, to deliver increasingly high profits every month to avoid from returning back into Shimano's torture chamber, as Shimano's sworn brother from the Omi Alliance, Tsukasa Sagawa, is supervising Goro's punishment. In other words, Sotenbori was Majima's cell. One day however, Sagawa invites him for a talk at a noodle stand, and makes an offer; Majima can be reinstated in his former position if he carries out a hit for them. The target was a pimp named Makoto Makimura, who was apparently operating in Sagawa's territory without paying him tribute. After some hesitation, Majima agrees to do it and is given three days to kill her. After that, Majima begins by tracking down Makimura, and finds information that contradict the intial story; apparently she isn't a ruthless pimp, but rather a bodyguard of some sorts for the city's sex workers. After some more careful investigation, he finds that she operates a massage clinic and decides to break in. After carrying it out and finding no one however, he gets found by an assistant; a quiet, blind girl who mistakens him for a thief. Majima convinces her that he is a client, hiding his true intentions, and gets a massage while waiting for his target. Eventually, Makimura shows up, and seeing Majima's yakuza tattoos, identifies him as an assassin. After convincing his assistant into getting some cigarettes while he would work for the "client", Majima and Makimura get into a fight. However, this moment is eventually interrupted by the sudden arrival of more yakuza, which reveal something to Majima; the man that he was fighting against was actually a Chinese gangster, Wen Hai Lee, and the real Makoto Makimura was the blind assistant. Once she returned back to the clinic, the yakuza kidnap her, and Majima chases them down. After a series of fights and hiding, the two find a good hiding spot, in which they can hide away from the goons. Majima considers for a brief period of time to kill her as he was ordered, but finds that he can't bring himself to do it, eventually deciding to protect and find the truth about her.
 * 5) **It should also be noted that considering there are two main characters and the story is told through a "dual story" format, they need in one way or another to swap around and give the player to experience both stories. Each character gets the spotlight for two chapters, before swapping to the other one and keeps the pacing going for the entire game until the Finale, Black & White, which unlocks the ability to freely swap between Kiryu and Majima.
 * 6) As a staple of the franchise and a way to take a break from the story, the game features a variety of Mini-Games and interactive activities for the player to partake. Some are pretty simple, like the arcades, the batting cages, the Mahajara club with its dancing Minigame, the Japan Catfight Club, the underground casino, Mahjong and more, and some feature extended storylines that feature unique characters and stories. Particularly, three of them;
 * 7) * Kiryu has two of them; the first one is the Kamurocho Real Estate Royale business. It involves Kiryu starting his own real estate business. However, he encounters the Five Billionaires, real estate businessmen that own specific areas at Kamurocho, and eventually gets into a fight to conquer all properties in the district, a fight for the land of Kamurocho. While a simple activity in terms of concept and gameplay, it requires a lot of money to progress, so it takes time to complete it. Alongside with that, players need to complete specific substories in order to unlock more managers, security and advisors to make collection runs and invest into properties.
 * 8) * The second one is the Pocket Circuit Minigame. It's essentially small RC cars which can be customized to the fullest extend. After Kiryu stumbles upon the place and getting introduced in the game by the Pocket Circuit Fighter, Kiryu aims to become the champion of the Pocket Circuit, by competing in all cups, buying parts and customizing his cars to perfection.
 * 9) * As for Majima, he only has a business with an extensive storyline, but it's equally fun as Kiryu's; Cabaret Club Czar. The storyline has the same idea with Kiryu's, but with a different setting and gameplay, where Majima takes ownership of the Cabaret Club Sunshine, and aims to become the best Cabaret Club in the district. However, he has to face the Five Stars, five rich people who each has a Cabaret Club that uses shady tactics in order to make more money. This one is more easier than Kiryu's, as while it needs time and specific substories completed to unlock specific hostesses, isn't really hard to do so, and doesn't rely on spending large amounts of money. Plus, you get to do makeovers on the Platinum rarity hostesses you have, changing their clothes and accessories, which is ridiculously funny yet unique and original for a game that's considered a "serious crime drama". Club Sunshine also makes an appearance in the Kiwami/Extreme remake of Yakuza 2 as an optional activity.
 * 10) It's the first in the franchise to introduce Battle Styles. In a nutshell, the player can at any point during combat (and as long as they already unlocked them) to change their style of combat to alter the way they play, which works great for specific enemies and playstyles.
 * 11) * Kiryu has the styles of Brawler (the base, all-around style), Rush (the lighting fast combo-based style) and Beast (the slow, methodical, yet powerful style), while Majima has similar styles with different names, and more stylish, chaotic-like animations (Thug, Breaker, and Slugger respectively).
 * 12) * The styles also incorporate the HEAT mechanic, which affects the speed of attacks. This means that players can either keep their heat in order to have faster attacks and maintain combos, or use HEAT Actions that deplete it, but deals high damage to enemies.
 * 13) * As players collect money, they can also use them to invest into upgrades for their combat styles and unlock new moves, expanding more into what was before some basic combos.
 * 14) * Finally, each character also has a unique, hidden style known as the Legend style, which is unlocked after completing each character's business. Kiryu has the famous Dragon of Dojima style, which incorporates, unique, tactical moves, while Majima has the Mad Dog of Shimano style, which incorporates the Demonfire Dagger for fast, chaotic attacks.
 * 15) Quirky sense of humor. Despite it's dark and gritty story, it always finds some time to be more upbeat and chill with the activities and substories available.
 * 16) The world design is amazing; while the districts of Kamurocho and Sotenbori are small, they feel so alive with people walking around, the neon lights shining everywhere, and sounds from human activities flooding the crowded streets.
 * 17) The storyline features an amazing cast of memorable characters, both new and old from previous games, with their own unique charm to each of them.
 * 18) * We also cannot deny that Dojima's lieutenants were by far some of the best villains in the entire series (behind Ryuji Goda and Akira Nishikiyama).
 * 19) The Substories, another staple of the franchise, are well written and definitely add the charm of the hilarious, funny, and sometimes even wholesome side of the game. You can help a Dominatrix get better at her job, help a discount Michael Jackson and discount Stephen Spielberg into making a music video of discount Thriller, volunteer in a drug test and get 10 Million Yen, get a reading from a Fortune Teller, meet a guy named Mr. Libido who's a big horndog and lusts over women, write Postcards with stories from substories you already did go win a radio contest, help a mother into getting back her daughter who got into a cult, and more.
 * 20) * Some substories also allow you to befriend several characters as you explore the city and you can be able to unlock special rewards after you fully befriended them.
 * 21) Alongside with the addictive and deep combat, the boss fights are well designed and challenging. Unlike many of the enemies you fight, these bosses have unique movesets and are stronger than regular enemies. This means that players have to utilize strategies instead of rushing to victory.
 * 22) Excellent soundtrack that always fits the situation the characters are in, with the spotlight of this being the Karaoke and Disco songs that are catchy and fun to listen.
 * 23) Highly dramatic and intense cinematic cutscenes, that it makes you feel like you're watching an actual Japanese gangster movie at certain points.
 * 24) As you progress through the game and collect sets of telephone cards, you can watch softcore porno videos of the various females from these sets.
 * 25) *Funnily enough, if you watch any sexy video, you get an achievement called ...I Did It for the Achievement, meant to poke the player, who would most likely watch such video for the sake of this achievement.
 * 26) Beautifully gorgeous graphics with superb visuals with extremely detailed character models and bright colours everywhere, all whilst running at a super smooth frame rate, even at Low graphical settings on the PC version.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Two mentors that appear in each's character's story, Bacchus (for Kiryu's story) and Sotaro Komaki (for Majima's story), while important at when learning a new combat style, are very similar to Ocarina of Time 's Keapora Geabora, as they both will interrupt the player's progress though the game numerous times (especially Bacchus), and talk way too much, which for people focusing more on the gameplay than story and dialogue will have to experience and be forced to skip a lot of text.
 * 2) The main story of 0 fleshes out several key characters from the first game, and Shinji and Ryuji (who is from 2) with a substory. However, despite being a key character and love interest to both Nishiki and Ki ryu in the first game, Yumi, is only mentioned and nowhere to seen. Fans argued that she should've at least had a substory or make an appearance in a flashback, but she doesn't.
 * 3) The Meow Shoes are very annoying.
 * 4) Some of the areas are mediocre in graphic standards.
 * 5) For some reason, you cannot play the game's highest difficulty setting, Legend, in New Game+. And unless you want to use a Hex Editor to allow yourself do it, you will have to start a whole new game and be forced to do everything again from scratch.
 * 6) The Ebisu Socks, while a good method to get money when you're not doing any of the business activities, can get annoying with the dinging crunch sound they make, similar to the Meow Shoes. In fact, considering that you can make extremely easy money nonetheless, they are very useless.
 * 7) The Catfighting Minigame is very luck based on who will win (something that is noticeable a lot when betting a lot of money), especially if you're trying to unlock the Cat Scratch Fever achievement, which requires to collect a specific amount of profits into the Minigame

Reception
Yakuza 0 received generally positive reviews, and is currently the highest rated Yakuza game, holding an 85/100 on Metacritic, and an 85.25% on GameRankings.

Angry Joe has gave this game a 8 out of 10 and it was number 7 in his top 10 games of 2017.

Trivia

 * The Karaoke song known as "Bakamitai" (accurately translated as "I've Been A Fool" in English) has recently became a meme after Youtuber Dobbsyrules' video of him lip-syncing Bakamitai exploded into population, and resulted in countless memes consisting of a fictional or real life person being deepfaked in order to look like they are singing the song.

Videos
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