Yakuza is a strange series for me. I didn't begin with 0 like many, I started with the first game on PS2 a few years prior to the series getting big thanks to that game. What makes it such so strange that despite me playing so many of the games and invested so much time into the franchise, I don't really view with super high reverance. It's like the gaming equivilant of being that decent show that comes on and the episode is over or some action movie and I'm like, "yeah I suppose I had fun but I'm done now". It's rather bizarre because of the subject matter of the series deals with. With Yakuza 0, it's a well presented and entertaining story in the moment but it never really goes beyond being superfically entertaining. It also doesn't help that learning about the story changes made in this Director's Cut makes look back on it with less fondness and how the story is becoming a parody of itself. A very unfunny one.
Anyways, I got this Director's Cut due it to coming with an english dub since I might as well have a new experience with the story that already has a lot of characters talking and exposition dumping. It's very well acted but it's been that way since Judgment's dubs. The much maligned voice actor for Kazuma Kiryu isn't too bad here and fits the younger rendition of the character pretty well. The rest of the cast does a good job too especially Mathew Mercer as Majima.
The story itself minus the retcons and pointless scenes added in is good in the moment. The story avoids contrived writing and if it does come off that way, the writing will address it. For example when Kashiwagi mocks Kiryu and Nishki for not reading the newspaper when there was a murder in the Empty Lot at the start.
Many of the characters are written well in the moment. Majima of course being a stand out with how he handled that one annoying customer at the Cabaret Club. It also has an awesome moment in the series will he uses his newly obtained civilian status to finally start making his attack on Kuze.
The villains like Kuze, Shibusawa and Awano are solid and are decently destable but have some admirable traits to round them. Kuze especially pointing out that Kazama brainwashed him was amusing that I wish went to places.
While the story is well written in the moment, it's when you peel everything back is when the cracks show.
This is where it leads to the negatives on the story. It's theme exploration on it's own can be rather hollow when looking past the well presented story. Kiryu never really goes through any personal growth and is mainly the same character he was in the numbered games. There is some narrative heavy lifting for Nishki. Kashiwagi and Yumi especially do not get this. It's rather silly that the latter character is the fulcrum of the first game's plot and she's just conviently written out of the story. Despite being a prequel, it feels like you need to watch supplementary material to understand why Kazuma goes so far out of his way to help Kazama. It just makes the twist with him in the first game come off as all the more sinister.
Majima is while entertaining is where the theme exploration is hollow. It's something I've come to dislike about the series and the retcons this version of 0 makes this more evident. Yakuza 0 is about Majima slowly becoming mad but he never does anything morally ambigous or deplorable himself. Nishitani does more of that than Majima does and the former you don't play as. RGG wants their protagonists to be "the good guys" or a Marvel and DC hero but the very premise of the franchise itself deals with the criminal underworld. These characters aren't supposed to be the good guys in the traditional sense.
The retcons like with Lee, Biliken, and the loan shark at the start of the game makes it even sillier. It makes the Tojo Clan retroactively written to be a bunch of inept children who are incompentent at taking out people who cross them.
Gameplay is "fine". The combat as Kiryu can be rather stiff. Rush style feels fast but it's attacks do little damage and there's no heat moves you can do in the moment. Beast style is the most fun since Kiryu will grab neaby weapons and hitting people with weapons can feel satisfying.
Majima's combat fares a lot better. Breaker style is remiscent of the fighting style Eddie Gordo uses in Tekken and it's so much fun to watch him dance around and juggle enemies while he's doing it.
Slugger style can be fun to see him wack people with the bad and I love using the numbchucks move. It always felt awesome to land.
Combat does however get less enjoyable to melee weapon and firearms since they can stagger both Kiryu and Majima like crazy. No joke the hardest part of 0 is when there is a straight line on a ship and on the other end are hitscanners who do a lot of damage and stagger him when their shots land. It was just tanking hits until I got close to them.
Overall, I do enjoy Y0 but it's also easy to be critical on it when I want to.
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