Friday, March 20, 2020

Eric Vs. 365 - Day 264 - Yakuza 0

Ooh boy, today's going to be a fun one because this is the one where I say Yakuza sucks and everyone gets mad. Ready? The Yakuza series kinda sucks. I've tried to play Yakuza 0 multiple times and always end up bored and confused and bored and mostly bored with it. Yakuza is one of the most overrated and overhyped franchises in gaming right now. Read more and watch gameplay right here!

Yakuza 0 is the first Yakuza I've tried to play, but I have watched Let's Plays of others in the series. It always looked fun. It always looked interesting. It isn't actually either, however. The story is a convoluted nonsensical mess. Exploring the maps is cool for about an hour and then you realize you can't actually interact with most of it. And the vaunted gameplay is extremely shallow and repetitive and freaking boring. 

People also always praise the mini games and optional crap you can do, but that stuff is actually even worse than the main focus on combat. Batting cages, bowling, mini car racing, karaoke, etc. all freaking stuck because they have absolutely putrid controls. None of this is fun outside of the novelty of "Ha ha, I'm a yakuza in Japan doing normie shit". The mini games all control horribly and aren't worth the effort. 

All that you're left with is the story and combat, and I think they're both thoroughly mediocre. Everything in these games is just awkward and awful and shallow and boring and, again, mediocre. 

Yet, some people really, really freaking love them. It makes you want to play them too because they make them look so damn fun. Resist that urge to actually play them. It's a lot more fun to watch super fans play them than to play them yourself.


Maybe give Yakuza 0 a try, since it's on Game Pass, but don't go out and blind buy the whole collection because you'll probably regret it. 

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't "hate" Yakuza. No, I can play it and have a good enough time with it. I just don't really think the conversation around it matches up with the reality of what the games actually are, and that kind of annoys me.