Happy New Year! Ah, can you believe it is 2020 2021 2022 2023? First game completed of the year is Yakuza 5 Remastered, stared it last year, but due to it being a mammoth game, and being majorly distracted/addicted to Elder Scrolls Online I only finished it a couple of days ago. I have been a fan of the Yakuza series for a while, especially since they remastered the series. I now just have one left to play in the series, not including Lost Judgement or Like A Dragon.
I love crisps, but it can be tough to find ones that are really tasty, and moorish. Pringles is often my go to brand when I'm not quite sure what I want. Recently tried their Sizzl'n Spicy BBQ, as I enjoy the others in the Sizzl'n series (why did they make a new spelling for it?) I thought why not. They weren't bad, but there was something that just did not quite work for me, I feel maybe they were too ambitious with the flavours, and ended up creating something sub par. Playing Yakuza 5 Remastered I found myself asking were there just too many flavors trying to be combined together?
Story
In Yakuaza 4 Remastered you take control of four different characters, for Yakuza 5 you are given five!
The overarching story sees the tentative truce between the Tojo Clan, and Omi Alliance begin to disintergrate due to health issues with the current chairman of the Omi Alliance. The story sees Kiryu Kazuma dragged back into the fray, unwillingly.
There are five protaginists; Kiryu Kazama, Taiga Saejima, Shun Akiyama, Haruka Sawamura, and Tatsuo Shinada. Each character has their own story, in the case of Kiryu we see him take on the role of a humble taxi driver, where you can actually take people on taxi rides and take on some street racing. Taiga, after a brief stint in prison sees him being a hunter in a mountain town, taking on mountains beasts and saving people who have wandered there. We see Shun setting up a second Sky Finance location which ruffles some feathers with the local Yakuza. Haruka who is pursuing her dream as an idol, and doing everything that goes along with; TV Spots, interviews, handshaking events, quiz shows, and lot of practicing dancing and singing. We see the introduction of Shinada, a disgraced baseball player and now sex journalist, he has not given up on baseball and seem him take on events and challengers in the batting cage, and the stadium.
The overacrching story feels a little weak, especially when it comes to character motivations, which was disappointing. The individual character stories are quite interesting, I prefered some to others; taxi driving and hunting were a lot of fun, baseball grew on me over time, being an idol was a little tedious at times, but overall they all had a good conclusion.
Overall there were some good elements to the story, but, the game was really carried by the sub plots of the other characters, rather than the main narrative.
Visuals
If you compare the visuals of the original release of Yakuza 5 and the newly remastered version they are a lot sharper, but also smoother in terms of character design. The city scapes in the game feels a lot more organic, buzzing lights, massive, and often unique store fronts. While having five characters is certainly ambitious it did give way for more locations to visit; Tokyo, Osaka, Hakata, Nagoya, and Sapporo. Each of them does feel unique, even down to traffic patterns, with more and less people in certain areas.
The sub stories added some fun visuals, everything from; Haruka dancing in crazy outfits. Kiryu enjoy a little Fast and the Furious style races that are all about respect. Saeijma, rolling around in the mountains, hiding behind trees, and then being nearly mauled to death by bears. Even Tatsuo had to some outlandish moments that were reminsent of Kung Fu Hustle and Shaolin Soccer.
Overall the visuals do not disappoint, they are fun, engaging and on ocassion outrageous.
Music
The sound track is full of heavy guitar riffs, and actually reminded me to the first games in the Yakuza series, along with some late ninties, earler two-thousand soundtracks. Mitsuharu Fukuyama has been the composer for a number of the Yakuza games. Outside of these though he has a rich body of work including; Sega Rally 2006 (brings me back), Binary Domain, Rub Rabbits! (crazy series that needs to be brought back), Mario And Sonic at the Winter Olympics in Sochi (2014) and Rio (2016) to name a few.
The soundtrack spans two volumes, and over four hours of music which of course only makes sense with such a large game. Some of my favorite tracks were; 'The Battle For The Dream', 'Isolated Fight', 'Hailstorm', 'Victory Road', 'Full-scale Offensive', 'Endless Fight', 'Nuisances', 'A Desperate Run', 'The Cool Sosuke', and 'The Passion For Batting'.
Overall the soundtrack wasn't bad, but definetly did not stand out for me.
Gameplay
This cannot be stated enough, there is so much gameplay! It's difficult to tell where to even begin, but I will try anyway. Each character, as in previous games in the series have their own style of fighting. Kiryu is pretty well balanced is great for taking on any type of opponent. Saejima is a beast and can throw opponents, and objects around like they weigh nothing. Shun for sure has the most powerful legs in the game, is great for breaking through enemy blocks, and has some impressive finishing moves. Haruka, fights with her dance moves, think of 'You Got Served'. Shinada might not be the best fighter but is great with weapons, you also have couple of weapons that are unbreakable, but only for him. Heat moves, in many cases can be considered finishing moves, they look really slick, and painful, which my wife can atest to as I repeatedly heard her say 'why?'.
The levelling up system is the same as Yakuza 4, there are four skill trees of sorts for each character, you won't be able to unlock all of them n a single playthough but at least seventy-five percent of them. It really is a matter of preference, you can't really lose out no matter what points you put where. Each of the characters can be leveled up to twenty, even Haruka.
The sub stories feel a little more toned down than in previous games in the series, I felt this was a shame as I sorted of missed the wackyness. There are seventy sub stories in total, plus each character has an addtional fifteen to twenty of their own story missions. I completed all of them, as I was unable to help myself. I think helping giving a political speech, training a chicken to race other chickens, and helping an unusually dressed man, attract the opposite sex, and find love.
As always there are a ton of mini games, many types of gambling, the colesssum is back if you are looking to test your fighting skills, table tennis, cooking food, arcade games, snowball tournements, and many more. There is something for everyone one to enjoy, and if you are like me will want to try all of them at least once. The hostess bars are back, sadly, no matter how hard I try to get into them I just can't, I miss managing them too much. That all being said they are a bit of fun. Food is a big staple of the Yakuza series, and Yakuza 5 Remastered is no different, all of it looks so good and there is such a variety on offer, also it is great way to replenish your health.
Overall the gameplay is strong, while I miss some of the wackyness I have become accustomed to in the rest of the series, it was still a lot of fun.
Final Thoughts
So, after over a hundred hours playing, how did I feel? The main story was okay, but by no means a strong entry in the series. What kept me playing were the individual character stories and development. The visuals once again were great, featuring new locations really mixed things up, and the cities you explored really felt organic. The music, while maybe not my favourite of the series so far was still good. The gameplay, next to the characters stories was really good, hours upon hours of fun, and helped keep me hooked. For me I would say this could be the weakest of the series to date, and don't get me wrong I had fun, but perhaps Sega was somewhat over reaching and stretching themselves to thin, sometimes less, is more, this one gets 3 out of 5
