"Yakuza 0" Review: Softcore Porn, Hardcore Action, a Harder-core recommendation

As a critic, I like to believe that what I do helps you, dear reader, make informed decisions about which games you spend your hard-earned money on. If a game is terrible, I like to think that I can keep you from blowing $60 and wasting your time. If a game is brilliant, I like to think that I can help you decide to take a chance and help you reap the benefits of that decision for years to come. It is with this mission in mind, dear reader, that I tell you this: For the love of everything good in this world, buy Yakuza 0. You don't need to be a series veteran (this was my first foray into the universe) to enjoy it, and I'd think that a series veteran would have already bought it by now. This is a shorter introduction than I normally do, but I have a lot of thoughts and I want to get this review out as soon as possible so that hopefully, someone like me, who didn't give this game a second thought when it came out in February, might make the decision to take a chance on this title and have as much as I did. Just be warned that I'm probably going to misspell just about every town name and character name. The amount of things I would have to look up in order to get everything right is too large, and I'm way behind on my reviews, so I'm aiming to get this out asap.

Technically released in Japan either last year or 2015, Yakuza 0 was released in America in February of this year, so I'm going to be treating it like a 2017 release. The game is acted in its original Japanese with english subtitles, so thankfully, it avoids sounding like an early 90's anime. As far as I know, 0 is a prequel in the long-running Yakuza series, but like I said, this was my first dive into the saga, so I'm not the best equipped to comment further on that. The story follows two protagonists: Kazuma Kiryu and Goro Majima, in 1980's Japan. Both Kiryu and Majima are Yakuza with their own stories, fighting styles, and sets of side quests and activities. For Kiryu, the story takes place in Kamurocho, where he's framed for murder and steps on the toes of his yakuza bosses in his quest to clear his name. For Majima, the story takes place in Sotenbori, Osaka's largest pleasure district. Having gone against orders and having been tortured for a year, Majima manages a nightclub to rake in money for the yakuza, and he finds himself stumbling upon a larger conspiracy as he's ordered to perform a hit on a seemingly unsuspecting person. The grander plot of Yakuza 0 is about how the Yakuza aim to expand their power through real estate. It's a winding narrative with moments happy and incredibly sad, but more importantly, it's a narrative that remains intriguing and kept me wanting to know what happens next for the entire 60 or so hours I poured into it. It covers real-world themes such as the treatment of Chinese immigrants in Japan and vice-versa and human trafficking going unnoticed in lower income areas. In addition, some side quests cover the institutionalized pedophilia in certain Japanese subcultures and the possible side effects of having pornography readily available for children with the cash for it. Yakuza 0 touches on some deep topics, all the while telling an engaging, complex story.

One of the strongest aspects of this story is its cast of characters. There are many villains and many uneasy alliances, and the fact that, of the 9 or so villains you encounter in the story, none of them were weak, is a testament to the game's stellar character development and writing. Even Kiryu, who wears an everyman protagonist scowl throughout the game, is developed to the point where I believed that certain events affected him the way they did. No matter which character you choose to look at (with the exception of trainer characters who only appear to teach you about fighting styles), I can guarantee that you'll find depth in them as the story continues.

Before I move onto gameplay, there's something that I do have to mention about this game. As you know, I believe sociology has no place in criticism. I never take points off of a game for promoting a viewpoint that I disagree with, nor do I add points if a game validates my personal biases. However, I always want to make it a point to mention these kinds of things so that you, dear reader, can better make your own decision about whether or not to buy. In the end, as I said before, I like to believe that this blog helps people make educated decisions, and if a game promoting x is going to prevent a reader from having a good time, then I'd like to make them aware of x. Now that that's out of the way, Yakuza 0 struggles with what I (a far cry from what you might call a Social Justice Warrior) would label as sexism. The sexism isn't really present in the main plot unless you personally count "wanting to protect her" character development as sexist. The plot definitely fails the Bechdel test, but aside from that, there isn't any objectification or anything like that. In fact, Majima's cabaret hostesses, the women who earn their living by entertaining men and wearing big smiles all evening, are there of their own volition, and it's implied that Majima pays them well for the work that they do. So, if you were to just play the plot, you'd be essentially skipping out on everything I'm about to mention. It's in the side content where the game's treatment of women kind of goes down the drain. It's not that the female side quest characters are weak or anything, it's just that once you complete a side quest involving a female character (of legal age) you unlock a softcore pornographic video featuring actual living Japanese women who are given the name of the character in question...oh, and there's also erotic trading cards of these characters lying around the cities. Surely I'm not alone in feeling a little bit uneasy about that, right? Like, you help a woman escape a cult of people wherein the leader has a special spirit cleansing ritual that he only offers to women...*cough*...if you get my drift, essentially saving her from being brainwashed and taken advantage of, and your reward for doing so is an erotic video of this woman? It's not like these characters are making the videos for you as a reward, they are literally unlocked as a result of completing the side quest. It just doesn't make any sense, because like I said, the women in these side quests are well developed. Time and effort went into crafting these women to be compelling characters. There's a side quest where you teach an aspiring dominatrix how to humiliate men, and the reason she's going down this path is because she doesn't want to be walked all over by people anymore. That's good, interesting character development, but it's kind of shadowed by these videos. Here's the thing: the videos are completely optional, as are the trading cards. If you don't wander into the video parlor, you'll never experience this. However, I thought I'd better bring it up, just in case. Unfortunately, that's not where this section ends. There's also what is called "Japan Catfight Club." Essentially, another side activity involves you placing bets on wrestlers...and these wrestlers are women in lingerie costumes beating the ever living hell out of each other. It comes up as a surprise, so you don't know about it's existence until you're already there, so while this is also optional, it's a little harder to avoid going there once. I remember walking in, seeing a nurse and a teacher wrestling in a way that looked like they were about to kiss, and thinking "oh, no. Another thing I have to warn the readers about." Once again, completely optional, but there it is. Alright, on to gameplay.

Now, if you haven't played this game yet or you don't know anything about the saga, you may be wondering how a game about organized crime lords trying to take over Japan through real estate can have compelling gameplay. Let me take the time to reassure you that, while the game's story resembles that of an old school crime film (in fact, despite it's story not being remotely similar, the atmosphere and delivery of Yakuza 0 compelled me to re-watch one of my favorite films, High and Low. Look it up), its gameplay resembles a martial arts film. I must say, however, that the gameplay takes a while to get used to. Until you've learned how to leverage your skills and maneuver in the combat areas (and unfortunately, the game doesn't do an incredibly good job of teaching this), the game will feel a little clunky. But I encourage you to stick it out, teach yourself how to make the combat work, and before you know it, you'll understand that this is actually a pretty spectacular martial arts game. Punches have a satisfying impact, and I could practically feel the impact of special moves. Combat feels crunchy, and there are several fighting styles to explore the crunchiness in. Kiryu's three fighting styles are: brawler (medium speed), rush (fast speed), and beast (slow speed), while Majima's are: thug (medium speed), breaker (fast speed), and slugger (slow speed). There's also an additional fighting style for each character that is unlocked once certain side plots are resolved. Which fighting style you choose will ultimately depend on how much you value speed of attacks in combat, but in the end the deciding factor will be how the combat in a particular style feels to you. I personally prefer faster attacks, so I went with rush style for Kiryu, but because of how satisfying the use of a baseball bat turned out to be, I ended up using slugger style for Majima. No matter which fighting style you choose, it's going to be a good time, but I can guarantee that you'll find a favorite. In all styles, combat is made up of light and strong attacks with special moves triggered by using certain combinations of the two. You unlock new special moves by investing money in skill trees in the abilities menu, and given how easy it is to get money, this allows for plenty of experimentation without making it too easy to get all the upgrades. Ultimately, though, combat is going to be what you make it, so there's only so much I can explain.

When you aren't punching faces in or progressing in the plot, you can take part in one of Yakuza 0's biggest strengths: side activities. There's so much to do in the cities: karaoke (with songs actually sung by the voice actor of the character you are playing as, so it's actually like karaoke), disco dancing, darts, poker, majong, shogi, the telephone club (wherein men sit in booths and wait for calls from women, and the fact that people talk to strangers on the phone for fun is perplexing to me, but it's an amusing little minigame), full arcades of old Sega games, and many more distractions. In addition, there are plenty of compelling side quests wherein you help teach a dominatrix to be abusive, work as a bodyguard for an iconic 80's pop star,  help an insecure police officer to find his self-confidence, all sorts of neat little stories. Beyond that, Kiryu and Majima have their own side subplots wherein Kiryu becomes president of a real estate firm and competes with the local real estate tycoons for control of the city and Majima helps a budding cabaret club rise to popularity. Another side aspect of Yakuza 0 is a character called "Mr. Shakedown," who comes in many forms. Mr. Shakedown is a gigantic man who can beat you in two hits, and he typically carries absurd amounts of money, so the reward for beating him is enormous. The tradeoff, however, is that you lose all of your money if he beats you. Eventually, once you learn his patterns, if you don't get too cocky you can beat him pretty regularly, and you can beat him as many times as you want. I spent at least 40 hours of my 60 hour playtime just doing side things. That is how compelling all of it is. One night, I decided I wanted to get a full 3 stars on every song and every difficulty in the disco, so I committed to it and achieved my goal. I was just having so much fun in this disco minigame that I wanted to keep on doing it. Then, once I got invested in Kiryu's real estate subplot, I spent a few days of my playtime taking the city over and having a blast doing it. Sure, if you want to do that, you'll need to pay a visit to the first national bank of Shakedown quite a few times, but it's still a blast.

As usual, I like to touch on the technical aspects of a game last. Yakuza 0 is actually pretty odd here. The in-game textures are pretty low quality, and not a lot of effort went into animations, but the tradeoff is that it runs at a silky smooth framerate for about 99% of the time. There are one or two fights later in the game where the framerate dips just the slightest amount, but most of the time, it's pretty solid. But that's not where the weirdness ends. There are essentially 4 cutscene types in this game, and I don't understand why. There are the gorgeous pre-rendered cutscenes, in-game cutscenes that are fully voice acted, in-game cutscenes where there are only subtitles and no voice acting, and a more "painted" looking kind of cutscene where characters' mouths don't move, but they are animated and have full voice acting. The game jumps between these styles pretty regularly with seemingly no reason given. It's not that big of a deal, but it did take me out of the experience a little bit. Unfortunately, that's not where the technical problems end either. Yakuza 0 suffers from pretty consistent camera problems. There are times when the camera will switch to a fixed angle, and it'll do so without warning every time, and in combat, the camera tends to get hung up, causing you to lose sight of the area behind you and possibly leaving you open to attack. Once again, these were minor annoyances, but annoyances nonetheless.

Yakuza 0 is a strong package. For its asking price you get an intriguing story, impactful martial arts gameplay, a wealth of side activities that you can get lost in for hours, and strong villains. Sure, there are some technical hangups here and there, but I found that the game itself was strong enough to be worth enduring them for. Some may be turned off by the sexist context of the game's erotic videos, but if you're able to go through this game avoiding them, then I recommend giving the game a try. In the end, there's one question that matters in gaming: "Did you have fun playing?" I had a blast playing Yakuza 0, and I was legitimately sad when it ended. It's a game that, to my discomfort, peddles sketchy softcore porn, but it also provides hardcore action. Thus, I'm giving it a harder-core recommendation.

Let us review:
Odd cutscene switches - 0.2
Camera problems - 0.3

So the final score for Yakuza 0 is...

9.5/10 - Absolutely Outstanding

Excellent work, Sega, excellent work.