Yakuza 3

2024-02-11
My Yakuza rampage continues. Yakuza 3 is the one that people consistently call out as being the hardest one to get through if you've started with 0 and followed up with Kiwami 1 and 2. That's because where those games have nicer looking engines and more fun combat, here we're going straight back to the PS3 days. Most noticeably the combat is pretty rough in comparison to the smooth and fun combat of something like 0 or Kiwami 2 (Kiwami 1 is...fine). Not only that but the detail in the story and the long cutscene heavy flow of the story seems to only show up in 4 so here we're left Yakuza still in its nascent stage.

Mechanically it can be a tough hang. The combat features enemy AI that has an unholy addiction to blocking which makes a lot of fights incredibly tedious. Even on Easy difficulty I got frustrated during several boss fights even with my cheesiest combos. One salve to this formula I only discovered at the end is you can feasibly buy guns for every single boss fight. And guns stunlock bosses AND do huge damage. It feels incredibly good to just completely shut down an enemy that frustrates you to no end.

Beyond your combat you've got the hostess club thing going on but it's a much worse version than the one from 0/2. Instead of managing a group of hostesses and dealing with customers coming in in real time you're just like doing a little customization game where you dress the hostess to get them to match the prevailing "mood" of the club. It's ass. They did however add a chasing mini-game that replaces combat as a Thing To Do during story missions and it's actually pretty fun.

That actually sets this game apart from the others is how the beginning is set in Okinawa. This brings a welcome change to the Kamurocho/Sotenbori we've learned to know in the past 3 games. But it also brings a change of speed. The first several hours of the game are spent managing an orphanage. Solving much smaller problems like what happens when one orphan steals the allowance from another. It sounds incredibly boring after you're used to crushing random dudes skulls in with bicycles on the street but it turns out to be incredibly endearing but more importantly an fantastic bit of character development. We see a Kiryu who is resisting the pull to be involved with the Yakuza as hard as he can while leveraging his kindness and deep moral core to help a group of kids. It maybe spends a little too much time in this part of the game but I do appreciate the change-up.

Inevitably though Kiryu does get pulled back into the Yakuza maelstrom and that means you're back in for that gangster melodrama. You have some cool new villains in Hamazaki and Mine. Hamazaki genuinely is one of the coolest looking villains around and is a pretty evil dude. Mine is your classic pretty, rich, smart guy who turns out has a dark past and is Really Strong. More interestingly the game starts off with who seems to be Kazama-san shooting Daigo Dojima. But what? It's his secret twin brother who moved to the USA to join the CIA? Fucking hell that's some good soap opera bullshit. Though his boss fight might be the most frustrating in the whole game. The overall plot is actually contrived and not that interesting though it does have one of the best scenes of any of the games in the form of Kiryu losing Rikiya, maybe the only true moment of where Kiryu shows some emotion as he breaks down. Excellent.

While it's held back by dated combat, a slow start to the story, and an overall underwhelming plot I have to give it props for trying something different with the Okinawa section of the game. For that reason I'd say it's a must play if you're doing a Yakuza run.