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Yakuza 0

Developer: Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio Publisher: Sega
24 January 2017
PS4
Glitchwave rating
4.45 / 5.0
0.5
5.0
 
 
#37 All-time
#2 for 2015
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In collection Want to buy Used to own  
2015 Ryu Ga Gotoku Sega  
Blu-ray
JP 4 974365 836153 BLJM 61249
2015 Ryu Ga Gotoku Sega  
Blu-ray
JP 4 974365 823030
2017 Ryu Ga Gotoku Sega  
Blu-ray
XNA 0 10086 63206 4 CUSA-05070
Show all 9 releases
2017 Ryu Ga Gotoku Sega  
Download
2017 Ryu Ga Gotoku Sega  
Blu-ray
IT 5 055277 027972 CUSA-05133
2017 Ryu Ga Gotoku Sega  
Blu-ray
GB 5 055277 027934 CUSA-05133
Yakuza 0 Playstation Hits
2018 Ryu Ga Gotoku Sega  
Blu-ray
XNA 0 10086 63206 4 CUSA-05070
2018 Ryu Ga Gotoku Lab42  
Download
2020 Ryu Ga Gotoku Sega  
Download
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Title
Yakuza is a franchise I've been very vaguely aware of for a long time, but I never really knew anything about it beyond the title until one of the my best friends started playing this, and raving about how good it was, insisting every gamer she knew play it as well. That will be exactly three months ago as of tomorrow; she's now well on her way to completing Yakuza 5 [龍が如く5 夢、叶えし者], having essentially hooked the franchise directly into her veins and mainlined the entire thing in chronological order. I will probably do the same.

I mention this because it feels both significant and incredibly fitting. Yakuza 0 (and, from what I can gather, the Like a Dragon [龍が如く] franchise in general) is that rarest of things: a big budget video game that is absolutely impossible to advertise, one whose appeal cannot be reduced to snappy tag lines or adequately outlined in a two-minute trailer. It is a AAA-title in scope, length, and production values, but it has the soul of an indie in the way it feels designed from the ground up to be a cult classic, a word-of-mouth sleeper, rather than an instant smash hit. More than any other game franchise I've ever played in my life, it has a tone, ethos, and personality built to attract not fans, but obsessives.

And the frustrating thing is that, even now I probably count as one of those obsessives, I don't even know how to begin telling you what Yakuza 0 is, let alone why it's so great. It's serious, silly, profound, criminally horny, hilarious, violent, playful, moving, and thrilling all at once. It has a beautifully crafted and thematically rich main storyline, rife with political intrigue and personal drama, played out by a set of characters that the phrase 'an embarrassment of riches' could have been coined to describe, and yet chances are high that you will spend the overwhelming majority of your time with it doing other things, because the sheer volume of side quests and minigames happening all around you is overwhelming. There is an incredibly addictive cabaret club minigame that could easily have been released as a fully-fledged standalone game; Kiryu's quest to become the real estate kingpin of Kamurocho is a whole extra storyline in and of itself; there is bowling, pool, darts, fishing, mahjong, shogi, karaoke, dancing, poker, blackjack, and model car racing, and many of them have mechanics better than some of the games I've played that are fully dedicated to those things; you can chat up women at a telephone club and watch FMV videos of actual real-life Japanese porn stars if you want to; it has a character creator right out of The Sims that you can choose to dress the cabaret hostesses that work for you, and then a dating sim minigame where you can speak to them; you can get blackout drunk in bars if you want, and it has an impact on your fighting abilities in the streets and your vision during minigames; you can make friends with shop workers, sushi chefs, the only cop in the whole of Japan, and a delightful nappy-wearing gentleman by the name of Mr. Libido; and there is constant, unrelenting combat, seemingly the entire male population of Tokyo and Osaka running up to you in the street to catch some hands. It is not an open world game by any reasonable measure - both main characters are confined to small neighbourhoods - but so much is densely packed into those neighbourhoods that you're tempted to describe it as one anyway, simply because it feels like a game that lets you do this many things must be open world. It feels like five or six different games rolled into one - and it literally is in one sense, considering you can walk into an arcade and play OutRun [アウトラン], Super Hang-On, and Space Harrier if you want to.

And as for why it's great....the simplest way to explain it is that Yakuza 0 turns absolutely everything up to 11, all the time. It does not matter how significant or insignificant the events may be: the game treats all of them one and the same. When you start a model car race, your character goes into a battle stance; if you lose that same race, he will look like he's on the verge of tears. When you enter the telephone club and answer the phone, the unreasonably dramatic cutscene that plays makes the phone cord look like a chain whip; if you arrange to meet a woman and she turns out to be something less than your character expected, you will lose of a significant chunk of your health bar due to the emotional damage inflicted upon you. When you sing karaoke, you will enter a full-blown cheesy '80s music video. When you play the dancing minigame, your characters will absolutely cut the world's biggest rug, throwing down like a pissed-up dad at a wedding. And that's all before we consider the side stories, some of which have you taking down human trafficking rings, saving people from being brainwashed by cults, and reuniting children with their estranged parents, and some of which have you trying to buy a porno mag from a vending machine without being spotted, or training a dominatrix how to humiliate her clients more effectively, or helping the biggest pop star in the world 'Miracle Johnson' film his new music video, directed by 'Stephen Spining'. 'Restraint' is not in this game's vocabulary - and that is precisely what allows it to be so funny and so moving at the same time. By all rights, a game that does this much, and strikes at such a wide range of emotions, should be an absolute mess. It's not so much that Yakuza 0 isn't a mess - more that it embraces its own ambitions and messiness, and goes at it with such force and conviction that it overcomes any contradictions through sheer bloody-minded will.

I cannot tell you that you will love this game, because there are some very reasonable reasons why a person would look at this and say 'not for me, thanks' - but I could tell you why *I* love this game for hours. That, I think, sums up Yakuza more than anything. If you're one of the people who this will land for, it will land hard.
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Iai 2021-04-16T15:39:23Z
2021-04-16T15:39:23Z
4.3
26
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Catalog

MilesTaco Yakuza 0 2024-03-13T03:52:10Z
PS4 • GB
2024-03-13T03:52:10Z
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
Boomermusic2121 Yakuza 0 2023-08-17T10:44:42Z
PS4 • GB
2023-08-17T10:44:42Z
5.0
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
fusil Yakuza 0 2022-06-28T22:31:52Z
PS4 • GB
2022-06-28T22:31:52Z
5
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
Frankster777 Yakuza 0 2021-07-07T19:41:23Z
PS4 • GB
2021-07-07T19:41:23Z
5.0
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
UngaMyBunga Yakuza 0 2021-05-12T07:44:40Z
PS4 • GB
2021-05-12T07:44:40Z
4.5
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
Iai Yakuza 0 2021-04-16T15:39:23Z
PS4 • GB
2021-04-16T15:39:23Z
4.3
26
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
Player modes
1-4 players
Media
1x Blu-ray
Multiplayer options
Online
Franchises
Content rating
PEGI: 18+
Release details
5 055277 027934/CUSA-05133/gb

Comments

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  • Previous comments (103) Loading...
  • austinpowers1 2024-01-09 19:09:43.348612+00
    im a notorious cut scene skipper in other games and i watched every single one. amazing fucking game
    reply
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  • KesiMiao 2024-01-26 22:13:08.708618+00
    DIE YOU LITTLE SHIT
    reply
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  • slothrop77 2024-01-28 23:57:36.331233+00
    hide Flagged by users
    the localization in the yakuza games by these white californian dorks is the most insufferable thing possible
    This post was flagged by users for potentially violating community rules. It will be reviewed by a community moderator soon.
    • weston69 2024-01-30 21:28:29.481984+00
      the stupid ass script is half the reason you play these games fym
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  • slothrop77 2024-02-02 01:26:57.190839+00
    hide Flagged by users
    and it still sucks, keep crying
    This post was flagged by users for potentially violating community rules. It will be reviewed by a community moderator soon.
    • Bengals 2024-02-08 00:13:32.700392+00
      so angry
    • renegadexavier06 2024-02-16 14:41:44.458124+00
      Yes, every opinion is valid. You just have to find the right way to express your opinion.
    • More replies New replies ) Loading...
  • MusicN00b 2024-02-05 22:28:23.341342+00
    FRIDAY NIGHT.
    reply
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  • wintertriangles 2024-02-24 02:57:26.875782+00
    lol as a translator, it's one of the few games out of japan whose translation isn't total ass
    reply
    • Xaman_ 2024-03-02 03:53:33.965093+00
      I believe it.
    • More replies New replies ) Loading...
  • renegadexavier06 2024-03-07 14:56:53.321567+00
    Scratch my last comment.
    "Q: What is the white stuff in bird poop?
    A: That is bird poop, too." - Kurt Vonnegut
    reply
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