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10/10

Unlike Yakuza 3 where most of its problems lie in how the Remastered port functions (or, fails to), Yakuza 4 was a pretty alright time. The game is essentially one giant expansion to Y3 minus the part where you're stuck in only Kamurocho the whole game, and being just a few months off of finishing Y3, I sorely miss Okinawa (or at least having a second city). My initial playthrough was on hard, 100% completion.

The combat functions well enough, the minigames are mostly fine, and the multiple characters helps keep the experience from becoming too stale. I can't really say the same about the story, as when it's time for all the pieces to start fitting into place, they start forcefully pushing corner pieces into the center stage. Motives start to become blurred and characters feel like they're constantly changing allegiances, which just makes things a bit tiring to keep track of. This game is essentially Tanimura and Saejima's story, with Akiyama as a nice side dish and Kiryu for.. what? He's just kinda there because of some Y1 ties, but he's still very much appreciated. The finale fights are cheesy as hell, yet despite this, they still feel necessary. They feel good. They put a smile to my face.

My only real minigame complaints are with darts, fishing, and table tennis. Darts and billiards insane difficulty seemed to have swapped between 3 and 4, resulting in a far harsher darts experience this time around. Table Tennis, with or without using the "heat generation" function, takes a long time to complete an actual match. As for fishing, man. I like the system that exists here, but pulling trash every other pull (especially at distances of like 100m+) starts to get really annoying quickly. Every guide on what fish to find where is wrong - I'll often find them never within the day or distance provided and the bait you choose actually matters (I don't mind this, I just hate being lied to). A lot can be said about each character's unique side content (Hostess(es)/Fighter/Dispatch/Gangs) taking a long time to do, but since I was 100%ing it anyways, I just took them for what they were.

Outside of those few sore spots, I don't really have much to say. Game is solid. They are definitely the Yakuza Four(some).

7.5/10. A really solid game and a more enjoyable experience than 3. Kiryu's role was a bit meh in this story, and Akiyama was outshined in terms of plot importance. Combat did improve. I liked the rooftops and underground sections of Kamurucho, it's a creative way to expand the stale city. 0 had a better multi protagonist storyline, not to say 4 wasn't bad. It was a fantastic 4 characters. Pacing was better here. Music was great in this game.
Yasuko was also great ;) No wonder Akiyama fell for her.

SPOILERS

The worst things about this game? Tanimura's last boss fight. Super annoying. Felt like Jingu again. And the ending was a spaghetti mess tbh. "Uwu let's just put 100bn dollars on some roof and see who shows up". And we never got to see why Dojima sold Majima out. Akiyama sometimes acted like a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, I don't know why. And the rubber bullets stuff pissed me off 2 TIMES (Saejima shootout and Arai with that old police commisioner)

It's not any better than YK1, but still a respectable score.

Akiyama is so sigma i love him

guh

peak ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ fiction

We are... THE YAKUZA 4!!!! 🤩

The best Yakuza game I've played so far in my opinion (haven't played them all yet).

Story is the best out of every game I played so far, and the combat was far better from Yakuza 3.
Only pain was Tanimura and his final fight (which I will not spoil, just know its a pain in the ahh.)
I plan to 100% this game one day, it's that good.

This is a really good yakuza game i recommend it. it can be slow but it picks up halfway through