Hard yes.

Yakuza 0. What can't be said about you... You are a beautifully flawed gem, a few polished cuts away from a true masterpiece. You are both gloriously goofy and tremendously tragic. Ultimately, the game acts like a love-letter from Japan to the memory of its economic prosperity in the 80's, often referred to as the Bubble Economy.

While I know this game leans heavily on the 'life-sim' angle, there's just not enough fighting in this fighting game! I say this this because fighting is quite fun and it almost seems sidelined in some respects by the wealth of substories and minigames you can do (I'd get lost trying to specify them all but here's ONLY a few examples: mahjong, fishing, bowling, batting cages, micro-car racing, era-accurate Sega Arcade games). The two protagonists have four fighting styles each, with one style hidden behind substories for them both. I personally found both character's fighting styles immensely gratifying to level up, develop and learn; Mr. Shakedown went from a downright terror to a money-dispensing punching bag!

The story is excellent, the character development is quite laudable; if you have trouble connecting with one protagonist, the other is unique enough that they might win you over more instead. Complementing the main story are about 100 different substories! While it may seems awkward to some that the main storyline is fully voiced and in contrast to this the substories involve reading a lot of unvoiced text, the substories likely wouldn't be anywhere as numerous or fleshed out if they were made to the same standard as the main storyline. Trust me, this comes out in the wash as a good thing.

After playing Yakuza Kiwami 1 though, a lot of what happens in 0 is cut from the cloth of 1; SPOILERS a highway shootout sequence, a conflict near the end taking place on a boat (I think it is the EXACT same boat, if memory is correct). END SPOILERS They are very much connected games and anyone who plays one should follow up with the other. While I could continue, I should save my comments on the connective tissues between 0 and Kiwami 1 for the Kiwami 1 review. However, to cap it off as it relates to this game, 0 offers a LOT of fan service to people familiar with the games already and a lot of context to the history characters share with one another for those unfamiliar.

The music. I can't praise it enough. Finding out the Sega team behind F-Zero GX's OST is behind this game's OST makes far too much sense after experiencing it.

Frankly, if you've ever even remotely considered giving this game a chance, please do like Fry from Futurama and hand them all your money right now. NOW! It is definitely worth it and Sega should see that there's a market for these types of games on the PC, not just the console.

Now, before it sounds like undiluled praise, there ARE some black marks against the game's design. Ones that stop the game from being a timeless masterpiece, and instead render it easily one of the best Shenmue killers (which is still saying something, even with Shenmue aging terribly over time).


Odd Hampering Design:

- The business sidequests for both characters involve going out and buying up certain businesses or setting up affiliations with them. This sounds fine, yeah? Well, finding them is a pain where you have to run along the streets rubbed up against each storefront as you hunt a context button popup indicator to show so you can invest in the property... Or you can go consult a guide. This is one of the only times you have to do something so droll that it feels like it doesn't belong in the era of design this game comes from and it really drags down the experience. Fortunately, it doesn't seem to have too much of a negative impact overall but it does bear mentioning.

- The swapping of narrative styles can be jarring; sometimes it's a slow sepia-faded slideshow, sometimes it's an FMV, sometimes it's in-game, and for substories it's a bit of unvoiced text paired with repetitive soundbite barks. If it was more cohesive in using a consistent cutscene style, things would feel a bit more consolidated; I'd say the sepia-faded slideshows are the weakest link and considering they're gone in Yakuza Kiwami 1, they'd not be missed.

- Many substories are repetitive enough that player's can bounce off of them and disregard completing them without a second thought, subsequently forcing those players to choose between doing a 180 and committing to the grind or just missing out on rewards that are practically essential to the business sidequests of Kiryu/Majima.

- RNGesus may or may not be your friend in many minigames, from disco dancing to the micro-machine racing.

- The camera can, albeit rarely, get locked up on world geometry, or confuse the player what input will get them to move the protagonist in their intended direction.


Not Enough Fighting in a Brawler:

- There is almost too much to do (and a lot of it isn't fighting)! For anyone with OCD on the matter, this could be a curse or a divine blessing.

- The game really doesn't angle it into the game very much. There's a moment early on in the game where you might think you're about to unlock an underground fighting arena where you can leverage your fighting skills for more money... Nope, it's a rock-paper-scissors betting game! You DO eventually unlock a fighting arena minigame... for one character only quite late in the game, until the other one visits that area, even LATER in the game. Only after you beat the game do you get an easy flow of visiting the other city area to take Kiryu to the arena if you prefer his fighting styles.


Odd Limitations:

- The game often is limiting without good reason; for instance, there's no 'abort' option when training with a combat style master and you can't get out of it until you succeed. This doesn't sound so bad until you realise you might lose progress by picking the only alternative, i.e. loading a save, if you hadn't done so beforehand.

- You can't access the park earlier in the game for what appears to be no good given reason; it also withholds 4 gambling minigames unique to its area that felt like they'd be better off accessed earlier as well.

- Accessing the 4th fighting style requires opening a menu and hitting a button; considering how you swap between the other styles in-combat without breaking the flow, it really feels like you have to commit to using the 4th style, rather than switching between it and your other options on the fly as you'd be used to by that point.

- Training Masters can disappear once you've gotten all their skills; the only one I can think of that sticks around in case you need to do any refreshers is ArEsHi for Majima's Breaker style or Ms Tatsu for Kiryu's Beast mode, as all other 4 masters either stop offering the service or disappear entirely.


CP Issues:

- Many elements that are necessary to a good performance in some substories, such as top-tier bait for fishing and high-end Pocket Circuit racing partsm are tied to the Dream Machine system, a paid 3-tier RNG-item drop system that is the ONLY means to get some items. Players seem compelled to 'game' the Dream Machines in order to get what you're looking for.

- Some CP bypasses the business substory unlocks... but it's easily the least worthy way to spend your CP (the game showers in CP)


The PS3'ness:

- Recycled animations.

- The LoD pop-in can be extreme, even after patches that address the issue.

- The level loading can get grating when moving from the city exterior to interiors or back again. However, they're practically invisible on PC.


All these negatives aside, you almost couldn't ask for a better entry point to the series than Yakuza 0, even if it is the only one that revolves around earning money to develop your characters, with follow ups going their own route instead.

The Yakuza series is quite the odd little duckling... but maybe, if you put some time into it, you can see the swan inside the duckling.