Yakuza 0 Director's Cut

Game says it all and its a must have to buy. Played it on console and it is worth buying during a sale cause its not worth full price if you played it before but if your new to the Yakuza franchise its worth a try. Overall 8/10.

[quote][i]"You lay one finger on that girl, and there will be no more Tojo clan. I'll wipe their name from History. I'll swear that oath to the day I die!"[/i][/quote] [quote][i]"And don't you worry, I'll be sending your dojima boys along, so you better save them a spot in hell!"[/i][/quote] This is the male equivalent of a soap opera. Everything you would expect to happen in a soap opera also happens here, but with the masculine equivalent dropped in instead. It even makes sense it would be a video game versus a television show since males are more hands-on. Gameplay-wise, everything here is half-baked and rather bad on its own. I cannot tell you how frustrating it is to have to do two 10-hour minigames to get basic gameplay functionality unlocked. I also cannot tell you how frustrating it is that the entire game is a series of disjointed ideas that would be interesting if fleshed out, but are just left to rot. That is the parts that aren't just copy-pasted from other games in the series (specifically yakuza 2). It feels like sega wrapped canceled game pitch demos in an admittedly engrossing story, and that's probably exactly what happened here. Worse, a lot of the parts of the story really miss their weight if you don't have a native's knowledge of Japanese culture. There's some deep stuff here that would be completely missed without it, and that's more than a bit silly. EVERYTHING takes way too long to do also, even the menus and text boxes take too long after the voices are done before you are allowed to move to the next. The entire game is one long grind. This is the closest to mmo game design I have ever seen outside of an mmo. It's missing the gear and the leveling but the soul-crushing habituation and everything taking as long as it possibly can without insanity is unmistakable. That said, while every individual part of this game is totally phoned in, the whole is quite a memorable and enjoyable experience. After I saw the writing on the wall early in my playthrough I downloaded a save online that would allow me to play in "legend mode" from the start, as I knew I could not do all of this twice. In fact, very little carries over to new game plus so you have to do EVERYTHING again anyways. I know I would have hated this if I had to do it twice in a row, so I wanted to enjoy myself instead (and I did!). I'm Happy I finally got to play this. Every time I have had to push through all the bs the game piles on you I remember skipping over the original release back in 2014 despite being curious about it, and all I could think about is that while I didn't like much of the experience my younger self would have eaten it all up had I did go through with playing it then. I played through it all for him, just to see the ending, and I feel better for having done so. It's not the best game I have ever played, but it's one I will cherish. That's the best kind. Better late than never.