Was having a lot of fun until I got to chapter 4, which seems to be the case for most people who play Yakuza 3. Now, I don't know if this was in the original because I never played it, however being forced into doing side content just to progress the main story is terrible game design. And since this is a remake, it's even more unforgivable that they kept it in, as this was Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio's & Saga’s chance to fix it, if this awful game design was in the original.
I actually, most likely, would have liked the Baddies missions had they not been forced down my throat as a mandatory objective that you have to do just to keep playing the game. And I won’t lie, there is a small part of me that thinks being forced to do this awful content may just be the thing to stop me from coming back to this game, and not just moving on to Yakuza 4.
Overall, I picked Yakuza Kiwami 3 up for $50 something dollars CAD. And I still overpayed. It's simply not worth anything more than $30 bucks max, and even then, I wouldn't be happy about it.
Update - Post beating the game:
I still stand by everything stated above. In fact, I'd like to thank Scorpivan for posting their save on Nexus that skips the forced Gal Gang crap. I'm sure there is some rule about posting links, so I won’t be posting a direct link, but you should easily be able to find the save file by googling Yakuza Kiwami 3 Gal Gang Skip.
Having beat the game now I can comfortably say that I enjoyed the story up until the end. I won't spoil anything, other than the fact that the ending is absolutely dog ♥♥♥♥♥ and makes very little sense due to terrible character writing.
Now then, I've heard that there were “unnecessary changes” made to the story that aren’t in the original. I obviously still haven’t played the original because Saga has made that unjustifiably difficult, however I cannot stress enough how much I genuinely did love the story, again up until the end. Mostly the story around Morning Glory and Kiryu being a surrogate father.
All this said, under zero circumstances is Yakuza Kiwami 3 worth it’s price tag. The greed that has been displayed by either RGG Studios, and or Saga is so f u c king distasteful that it will cause them more problems in the future should they pull this kind of stunt again. I personally made an exception this time around because I’ve wanted to play Yakuza 3 for a while, but I will not be making that exception again. Should RGGS or Sage continue to allow their greed to steer the ship, I, for one, will not buy another product from them. And I would be hard pressed not to believe that others wouldn’t do the same. However, for the time being, the coast seems clear. I’ll most likely buy the remaining games in the series before they have a chance to ruin those as well.
