Yakuza 0 is an arena where young men test the limits of conformity by beating the living shit out of anyone standing near its boundaries. It's a circuitous Japanese drama and an evolutionary branch of the beat 'em up genre that somehow operates as a utopian compromise between professional wrestling entertainment and gratifying interactivity. Even after a dozen years and seven (or eleven) games, Yakuza 0 is an impressive and easy invitation to its namesake's adrenalized world.
Yakuza 0 presents an opportunity to hit the reset button on Sega’s venerable brawling simulator. A prequel to the original PlayStation 2 Yakuza and first North American Yakuza entry on PlayStation 4, Yakuza 0 sets the table for enduring protagonist Kazuma Kiryu and the mosaic plot threads that string him across six future entries. I loved—loved—Yakuza 5 last year, but its carousel of playable characters and protracted machination subverted invitation in favor of greater expansion. Yakuza 5 was hoot for fans, but not so effective for a series trying to supersede its niche.
As a basic operation, Yakuza 0 behaves like its predecessors. Players walk through the mean streets of either Tokyo’s Kamurocho or Osaka’s Sotenbori (both based on real-life locations of Kabukicho and Dotonbori, respectively) and repeatedly get in vicious fights with strangers over the slightest indiscretions. Sometimes these encounters are from passersby, functioning as random battles. Others, orchestrated through Yakuza 0’s plot, are essentially dungeons crammed full of bad guys. It fights like a brawler, collects and builds skills like a role-playing game, and unfolds a narrative with the length and depth of a visual novel. In between are slices of Japanese culture, both intended and absorbed, through a scale few games are able to deliver. With the exception of other Yakuza titles, and perhaps with a distant relationship to Shenmue, there’s nothing quite like them.
Before I knew anything about Yakuza 0, I assumed it would act as a functional prequel to the original Yakuza, or that its plot would dive head-first into the events that introduced us to Kiryu and Japan’s version of organized crime. Much to my surprise, Yakuza 0’s ambition extends beyond a straightforward setup; it opts to psychologically illustrate its protagonist’s impulses and authority instead of drawing a straight line to the beginning of Yakuza. This is a longer and less critical path, but it’s a better plan. It’s the cement that precedes a foundation.
It’s 1988, and how fitting is it that Yakuza 0 begins in the same place almost every Yakuza game ends? Kiryu is framed for murder in a vacant lot in the center of Kamurocho, the same patch of land that will one day support the infamous Millennium Tower. This tiny area is also a highly coveted piece of property, with everyone from rival family bosses to enigmatic real estate tycoons trying to stake their claim. It’s a major hub and every character seems to be a spoke, and while logic may dictate a cleaner solution than Yakuza 0’s series of contrivances, the empty lot is both a thematic connection and potent drive for chaos.
Kiryu’s character arc centers on his allegiance to his family, both biological and professional. His place as Shintaro Kazama’s figurative son, his evolving relationship with his adoptive brother Akira Nishikiyama, and his tumultuous association with captains of the Tojo clan. In practice it feels like Kiryu has to repeatedly wipe the floor with a few of the same people—I’m not privy to organized crime dynamics but it seems like frequently destroying your menacing, out-of-control nemesis should resolve that particular conflict—but it works in the context of Yakuza 0’s story. Kiryu’s role in the organization and confidence in his decisions is firmly established as the plot unfolds.
The other half of Yakuza 0 belongs to Goro Majima, playable for the only time since the Dead Souls spinoff. Majima’s five-game reputation as a loose cannon stands in contrast to his position at the beginning of Yakuza 0. He’s the humble (ish) manager of a grand cabaret club, trying to earn enough money to buy his way back into the Shimano family. Majima gets swept away and transformed by events that occur after he’s asked to perform his first hit, spiraling him into Yakuza 0’s overarching plot and creating the “mad dog” persona of his inevitable future. Finally playing as Majima is a treat for Yakuza veterans, and despite his analogous sense of morality—both Kiryu and Majima seem to operate on the same righteous principles—his endgame is ultimately more satisfying.
The pacing of Yakuza 0’s narrative may be its most contentious facet. Lengthy CG cinematics are usually bookended with even longer in-game sequences, allowing numerous characters to spout exposition for serious lengths of time. It calls to mind Monolith Soft’s Xenosaga entries on PlayStation 2 (or other Yakuza games), or more specifically its audacious confidence in the necessity of 20 minute cut-scenes. I put fifty seventy hours into Yakuza 0 and left plenty of content on the table. I like this stuff, especially with my decade-running investment in Yakuza, but it’s tough to argue that occasional brevity may have benefited everyone involved.
In between Yakuza 0’s interminable plot points are the series’ trademark substories. It’s in these situations where Yakuza takes a break from its psychotically serious narrative and cartwheels into supernatural, subversive, and altogether weird territory. Substories operate by running across people on the street, taking account of their problem, and then solving it to the best of your ability. Most of it boils down to travelling to a different location and laying waste to a myriad of strangers, but plenty of secret dates, item hunts, or disco sessions lie in between.
Here, very briefly and intentionally divorced of context, is a small helping of my substory adventure through Yakuza 0: I distracted children so a human statue could take a piss, participated in an escort mission where I had to defend bizarro Michael Jackson from zombies during a music video shoot, extract a woman from a cult, accept legendary pornography from a ghost to satisfy a poor employee of a videotape shop, undergo a stealth mission where I helped a child obtain a softcore magazine, engage in a disco dance battle with an escalating series of performers, and call a mob boss off a nice man trying to sell totally legal mushrooms. That was seven and there are one hundred of these in Yakuza 0.
When the original Yakuza debuted in 2005 it was marketed as Japan’s answer to Grand Theft Auto III. This was a very bad comparison, however, a lasting aspect of Yakuza does bear a resemblance; the preposterous number of ways to distract yourself. Yakuza 0 creates room for two different rhythm games based of either dancing or karaoke, each of which has multiple songs. It also includes standard offerings like bowling, various casino/bar games, fishing, fighting arenas, as well as off-kilter indulgences like a batting cage, racing and building slot cars, the ability to bet on and influence women’s oil wrestling tournaments, an intense telephone club dating game, a standard collectathon with telephone cards, and even more I’m skipping over. Almost all of these can be freely ignored but they’re there if you need them.
The two Club Sega’s that dotted Kamurocho are gone, but only because it’s 1988 and they’re now period-accurate Sega Hi-Tech Lands. Obviously you’re not going to find anything as impressive as Yakuza 5’s Model 2-accurate rendition of Virtua Fighter 2, with Yakuza 0 allowing for more period appropriate pieces. Out Run and Space Harrier machines were available from the start, and through two substories I was able to add Super Hang-On and Fantasy Zone to each location. I would have killed for Power Drift to make an appearance, but what’s there is a strong assortment of classic Sega arcade games.
Distractions abound, Yakuza 0 also offers significantly deeper and (slightly) plot related diversions for both characters. Kiryu teams up with a wealthy conglomerate and has the opportunity to buy up almost every business inside Kamurocho. This builds into a timer-based minigame that can generate a ton of income, provided Kiryu follows five different plot threads and physically destroys the five billionaires presently in control of each territory. This can take a lot of time, but pacing yourself alongside other substories makes it go by quickly.
Majima’s giant substory has a more involved plot; managing a smaller and more efficient cabaret club. This translates to a basic but assuming version of Diner Dash where he has to assign different hostesses to different tables to suit the fluctuating needs of different guests. Like Kiryu’s real estate game, it builds into violent and weird confrontations with five other cabaret owners. It bears similarity to past Yakuza hostess minigames, only with a bit more stress (and, in turn, money making potential) on top.
Money, not ironically given the place and time period, is the economy of Yakuza 0. It’s not only used to load your inventory with health items, but also as a means of upgrading your abilities. Both Kiryu and Majima have three unique fighting styles, and each comes with a skill tree that demands billions of yen to fully outfit. Most of the basics, like upgrading health or heat-related abilities, are relatively cheap, but raw power and some of the more unique heat or combo flourishes are going to cost you. None of these are necessary, Yakuza 0 can be completed with a low investment in most skills, but they’re fun to play around with and add variety to your combo options.
A reduction in the principle cast creates demand for combat variation, a need filled by Yakuza 0’s new on-the-fly option to switch fighting styles. At the push of a button, Kiryu can switch between a more basic Brawler style, a quick but weaker Rush style, or a hulking Beast style that fills the void left by bruisers like Saejima. I didn’t find much use for Rush, but the Beast’s ability to instantly pickup nearby objects was effective for clearing out groups and cheesing bosses out of their routines. Most of the time, however, I reverted to the Brawler stance and performed the Yakuza standard; wail away on the weak and effectively dodge the skilled until an opening presents itself.
Majima’s skills and style befit his manic personality. Thug is the standard and somewhat close to Kiryu’s Brawler style. For Slugger, however, Majima pulls a bat out of the ether and wields it through a variety of slow moving, powerful attacks. His third stance, Breaker, is also Yakuza 0’s crown jewel; an energetic hybrid of break dancing and caporia. Majima launches into a series of low and occasionally un-guardable attacks that completely wreck groups of people. While it’s roughly akin to button mashing Eddy Gordo through Tekken 3, it’s monstrously effective in dealing with the occasional relentless hoard.
Combat encounters in Yakuza 0 fall in line with series norms. Running into people on the street serves as random encounters and the game always finds a way to send the player to off-the-map locations filled with roving hordes of bad guys. For the uninitiated, combat in Yakuza isn’t simply about dodging, blocking, and beating on people, but rather managing “heat,” a series of meters built with combos, and consuming that heat to deliver punishing finishers.
Majima and Kiryu’s cabaret and real estate substories are time consuming distractions, but both are instrumental in squeezing every last drop out of Yakuza 0. Finishing the game on normal difficulty is as simple as loading up on health items and memorizing simple combo strings, but engaging and indulging in everything Yakuza 0 has to offer demands a deep investment in these systems. Progressing through cabaret and real estate substories unlocks additional nodes from their respective skill trees, and finishing either unlocks a completely new (and fourth) fighting style for each character; Kiryu and Majima’s classic Dragon and Mad Dog, respectively, movesets.
It’s not hard to see why combat in Yakuza is so satisfying. Watching a man get punched in the head so hard his entire body flies backwards issues a very specific dopamine hit synonymous with classic brawlers. Yakuza 0 understands this and allows the player to participate in a dozens of different variations of this thesis. In the last fifth of the game random encounter street fights are monetarily pointless, but shoving a man’s head into a brick wall and then punching that head over and over endure past a presumed expiration date. In Yakuza 0 money explodes out of people when they get hit, which neatly compliments their wrecked and disheveled status.
As much as I enjoy it, combat can feel like Yakuza 0’s most dated asset. Surrounding Kiryu with groups of hapless lackeys makes Yakuza 0 look like a musou game. Worse, some opponents are super cheap when blessed with the slightest bit of intelligence. Locking in on one person gets sloppy, and opens Kiryu up to annoying back shots. The development team must be screaming to get away from this system, but it’s so entrenched in how Yakuza operates and performs that its basic structure must be impossible to escape. Combat isn’t inadequate or lifeless, but it will almost certainly be the thing critics point to when looking to dredge the up Yakuza 0’s inherited shortcomings.
Yakuza 0 is also the victim of a few vestigial generational transitions. Saving your game demands a menu that automatically disappears and reappears four different times. It needs to save the data, confirm that it saved the data, then inexplicably bring up the system data and confirm that that’s also been saved. It is currently 2017 and I can’t imagine why any step of this was necessary.
Another vague disappointment was Yakuza 0’s take on the late 80’s. Kamurocho exhibits some structural differences—the champion district is smaller, shops like Stardust obviously don’t exist yet, and other minor architectural differences—but it still feels like a marginally reworked version of the same place. Convenience stores look identical to their present incarnation; people generally dress the same, making me occasionally forget Yakuza 0 took place in a different time period. The localization, while competent in delivering Yakuza 0’s breathless narrative and myriad of sub stories, boasts modern turns of phrase (“I need to get my drink on”) that feel out of place.
Exceptions are present, mostly in the form of facets of urban Japan that have either been replaced by an evolution of culture or technology. Which, of course, means I’m talking about weird sex stuff. Telephone club, where Kiryu can call a girl from a hotline and setup a date/love hotel meetup, may accidentally be a stirring analog for Tinder. There’s also the porn theater, where Kiryu and Majima can watch and (presumably) off-screen masturbate to videos of short, softcore videos of idols playing with balloon animals or smiling on a bed. These are definitely out of line with 2017’s progressive stance on women and gaming but simultaneously a cultural artifact locked into an appropriate time period. It’s fine? It’s fine. It’s good that it’s there, and that Yakuza 0 avoided Yakuza 3’s issues with content removal.
Sixty frames-per-second is rarely a guarantee, but Yakuza 0 inexplicably pulls it off. This did not need to happen, every previous game in the series did fine at thirty, but my god is the game better for it. I don’t think Sega did this deliberately, much of Kamurocho and Sotenbori, not to mention the character models, appear to be up-res’d versions of their PlayStation 3 counterparts, but the slick look 60fps delivers makes up for it. Inside its operation and through its combat, a fairly solid 60fps grants Yakuza 0 and arcade quality that makes its combat sequences feel like a long lost sequel to Dynamite Cop.
Yakuza 0 is a safe but effective means of reigniting a valuable series, and one that succeeds in creating a surprising number of inroads for new players. Provided you don’t mind a few toes still in the last generation, its ability to reward investment and commitment to fleshing out its story is consistent with a modern values, and its visually striking combat system accurate simulates annihilating hundreds of people with your fists.
Yakuza 0 is also (probably) a secret but complete homage to professional wrestling, a theory that was originally part of this review but eventually spun out into its own lengthy article. Skipping a mountain of collective evidence, I am positive this allusion is intentional. Kamurocho and Sotenbori are the ring, and the back alleys and off-site narrative deposit banks are Yakuza 0’s backstage.
With that theory in mind, Yakuza 0 is an arena where young men test the limits of conformity by beating the living shit out of anyone standing near its boundaries. It’s a circuitous Japanese drama and an evolutionary branch of the beat ’em up genre that somehow operates as a utopian compromise between professional wrestling entertainment and gratifying interactivity. Even after a dozen years and seven (or eleven) games, Yakuza 0 is an impressive and easy invitation to its namesake’s adrenalized world.
