As playgrounds for the adults, the wealthy, and the risk takers, they are full of excitement and a little bit of danger, and so filled with exotic sights and sounds that I could almost smell the food vendors or rain on the asphalt after a storm; that’s how effective this game is at bringing me back to Japan for just a little while.
It’s incredibly easy to plug multiple hours at a time into Yakuza 5, partly because it’s very easy-to-follow mission structure, and partly because the cut-scenes can take so long telling the story.
I typically take 10/10 reviews with a grain of salt, but in this case, it is well deserved. I am a big fan of the Yakuza series and have played every entry in the main series thus far. With that being said, I consider Yakuza 5 to be the embodiment of everything that makes the Yakuza series great. It never takes itself too seriously, and is by far the most over-the-top entry in the series. With Yakuza, as much as I love the games and as great as the story is, there are times when get tired of the fight to fight to fight nature of the storyline, and look to mini-games to mix up the tedium. This is where Yakuza 5 shines. Each character has their own unique mini-game(s) that are enjoyable and help keep the game fresh. While I can see that some may be turned off by Haruka's story, being that it is rhythm game oriented, I thoroughly enjoyed it and felt that, for what it was, they did a great job.
If you are a Yakuza fan, you will be doing yourself a disservice by not playing this masterpiece.
Yakuza 5 is a response to the complacency of Western development. While previous Yakuza games dabbled through extraneous minigames, divergent player-controlled characters, and eccentric sidequests, none sewed its threads together with the consequence and commitment of Yakuza 5. Bloat is the inevitable negative, and Yakuza 5 shows some superfluous heft, but it's such a mountain of effort and arrangement that it's tough not to stand in awe of its accomplishments.
Yakuza games have always been very generous when it comes to content. With five playable characters and as many cities to explore, Yakuza 5 pushes the concept even further. Too bad we had to wait for so long to get it.
Yakuza 5 offers a different kind of open-world experience, giving you more of an immersive game than you may be expecting, even if it does suffer from repetitive combat and long cut scenes.
Still gaming’s most realistic crime drama, as well as being the natural heir to both Shenmue and Streets Of Rage – even if this entry shows little real innovation.
My less favorite Yakuza game. It has a great gameplay and great soundtrack, but the history feels weird and having a lot of characters doesn't help too much like in 4, you got plenty of cities, but some of them almost nothing to do, the history lost sight of what created and the end didn't explained very well. Still, a very fun game to play.
No just no do not get me wrong I’m probably one of the biggest RGG fan boys out there but this game well it just **** and it makes me sick to see this is one of the highest rated yakuza games on the site yakuza on ps2 is better than this game ok first off everything feels like a chore and the game is too long I was on the brink of skipping this game and playing yakuza 6 next we have the encounters there are too many I can’t get to a way point without at least 5 encounters with enemies and also making us play as haruka it just **** the only thing good about this game is the ost oh and the combat ****
SummaryThe legendary dragon returns to the criminal underworld of Yakuza. Kazuma Kiryu, once known as the Dragon of Dojima, was living a quiet life as a taxi driver in Hakata after severing all his ties with the underworld. However, at the dawn of the bloody war between the Tojo Clan and the Omi Alliance, Kazuma is forced to accept his inescapa...