Yakuza 6: The Song of Life

The Yakuza series has been a well-known name for many years already, but took a giant leap onto the Regular Joe Gamer's radar with the release of Yakuza Kiwami and Yakuza 0 last year. Both games did a great job of introducing new players to the crazy world the series' main protagonist - Kazuma Kiryu - lives in, while at the same time giving existing fans a taste of what the series can do with the extra power the PlayStation 4 offers. Now it's time to see if Yakuza 6: The Song of Life can live up to or even transcend previous entries in the series, as opposed to polishing an already acclaimed piece.

With Yakuza 0 being a prequel to the entire series and Kiwami being a remake of the original game, Yakuza 6's jump to a modern setting might sound scary, but that's not as big of a problem as you might think. Sure, you might not recognise a few of the characters or understand some of the references, but The Song of Life's narrative does a great job of catching us up with an encyclopedia and a few flashback sequences. The story is even understandable and enjoyable without any of this context, although much of that is due to how the game starts.

After learning what happened after Yakuza 5's ending, we see the police charging Kiryu for all the crimes he has done to get the life he wants. Wanting a fresh start, Kiryu accepts the charges, and spends three years in jail. Upon his release in 2016, we learn that Haruka, Kiryu's adoptive daughter, is in a coma after being knocked over in a hit and run incident and that she has a newborn son. Kiryu then takes it upon himself to investigate what happened to Haruka and find out who the baby's father is, not knowing that this will lead him right back to the yakuza and into trouble.

The good news for newcomers is that things have changed drastically over the three years, as families have new leaders, old friends have found new ways of living their lives, and new conflicts have surfaced. This leads to us meeting a whole heap of new characters and we're therefore pretty much starting afresh. Knowing the series will definitely help and enhance the experience, but we're sure that everyone and anyone will get a lot of enjoyment from playing it through.

One of the reasons for this is that Yakuza 6 is just as weird, fun, and over-the-top as its predecessors. Seeing how Kiryu struggles to understand modern technology and has trouble coping with his role as a grandfather is hilarious at times, especially with everything now being animated and fully voice acted, getting rid of the sterile sequences filled with text to make the world feel more alive and improve the pacing.

That's not the say that the story and its pacing are perfect, however, as the Yakuza games have always been fond of lengthy cutscenes, and Yakuza 6 is no different. Seeing them in motion definitely helps, but not being able to interact with something as often as this can be frustrating at times. Watching a fairly lengthy cutscene, playing maybe just thirty seconds, and then watching another lengthy cutscene just kills the pace, and it happens on several occasions.

Fortunately, this isn't as bad after getting a few chapters in, and we're unleashed upon the craziness of this world. Being able to explore areas like Hiroshima and Tokyo in the modern setting is very enjoyable, mostly due to how open the world is. Want to take a break from the story? Then why not go eat something to gain some experience and a temporary buff, look around for some of the fascinating side missions, take on one of the shorter trouble missions, look for collectibles, fight a few of the wandering goons, or participate in one of the many, many mini-games? All of these option are available from very early on. The different areas might not be as big as you'd expect, because it seems like Sega has decided to go for density instead. Most streets and areas have something to see or do in them. This makes the world feel more alive in our opinion, so we're glad the developers chose that approach.

The side missions and mini-games are without a doubt our favourite part of Yakuza 6, as they often fuse the best parts of the game: the humour and engaging mechanics. We've questioned an AI on our phone to figure out what its intentions are, spear-hunted giant squids, fought a bunch of dudes while wearing a dorky mascot costume, gone to the gym, played baseball, defeated opposing gangs in the tower-defence-like Clan Creator mode, and so much more. This game is chock-full of content and gives you a lot of bang for your buck.

It's got quantity in this regard, sure, but at the same time it might have just chewed over more than it can handle. Don't get us wrong, we're still laughing out loud and having fun while doing most of the missions and activities, but we also started avoiding a few of them after just a few goes. Most of these are very repetitive mini-games that involve following the button-prompts that appear on screen, moments where we realise that one of the things Yakuza 6 relies most on is context; some of the button-mashy activities are saved by how absurd or engaging they are.

Take the game's live-chat for example. Following the button-prompts to write sometimes kinky comments to a real-life woman who undresses on your screen might be fun for some people, but it loses much of its appeal rather quickly, and quite a few of the other mini-games fall in the same category. They just don't feel as unique and engaging as the best ones, the ones that avoid tediousness by giving us better rewards or context. We didn't mind running around town fighting the same enemy types a few times because we looked forward to learning what would happen next and because we got to use different mechanics, and this is just one instance where the game is making fun of the most absurd things in both western and eastern culture, while at the same time offering engaging and varied gameplay. The bad ones aren't a big problem, as there are tons of different things to choose from, but it's still enough to remind us that Sega could have focused more on polishing the better mini-games instead of adding extra, less interesting activities.

Speaking of shallow, Sega has made the interesting choice to remove Yakuza Kiwami's different fighting styles in Yakuza 6. This means returning to the beloved, yet repetitive, combat system the series is best known for. Punching and kicking enemies is still fun, especially when using context-sensitive attacks and weapons, but other games have taken combat to another level since Sega made the first Yakuza. The lack of different animations, punching into the air because of imprecise lock-on, and the lack of enemy types means that the game just doesn't hold up to titles such as Batman: Arkham Knight, Middle-Earth: Shadow of War, and Assassin's Creed Origins.

Yakuza 6 offers some improvements though, such as the new experience system, which rewards us with different kinds of points depending on what we do. Fighting will earn you points that can be spent on enhancing your strength, agility and so on, while helping a small girl with a favour will allow you to improve your social and fortune skills - a very nice change that makes it a lot easier to focus on the aspects of the game you like the most and customise Kiryu the way you want him. This, combined with enemies now being able to use firearms and us being allowed to run away from regular fights, at least enhances the experience a little bit.

When all is said and done, Yakuza 6: The Song of Life delivers what we've come to expect from a Yakuza game over the years. While the main story fails to follow through on its promising start, the side missions more than make up for it with their outrages and often hilarious scenarios and tasks. Most of the vast array of mini-games do the same, but many of them also feel more like filler or unnecessary padding compared to the better examples. That's not a big problem though, as Yakuza 6's beautiful world is filled with things to do whenever you want, meaning Yakuza 6: The Song of Life is definitely a game to consider picking up if you're looking to get a lot of fun bang for your buck.