Yakuza is a very japanese game.

It is has a serious narrative about crime, politics, family issues, corruption and honor. And in the next scene you’re spending thousands of dollars (yens?) on a custom toy car to win a slot car championship or building your own go kart and race against other gangster.

Let’s just say that this is not too out of the ordinary.

In basically every Yakuza/Like a Dragon game, you play as a former Yakuza who continues to interact with both yakuzas and civillians. Generally speaking, the core story is VERY melodramatic but the sub stories (short side quests) are zany and incredibly horny (one of the most famous ones involved Kiryu teaching a sex worker how to be a dominatrix… at a children’s playground) with generally a really zany side story (longer side quest) where you might own a cabaret club or play pokemon with homeless people or whatever.

That said, Ichiban and Majima (the player character of this installment) tend to have MUCH zanier adventures. Because Kiryu is sort of kind of above it whereas Ichiban is a mentally ill guy who grew up with video games and Majima is half “I act crazy to protect those I love” and half “I am batshit fucking insane”.

So what I expect from this? Incredibly zany opening as an amnesiac Goro Majima comes to terms with waking up in Hawaii (the R in RGG stands for “Reuse excessively”). And he’ll become a pirate to fight all the evil pirates (past games had Kiryu lead an army to fight against NJPW wrestlers who had armies of their own) but also likely rob some fools what need robbing because…

Kiryu semi-officially does not kill (it is ambiguous and unclear how much is a meme based on a mistranslation). Majima leaves huge piles of corpses in his wake.

And then, around chapter 6 or so, we’ll find out why Majima is in Hawaii. Shooting my shot (and obviously spoiler tagging it) but I expect

At its core, the Yakuza games are incredibly heartfelt Japanese Crime Dramas with Soap Opera plots weaved in. Sometimes you are a criminal and sometimes you are someone caught up in it all. You usually have a very personal stake in the overall story whether it is protecting your kids or figuring out what really happened to your baseball career. But always, you are someone who cares about those that society ignores (homeless people, sex workers, trans folk, former yakuza, etc) who is inevitably willing to stand up against the forces of light and darkness to protect them. Because the yakuza/LAD games are not about being a modern day yakuza. They are about the ideal of the yakuza of olde.

For those unaware, most criminal organizations rise to power because of a lack of protection from the government. Many predominantly African American or Latino gangs very much “began” to protect their communities from racism and bigotry. And Warrior was a show that depicted this with Chinese triads in turn of the century San Francisco. They were far from altruistic organizations but they fulfilled a role the cops actively refused to (often fighting against the cops themselves). And, over the decades, efforts are made to villify them which results in nobody “good” joining which, in turn, results in only the worst of the worst joining.

In Japan, this very much happened with the yakuza. Getting into their feudal counterparts is complex but the LAD games touch on this with Hiroshima in 6. Following the war, the Japanese government was in shambles and a lot of people were left to fend for themselves. Crime families stepped in to act as small mini governments and protect and provide for Their people (for a totally modest fee…). But, over the decades, the Japanese government did a spectacular job of villifying the yakuza to the point that only the most evil fuckers join (many of Takashi Miike’s movies touch on this. And he even did a LAD short film back in the day)

Which is where the games come in. Kiryu, Ichiban, and Yagami and their crews are very much what a yakuza SHOULD be. They are people who have forsaken their role in polite society because they want to protect those who can’t protect themselves. They are far from perfect but that is how you get those sharp contrasts of partying it up and fighting off hordes of drunk salarymen for fun to realizing a group of sex workers have been abducted and are being trafficked to who knows where all in the name of “progress”.

And its how you get those cliche anime bullshit moments of the evil crime lord you have been feuding with the first half of the game suddenly becomes one of your strongest allies when it is revealed that a government organization is brutalizing people. Because he also feels the same way and agrees that putting a stop to this Evil is far more important than who has control of a street.

Oh to be someone outside, looking in at this series… It must look absolutely insane lol. As someone who’s been playing these games for years now, this feels right at home for this series to me.

This is a series where you can

1. Have a chicken be your employee at a successful business venture alongside an oversided-roomba and a former wrestler.

2. Pursue the reason why your crime boss/father-figure let you take the fall for a murder and then sell out the entire organization while you did time

3. Have a hobo wizard as an ally who becomes like a brother to you

4. Get caught up in a national political conspiracy

Just…roll with it and have fun.

Even in normal games you play just as ex-yakuza, or other civilians.

Also this series is crazy so, pirate as a protagonist is not so outlandish idea.

The Yakuza games alternate wildly between being extremely serious dramas about underworld crime, and extremely light hearted and wacky side quests. Some people might find the change in tone breaks immersion, but I find the two extremes increase the impact of each other. When a game is serious all the time I get numb to it, there needs to be a variety of lighthearted content for me to really feel the impact of when things get heavy.

Used to be that… Now it’s just whatever the fuck the head designer dreamed up while on mushrooms.

Yes the mainline games are you playing a gang member (im not sure about the new protag though}. I think this is the second time piece spinoff that tells a different story, they just reuse the previous cast as new characters. Like a Dragon: Isshin is the first game like this

It’s one of those series that has expanded so far, with favoritism towards its characters, that they even decided to drop the name “Yakuza” in favor of the Japanese title, since so much of it has little to do with being a Yakuza anymore. Honestly, I can’t remember any game in which you’ve done actual Yakuza-like actions such as shaking down businesses, running loan shark scams, or executing hits. When you do end up making money, it’s through perfectly legitimate businesses whose biggest problem is “thugs keep attacking us!”

Yakuza 0 exists you know. It’s all in there.