I’m fairly late to the Like a Dragon party. To date, the only games I’ve played are Yakuza: Like a Dragon, Infinite Wealth, Gaiden, and the spinoff, Judgment. They’re all great games and I’ve enjoyed sinking hundreds of hours into the series across all of them, but I think the most interesting of the bunch is the latest one I’ve picked up: Yakuza 0.
A prequel to (most of) the rest of the games, Yakuza 0 is credited with popularizing the series in the West, and it’s a shame that more of its design principles and tenets didn’t survive as the franchise continued to balloon. I admit it, Yakuza 0 feels dated. Whereas the modern entries in the series have largely cut loading screens, Yakuza 0 feels segmented by how many there are.
The Dragon engine, which powers most of Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s games since Yakuza 6, is defined by smoothness and seamlessness. Running animations in Infinite Wealth look and feel fluid, but in Yakuza 0 they are stiff and a little janky. If Ichiban’s movement in the latest games could be defined as flowing, I’d reckon that Kiryu and Majima’s movement in 0 could be called jagged.
And yet I can’t get enough of it. I love the friction in every second of Yakuza 0 so far, and it goes beyond the aforementioned jank. It is great to be able to save your game anywhere in the later titles, but I love the feeling of having to walk my ass over to a phone booth in order to save in Yakuza 0.
It leads me on so many adventures, and I’ve encounte.