This review will from the perspective of a Yakuza newbie, and hopefully will help shed light to fellow newbies on why Yakuza 0 has nothing to offer but some of the best gaming that PC-port-begging can get. This will be a more personal, less “professional” review, to help explain my personal appreciation for what the game accomplishes.


As someone who has an unhealthy love for certain 80's anime, city pop, vaporwave/future funk, and this particular YouTube video, even without the brand pedigree, Yakuza 0 had me sold almost instantly. Two open world, neon-drenched cities in Japan during 1988? Hot dog! Have my firstborn child.

This game serves as a prequel to the other Yakuza games. You play as two rookie Yakuza - Kazuma Kiryu and, a little bit later into the game, Goro Majima, as they make their debut journey into the seedy underworld of real estate and cabaret management. Each character has their own city to adventure in - both with denizens to help, minigames to play, hoodlums to beat up, and properties to buy out.


Main Story
Going in, I was expecting cheeseball action, lots of angry shouting, the occasional moment of levity, and some callbacks (callfronts?) to later plotlines within the series that I wouldn’t be able to fully appreciate. I only had a few scant cutscenes and plot descriptions to go off of to sculpt my expectations off of. Perhaps I should have expected better: I got all of the above, but I didn’t expect it all to be done so well. I’m a big fan of the Japanese style of melodrama, so perhaps it just happened to click with me. All the same, I found myself genuinely enthralled with the goofy, over-the-top, gripping, and occasionally heartfelt adventures of Kiryu and Majima that the main missions contained. The story is relatively self-contained - the callbacks are either minimal or done in a way that a newbie like me is only left wondering where they will lead in future titles. By the time the credits rolled, I was genuinely excited to see where these characters that I’ve grown to enjoy will end up in future titles. It’s kind of nice to see a prequel that doesn’t solely exist to wink-wink nudge-nudge existing fans every five seconds.

Substories
If the story itself can be considered an arc, the main missions “episodes”, than the substories can be considered “filler episodes”. There’s a metric ton or two of them – each that can go from zero to one hundred in a moment flat. Though mostly comedic in tone, there is an occasional (corny) attempt to make them somewhat heartfelt, with accompanying music. Some are simple fights, others are glorified visual novels – but the general quality is pretty good. What perhaps matters most a resounding success – variety. I’d give some examples, but honestly there’s already a bunch out there on the store page and in various professional review articles, and I’d rather not spoil any of them.


Combat/RPG
Let’s see here – ah yes, the top tags for this game read “beat ‘em up” and “RPG”, so I GUESS I’ll start with those. I’d just like to say upfront that neither of those are my usual cup of tea, so this segment will probably lack the technicality of someone more experienced in those genres.

I really appreciate how both smooth and striking the combat both feels and looks. Perhaps it is years of iteration doing the brunt of the work, but nonetheless I find the amount of outright fun and crazy things you can pull off in one fight really engaging. Beat a guy unconscious with a bicycle wheel, smash his face into a vending machine, and knock an entire mob on their back with a 2x4, often within the same fight – it’s the little things that make this combat system work so well.

The fighting mechanics themselves are interesting too, especially the Heat mechanic. The three-tiered Heat meter rises through various means – initially through damage dealt, but soon expands to other combat actions – and allows the usage of more advanced moves and Heat Actions (which drain the meter) that when played right can take down an enemy’s health in seconds. This means not only that ideally one should save their Heat for tougher enemies with higher health, but sometimes you may want to keep an enemy standing to raise your meter through combat.

There are three unique movesets for Kiryu and Majima - six in total, seven if you include the fun-if-not-somewhat-superfluous “weapon” mode that lets you play with all sorts of items, from nunchucks to tasers. For someone who considers themselves especially garbage at button-combo memorization, the combat system is fairly inviting, serving as more of a sandbox than an outright test of skill – the skill trees also reflect this nature, with a bunch of cool abilities that can be unlocked and utilized at the players pace without ever feeling too overwhelming. It’s also worth noting that because the same currency is used for skill trees as everything else purchasable in the game that a combat grind isn’t necessary to buff one’s character out.

There are various items that can be consumed to raise health and Heat after a beatdown, as well as various equippable non-cosmetic items that can serve as combat modifiers – these run the gamut from passive health regeneration to income increasers, each with their own base damage resistance stats. Weapons acquired in the world are also equipped here for usage in the combat mode.

Exploration/Minigames
Kamurocho and Sotenbori are both fully-fledged open worlds which, while small in the grand scheme of things, are both packed to the brim with so many activities that you’ll appreciate how well the layouts are used. Yeah, you’ll have to run around to story beats, but there’s also the previously-mentioned substories to stumble upon at random, as well as a plethora of minigames and various restaurants and other gimmicks to keep your playtime from being a nice, contained 30 hours to an unhealthy 90+.

Rather than go into the details of every minigame, I think it’s better to explain just how well-designed and fun each one is. Rather than build a large, open world and simply pat itself on the back for including the odd bowling minigame whose existence is the novelty rather than the minigame itself (looking at you, GTA), Yakuza employs a host of genuinely engaging minigames that in a few ways can lead to character progression. The minigames that I decided were worth learning (sorry Majong!) with were all very enjoyable with a good amount of challenge and content for each one, and it was always fun discovering just how quirky some of them could be.

Property Procuring/Caberet Commanding
Kiryu and Majima both have a side business unique to the character that are introduced relatively early in to each character’s story. Kiryu becomes the acting manager of a real estate business, while Majima takes his Cabaret management knowhow and applies it to, functionally, a hostess club. This is where the brunt of the money you’ll make in the game comes from and serves as a very meaty side portion to the rest of the game. Both have their own sizable story arcs to complete, and genuinely feel like they could be standalone games, albeit of the mobile variety.


At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, I would say Yakuza 0 is the kind of game for people who truly love video games. I know a lot of modern game developers actively try to avoid their games feel too “video gamey”, but the Yakuza definitely feels like the opposite philosophy made manifest. For a game so utterly Japanese, I think it’s approachable and enjoyable for the mere curious, and not just the hardcore weaboos that evidently permeate the fandom. There’s enough content in Yakuza 0 to sate nearly anyone who enjoys video games, be it for the plot, the open world, the combat, or general zaniness. BREAK ZE LAWWRU!

If you're anything like me, you spend a good portion of your day in agony at the fact that "you will never live in a comfy cyberpunk dystopia". The colorful neon lighting, the ivory towers that drape the skyline, the seemingly eternal darkness that shrouds the city, the clash of individuality versus the whole that is readily apparent in every crowded street - there's something strangely comforting in the concept of a "cold" society that is reflected both in its politics and architecture. And yet, for the great strides that stories set in cyberpunk settings do to immerse us in their worlds, most don't give us the perspective of living in such a society from the life of an average Jane.

Enter VA-11 Hall-A, a visual novel/game that dares to give a human perspective on the usually distanced and sci-fi drenched world of cyberpunk. As a lowly bartender, you'll see your average cyberpunk characters – sentient sex robots, augmented assassins, and unbelievably well-endowed hackers - but in a place where any low-rung member of cyberpunk society goes to blow off steam: a bar. Can you remember the last movie you saw in a cyberpunk setting where there WASN'T a bar scene?


Glitch City is one that “shouldn’t exist”. Comprised of a population that are treated as human guinea pigs, Glitch City is used as a testing ground for all sorts of experiments, be them genetic, robotic, and everything in-between. Crimes of all kinds are rampant, and word of a revolution is hinted-at in-between news articles and forum posts by an elite hacking group.
Nestled in an apparently-convenient corner of the less extravagant side of the Glitch City is VA-11 Hall-A, a dingy bar that more often than not smells of urine and cheap beer. Not many people come here except for regulars, and the last exciting thing to happen involved at least a week of arduous cleaning. It’s here where your story begins.


Meet Jill, our protagonist. In your average story, she would be the minor character to previously-mentioned archetypes’ adventures, but in VA-11 Hall-A, she’s the main focus. She’s a one-hundred-percent average human being (evidently down to her chest size) with an apartment, a cat, a job as a bartender… and not much else. Everything is experienced from her perspective – all that crazy stuff that you’re usually shown first-hand in a cyberpunk story is relayed to her via news and word of mouth. And really, despite the setting, her story is very much like many of our own – a desire to be her own person, and to make up for past mistakes.

What’s most surprising about the dialogue, setting, and characters is how contemporary it all feels. From the often shockingly (and admittedly refreshing) crass dialogue that has our characters discussing sexuality, murder, abuse, taboos, and existential crises, to the surprisingly in-the-now references to memes, media and imageboard culture, this game is definitely a product of the 2010s. And yet, while many lesser games would use these cheap references and shock humor as a way to seem edgy, VA-11 Hall-A uses this writing to create unexpectedly lovable and believable characters in contrast to the cynical, bitter world they live in.

I didn’t want to give this much attention in the review, but it has to be said because this game happens to be in the minority of those where characters’ sexuality is handled in an interesting, believable way. About half of the characters consider themselves gay or bisexual, but it’s only found out through circumstances or conversations that feel organic and fitting for both the characters and setting. It’s also used as a great source of suggestive fan service, too, so there’s that as well.

What could be considered to be a flaw in the story, however, is the amount of plot threads that seemingly go nowhere. As of writing, I’ve only reached one ending, but it seems that besides some character arcs, much of what is hinted at remains unresolved. However, I contend that this is a story exclusively told from the perspective of Jill, an aforementioned “Average Jane”. I think it’s safe to say that the average person throughout their lives gets a very limited perspective on what’s going on around them, be it headlines in the news or events within their social circle, which is something this game seeks to emulate.

And really, that’s what VA11-Hal-A wants to convey: People trying to find happiness and meangful relationships despite their desolate setting. Whatever happens in the distant “outside world” doesn’t really matter – it’s their relationships, their hopes and dreams, that keep them going.


So after that big section on the story, what of the gameplay? Well, there's just enough to call it a game – although the mechanics in place are definitely something that can be experimented with. As a bartender, you serve “alcoholic” (I’ll let the game explain the quotation marks) drinks by first listening to the customer’s order, and then discerning what kind of drink they want – they can be as specific as a name or as vague as a flavor – and then going to the recipe book, dragging and clicking on whatever amount of ingredients the drink requires.

What makes this mechanic interesting is the varied responses you can get from increasing the amount of “alcohol” in the drink and giving customers different drinks. There are various recipes and orders vague enough to allow you some leeway on what you serve. Sometimes serving the wrong drink entirely can change the topic of a conversation to something widely different. Paraphrasing the developers themselves, it’s a less-generic, less-predictable form of dialogue selection trees that allow players some experimentation.

…well that’s how it reads out on paper, anyways. Perhaps it was too subtly implemented, but there’s very little indication or reason to experiment with drinks. I think tying them to specific achievements as it’s done dilutes the sense of player agency and believability this mechanic would provide.

Other than that, expect a lot of clicking on dialogue boxes to advance the well-written dialogue, some minor incentives to perform your barterding services well, some very limited apartment customization, and bob’s-yer-uncle, you’ve got yourself a reasonably fleshed-out VN.


This game is one of the rare few indie titles that uses pixel art that doesn’t just feel like a means to an end. Instead, it looks to emulate the graphical fidelity of PC-98 graphics, going so far as to include scanlines in the options menu. Even if one were to go in without knowledge of that particular brand of retro aesthetic, the character art is incredibly appealing and really drives their individual personalities home. As far as single, static backgrounds go, you can’t do much better than VA-11 Hall-A’s grimy purple walls either.

The music, too, seeks to emulate the glory of the PC-98, clearly taking inspiration from title’s such as Snatcher to create a funky 80’s soundscape. It’s a pretty diverse set of tracks that can be meticulously plucked to put into VA11-Hall-A’s jukebox playlist at the beginning of each day. I was bobbing around in my seat a bit more than I’d care to admit.


Far from the memetic “waifu simulator” that the store page advertises it as, VA-11 Hall-A is an incredibly focused experience from beginning to end, combining witty dialogue with heartfelt characters that will leave you looking back and missing them dearly when it’s all over. It’s one of the few games I can say I wish would have never ended.

…Just try playing it sooner rather than later, as I’m not sure how well the humor will hold up 6 months from now.



I’m going to marry Jill!