And the start of the downfall of this series for me. Like yeah-sure I have zero issues with the story. Why did they feel the need to turn Yakuza into a turn-based JPRG?? It's so stupid, and I wouldn't even mind if it was executed well, but it's not! This is the only Yakuza game I've played but never beaten for a reason.

I remember getting soft-locked in a certain area of the game, in where I couldn't really grind a whole lot for experience, but I also couldn't continue because of how under-leveled my party was, and I'm sorry I don't have the time to spend several hours grinding for like 12XP per fight in order to experience a similar story to the previous Yakuza games up to this point, IT'S STUPID! It's like they're asking for the player to put in more effort for the same kind of payoff as the older games. I can't help but feel like I'm getting jipped in that regard.

And by the way I also want to state that I do love some JRPGs. It isn't like I'm one of these conservative Call of Duty dude-bros who only play's Counter Strike or ONLY AAA games, far from it.

This brings me back to my main point, WHY DID THEY FEEL THE NEED TO TURN YAKUZA INTO A TURN BASED JRPG?! It's like if Rockstar announced that GTA 6 is actually going to be an anime visual novel. Like NO! That's not what you played the GTA series for. Back to Yakuza: Like a Dragon, if I wanted to play a JRPG, there's no shortage of JRPG franchises that already exist, HELL! I'm sure SEGA already owns a few properties in that genre. And I know that some of the developers or staff stated that the reason they switched genre's was to "change things up" or whatever. But they could've done that in a spin-off game, why do these janky gameplay mechanics HAVE TO BE SHOVED INTO the mainline series?

And I think one of the worst parts about it is how I see so many people within the Yakuza "fandom" just riding this game specifically (and the games after but I digress), but that's less of an issue with the game itself and more-so an issue with mindless consoomers on the internet. I'd be lying if I said that it isn't somewhat upsetting to me that my opinion is somehow seen as "the wrong opinion" by the masses.

Again. I WANT TO LIKE THIS GAME. I want to like it so bad. I love Ichiban, and the other party members and the way the did the city of Yokohama. But man, I really don't like the turn-based JRPG slop. If I wanted "playing a video game" to feel like a job, than I'd just work for real.