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jalexisw's Yakuza 0 (PS4)
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| [January 18, 2018 09:48:51 AM]
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I continued into Chapter 2 for around another hour and a half for the final log, with the intention that I would progress farther into the story since my last time playing focused more on exploring Kabuchiko. There are so many substories that begin just from walking around the city though that at times it was hard to stay on track. One of the ones I did that stood out to me begins when you overhear a high school couple were arguing with each other; the boyfriend then asks Kiryu if he can go see if his girlfriend is selling herself since she’s been acting weird and has an unexplained increase in money. When you ask her about it she breaks down that she’s being bullied into selling her underwear. Kiryu then seeks out the girl in charge of the underwear selling business and asks her to stop and she immediately refuses. As Kiryu walks away the girl in charge has an obsessive and violent customer come up and pull a knife on her. Kiryu stops the man from harming her, afterwards she says that she’ll shut down her operation because the money isn’t worth the danger. Showing high school girls being involved with sex work is incredibly questionable and could be the start of many ethical discussions. One thing I noticed that seems to be almost a recurring theme in this game is that people that get involved in shady businesses aren’t necessarily bad people. Mina, the girl who was fighting with her boyfriend, got involved in selling her underwear because she was bullied into it, not because she wanted to.
In regards of the main story, Kiryu continues to investigate the questionable Tachibana Real Estate and why they’ve been terrorizing and investigating seemingly random people. In Kiryu’s investigations he finds out that Tachibana wants power against the yakuza, Kazama, Kiryu’s mentor, is responsible for them meeting, Kiryu leaving the family was predicted, and Kazama knew he would go to jail, all as a part of his plan to get higher up in the family. Kiryu honors Kazama’s wishes and becomes Tachibana’s ally.
Overall, I feel as if this game continues to live up to all the praise it’s received. The story is interesting and unpredictable, the gameplay is fun, and it’s a good mixture between serious and comical.
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| [January 17, 2018 11:55:11 AM]
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Game Log # 2
Yesterday I played the second chapter of Yakuza 0 for about an hour. Unlike the first chapter the second one has a lesser sense of urgency to get through the story and includes missions that encourage the player to interact with NPCs and explore the world, thus giving the player freer range over their actions in the game.
After letting Nishiki know that you’re alive and out of the family, you’re supposed to then gather information on a shady real estate business. During this I also went to the disco, the arcade, bowling, the batting cages, helped a yanki band with their appearance, and met several NPCs the game encourages you to make friends with. All of these side mini games and missions are incredibly lighthearted and almost comical, it serves as a nice contrast to the serious story and violent gameplay. It also lets the player see a more human side to Kiryu, as it lets him be more than someone who is a serious and bad-ass former yakuza all the time.
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| [January 16, 2018 01:22:22 PM]
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Yesterday I played through the entirety of the first chapter of Yakuza 0, which took over 2 hours. I’ve never played any of the Yakuza games before and I knew nothing about them other than the high praise the series has received. From what I’ve played so far, I can see why it was so highly praised.
The game focuses on the Japanese mafia in the late 1980’s. The protagonist, Kiryu, is framed for a murder he didn’t commit and is sub-sequentially expelled from the Dojima family in order to prove his innocence. During this it’s also made very clear that Kiryu has no actual family and his unfortunate situation growing up is why he is so dedicated to being a yakuza. There is a strong focus on the story and creating a world that is interesting and believable. This includes the politics within the Dojima family, nightlife activities, and dealing with the police; which is predominately shown through plenty of cut scenes. My only real complaint was that there was such an emphasis on telling the story through cut scenes that the actual gameplay, while simplistic is fast paced and engaging, felt like it was limited to tutorials and when it was absolutely necessary to progress the story.
I also thought this game was an interesting take on morality, the opening scene is Kiryu essentially beating a man to death for money, but he isn’t necessarily portrayed as a bad person. If anything, the game makes it feel as if this is Kiryu’s only option in life since he has no family and its said plenty of orphans get involved in the yakuza. There’s also the question of if it’s even right in the first place to make a game about the mafia since it involves so much violence and the game could be seen as normalizing these subjects.
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jalexisw's Yakuza 0 (PS4)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Tuesday 16 January, 2018
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