Video Game / Yakuza 0

The legend of the Dragon of Dojima has not yet begun.

"When you pick a fight in this town, you'd better pick carefully. Especially when you're carrying a wad of cash."

— Kazuma Kiryu

Yakuza 0 (龍が如く0 誓いの場所, Ryū ga Gotoku 0: Chikai no Basho, lit. Like a Dragon 0: The Place of Oath or, more poetically, Like a Dragon 0: The Promised Land) is the sixth main entry and a prequel to the Like a Dragon video game series. It was released in Japan on the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 in March 2015, celebrating the series' ten year anniversary, and in North America and Europe as a PS4 exclusive in January 2017. A port of the game to Steam was later announced at E3 2018 and was released on August 1 of that year; the game was additionally released on Xbox One on 26th February 2020.

The game takes place in December 1988, at the height of Japan's prosperous "economic bubble". The various factions of the Japanese underworld are jockeying for control over a prime piece of real estate: a vacant lot that is the centerpiece of the "Kamurocho Revitalization Project". Control over this lot will tip the balance of power in the world of yakuza in the favor of whoever claims it.

The game follows two separate protagonists, whose stories revolve around the conflict for the lot:

• Kazuma Kiryu, the series protagonist, is shown as a fresh-faced recruit in the Tojo Clan, sponsored by his father figure Shintaro Kazama. Working for the Dojima family, Kiryu is sent one evening to perform a regular duty for fledgling yakuza: shaking down a man in debt to a loan shark in the Tojo's employ. When the debtor turns up dead on the vacant lot afterwards, Kiryu becomes the prime suspect. With Kazama in prison and the family head, Souhei Dojima, promising his position as his second-in-command to whoever can secure him the vacant lot, Kiryu sets out to clear his name.
• Goro Majima is the game's deuteragonist, playable for the first time in a main series game^note Majima was previously playable in the non-canon spinoff Yakuza: Dead Souls.. Majima resides in the Osakan district of Sotenbori, managing a successful cabaret known as The Grand. He has everything a man in his line of business could want: money, fame, and women. What he truly wants, however, is to get back in the good graces of the Tojo Clan, having been excommunicated after disobeying a direct order. Now under the thumb of the rivaling Omi Alliance's Shimano Family, Majima finally gets a chance to return to the Tojo Clan, in exchange for carrying out an assassination. When he finds that his target is a defenseless blind woman, though, his loyalty and sanity will be put to the ultimate test.

The new setting for the game offers a view of Kamurocho and Sotenbori unlike what was shown in previous games: the two cities were very different places in the 1980s. This extends to the series' mini-games, as well: Club Sega arcades are replaced with the more time-appropriate Hi-Tech Land Sega (complete with classic arcade games like Space Harrier and OutRun), and hostess clubs are replaced with telephone clubs. The battle system has also been overhauled: each character now has access to three unique fighting styles, and Experience Points are eschewed in favor of using money to purchase upgrades for each character. Enemies now drop piles of cash when defeated; the more brutally they are beaten, the more money they'll drop. Many other avenues for earning money are also available, from gambling to a unique business venture for each character: Kiryu is placed in charge of a real estate agency and must jockey with rival agencies for control over property in Kamurocho, while Majima manages a cabaret club, training hostesses and attending to customers' needs in order to corner the market in Sotenbori.

The prequel setting also offers a fresh perspective on the series characters, showing Kiryu as a hot-tempered youth and Majima before he was driven to insanity, as well as giving insight to characters who only had brief appearances in the first Yakuza game, such as Sohei Dojima, Kiryu's patriarch whose death in the first game set the entire series' events into motion. This, combined with the uniqueness of The '80s setting and emphasis on money, make Yakuza 0 one of the most oddball and unique games in the entire series.

Released after Yakuza 5 and the feudal spin-off Ishin!, the story would continue in the original game and its enhanced remake before returning to the present in Yakuza 6: The Song of Life, the final chapter of Kazuma Kiryu's story.

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Yakuza 0/Ryū ga Gotoku 0: The Promised Land includes examples of:

• The '80s: The game takes place in December 1988, at the height of Japan's bubble economy. Real estate prices are soaring, stock market prices are greatly inflated, and the current speculation is that everyone is spending their money as fast as possible.
• Absurdly High Level Cap: Both Kiryu and Majima has a special "Legend" Style, which is unlocked by completing their Business story. If you also have the Limit Breaker CP reward, you can fully upgrade it 999 times. At that point, you basically become unstoppable.
• Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Kiryu uses one to escape from the Dojima Family. It doesn't work out.
• Accidental Hero: The "Arakure Quest" sidestory revolves around retrieving a boy's stolen video game as it's passed around from mugger to mugger. When you finally reach the last one and beat the tar out of him, he reveals that he stole it to give to his son...who just so happens to be the boy it was stolen from in the first place. When the boy runs up, Kiryu helps his dad save face by explaining that he helped him get it back.
• Achievement Mockery:
  • You are rewarded with "...I Did It For The Trophy" ("...I Did It For The Achievement" on PC and Xbox) the first time you watch something at the adult film store.
  • At one point, Majima has to buy some takoyaki and bring it to Makoto. If he takes too long, the takoyaki cools down and the trophy "Best Served Cold?" is "awarded".
  • During Majima's fight with Nishikiyama, there is a QTE where Reina attempts to smash a bottle against his head. If the attack succeeds due to you failing the prompt, you get the achievement/trophy "Hitting the Bottle".
• Achievement System: By completing certain tasks like scoring high on minigames, or defeating enemies using a certain fighting style, you earn Completion Points you can spend on perks to improve your exploration, battle, and business abilities.
• Achievements in Ignorance: The Videotape substory concerns Majima finding a Ring-style cursed videotape for the clerk of the local porn store. The two of them start to watch it, convinced it's going to be really legendary smut, only to be disappointed when it contains nothing but static and weird moaning. They leave, only for the TV to turn back on, showing the Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl inside of the room - with absolutely nobody to haunt, since they've both left. Alternatively, she simply may have not meant them any harm to begin with, since Majima ''did'' give her some Oden...
• Action Girl: Miss Tatsu is a loan shark muscle and a total badass. She's the one Kiryu learns his "Beast" fighting style from.
• Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: During certain segments, the taxis in the south of Kamurocho bump up the fare to 10,000 yen.
  • Justified (and historically accurate) as it's rush hour, so the drivers on the busiest street can afford to charge much more. In the cutscene before the final segment you can actually see businessmen waving handfuls of banknotes at the cabs driving past.
• Added Alliterative Appeal: The three punks who come to beat up homeless people in West Park during Chapter 10 are titled "Homeless Hunter", "Hobo Harasser" and "Bum Basher".
• Adopt the Food: One side story has Kiryu trying for a turkey (3 strikes in a row) at bowling to win an actual turkey to eat. When he wins it, it turns out the bird is still alive, and also a chicken, not a turkey. The bowling receptionist offers to take it to the back and cook it, but Kiryu instead decides to keep the chicken and name it Nugget. It also joins him as a real estate manager.
• All Drummers Are Animals: Played straight during the "Damned Yanki" substory. The group's drummer, Sleazy Tarashi, asks for a suggestion on how his stage persona would spends his free time. The best suggestion Kiryu can make is that Tarashi spends pretty much all day bare-knuckle brawling on the mean streets of Kamurocho.
• Anachronism Stew:
  • The Electronics King uses more modern gaming lingo like "PvP" and "Friendly Fire".
  • Some brands seen in the game, while they did exist all the way back in 1988, still don't feature their era-appropriate logos, like Mountain Dew, 7UP and, most prominently, Sammy.
  • The telephone cards, the videos you can watch at the adult video booths, and the posters at CAL Video all feature models with careers in the 2010s, many of whom weren't even born yet in 1988! The fidelity of the photos and videos makes it pretty obvious these are media contemporary to the game's release, too.
  • The ads for host clubs feature very modern looking hosts. The androgynous faces and spiky Nomura-ian J-rock haircuts weren't really a thing until about a decade after the games take place. 80s hosts were more likely to have fluffy '80s Hair.
• Analogy Backfire: Nishitani tries a baseball analogy with Majima about how a great play doesn't count if the game is cancelled by rain (referring to their fight). Majima, baseball fan that he is, points out the game still counts if it's during the fifth inning.
• An Ass-Kicking Christmas: It's the Christmas season, as indicated by several comments and a number of decorations, and a good 75 percent of the game is wailing on bad guys—Well, worse guys than you.
• And This Is for...: He doesn't say the line, but at the end of the game Kiryu's final three punches to the already defeated Shibusawa are accompanied by black and white cut-ins of Oda, Tachibana, and Makoto giving it the feel of this trope.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • If you get defeated by Mr. Shakedown enough times, his starting health will be reduced in subsequent encounters.
    • There are also equippable items that prevent Mr. Shakedown from taking all of your money should you lose in a fight with him.
  • The Item menu now has three separate sections - Inventory, Components, and Valuables. You can carry more on your person and manage your inventory much better.
  • Most random battles are easily avoidable once you acquire the Cash Confetti ability. Though it costs 10,000 yen for each use, that amount eventually becomes a non-issue at the point you get it.
  • Unlike what came before it, there is no penalty for failing Kiryu's final training session for his Rush style. Since his opponent breaks the rules^SpoilerThe opponent brought a gun, and spends the entire session shooting at Kiryu, he won't lose any money and he'll still acquire the last ability.
  • After obtaining at least 60% of their real estate shares, the Five Billionaires will challenge Kiryu to a game where the winner gets 10% of the loser's shares. Doing so means either being the best at a minigame or succeeding in a downplayed Luck-Based Mission with no chance at a rematch. Fortunately, upgrading stores increases share holdings as well as buying them, so it's not too much of a set-back.
  • Earning the completion points for classic Sega arcade games only require the player to achieve a certain score, as opposed to beating the game. A rapid-fire button has also been added for Fantasy Zone and Space Harrier, the latter also receiving a button to invert the vertical controls anytime during the game. They're all still hard as hell, though.
    • The most you'll ever need to score in OutRun is five million points, in order to beat The Electronics King. This roughly equates to about halfway through the game.
  • Want to start a New Game Plus using your save file after completing everything in Premium Adventure? In previous games, you weren't allowed to use Premium Adventure saves. Now you finally can, with one caveat: The Legend/Ex-Hard difficulty requires a fresh start. The difficulty can't be selected if you're starting with a Premium Adventure save.
• Artificial Brilliance: If a knife-wielding enemy knocks you down by stabbing you, they're almost certainly going to do it again and again immediately after you get back up, unless you attack them first or dodge out of the way.
• Artistic License – Law: Unless Tsukiyama's mother had someone help make her suicide look like an accident or murder (which seems unlikely), that life insurance policy she filed would be null and void.
• As You Know: During the sidequest "The Show Must Go On," Mori and Papillon explain what the TV terminology they were using meant after you get each one correct. Papillon even lampshades it by saying "But you knew that already" after his explanation. This eventually turns out to be a subversion. Mori knows Kiryu isn't actually a producer, but Papillon figured it out by himself, so he's just playing along.
• Asshole Victim: The body double of Makoto Makimura that Lee chooses. She's completely circumstantial, but if Lee's description of her is to be taken at face value^note A serial marriage fraudster, Gold Digger and murderer, there wouldn't even be a bit of sympathy for her.
• Assist Character: After he became a real estate manager, when Kiryu is attacked on the street, the security staff he assigned for the area where the fight takes place will occasionally back him up.
• The Atoner: Vengeful Otake, one of the inmates in the Bed of Styx, came willingly to the hellhole to atone, after realizing his revenge killing service was causing more harm than good.
• Autobots, Rock Out!: Majima's one-man assault on the Dojima compound is set to the song "Reign".
• Awakening the Sleeping Giant: Kiryu didn't have any involvement in the pursuit of the Empty Lot until he was framed for murder, and when he got set up by Shibusawa in an attempt to crush Kazama, it only resulted in the fall of the most powerful family in the Tojo Clan. In the end, Kuze recognizes Kiryu's potential, believing Kazama has held him back from becoming a true yakuza, and admits the Dojima Family has no one but themselves to blame for their own destruction at Kiryu's hands.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Kiryu and Majima somehow pick up entire fighting styles after seeing certain people in action for a little bit.
• Back from the Brink: Until Majima came around, the Sunshine Cabaret was on its last legs with only three girls to its name. By the end of the Cabaret Club Czar plotline, he'll have turned a floundering club into the biggest cabaret club in all of Sotenbori alongside The Grand.
• Back-to-Back Badasses: When Kiryu is fighting alongside with Nishiki, one possible heat action they can execute together has Kiryu catching an attack meant for his bro, followed by both of them retaliating and posing back-to-back, ready for more.
• Badass Bystander: Occasionally during random street fights, Kiryu's Real Estate security will jump in to back you up if they happen to be assigned in the same area. They're not great, but who can keep up with Kiryu anyway?
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Par for the course, for both the series and the Eighties.
  • Kiryu starts the game wearing a simple black suit, white dress shirt and a silver chain necklace, but eventually switches to a white pinstripe suit and an orange dress shirt with a gold chain pattern on it. For the Premium Adventure mode, the "Dragon of Dojima" DLC adds his iconic off-white suit with maroon dress shirt, the "Kamurocho Fun Pack" DLC adds a topless version of his Yakuza 0 outfit, and the "Pocket Racer Expert Pack" DLC grants him Majima's 'Lord of the Night' outfit.
  • Majima goes through the game wearing a tuxedo the whole time - full get-up while working at The Grand, losing the bowtie and wearing a gold chain necklace during his downtime. For the Premium Adventure mode, the "Mad Dog of Shimano" DLC adds his iconic outfit from the rest of the series, the "Sotenbori Fun Pack 2" DLC adds a variant of his usual outfit that replaces his tux jacket with Saejima's parka from Yakuza 4, and the "Super Rare Crafting Pack" DLC grants him Kiryu's 'New Hire' outfit.
• Badass Teacher: Kiryu and Majima each have three teachers, each of whom are badasses in their own rights.
  • Kiryu's mentors are Bacchus, a booze hound who is continually hounded by assassins and manages to survive; Kamoji, a homeless "knockout artist" who makes a living challenging people to try and knock him down (a job he is very good at); and Miss Tatsu, a loan shark muscle who is feared by debtors all over.
  • Majima's mentors are Komeki, the selfsame martial artist who would mentor Kiryu later on in the series; Areshi, a breakdancer who is inspired by Majima to incorporate fighting into his dance routines; and Fei Hu, a Chinese arms dealer who can turn even an ordinary piece of lumber into a deadly weapon.
• Bait-and-Switch: When the story is shifted to Majima's side for the first time, it's revealed that he's the manager of a prestigious club and personally deals with rowdy customers. Given how he acts later in the series, you'd expect him to whale on an angry drunk mistreating his employees. Instead, he acts hilariously polite to him and barely ever touches him aside from a toss (done purely in self-defense when the customer comes at him with an ice pick). He even convinces him to pay for everyone's drinks! Another twist happens right after when you see he lives in a Lonely Bachelor Pad, close to poverty due to the debt he owes.
• Bash Brothers: Kiryu and Nishiki. Nishiki even notes how invincible they feel together.
• Bathroom Brawl:
  • One of these occurs while Kiryu is fighting his way through a building filled with hostile yakuza. It ends with Kiryu slamming Yoneda face-first into a urinal and then kicking him out the window.
  • Sagawa drags Majima into a bathroom and nearly strangles him after Majima sneaks off to visit Nishitani in prison.
• Bathroom Stall Graffiti: One of Majima's substories revolves around this, but it's what appears to be a lonely woman's handwriting that catches his attention.
• Batter Up!: Majima's "Slugger" fighting style is all about using a baseball bat to bludgeon bad guys. He also gets creative with his batting technique, using them similar to nunchucks and hopping around like a Wuxia swordsman.
• Battle Strip: Especially later on in the game, boss fights often have the Yakuza participants clutch their shoulder and tear off their clothes from the waist up - shirt, tie and jacket, somehow all in one motion - revealing the tattoos on their backs. The only time it's realistically done is with the first two fights against Kuze.
• Bears Are Bad News: One of the opponents Kiryu and Majima can face in the Bed of Styx is a large bear, known as the Demon Bear.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: Kiryu. While he is largely stoic and self-contained, as the plot progresses, he continues to smash every gambit he touches to bits through his refusal to die, brass balls, and increasingly-badass combat skills. This also extends to Shibusawa, the true Big Bad; he is the most quiet and reserved out of the three Liutenants, and naturally winds up being the most dangerous.
• Big Brother Mentor:
  • Kashiwagi's bio describes him as this for Kiryu and Nishiki, and serves as something of a mentor figure for them in Kazama's absence. He also doesn't hesitate to punch Kiryu's lights out when he announces his plan to get expelled from the Dojima Family thinking it would clear Kazama from being held responsible.
  • One of the substories shows that Daigo Dojima also looked up to Kiryu as one when he was younger, and his rotten attitude nearly landed him in hot water.
• Bilingual Bonus: Oda talks to a resident of Little Asia in Mandarin after Kiryu first arrives there with Oda and Tachibana. If you can understand Mandarin, you would realise Jun is not his actual name. His real name is Wei Tian, hinting at his background as a Chinese mafia member.
• Bittersweet Ending: Dojima loses the bid to the empty lot to Sera, and Kiryu is able to prove his innocence in the Empty Lot murder case. Meanwhile, Makoto recovers her sight and is starting a new, peaceful life in Kamurocho having survived the events of the game. However, plenty of people died because of the war for the Empty Lot, including Tachibana, who perishes moments before being reunited with Makoto. And while Majima succeeds in returning to the Tojo Clan like he wanted, he is clearly unhappy with how things went down; worst yet, he has to stay away from Makoto (who remembers him but had no idea what he looked like) so she can live a peaceful life. On top of that, while Dojima and Shimano's plans failed, they managed to not suffer any direct consequences and able to continue plotting, but only so the events in the other games make sense.
• Black Comedy Rape: Poor Kiryu can fall victim to this in the telephone club minigame if his date turns out to be an Abhorrent Admirer who wastes no time in taking him out for a night he'll never forget. If you're going for 100% Completion, since three substories revolve around this, be prepared to say goodbye to your dignity. And a good chunk of your health bar.
• Blaming the Tools: Majima learns the Slugger style from an arms deal with a weaponsmith named Fei Hu and an ornery Jerkass of a yakuza complaining about the Chinese broadsword he was just given instead of any "normal" weapons like daggers or guns. Fei Hu decides to test him in a spar using an ordinary wooden staff, and promptly whoops his ass. The yakuza decides that he lost because the broadsword was terrible and the staff Fei Hu just used was far better. But Fei Hu explains that the staff was a random piece of lumber he scooped off the ground, as opposed to the painstakingly crafted broadsword the yakuza was using.
• Blinded by Rage: It's usually not a good idea to piss off a yakuza, but one character intentionally makes someone mad at them as part of a Thanatos Gambit. When Tetsu Tachibana is captured by the Dojima Family and proves to be unbreakable in the face of excruciating torture, Kuze decides to give Tachibana a break since he's experienced enough to know what kind of people who won't crack, and that he needs to still keep the victim alive. His underling, Yoneda, mocks Kuze as a weakling, and is proven to be an easily-angered idiot when Tachibana is able to easily goad Yoneda into killing him, thus denying the Dojima clan any info they planned on getting out of Tachibana.
• Bloodier and Gorier: Next to Kenzan and Ishin, this is easily the most violent game in the series, and said violence is used less for humorous effect and more for pure ow-factor. To wit, those two games have swords as the main mode of combat, and this game is almost as violent as both of them.
• Bloodless Carnage: For fairly obvious reasons the underground catfights replace all the blood spurts with coloured heart symbols (even though the women involved use the same brutal HEAT takedowns as the protagonists).
• Bodyguard Betrayal: The police officer Nishitani bought out as a personal lackey was later bought out by Shibusawa to kill Nishitani.
• Boisterous Bruiser: Yuki Sato, the second Mr. Shakedown in Kamurocho. Alone among the other Mr. Shakedowns, he genuinely doesn't care about money, scornfully dismissing the idea of putting his skills to use for profit. He brawls in the street to vent his rage and satisfy his thirst for combat, which is what actually keeps him coming after Kiryu.
• Book Ends: The first proper brawl in the game is Kiryu's one-man assault on the Dojima Family HQ. The last is Majima's epic Roaring Rampage of Revenge after Makoto is shot, which takes place in the same building and follows the same path through it.
• Booze-Based Buff: Several style abilities kick in if Kiryu and Majima are drunk. Kiryu's Brawler style has quite a few of these.
• Boss Warning Siren: Getting into a fight with a Mr. Shakedown starts with these as part of their Leitmotif; "Get Them". Reign also starts with a siren, except in that case Majima is effectively the boss, and the entire Dojima Family are the hapless opponents.
• Boyfriend Bluff: One of Majima's substories sees him acting as a pretend boyfriend for a young woman who has tired of her overbearing father attempting to set her up with men she has no interest in.
• Briefcase Full of Money:
  • Kiryu will open one up in dramatic fashion, when buying out the area's most expensive property.
    Kiryu: I'll make an offer...in cash!
  • In Chapter 10, Tachibana offers up a briefcase containing 500 million yen to convince the Tojo clan to call off their hunt of Kiryu (along with a promise of even more yen if Kiryu is secured from the clutches of the Tojo clan and a cut of Tachibana's profits going forward).
• Bring It: This is one of the possible gestures Kiryu can make during a battle's intro.
• Bullying a Dragon: After Majima learns that he was being used by Shimano the whole time, he suffers a Heroic BSoD and even lets himself get beaten up by a group of street punks. But when he goes to get revenge against Dojima, he runs into the same punks from before, who harass and ridicule him. Majima promptly beats the tar out of them.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Most of a substory characters who can be hired as employees of Kiryu's real estate firm fit this trope, especially since the game follows the unspoken rule that unlockable characters are mostly better than the default characters. The absolute best business advisor is a Michael Jackson expy and you can unlock a chicken who has three stars in management.
  • This also means that, ironically, the random misfits Kiryu meets around Kamurocho are better at running a real estate firm than the people who are actually in that line of work.
  • The Five Billionaires are all very odd. Despite this, they managed to almost completely monopolize Kamurocho's real estate scene, albeit with some less than legal tactics.
• But Not Too Foreign: Tachibana and his lieutenant Oda hail from China. In addition, Tachibana's mother was a Japanese war orphan who was abandoned in Manchuria, lived among local farmers, and married a Chinese man. Same goes for his sister, Makoto.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Yuki in the Club Sunshine Side Missions gets a moment where she's the butt of the joke with every Star you take on, from being called a plain hostess, to having Majima repeatedly forgets her requests for vinegar, and being kidnapped and forgotten about at one point (she apparently frees herself afterwards).
  • Yoneda first appears to be one of Kuze's higher ranking enforcers. He is told to kill Kiryu before he getting punched out in-cutscene and defeated in combat immediately afterwards. He shows up several more times as Kiryu fights his way through the building, each time being taken down in a QTE before being fought again, and finally gets dunked in a urinal and dropkicked out a window. Notably, this all takes place in the span of about ten minutes. He shows up later on interrogating Tachibana. Tachibana goads him into killing him, ensuring he can't get the information he wants; this in turn angers Kuze enough for him to kill Yoneda by smashing his head into the floor.
  • Oishi is one of Nishitani's henchmen, tasked with kidnapping Makoto. In his first appearance he manages to land a few shots on Lee, who tosses an acupuncture needle though his shooting hand in return. Majima then beats him down before rescuing Makoto. Oishi shows up twice more; in his second appearance, he has a visible bandage on his forehead and tries to take revenge on Majima with a whole gang of people. He runs away after Majima beats them all, only to show up again later with a new bandage on his cheek.
• Call-Forward:
  • One of Kiryu's substories has him protecting a Michael Jackson Expy from actors dressed as zombies. Afterwards, Kiryu muses how he's never gonna deal with zombies again. He will. Multiple times.
  • Komeki at one point mentions that battling a tiger unarmed would be a fool's errand indeed. Years later, Kiryu pulls it off.
  • When defeated, Jo tells Majima he'll spend the next 17 years doing intensive training and that once he's done, even people stronger than Majima will regret crossing paths with him.
  • Likewise, So challenges Kiryu because he had a prophetic dream of his future exploits in Yakuza and how he will become a threat to the Amon Clan's reputation. When defeated, the man swears that his family will get revenge even if it takes 17 years.
  • Bacchus continually mentions to Kiryu to watch out for himself, otherwise he'll get knifed in the ribs someday. Although this does relate to Bacchus' backstory, Kiryu eventually will get a knife in the ribs many years later. And it wouldn't be the last.
  • At the conclusion of a substory featuring a large kid named Ryuji Goda, Majima muses on how this badass sixth-grader is "a dragon in the making".
  • After winning Kamurocho's dance scene back from Ogita, he tells Kiryu he wants to be a dance instructor, and if he ever has kids, to send them his way and he'll teach them how to dance.
  • Kiryu gets his fortune read in a substory, and learns about a girl worth 10 billion yen, being in jail after taking the fall for a close friend, fighting a viper, raising 8 kids, and becoming a taxi driver. He's then told he'll meet a young man whose fate will be entangled with his. He bumps into Ryuji Goda, who's visiting Kamurocho on a school trip.
  • The very last challenge mode is a Boss Rush for Kiryu that ends with a fight against Nishikiyama, alluding to the end of Yakuza. To drive the point home, an area that resembles the one in Yakuza 1 is used over the one from 0.
  • Nishiki mentions that he sympathizes with Tachibana, saying that, like him, he has a younger sister, and he cannot imagine what he would do if she was ever in danger.
  • In the ending/epilogue, Kiryu buys himself a new suit familiar to longtime fans. Nishiki tries to convince his friend to reconsider his fashion choice. It doesn't work.
    Nishikiyama: Fine, fine. See if I care! Wear it the rest of your life!
  • The pose Kiryu strikes and is freeze framed on upon mastering the Dragon of Dojima style is identical to one seen on the Japanese cover art of the first game.
• Car Bomb: Sagawa has one planted in Lee's van, which detonates when Majima tries to help Makoto escape from his goons.
• Cat Fight: One of Kamurocho's attractions is an underground wrestling circuit, where patrons bet on the outcome of matches between beautiful, scantily-clad women. It even has the word catfight in its name: Japan Catfight Club.
• Central Theme:
  • Promises. How malleable is one's integrity? How important is it to keep one's promises to those around them in a time when money and all that it brings can warp a person's view of the world? Just how much is too much of one's integrity to sacrifice in the pursuit of money, fame, and power?
  • A public persona. It's sometimes a necessity for certain people to function or survive in society under a mask, even if it means living a lie and/or sacrificing their personal happiness. The game features a number of characters, both major and minor, that were driven to reinvent themselves for different reasons, some more complex than others.
• Character Development: Inverted, in the sense this takes place before Kiryu and Majima, along with several others, became the people that they would become later in life.
  • Kiryu is far rougher than he is in the first game. His HEAT moves are much more brutal and violent than necessary, and he's more confrontational than usual. He also has a mean temper, and is easily capable of brutally injuring someone at the drop of a hat in comparison to his role as The Stoic in the first game on. His kindness, arguably his biggest trait, still shines through. His three styles reflect elements of his later fighting style as well - Brawler is basically an unrefined version of his usual style, Rush showcases his speed and quick footwork, while Beast showcases his strength and willingness to use the environment to his own advantage.
  • Majima is far more mentally balanced in this game, which becomes obvious after seeing the first cutscene where he demonstrates another side of his loyalty - that of to himself. He manages to, in the span of about five minutes: cool off a drunkard, knock him on his ass and disarm him, get him to pay the bar tab of the entire club and then has the club forgive him. His fighting styles reflect bits of his later, knife-based acrobatic style - Thug shows his finesse and pragmatism in combat, Slugger shows off his skill with a weapon, while Breaker gives him an incredible sense of unpredictability in combat. Certain Heat Actions◊ also betray the Mad Dog boiling just under the surface...
• Chekhov's Gunman: The Human Trafficking substory involves Intrepid Reporter Kasuga running afoul of a human trafficking ring, the leader of which turns out to be the bartender of Shellac, the bar where Kiryu initially meets with Kasuga in both this and his previous substory.
• Clark Kent Outfit: Awaro, Shibusawa and especially Kuze are all fairly old yakuza whose suits hide toned physiques that much younger men would die for.
• Cold-Blooded Torture:
  • It's revealed that after Majima went against orders regarding the Ueno Seiwa hit and lost his eye, Shimano had him chained and tortured in a cell called "The Hole", which Majima endured for a year. After Sera takes Makoto away to the Nikkyo Consortium, Sagawa has Majima chained and beaten, stopping just short of bashing his skull in with a bat.
  • Tachibana is subjected to this under the Kenno Clan. Eventually, Yoneda goes too far and ends up killing him.
  • Nishiki mentions that the Dojima family are known for being expert torturers who know how to draw it out as long as possible. He later tries to kill Kiryu himself instead of having his sworn brother go through it.
• Collection Sidequest: A series staple, but with the absence of the lockers, Kiryu and Majima can instead collect cards of the various Celebrity Cameo girls. Aside from unlocking their gravure videos, some characters are willing to offer cash rewards for showing them full sets of three.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience:
  • Kiryu/Majima battle stances:
    • Brawler/Thug: Blue
    • Beast/Slugger: Yellow
    • Rush/Breaker: Magenta
    • Legend: White/Purple
  • The Five Billionaires:
    • Leisure King: Red
    • Electronics King: Blue
    • Pleasure King: Pink
    • Gambling King: Yellow
    • Media King: Orange
  • Five Stars:
    • Hino (Mars): Red
    • Kizuka (Jupiter): Green
    • Mizumura (Mercury): Light blue
    • Kanehara (Venus): Yellow
    • Tsukiyama (Moon): Purple
• Company Cross References: The game has a few nods to other Sega games.
  • One of the businesses Kiryu can buy out is named "Amusement Game You". It's the same name as the arcade from Shenmue.
  • During one of Yuki's conversations, she denies that she's never dated before, telling Majima there was Sato, Suzuki, and Tanaka. In Shenmue II, a man named Barry Jones mistakes Ryo for someone else, believing all Japanese fall under the very same three names Yuki mentions. However, this might be coincidental, as Sato, Suzuki, and Tanaka are the three most common surnames in Japan, suggesting that Yuki is lying.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: A minor case in the Club Czar substory. When you begin a rival club battle, your opponent begins earning money immediately — in spite of the fact that the soonest you can begin earning money is about ten seconds in, when you've seated and paired up your first guest.
• Continuity Cameo:
  • One of Majima's sidequests has him deal with a young Ryuji Goda. As in, back when he was a grade schooler. One of Kiryu's substories also features Ryuji on a field trip in Tokyo.
  • Kan Ogita from Yakuza 5 can be met in one of the disco substories with Kiryu.
  • Dolce Kamiya, the Princess League's announcer in 5, appears as a radio host, and gives prizes to Kiryu and Majima for getting their post cards read on his show.
  • In one substory, Kiryu meets a young Daigo Dojima, who played a major role in Yakuza 2 and would eventually become chairman of the Tojo Clan, something his father Sohei never accomplished.
  • Another substory for Kiryu features a young Shinji Tanaka, who was a member of a bosozoku gang and mugged yakuza, before Kiryu turned his life around and became his "aniki".
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: Averted, no matter how much of a badass One-Man Army martial artist you are, a trained enemy with a gun is still the single most dangerous person in the room and can deal a ton of damage while staggering you with a single shot.
• Continuity Nod: One of the options for Kiryu's pen name is "I Heart Nishiki", a nod to Mitsuo's pen name in Yakuza 5: "I Heart Rinoa".
• Contrived Coincidence: A girl in the "Be My Boyfriend" Majima substory tells her father she has a boyfriend to get out of being paired up with a suitor. She ends up describing Majima right down to his eyepatch despite never having met him until her father decided to come down to Sotenbori and meet said boyfriend.
• Cosmetic Award: After completing their business questlines, Kiryu and Majima can commission a golden statue of themselves in their offices for 10 billion yen as a symbol of their success. The game even explicitly tells you that the statue literally serves no purpose other than bragging rights.
• Cover Identity Anomaly: In a recurring sidequest, you interview prospective employees for your real estate company. If you're sharp, you'll notice that one person gives an answer that contradicts something they previously stated. A woman who says she worked for many years at a traditional Japanese inn says she's a great cook—but the dishes she can cook are all Western foods, like spaghetti or meatloaf.
• Covert Group with Mundane Front: Several of the locations for the Dragon and Tiger weapon searches are described as this. Additionally, the Dragon and Tiger itself plays with this; while it mostly exists to facilitate Long Hua's item hunts and Fei Hu's weapon smithing, it actually is a Chinese restaurant as well. Unfortunately, you can't eat there outside of a cutscene.
• Critical Status Buff: Several abilities only kick in if the health bar is flashing red. They include benefits like increased attack power or automatic heat generation.
• Cult: One of Majima's substories deals with rescuing a girl from a Scam Religion that isolates its members from friends and family, while offering spiritual enlightenment in exchange for titherances (in other words, cold hard yen). As an added bonus, chosen female members can engage in special prayer with the cult's Dirty Old Guru. The cult is clearly modeled after the infamous real-life doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo, which was steadily growing during this time period.
• Dance Battler: With the "Breaker" fighting style, Majima fights with spinning kicks and acrobatic attacks.
• Dating Sim: In addition to Majima's managing a cabaret club, where training hostesses plays out similar to dating them in previous games, players can also hit up telephone clubs to chat up beautiful women. If the player keeps up the conversation for long enough, they can even ask the girl on the line out on a date in the city.
• Defeat Equals Friendship:
  • Defeating one of the Five Billionaires will cause them to join Kiryu's agency as managers or advisers, along with one of their men as security.
  • Defeating one of the Five Stars will add the defeated club's number one girl to Majima's roster of hostesses.
  • Inverted in the second Miracle Johnson substory, where Kiryu cannot defeat Miracle in a dance battle no matter what, but Miracle decides to join Kiryu's real estate agency as a Advisor anyways.
• Demoted to Dragon: After being the most active antagonist during the story's first act, Kuze is manipulated into shaming himself by the shenanigans of the other Lieutenants. He spends the rest of the story serving as The Dragon, but he's clearly very bitter about it.
• Developer's Foresight: During the part where you have to get takoyaki for Makoto, if you already have takoyaki in your inventory Majima will acknowledge that he already has some. You still have to go and buy the Piping Hot Takoyaki however, since Majima insists on giving her fresh ones.
• Did I Mention It's Christmas?: Much like 1, 2, and 5, Yakuza 0 takes place during the Christmas season, and again likewise, this fact is barely mentioned or conveyed throughout the game. There are a few Christmas trees in parts of the overworld, and some characters occasionally mention the cold weather, but it's otherwise overlooked.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • Shortly after he's framed for murder, Kiryu decides to get himself expelled from the Dojima Family so Kazama won't be held accountable for his actions. Although Dojima honors Kiryu's expulsion, he still has Kazama take full responsibility for what happened, making Kiryu's efforts in vain. When Dojima says this, all Kiryu can do is just watch Dojima walk away.
  • After Tachibana is killed, Makoto decides to confront Dojima - the head of the most powerful family in the Tojo Clan - and offer him the deed for the Empty Lot in exchange for the heads of his three lieutenants, as revenge for her brother's death. Since Dojima doesn't need to own the Empty Lot so much as he doesn't want anyone raising a fuss about its ownership and ruining their construction plans, she gets a bullet instead.
• Dirty Old Woman: Etsuko the Obatarian, a Manipulative Bitch that Majima ends up having to rescue from a yakuza. She falls head over heels for the Mad Dog, forcing a large smooch on him. When he meets her later, she demands to be hired at the Cabaret Club he's managing, and threatens to kiss him again if he doesn't. Going with the lesser of two evils he hires her on the spot, which turns out to be for the best since she has one of the best "Talk" stats out of any hostess in the game. Even compared to the Platinum Hostesses.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Kuze is initially set up as the Big Bad, and the game heavily implies that he framed Kiryu for the businessman's murder. His Wake-Up Call Boss fight in Dojima Family HQ serves as the point where the game officially stops messing around, and the game opens up dramatically after that - but it also sees Kuze being knocked out of the race to the Empty Lot before it's even properly begun. He remains The Dragon and The Heavy of Kiryu's story, but there's no doubt that he's become little more than a pawn for the true villains.
• Doomed by Canon: Given that this is a prequel, veterans of the series can probably figure out which characters in the series will live (since they're major players in later games), and who might not (characters who don't show up again).
• Dragon with an Agenda: Downplayed. Kuze does betray Shibusawa after being Demoted to Dragon, but he does so in a rather minor way; instead of taking his men and launching an all-out assault on the Kazama family as ordered, Kuze confronts Kiryu for one last duel before turning himself in to the police. He's the only one of the three Lieutenants to make it out of the story with both his life and his dignity intact.
• Drunken Master: Bacchus, who teaches new techniques for Kiryu's "Brawler" style, is a notorious booze hound. Kiryu can become one, too: many of the advanced skills in the "Brawler" skill tree enhance Kiryu's abilities when under the influence of alcohol.
• Dub Name Change: The side business games for Kiryu and Majima, "Money Island" and "Nightlife Island", are given the names "Real Estate Royale" and "Cabaret Club Czar" in the English localization respectively, so it would make more sense to the English speaking audience. Nugget is also called Koketaro in the original Japanese version.
• Dumb Muscle: Downplayed. Kuze starts the game as The Heavy, being the one who triggers Kiryu's initial defection from the Dojima family to begin with; he remains the most visible antagonist throughout the rest of the game, fighting Kiryu multiple times. While he definitely isn't stupid, Kuze's inability to see the race for the Empty Lot as the complex Gambit Pile Up that it really is winds up biting him hard. By the time of his final duel with Kiryu, he's been relegated to acting as muscle for the true Big Bad. Kiryu flatly predicts that this will happen in the Loan Shark's office at the start of the game.
  Kiryu: Liutenant Kuze.. You think you're smart enough to control the board... But you're too clumsy to hold the pieces. You don't know a thing about me, and you sure as hell don't know Kazama-san.
• Dumbass Has a Point: Yuki Sato, the second Mr. Shakedown in Kamurocho, gushes about how much he's starting to enjoy fighting Kiryu after being defeated enough times. Kiryu asks him why he doesn't put his skills to use boxing instead, since a heavyweight like him could easily rake in big money legitimately. Sato scornfully brushes off the idea of doing what he does for profit, saying that it's merely an excuse to make people fight their hardest. After he leaves, Kiryu reflects on what he said and concedes that he has a point.
• Eccentric Millionaire: The two Mr. Moneybags you meet are absurdly rich. The one in Kamurocho has investments everywhere and spends a lot of his time at bars, and the one in Sotenbori just plays music on the street and hands money out to everyone.
• Elite Mooks:
  • The Dojima Family's goons, when they go after Kiryu in Kamurocho, are harder and more aggressive than other randomly encountered enemies up to that point in the story.
  • The Malevolent Masked Men who appear in the Nikkyo Consortium's HQ are noticeably tougher and faster, as are the Geisha Goons.
  • Some Yakuza encountered in the story and in the streets are noticeably taller and more heavy than their fellow goons; these Yakuza are harder to knock down and stagger, hit harder, and have a charging tackle.
• Enforced Method Acting: In-universe, the “Miracle on Tenkaichi St.” substory has Miracle Johnson being attacked by zombie extras who he wants to come at him like they mean it, and it's Kiryu's job to make sure they don't get too method.
• An Entrepreneur Is You: Each protagonist has a side-business they can engage in to earn even more money, which are their own subplots. Completing through them unlocks the final upgrades for the various styles and the fourth "Legend" styles upon completion.
  • Kiryu becomes the president of a real estate firm in Kamurocho. He can purchase property around Kamurocho and collect profits from them, as well as hiring advisors to invest in his properties, managers to improve profits, and security staff to ensure business can be conducted without incident.
  • Majima becomes manager of a failing cabaret club in Sotenbori. He can hire new hostesses and train some of them personally, and when the club is open, must pair hostesses with clients to make money, attending to customer needs and resolving disputes between patrons and hostesses that arise.
• Episode Zero: The Beginning: Fitting that the first chronological entry in the series (not counting flashbacks) is named Yakuza 0.
• Escort Mission:
  • In two missions, Majima will need to escort Makoto through Sotenbori, which doubles as a Stealth-Based Mission as they try to avoid being seen by enemies. If he gets into a fight, he'll need to keep an eye on her to make sure their assailants don't get her.
  • Kiryu and Majima each have one substory where they need to accompany a character from one point to another while protecting them from harm.
• Even the Girls Want Her: You can see a few women in the audience at the Japan Catfighting Club.
• Every Man Has His Price: At first it looks like the owner of the Namase bar is heroically refusing to leave the building the Tachibana Real Estate bought out of some kind of higher principle—but once Oda gives him 6,000,000 (1988) yen to move out he eagerly takes it. He was holding out for more money all along.
• Everybody Smokes: As a game set in Japan during The '80s, this is inevitable. Kiryu, Nishikiyama and Majima all smoke, which was pretty much mandatory for Yakuza of their rank during the game's time period. Kuze and Sagawa, Kiryu and Majima's respective Starter Villains, also smoke.
• Evil Old Folks: One of Sagawa's goons is an old man passing as a beggar, and he is brutal with his crowbar. Kuze is no spring chicken, either; however, he's more of a Noble Demon than a straight-out villain.
• Face Death with Dignity: When all's said and done, a squad of Omi Alliance men arrive to kill Sagawa for failing them (it's implied Shimano framed him for murder). Rather than plead for mercy or try to run, he casually accepts what's coming. The screen cuts to black with a loud gunshot.
• Face of a Thug: Kitajima the Mushroom Merchant, who sells perfectly normal cooking mushrooms, but keeps getting into trouble when people assume he's selling hallucinogenic ones due to his general shifty demeanor and the fact that he insists on selling his wares in a seedy back alley.
• Fight Clubbing: Sotenbori has the "Bed of Styx", a secret underground fighting arena where captured criminals are forced to fight for their freedom, or die trying. Majima has to fight in it at one point.
• Fingore: This being a story about yakuza, the practice of cutting off the end of one's pinky finger as a result of a major screw-up is discussed. Kuze explicitly tells Kiryu to do this after the shakedown target in the Empty Lot ends up dead. Kuze himself has to go through with it when Kiryu leaves the Dojima family, since Kuze would effectively be murdering a civilian if he killed Kiryu in Dojima HQ, which would get the family in even more trouble. The player doesn't get to actually see Kuze doing the deed, but the sound effects and the blood splatters seen afterwards clearly show that Kuze went through with it.
• First-Name Basis: Nozomi, the clumsy kitchen assistant at Komian in Sotenbori, is scolded by her boss after she introduced herself to Majima, a customer, by her first name. Most of the women in substories also go by first names.
• Foregone Conclusion: Those who have played the first few minutes of the original game will know exactly how certain events unfold and how they end. Dojima doesn't meet his end by Majima's hands and the title of the Third Chairman of the Tojo Clan goes to Masaru Sera. And despite Kazama's efforts to lead Kiryu into a normal life, Kiryu ends up back in the Dojima Family.
• Freudian Slip: The Telephone Club minigame is all about avoiding this. During the minigame, you are chatting with a pretty girl over the phone, and she will ask you questions. One correct answer and several very inappropriate answers will then bounce around the screen, and you'll have to shoot the right one with your "phone beam". Shoot a bad answer, and your character will blurt out something inappropriate ("You make me feel raunchy" instead of "relaxed") or nonsensical ("I like kangaroos" instead of "karaoke"). Between sets of questions, you also need to stop a roulette wheel on the right answer to ask the girl to describe herself or ask to meet her. Once again, time it wrong and you'll instead say something inappropriate like "Are you a guy?" or "I want a one-night stand!"
• Freudian Trio: Shibusawa, Kuze and Awano are a textbook example. Awano is the Id, being The Hedonist and dressing in loud colors. Shibusawa is the Superego, being a cunning, very polite spymaster with an unassuming appearance. Kuze is the Ego, driven by a base emotion - pride - but balancing it out with pragmatism and experience while also looking rugged and business-like.
• Gambit Pileup: The whole plot of the game was masterminded by three individuals — Kazama, Shimano and Shibusawa, who all pursued their own goals. All of their plans relied on intricate planning, but only Kazama managed to remain on top in the end, being able to foresee most of the events — except for Majima's interference.
• Game Within a Game: Hi-Tech Land Sega arcades have classic arcade games available for play, including Space Harrier, OutRun, Fantasy Zone, and Super Hang-On.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: The Dragon and Tiger (both the one in Sotenbori and the Kamurocho location) is an actual Chinese restaurant in addition to being a secret weapon shop. Despite this, Majima only eats there once, in a cutscene; there's no way to eat there like a regular restaurant, and Kiryu never eats at the Kamurocho branch. Also, when Akko takes Majima to an arcade to play a claw machine, Majima acts like he knows absolutely nothing about how claw machines work... Even if you've already played one or completed the doll girl side story first. Though it is possible he's just pretending not to know as part of the act.
• Genre Savvy: After losing the Cabaret Club Battle and a subsequent fist-fight, Kizuka of Club Jupiter immediately decides to get out of town, well-aware what his boss's policy on failure is.
• The Ghost: The intro cards of Sagawa and Nishitani, high-ranking brass of the Omi Alliance, describe them as retainers to the 5th Omi Alliance chairman. This chairman never appears or is named in this game, but if you played Yakuza 2, which was released 9 years before Yakuza 0 and is set 18 years after it, then you would know that the 5th chairman is Jin Goda. Neither Sagawa nor Nishitani make it to the end of Yakuza 0 alive, however, and and are long gone by the time the events of Yakuza 2 roll around.
  • Incidentally, if you play certain substories, then you'll also meet the chairman's son as a delinquent boy. You will definitely recognize who this teenager is if you played Yakuza 2...
• Giant Mook: Enormous Yakuza thugs armed with various pieces of furniture will block the player's path during several story events. Unfortunately for them, there's a Heat Action that lets the player instantly knock them out cold.
• Gilded Cage: Majima lives in the Osakan nightlife hotspot of Sotenbori and manages a highly successful cabaret club, but is forced to live there and do the Shimano Family's bidding as well as being under constant surveillance by Sagawa's henchmen. The title for Chapter 3, when he's introduced, is even called "A Gilded Cage".
• Glass Cannon: Gun-wielding enemies can deal out considerable damage, as well as causing Kiryu or Majima to stagger if a shot hits them. However, in contrast to other enemies, their health bars never advance beyond the minuscule size found on enemies at the start of the game, meaning that one or two good hits is enough to take them out.
• Goroawase Number: Kiryu and Majima both have pagers that let people communicate with them this way, a common use for them in Japan before the advent of cell phones.
  Kiryu: (724106^*"na-ni-shi-te-ru", huh? That's code for "Whatcha up to?" ...I'm waiting for your slow ass to show up.)
• Gory Discretion Shot: When Kuze is forced to commit Yubitsume, the camera cuts to behind Kuze such that we don't see him severing his finger. The Sickening "Crunch!" and blood splatter in front of him, however, leaves no ambiguity on what happened to his digit.
• Gratuitous English: You'll hear it often like the previous games before it, but certain parts stand out here.
  • Certain characters like Bacchus and the Mafia Boss speak in English phrases. Miracle Johnson also does, but with a noticeably Japanese accent.
  • Similar to the previous vocal theme songs like "Receive You" and "For Faith", "Reign" is entirely comprised of English lyrics, and along with the disco and cabaret vocal songs, it's sung with Japanese pronunciation and improper grammar. The lyrics for all the songs can be found on the game's website.
• Gratuitous French: Befitting his handle, "Papillon" Kato in the substory “The Show Must Go On” peppers his dialogue with French exclamations ("Mon dieu!" "Magnifique!") and TV production lingo.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: One of Kiryu's beast moves lets you pick up enemies and use them to club other enemies.
• Guide Dang It!: Several trophies are earned by seemingly random acts throughout the game. While some triggers are hinted at, others - like waiting fifteen minutes for a plate of hot takoyaki to go cold or failing a mid-battle QTE so that Reina clobbers Majima with a liquor bottle - require counter-intuitive actions.
• He Knows Too Much: One of the Bed of Styx's inmates was a law abiding citizen who saw too much of a Yakuza exchange and was given the choice between death or a year in the Bed.
• Heads I Win, Tails You Lose:
  • An inverted example occurs when Kiryu encounters Mr. Shakedown for the first time. Regardless of whether he defeats Kiryu or you take his health down to a certain point, he stops the fight and lets you go.
  • Played straight when Kiryu fights Kuze for a third time. Lose, and it's game over. Win, and Kuze gets back up, and with the help of a subordinate, knocks Kiryu to the ground and prepares to kill him (Kiryu only surviving thanks to Tachibana's sudden arrival).
• Heel–Face Turn: Almost every antagonist involved with Kiryu's business ventures either pull these or turn out to actually be decent people once the competition's over with.
• Hell Hole Prison: The Bed of Styx is a prison where those with the right connections can send untried or acquitted criminals and undesirables. Inmates are forced to fight for the entertainment of an audience, often to the death, and those who survive a year in the pit are allowed to leave. Majima is allowed to fight there sans the year long internment requirement at the request of a corrupt police officer. Kiryu is as well, mostly because denying him participation in this game's arena wouldn't be any fun.
• Hero of Another Story: While Kiryu and Majima's stories do tie into one another, they never directly actually meet until The Stinger.
  • Humorously, this applies to the Dolce Kamiya postcard substories too. Occasionally if if the player doesn't send in a story that makes the show you'll instead hear the card comes from "Judgement Kazzy" or "Gorogorogoro-chan" instead depending on who's the playable character at the time, indicating that either Kiryu or Majima got their card read instead.
• High-Speed Battle: One occurs in Chapter 13, requiring Oda to take the wheel while Kiryu fends off their pursuers with a gun in a highway shootout.
• Historical In-Joke:
  • The "Lost Decade", a period in the 90's where Japan's economy collapsed and started a long recession, is implied to have been caused by Majima giving a tax collector some advice that was a bit too on the mark.
  • Kiryu's "Arakure Quest" substory is one to the Japanese release of Dragon Quest III all the way back in 1988. To say that Dragon Quest III was popular in Japan is a gross understatement. It was popular enough to the point that people were outright getting mugged on the streets for their copies, which was pretty much unheard of. The game even acknowledges this, with one substory involving Kiryu's attempts to recover a boy's stolen copy of the newly-released Arakure Quest.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: After Majima beats seven shades of hell out of cult leader Munan Suzuki during a substory, the last the player sees of him is him on the ground begging for someone to call an ambulance while his followers ignore his pleas in favor of performing a useless "healing ritual" that he taught them.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: Happens in one of Kiryu's substories, although the outcome should be of no surprise. You're not beating Miracle Johnson, the Popstar Prince, in a disco battle.
• Hospital Hottie: Joy, Makoto's female doctor, as well as Sayuri from the Cat Fighting arena.
• Humiliation Conga: Kuze's repeated defeats at Kiryu's hands. You fight him five times throughout the game, and even though he's a pretty capable fighter, the Worf Effect makes the conflict seem particularly one-sided throughout the game.
• Imagine Spot:
  • During the telephone game, Kiryu has an image of a scantily-clad woman writhing around as he speaks to the other person on the line. When he goes out to meet them, the real girl doesn't always match up with his imagination.
  • During the karaoke minigame, the player characters both have Imagine Spots of themselves singing their song in the style of a professional music video. For example, when he sings "24-Hour Cinderella", Majima imagines himself performing a campy rollerskating dance number.
• Impossibly Tacky Clothes: The Obatarian, with her purple sweatpants (to go with her bright purple dyed hair) and hideous cheetah-print shirt. (No, not just a shirt printed with the pattern of a cheetah's coat. A shirt with a picture of a cheetah's face on it.) She doesn't even change out of of them if you recruit her for the cabaret club minigame.◊
• Improvised Weapon: Anything that hasn't been bolted to the ground can be used as a weapon. Kiryu's "Beast" fighting style thrives on this, seamlessly picking up objects to bludgeon enemies with.
• Informed Attribute: The descriptions for some of the agents you can dispatch from Dragon and Tiger make notice of them having large or small carrying capacity. In practice this does not appear to have any relevance to how much stuff they can bring back.
• Ink-Suit Actor:
  • The likeness of several women in the game are taken from popular AV actresses, whose characters also share the same first name. Following a contest held by Sega, 30 out of 50 made it into the game. The top five were turned into the cabaret club's Platinum Hostesses (with the exception of Yuki, who's entirely fictional), while the remaining girls can be found throughout the cities under various roles. All 30 have a short gravure video that can be unlocked, and Mr. Libido will encourage Kiryu and Majima to see if they can discover them all in town, as well as their videos and collectable cards.
  • Exclusively for the Chinese release of the game, Lao Gui is instead modeled and voiced by Hong Kong film actor Sam Lee. The English localization mistakenly used Lee's voice clips solely during his boss fight, which was fixed in the 1.05 patch.
• Innocent Innuendo: The end of the Hi-Tech Land Sega employee substories are rife with this.
  • When Luka challenges Kiryu to beat her high score in OutRun, she promises to take him on the ride of his life. As it turns out, she was talking about a new arcade game, Super Hang-On.
  • Kyoko challenges Majima to beat her high score and promises to show him her "fantasy zone". She does exactly that and brings out a Fantasy Zone arcade game.
• Insult Backfire: In Majima's opening scene, after he refuses to drive out a drunken man by force because the customer is king, the man tries to provoke and humiliate Majima by pouring an entire bottle of expensive wine over his head. His staff and other customers can only stare in shock, while Majima takes the slight without so much as blinking.
  Drunkard: Well? How do ya like your king now?
  Majima: Very kind of you, sir. I had always said I love this brand so much, I wish I could bathe in it. You've made a dream come true.
• Interface Screw: In one of Majima's substories, he volunteers to become a test subject for experimental drugs for a huge load of money. He's given three of them and has to fight some thugs for data collecting. The first was designed to keep him invigorated, but he continuously loses health. The second was designed to keep him focused, but the game has him switch between his three fighting styles at random. The last was designed to improve his vision, and he fights while dark clouds cover the screen. (An unlockable "Climax Battle" challenges you to defeat four waves of enemies under all three debuffs at once.)
• Intrepid Merchant: The Long Hua Expedition, a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits lead by Long Hua of the Tiger and Dragon diner, whom Kiryu and Majima can commission to find items and weapons around the world. They'll infiltrate black bazaars, mafia dens, deadly jungles, and even Area 51 for the right price.
• Intrepid Reporter: Kasuga, an investigative journalist who's two substories revolve around him trying to get into the criminal underworld for a scoop. Both times end with him getting in way over his head and needing to be bailed out by Kiryu.
• Ironic Nickname: The substory "Damned Yanki" sees you helping out a band performing for a group of hooligans. Every member of this band has an ironic nickname. "Krazy" Kyo is someone pretending to be a hooligan but is actually a polite and well-mannered young man, "Sleazy" Tarashi has, in his own words, "never even seen a boob," and "Bad Boy" Aku admits that his hobby is caring for elders.
• It Will Never Catch On: The "Calling The Future" substory ends with the bag-phone man predicting that portable bag-phones (the predecessor to the modern cell phone) are the future and will eventually get lighter and more portable and even be bundled with other functions like the ability to take pictures, all of which Majima scoffs at.
• Kick the Dog:
  • A series of substories for Kiryu focus on him trying to hire staff for his real estate firm. After turning down two con artists who tried to bullshit him, he hires a shy and nervous man with a genuine passion for his line of work. Afterwards, when he sees the two employees he refused to hire, the first con man abused a dog out of frustration, until the meek new hire steps in and stands up for the poor pup.
  • At one point, during Kiryu's stay at a homeless encampment, a group of school delinquents decide to violently attack homeless people for fun, using their immunity as free rein to hospitalize or even kill the outcasts of society.
• Kung Fu-Proof Mook: Try to grab one of the Mr. Shakedowns and they'll simply deck you in the side of the head, knocking you over.
• Large Ham: Outside of the main story, the protagonists exhibit traits of hamminess when engaging in side-activities. For example, when Kiryu starts playing OutRun, he takes to the game like he's getting ready to burn serious rubber. When hitting up the telephone club, he practically rips the phone off its cradle when answering it. When buying out businesses for his real estate firm, Kiryu does so by dramatically opening briefcases filled with cash, although this particular one only plays whenever he goes to buy the most expensive business within each of the Five Billionaires' districts.
• Large-Ham Announcer:
  • Pocket Circuit Fighter provides a Hot-Blooded style of commentary for each of the Pocket Races.
  • The Bed of Styx announcer manages to outdo even him (but would you expect anything less from Lenne Hardt?).
    Announcer: GOOOOR-R-R-R-R-R-RO! MAJIMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
• Law of Chromatic Superiority: Two of the four Mr. Shakedowns have prominent amounts of red in their color scheme. Kiryu's Battle Aura is a bright red when using Legend style.
• Lethal Joke Character:
  • For Kiryu's real-estate, you're able to hire a chicken as a manager. Said chicken (who Kiryu names Nugget) has 3 stars in Financial Savvy.
  • You're able to recruit the Obatarian to Majima's cabaret club, Impossibly Tacky Clothes and all. Though she may not seem useful at all, she starts out with first-rate Funny and Talk stats that only get better, making her an easy choice for any clients looking for either.
• Lethal Joke Weapon: The Slime, Zap and Smoke Guns were meant to be utility weapons that knock enemies down, but don't work on boss-level characters. However, for some reason, they're the only firearms that deal anything other than Scratch Damage to said bosses, including even the Mr. Shakedowns and the Amon family. Zap Guns in particular are obscenely effective, dealing as much damage on a single shot as a top-class weapon Heat Action.
• Limit Break: For Club Sunshine, it's one of the main mechanics when you get enough money to fill a three-tiered meter, which restores the HP of your girls, raises the mood of your guests and makes tables enter fever mode, making them gain money at an even faster rate. During Rival Battles, the Five Stars have their own limit breaks which range from making guests leave, lowering the mood of your customers, or lowering the HP of your girls. Which culminates in the battle with Club Moon, where they will use every effect at once on you.
• Literal Metaphor: Unlike other Yakuza games, you unlock new abilities by buying them on the skill tree. In other words, you are literally investing in yourself.
• Living a Double Life: Many of the women you meet or employ moonlight as gravure idols.
• Lonely Bachelor Pad: Goro Majima's apartment is just a few steps away from being entirely vacant, housing just his futon (typically seen piled up in a corner of the room) and a small table with a radio. Given that his assignment in Sotenbori is something of a punishment, it's unclear if the state of his apartment is due to his superiors giving him the bare minimum, or him refusing to furnish it out of disdain for the whole situation.
• Luxury Prison Suite: Downplayed with Nishitani's arrangement with the Sotenbori police. Thanks to him and Billiken paying off the cops, any time he gets arrested they conveniently forget to lock his cell door so he can leave whenever he wants, and he can also use the prison staff as his errand boys. The cell he stays in is completely ordinary, though.
• Macguffin Location: The Empty Lot, a small piece of property located in Kamurocho that is in the middle of a land development deal, which is central to the plot. It's essentially the last piece of free land that isn't owned by the Dojima clan. Whoever owns the Empty Lot can either use it to build some very valuable real estate, or sell it back to the Japanese government for a large sum of clean cash that they can use for whatever they want. And whoever in the Dojima family secures the Empty Lot will be all but guaranteed to receive a promotion in the family as a reward. But the thing is, nobody knows who actually owns the Empty Lot, and there's very little that can legally be done to force the owner to sell it, which is why the Dojima family is so interested in finding the owner's identity. The Empty Lot eventually becomes the Millennium Tower later in the series, and it's also revealed that Makoto is the land's owner via inheritance from her grandfather.
• The Mafia: Kiryu encounters them twice in his substories.
  • One group repeatedly hounds Bacchus during his training sessions, requiring Kiryu to use his new skills to take down one hitman after another for him. Over time, Kiryu learns who they really are and the old man's tragic involvement with them.
  • A separate group appears in one of Kiryu's friendship substories, seeking a shady-looking man selling mushrooms. When the Mafia Boss realizes what's being sold aren't the hallucinogenic kind but the tasty kind, Hilarity Ensues.
• Manchild: Subverted with Pocket Fighter. He is actually quite mature and even a bit conflicted about how his hobby takes a toll on his social and financial life (he earns more as a street barker handing out pocket tissues than he does from managing the circuit).
• Manly Tears: As Kiryu holds a dying Tachibana in his hands, he cries as he declares that he'll protect Makoto, his sister, complete with a Howl of Sorrow.
• Meaningful Name: Various characters go by the same nickname, which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. No matter which one you're dealing with, Mr. Shakedown is a massive bruiser who will take all your money if he beats you, Mr. Moneybags is filthy rich and will help wire money between the two protagonists, and Mr. Libido is a poon-hound par excellence who will point you towards any cuties in town you haven't met yet.
• Mercy Kill: Nishikiyama almost does this to Kiryu at the end of Chapter 6: he reasons that if the Dojima Family get their hands on Kiryu, they'd torture him and draw out his suffering, so killing him before then would've been merciful. In the end, Nishikiyama can't go through with it because he can't kill the man who is effectively his brother, making it a subversion.
• Metal Slime:
  • Mr. Shakedowns are souped-up versions of the trope; they're slow as molasses and have telegraphed attacks, but they hit like a truck, are Immune to Flinching, and take all of your cash if you lose to them. However, they yield a lot of moolah when defeated, and by playing your cards right, you can win back a lot more money than you lost. ^note The "Mr. Shakedown's Deep Pockets" perk, available only for Kiryu, increases the amount he holds by 50%. Lose your current cash holdings to him once, then win the next time to multiply those reclaimed funds by 1.5. Repeat to hit the money cap in less than an hour.
  • Nouveau Riche enemies are a more subdued variant. They need to be unlocked with CP, but travel alone, are easily spotted by their gaudy golden suits, and aren't any tougher than your garden variety Mook but drop far more cash - you can easily get anywhere from a million to several million yen from a single Nouveau Riche enemy.
• Metronomic Man Mashing: Downplayed. You can grab a downed opponent by the leg with Kiryu's Beast or Legend style and swing them overhead onto the pavement, potentially knocking down other opponents. Other than an occasional counter kick or other enemies interrupting you, there's nothing to stop you from repeating the grab-and-slam until they're KO'ed. It's not as damaging as most of Kiryu's other moves are, but it's definitely satisfying.
• Mighty Glacier:
  • The Mr. Shakedowns all attack in slow, lumbering swings. They also have tons of health and will take out massive chunks of your health if they successfully land a hit.
  • Kiryu's Beast style turns him into one, allowing him to pick up heavier objects and charge through enemies with ease at the cost of speed and mobility. The same goes for Miss Tatsu, who teaches him the style.
• Mirror Boss: Kiryu's final boss goes through three stages, each imitating one of his fighting styles. Shibusawa starts off with a fast-paced style of quick kicks and punches, like Kiryu's Rush style, then a slow, heavy-hitting style focused on bludgeoning with furniture, like Beast, and finally a more well-rounded style like Brawler. Superboss Jo Amon goes through a similar pattern, imitating the legendary "Dragon of Dojima" and "Mad Dog of Shimano" styles with brutal effectiveness.
• Mistaken from Behind: One scene has the Dojima family hunting for Kiryu on the streets, and they spot a man from behind sporting the same suit and build. It's not Kiryu, but they beat his ass anyway, thinking he's mocking them.
• Money for Nothing: Once you build your business ventures to a respectable level, the money comes pouring in, and you eventually be left with few places to spend it on. Even the most expensive abilities can easily be bought with liberal abuse of this. However, the secret Legend styles can be upgraded almost without limit, resetting to blank-slate status after each completion.
• Money Is Experience Points: Unlike the other entries in the series, skills are unlocked with money instead of experience points, fitting the game's setting of Japan's prosperous economic bubble period, where people had lots of money to throw around. The man who teaches you how to unlock skills calls this "investing in yourself".
• Money Multiplier:
  • Several CP upgrades increase the amount of money you gain from enemies.
  • Some equipment, like the Security Wallet, Secret Wallet, and Mew Shoes, increase the amount of money you earn.
• Mood Whiplash: The side-quest involving the cult of Munan Chohept Onast is filled with this, since the cult's practices and rituals are Played for Laughs, but the brainwashing, extortion and sexual abuse its members are exposed to are decidedly not. The end result is a tone that will leave your neck looking like a corkscrew.
• Motorcycle Jousting: Kuze confronts Kiryu for the second time by charging at him on a motorcycle while wielding a lead pipe. But after striking Kiryu, he loses control of the bike and falls off.
• Mugging the Monster: Subverted with a group of guys who try to pick a fight with Kiryu in the intro, but one of them notices that he has blood sprayed on his face, so he tells them "not this guy!".
• Mundane Made Awesome: The protagonists tend to exaggerate the mundane actions they perform, like picking up a phone.
  • Kiryu writes on a postcard the way Light Yagami writes on a Death Note.
• Mythology Gag:
  • One of the names in the pool of random Mook encounters is "Sega". You get a Completion Point for defeating an enemy with this name.
  • One of the options for Kiryu's pen-name when submitting postcards to be read on Dolce Kamiya's radio show is "Judgement Kazzy", referencing Majima's original nickname for Kiryu in the English localizations for past games.
  • At the end of the substory involving defending a Michael Jackson expy from zombies, Kiryu expresses relief that he'll never have to fight zombies again.
  • You can find a parasol resembling the one used by Sango Amon via the Dragon and Tiger, as well as the MJM56-55 Exorcist from Dead Souls.
  • The very last boss you have to fight in the final Climax Battle Boss Rush section is Nishiki. In the main game you fight him as Majima in a bar, but here you fight him as Kiryu on top of a building, which seems like a pretty random choice for first-timers but a very recognizable sight to series veterans.
  • When geting jumped by the Bontan Hunter (actually a young Ryuji Goda), he is seen hiding behind a takoyaki stand.
• Naked People Are Funny: One of the people Majima meets in Sotenbori is Mr. Libido, a perpetually horny man in nothing but his underwear and a pair of shoes, with an equally ridiculous dance.
• Neck Snap: One of the first moves Majima learns from Komeki is a counter-attack where he snaps his opponent's neck. However, in-game it's called "Essence of Choking" and doesn't instantly kill anyone it's done to, making it a technical subversion.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Played for Laughs in one of Majima's substories, where pointers he gives to a government worker about income tax not only means he will have to pay those taxes in the future, but inadvertently contribute to Japan's economic bubble bursting and a massive recession.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: If the Dojima Family's plan was to mask the fact that the Empty Lot even existed, then killing Makoto was completely unnecessary for that — She didn't even know the Lot existed, let alone that she owned it, until an army of Yakuza started chasing her across two cities to murder her over it. In fact, all their obsession with killing her accomplished was getting the attention of several high-profile figures who would ensure that they'd fail in the end, leading to the Dojima Family's fall from grace.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Two of the substories has Kiryu dealing with "Miracle Johnson", who is a thinly-veiled parody of Michael Jackson. The first one also features the legendary director "Stephen Spining".
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Both final bosses are on the receiving end of one once they are beaten, only for someone to intervene and stop them from being beaten to death.
• Noble Demon: Kuze is an unrepentant, lifelong career criminal, expert torturer, and a hardened Yakuza through-and-through. He's still unquestionably the most honorable of the three Lieutenants, let alone Dojima himself. He's also the only person in the story other than Kazama himself who understands just how dangerous Kiryu actually is; his perception of him goes from "upstart little shit" to "legend in the making". At the climax of the story, he ignores orders to wage open war on the Kazama family HQ and waste hundreds of lives, opting instead to face Kiryu for one last duel before quietly turning himself in to the police.
• Non-Lethal K.O.: Enemies can have their heads bashed into walls, their necks snapped, or even get run through with a Chinese broadsword, but at the end of a battle, they'll be shown beaten and scared witless, yet very much alive.
• Nonstandard Game Over: If Majima or Kiryu let Makoto get taken away during a fight (either while Majima escorts her through Sotenbori or while Kiryu and her try to escape the construction site) a small cinematic will play of them getting distracted by it and getting attacked from behind before they can rescue her, resulting in the loss of your entire health bar.
• The Notable Numeral: The business sidequests have the protagonists fight a notable numeral group. Kiryu faces off against the Five Billionaires, and Majima competes against the Five Stars.
• Nothing Is Scarier: The Mystery Caller substory. Majima is addressed by a mysterious man named Simon, who hires him to do some arms-dealing via a payphone. He also mentions that he rigged the phone booth to blow up if Majima had said no. Eventually, Simon asks to be rescued from some former associates, who are about to kill him. After going to the location specified and beating the goons up, Majima realizes that he's been had; the caller is nowhere in sight. Simon bids Majima farewell in one last phone call, claiming that Majima's actions have prevented Sotenbori from being thrown into chaos. His final "payment" is an unknown woman who is visibly terrified for her life and begs Majima to let her work at Club Sunshine. Fortunately for her, Majima is a Benevolent Boss who treats his employees very well, but it's easy to imagine what a less scrupulous person could have done in that scenario. Who Simon was, what connections he had, and the truth of his claims about preventing a disaster are all questions the franchise has left unanswered.
• Oblivious to Love: Both Kiryu and Majima up to high heaven. The ratio between how many women practically declare their attraction and love for them and how neither of them ever pick up on it is about equal. The only times they do pick up on it is usually from an Abhorrent Admirer. This is especially prevalent with Majima, because his business sidequest involves running a Cabaret Club. If you take the time to complete each Platinum Hostess's Special Training substories, it becomes pretty obvious that all of them are in love with Majima by the end, and he has no idea - even when Hibiki all but proposes to him.
• Occidental Otaku: One opponent in the Bed of Styx is Invisible Hanzo, the American Ninja. For obvious reasons, the criminal underworld didn't take him seriously at first, but he turned out to be a surprisingly capable ninja-like assassin - enough so to hold his own in the Bed's higher-stakes tournaments.
• One of the Kids: In-game, the Pocket Racing Circuit is clearly aimed at kids, but quite a few adults are also into it, which bring out their inner child and are given the honorifics of -kun and -chan as opposed to -san. Pocket Circuit Fighter clearly has a passion for it, is a Friend to All Children and many kids look up to him. But quite a few people think he's too old to be doing this and he's rather self-conscious about it, especially when it comes to the poor guy's financial woes and non-existent dating life.
• One Last Smoke: Shortly before the former is assassinated, Sagawa and Majima share one last cigarette together where the two affirm their respect for one another, regardless of circumstances. Sagawa is killed by Omi hitmen less than a minute after the end of their last smoke.
• Optional Boss: The game is filled to the brink with them.
  • Mr. Shakedowns - gigantic brutes walking around the streets, itching for a fight with you. Fighting them is optional, since they will only ever pursue you at a leisurely stroll. This is a good thing, because they have a lot of health, deal ridiculous amounts of damage, cannot be staggered or knocked down, are immune to most HEAT actions, and take all your money upon defeat. On the other hand, they give ridiculous amounts of money if you defeat them.
  • The Five Billionaires in Real Estate Royale and the Five Stars in the Cabaret Club Czar storylines, although only three are fought in the latter. Both storylines reveal a Greater-Scope Villain that must be beaten, and defeating them each unlocks the Legendary fighting styles for their respective characters.
  • Some of the substories and training missions end with particularly difficult opponents to qualify, such as Guru Munan Suzuki and Hiroya the Debt King.
  • As a series staple, members of the Amon Clan become available as bosses when you complete all substories. However, since Jo Amon doesn't fight Kiryu until Yakuza, Majima does - Kiryu fights his father So Amon instead.
  • David Diabol, the strongest fighter in the Bed of Styx.
• Origins Episode: The game is more or less about how Kiryu and Majima end up earning their titles of "Dragon" and "Mad Dog". It's also the story behind the construction of the Millennium Tower.
• Our Founder: Majima and Kiryu can both purchase golden statues of themselves to decorate their respective offices for a cool ten billion yen. Unfortunately for them, their employees are less than enthused.
• Parrying Bullets: An ability in Majima's Slugger style lets him deflect bullets with his bat.
• Period Piece: Due to being a prequel, it differentiates itself from other titles that were at least set in the same years they were released. Yakuza 0 is a period piece set at the height of Japan's economic boom, circa 1988. Glitz, glamour, opulence and shallow materialism are absolutely everywhere; people in Kamurocho and Sotenbori are so loaded that beating up goons literally showers you in money.
• Pietà Plagiarism: Kiryu carries the recently deceased Tachibana's body in this manner.
• Piñata Enemy: All the enemies literally bleed money when they get hit with a particularly strong attack, meaning that you'll be earning money like crazy. Of course, considering that money also doubles as XP in this game, you'll also be spending a lot of it on upgrades. The Mr. Shakedown enemies in particular have massive payouts for every hit landed, but are bigger and tougher than anything else and will take all your cash if they beat you. Also, the Nouveau Riche enemy, who wears a garish golden suit, is barely a challenge and gives you a ton of money when fought.
• Plot-Triggering Death: A businessman who Kiryu just got done roughing up is murdered. Given that his body was found in the Empty Lot, it brings the myriad of gambits surrounding it to a screeching halt, setting the rest of the plot in motion.
• Poison Mushroom: Jo Amon can steal your items and replace your Staminan Sparks with lookalikes called Staminan Sporks. They have the same description and appearance, but consuming them does massive damage to you and lowers your heat significantly.
• Poor Communication Kills: In one sidequest Kiryu is asked by a foreign woman for information on how to obtain a visa, but because of her pronunciation issues he assumes she somehow needs a pizza to work happily.
  Kiryu: (Samantha's in trouble, and it's all because of my pizza.)
• Porn Stash: Discussed at the end of the substory where Kiryu buys a dirty magazine for a kid. After he gets the magazine, he tells the boy how important it is to keep the magazine a secret and most importantly that his bed is not a safe place to hide it, with a particularly pained expression upon his face.
• Potty Emergency: In one of Majima's substories, he comes across a street performer who pretends to be a statue. At some point, he needs Majima to distract his audience so he can run to the nearest bathroom unseen.
• Power-Up Letdown:
  • The Bottomless Stomach CP upgrade lets you eat food even when your health is full. This is useful for ordering all the food restaurant completion requirements, but it's pretty far down the Adventure CP list, so you have to spend a significant amount of CP to get it in the first place. Even then, Appstim RX returns to let you eat more food and are quite cheap, so the CP upgrade's usefulness is extremely limited.
  • The Legend styles are pretty strong and harken to the styles Kiryu and Majima eventually adopt as their own. However, you can only change to it via a toggle in the pause menu (unless you use a mod for the PC version), so switching in and out of it during battle is not as smooth as it could be. Additionally, the ability trees consist of only health, heat, and attack upgrades, and while they are useful, it's unfortunate there aren't any other cooler abilities to unlock from them.
• Prank Date: One of Kiryu's telephone club substories has him agreeing to meet with a hot-sounding girl, but he ends up getting Stood Up by her. It turns out many guys have fallen victim to her as well, a "sakura" who calls just to get people into the club. Kiryu can get stood up numerous times if the girl ends up going by the name Asakura, Sakurako, or Sakurai.
• Precocious Crush: One of the Pocket Racing children is a small girl named Mika, who challenges Kiryu to a race and offers to be his girlfriend if he can beat her. Despite knowing how completely sick and wrong it is, he still accepts due to his refusal to back out of any challenge. If he beats her, she becomes his self-declared girlfriend, and Hilarity Ensues from there.
• Previously on…: Since players switch between Kiryu and Majima every couple of chapters, there is an option to view a quick recap of events in their stories before switching.
• Product Placement: A few to go around, some being an Anachronism Stew while others are period appropriate.
  • You can buy Mountain Dew and 7-Up from convenience stores, and look at covers for magazines such as Famicom Tsushin (better known today as Famitsu).
  • One Sub Story flipflops between being an extended advertisement for the real world Japanese Pizza-la pizza chain, and a comedy of errors brought about but a woman's inability to pronounce "P"'s and "B's" properly.
• Purple Is Powerful:
  • Dojima Family Lieutenant Hiroki Awano radiates this trope, with his flamboyant violet suit.
  • Yuki Sato, one of Kamurocho's Mr. Shakedowns, wears a very loud purple suit, and is one of the hardest hitters in the game.
  • The Battle Auras for Kiryu and Majima's Rush and Breaker styles respectively are both bright neon pink-ish purple, but Majima also has a very dark purple for his Legend style.
• Quirky Miniboss Squad:
  • Kiryu's real estate business storyline involves him dealing with the "Five Billionaires", a group of Shady Real Estate Agents looking to take over Kamurocho.
  • Majima's cabaret club has to contend with the managers of the "Five Stars", the top five cabaret clubs of Sotenbori, though he only has to physically fight three of them.
• Real After All: The clerk at Sotenbori's adult video store tells Majima about a "mysterious video-tape" that's held by a ghostly woman in white. Sure enough, he finds a strange woman lurking in the back alleys who's clearly freezing; after he gives her some hot noodles to warm her up, the woman gives him a video tape, which he takes back to the store to watch. However, the two find that the tape contains nothing but static and strange moaning. Disappointed, the two of them leave.. at which point the TV turns back on, showing the woman in white inside of the room, smiling at the camera and saying she's not cold anymore.
• Red Herring: The Wham Shot of the bat tattoo on Tachibana's arm. It's eventually revealed that while he does know Makoto, he's not the man with the bat tattoo that sold her into slavery, and the truth is far more complicated.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: This dynamic between Kiryu and Majima is reversed in 0; Kiryu is the hot-tempered red oni to Majima's calm and level-headed blue oni.
• Refuge in Audacity: Sotenbori's Mr. Libido runs around in only his underpants, but Majima is the only person who reacts to his undress in any manner.
• Relationship Values: Shopkeepers and characters involved in certain minigames and substories have a "Friendship" gauge that goes up the more you interact with them. Getting them maxed out will open up their inventory, unlock certain items/abilities and even allow their businesses to be bought/partnered for Kiryu and Majima's businesses.
• Retcon: A minor example with the Amon family being encountered in this game. It's stated in Yakuza 3 that Jo Amon only ever struggled against two opponents: Kiryu and Sotaro Komaki, but Zero reveals another: Goro Majima. Averted with Kiryu, who mentions in Yakuza 4 that he faced off against the Amon clan three times before then. While he faces off against the previous head of the clan, So Amon, he doesn't learn exactly who he is or which clan he is from. That is, until he connects the dots in Kiwami.
• Retraux: The songs featured in the karaoke and disco mini-games sound like they were taken straight from the 80's, and some are a clear homage to popular songs of the period.
• The Reveal: Makoto Makimura, the blind girl who works at Hogushi Kaikan, is the legal owner of the all-important Empty Lot - and the long-lost sister of Tetsu Tachibana.
• Rewatch Bonus: During the confrontation in the Loan Shark's office, Kuze offers to tell Kiryu who really killed the businessman. This naturally implies Kuze was the one who framed him. His response of "Maybe, maybe not" doesn't seem terribly convincing until a second playthrough, where the player already knows that Shibusawa was the one who set Kiryu up, not Kuze.
• Rhythm Game:
  • Karaoke returns as a minigame. Since dedicated karaoke clubs didn't take off until the 1990s, though, you'll be doing your singing at bars instead.
  • The game also introduces Disco Dancing, which is played on a grid and requires players be positioned properly while pressing buttons to the music.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Majima goes on an epic one toward the end of the game. After Makoto is shot, knowing the Dojima family won't stop pursuing her until she's dead, Majima throws all his inhibitions out the window and takes it upon himself to destroy the Dojima family and kill its patriarch.
• Sailor Fuku: One of the hostess costumes at the Sunshine is this, which increases the Funny rate. Sachiko also wears one, as well as most of the random schoolgirls around town.
• Samus Is a Girl: To get back into the Tojo Clan, Majima's tasked with killing Makoto Makimura, a ruthless thug who preys on innocent girls. Makoto turns out to be the cute blind girl he met earlier, not the big guy she's working for - who himself is a friend and protector to Sotenbori's women.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Played for Laughs in one of Majima's substories, in which he volunteers as a test subject for experimental drugs with disastrous results. The researcher convinces himself that Majima would be willing to partake in it again, seeing him as a passionate champion for the advancement of medicine. Majima swears off drug testing for life and runs straight for the door. For extra laughs, the researcher runs after him.
• Scooby Stack: Played beautifully straight during the Paternal Instincts substory. After Yuki seems to have gotten a boyfriend, Yoda and Majima follow her around town, peering at her from around corners in ways that would make Shaggy and Scooby proud. Yuki somehow never notices.
• Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You: The Chinese version of the game adds Lao Gui to the cover art (who's depicted by Sam Lee), pointing a gun at the audience.
• Secret Shop: The Dragon and Tiger's weapon trade. First you have to learn about it, then you have to beat Fei Hu in a fight. Keep in mind the Dragon and Tiger itself isn't secret, just the part of the business that isn't a Chinese restaurant.
• Serious Business:
  • Pocket Circuit Racing is very important to some people. Not just kids, but some adults like Pocket Circuit Fighter are into it. There are even some elites that are feared and respected.
  • At one point, Kiryu handing a man his business card is a Quick Time Event.
  • Both Kiryu and Majima are really into arcade games.
• Sexophone: A song frequently heard in substories utilize this, and plays during sexy situations with beautiful women. One major exception is when one of Kiryu's Pocket Racing opponents, a little girl, offers to be his girlfriend if he can beat her in a race. Naturally, this is Played for Laughs.
• Sexy Discretion Shot: After watching a video at Gandhara, the camera cuts to a box of tissues while Kiryu or Majima lets out a satisfied sigh.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story:
  • The "Calling The Future" substory, where a man with a high-tech portable bag-phone (the predecessor to the modern cell phone) tries to get Majima on-board with future tech by making a call with it. Unfortunately the two keep running into roadblocks (the phone running out of power, the man's shoulder hurting from hauling it around for so long, and the phone breaking after some thugs knock him over) and by the time Majima is finally able to make a call, he forgot who he was going to call in the first place. However, the bag-phone man sticks around after the substory is over to act as an extra save point.
  • Another of Majima's substories, Toilet Talk, where Majima exchanges messages on a bathroom stall with a lonely woman who's looking for companionship. Upon going to meet her, he's confronted by several goons who gloatingly laugh about having tricked him into coming to meet a woman who doesn't exist. After Majima beats the stupid out of them, he angrily leaves, convinced that he's been had. Turns out it was a coincidence; the thugs were writing in a different stall, and the woman does exist. The story ends with her sadly realizing that the man from the Cabaret Club won't show up after all.
• Shoot the Bullet: Late in the car chase sequence, Kiryu's attackers pull out a homing missile launcher, and the oncoming missiles need to be shot before they hit the car.
• Shout-Out:
  • After defeating a particular opponent named "Jo", Majima calls the experience a "bizarre adventure".
  • The sprinting upgrades available from shrines are titled "Gotta Go Fast".
  • One of Kiryu's sidequests features a Michael Jackson Expy, Miracle Johnson, working on a music video featuring zombies, not unlike Thriller. Some of his dialogue even references some of Jackson's songs, like "Who's bad?". The music video is directed by a Steven Spielberg Expy, Stephen Spining (director of such greats as A.T. and Indian Jeans). The English localization added more Michael Jackson song references than the original Japanese script did.
  • Miracle Johnson's hit song "I'm Gonna Make Her Mine" sounds quite similar to Michael Jackson's "Bad", and is similar in title to "The Girl Is Mine" featuring Paul McCartney. In addition, "I Wanna Take Her Home" is a dead-ringer for David Bowie's "Let's Dance", and "Queen of Passion" is extremely similar to Bananarama's "Venus". "Heartbreak Mermaid" is also extremely similar to Wink's "Sabishii Nettaigyo".
  • One of Kiryu's substories revolves around a hot new RPG called Arakure Quest 3, which is so popular that people are getting mugged over it! Said substory also has one of its enemies exclaim "Welcome to your doom!" before he fights Kiryu, and another one named "Gangster Goomba" that talks about getting stomped upon his defeat.
  • Near the end of Kiryu's real estate quest line, the Greater-Scope Villain barks "Screw the rules, I have money!"
  • At least in the localization, the names for some of the substories are based on popular movies, while many of the trophies are named after various popular songs from The '80s.
  • The Tax Lady, one of the substories, is a wholesale shout out to the Japanese film Marusa no Onna (aka A Taxing Woman). Both involve a woman from Japan's National Tax Agency aka Marusa going after a tax cheat with Marui even looking very similar to the main character from the film.
  • The yanki band that asks Kiryu to help them act tough in the Damned Yanki substory is a wholesale parody of the contemporary Japanese rock band Yokohama Ginbae (Yokohama Silverflies).
  • There are quite a few references to retro video games in the Electronics King segment of the Real Estate Royale quest line.
  • Majima's roller-skating Boy Band karaoke visual is based on Hikaru GENJI. To confirm this, the full spec edition of "24-Hour Cinderella" has him dub his group "Majima Jingi".
  • During Majima's business sidequest, a spy comes in to steal info about Club Sunshine, with Majima angrily noting the spy "played [them] like a damn shamisen"; a reference to the infamous fiddle line from Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.
  • When Kiryu is helping a dominatrix learn how to be more abusive, she can end up referring to her client as a "pig in human clothing".
  • The song "Destiny of the Cats", the selection theme for the Catfight Club is suspiciously similar to the Training Montage song from Rocky IV
  • During Mana's training she declares "Objection!" when Majima complains about the weird questions she asks him; Majima retorts, "Objection overruled. Take that."
  • The Club Hostesses are each dressed in colors respective for their original clubs. Notice the color of each girl's outfit then look at the club they originally came from and you'll notice very certain parallels to a team of planetary warriors. The owners of each club also have similar last names to the alter egos of the Sailor Scouts (in the original Japanese), except for Kanehara.
  • A man had to change his face due to some Yakuza-related problem and took to going to a park to watch his wife and son play, until his past caught up with him and he and Majima had to fight off the Yakuza. After defeating them, he warned them that if they try to harm "innocents" again, "I will hunt you, I will find you... and I will end you."
  • The Mexican Standoff between Majima and Lee Wen Hai is very similar to a scene in The Killer (1989), where a hitman and a cop both face off while pretending to have a friendly chat in the presence of a blind woman.
  • One of the two Mr. Shakedowns in Sotenbori is pretty much a dead ringer for Duke Nukem.
  • Once Kiryu completes all the Pocket Circuit Race substories and proves that he is the fastest pocket racer in Kamurocho, all the characters he has encountered during that subplot show up for a Curtain Call at the end and applauds him while telling him "Congratulations!" Kiryu smiles at this and says "Thank you, everyone!" The scene is, of curse, one big shout-out to the (in)famous final scene of Neon Genesis Evangelion.
  • The headband Nishiki wears during the Imagine Spot of "Judgement Shinpan" is very similar to the one worn by Caesar Zeppeli of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure fame.
  • The Mystery Caller substory involves Majima being ordered around by a shady man named Simon who contacts him through a payphone booth he supposedly rigged a bomb inside to do various tasks for him as a cover up for violent aims..
  • The Woo toys seen in the UFO Catcher seem to be a Shout-Out to the Moomins, with a Mama who wears an apron which even has the same stripes as Moominmama, a Papa with a top hat, and a son who wears nothing at all.
• Shower of Angst: Kiryu, after discovering that his gambit to get expelled from the family won't exempt Kazama from accountability in the Empty Lot incident.
• Sickening "Crunch!": When Kuze is forced to commit Yubitsume, the sound of his cutting off his left pinky is accompanied by a sickening crunch.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: In the epilogue, Kiryu and Majima changed to their signature outfits to represent their change.
• Skill Scores and Perks: The game uses a skill tree system for improving each of the character's fighting styles. Instead of earning Experience Points to unlock new skills, players must buy them with money earned in-game.
• Skyward Scream: At the end of Ch. 6, Nishiki tries (and fails) to Mercy Kill Kiryu in the woods. The latter then takes Nishiki's car and drives back to Kamurocho, leaving him alone. Cue the scream...
• Slippery Skid: One of Miss Tatsu's targets throws perfume at Kiryu, which will have him slipping and falling on the floor whenever he steps on it. There's also a "Slime Gun" that shoots a liquid that causes enemies to slip.
• The Slow Walk: When using his "Beast" style, Kiryu's movement speed is reduced to a slow, menacing stroll.
• Smash to Black: A few:
  • At the end of Chapter 8, the screen cuts to black as Majima is pistol-whipped by Sera.
  • At the end of the game, the screen cuts to black after Majima says his goodbyes to Sagawa, who is accosted by Omi Alliance hitmen once Majima has departed.
  • During The Stinger, the screen smashes to black after Kiryu and Majima finally meet, then the End card appears.
• Something We Forgot: Kanehara kidnaps Yuki right before the Cabaret Club battle for the Venus area, and it's up to Majima and his girls to win in order to save her. Unfortunately for Yuki, they're all so excited to have Chika join their team that they completely forget about her, although Ai suspects they're forgetting something. As they step inside, poor Yuki is left tied up two floors above them, but she manages to return to work safely on her own.
• Spoiled Brat: One of Kiryu's substories prominently features a young Daigo Dojima. As a child, he had a nasty temperament and a knack for using his father's name and influence to get his way, as well as being very frivolous with his father's money.
• Squeamish About Slaughter: When Kiryu wins a contest at the local bowling alley, the advertised prize was a turkey dinner, but the bowling alley orders a live chicken by mistake. The bowling alley attendant, who grew up on a poultry farm, offers to slaughter and cook the chicken as an apology. Instead, Kiryu adopts the chicken, names it "Nugget", and makes it a manager at his real estate office.
• Stance System: Kiryu and Majima have three styles each. They also have a "Legend" style based on their fighting styles in later games of the series. Those are unlocked by completing their respective business minigames.
  • Kiryu's fighting styles include "Brawler", a balanced fighting style with Counter Attacks; "Beast", a power-based style that allows Kiryu to tank damage and seamlessly pick up and use environmental objects as weapons; and "Rush", a fast-paced boxing style that lets Kiryu duck and weave past attacks and counter with a flurry of punches. His Legend Style, "Dragon of Dojima" is his classic fighting style though without certain moves due to him having yet to meet Komaki.
  • Majima's styles are "Thug", a balanced style with a variety of grab attacks and pragmatic flair; "Slugger", a power-based style where Majima uses a baseball bat with deadly creativity; and "Breaker", a break-dancing style that lets Majima attack opponents with spinning kicks while striking poses to build up heat. His Legend Style, "Mad Dog of Shimano" is based on his moves as a boss character, now in playable form.
• Stealth-Based Mission:
  • The Escort Battles with Majima and Makoto double as this, as they emphasize the two get through Sotenbori without being seen by enemies. The two can hide among small crowds of people, and a battle will initiate if they're caught.
  • In one of Kiryu's substories, he has to sneak his way to a vending machine selling adult magazines without being seen by women, including his Real Estate secretary. If he's caught, he'll chicken out and head back to the same starting point.
• Stealth Insult: Kiryu's entire attitude toward Kuze changes after the lieutenant asks him to spy on Kazama, with him dropping the honorifics when talking to him, refusing to cut off his finger when Kuze directly orders him to and refusing to discuss the matter of breaking his oath to the Yazuka and leaving the organization with anyone but Dojima himself as though Kuze weren't worthy to hear his resignation—even after Kuze threatens him with death. That's pretty dang disrespectful, without even one open insult.
• Stealth Pun: One of Hibiki's training conversations can potentially veer out into a tangent about the Sega Mega Drive, with Majima casually mentioning that he bets "it'll be the genesis of somethin' great."
• The Stinger: Makoto finds her brother's watch in the Empty Lot. Elsewhere, Kiryu and Majima finally meet.
  ...Yo...KIRYU-CHAN!
• Super Window Jump: In Chapter 1 during Kiryu's raid on the Dojima Manor, he jumps from a landing into a men's room.
• Take Your Time: Sagawa tells Majima that he has two days to find and kill Makoto before winding up on the hitlist himself. The game doesn't enforce this. You're free to spend as much time running Club Sunshine, wandering around town, completing substories, and training as you want; only completing storyline missions actually advances time.
• Taking the Bullet: Nishitani does this for Majima against the corrupt cop, and Awano takes several from Lao Gui for Majima, too.
• Taking You with Me: After telling Majima to protect Makoto and live life on his own terms, Nishitani dies trying to kill the very guard who shot him and Billiken.
• Tears of Fear: When Majima's cover on an assassination venture is blown by a blind girl, she gets so frightened she ends up crying and apologizing when she buys the former's bluff.
• Teens Are Monsters: One of the enemies in Kamurucho are delinquents, and they have no qualms bullying and mugging adults just for kicks. The Bum Hunters are a good example; being group of teenaged delinquents whose idea of fun is to beat up homeless people in their encampment for their amusement, with one of them even gleefully tell Kiryu that they don't mind killing him since being underaged means that they are legally protected under the law. Kiryu decides to teach them punks a lesson.
• Tender Tears: Makoto Makimura cries in quiet sorrow when she realizes that her big brother, Tachibana, is dead.
• Thanatos Gambit: When Tetsu Tachibana is captured by the Dojima Family and proves to be unbreakable in the face of excruciating torture, Kuze decides to give Tachibana a break since he's experienced enough to know what kind of people who won't crack, and that he needs to still keep the victim alive. His underling, Yoneda, mocks Kuze as a weakling, and is proven to be an easily-angered idiot when Tachibana is able to easily goad Yoneda into killing him, thus denying the Dojima clan any info they planned on getting out of Tachibana.
• Theme Naming:
  • All of the Cabaret Clubs in Sotenbori are named after celestial bodies. The Five Stars whom Majima squares off with have space-themed names for their cabaret clubs: Mars, Jupiter, Mercury, Venus, and Moon. Opposing all of them is Majima's Club Sunshine. Even the music that plays for lesser battles during the Cabaret Club Czar storyline is named "Interplanetary Spark".
  • The three names of a telephone club girl, a "sakura" for leaving guys stood up: Asakura, Sakurako, and Sakurai.
• Theme Song Power Up: The battle music for Kiryu and Majima's Legend styles are remixes of "Receive You", with the original version playing in the final scene when the two finally meet.
• Tiger Versus Dragon: Subtly invoked in the English localization of the game: Kiryu continues to be associated with dragons, while Sagawa nicknames Majima "tiger".
• Timed Mission:
  • When the Dojima clan goes after Kiryu, he's given a short amount of time to take out everyone in each group before their backup arrives.
  • One of Kiryu's substories tasks him with delivering a pizza to someone before it becomes cold.
  • Many of the mentor training missions revolve around these. During Kamoji's missions, Kiryu can't be knocked down during the time limit. Miss Tatsu's training requires him to destroy mannequins and obtain a certain amount of cash before time runs out. Majima's breaker battles give him a limited amount of time to get as much cash from the crowd as he can.
• Title Drop: During the dialogue of the Fortune Teller substory, said Fortune Teller drops the phrase "like a dragon."
  • So Amon drops the phrase as well when describing the legend he predicts Kiryu will become in the future.
  • The opening theme in the Japanese version, "Bubble", includes the lyric "ryuu ga gotoku yozora wo mai", or "dancing through the night sky like a dragon".
• Token Non-Human: Kiryu can hire a chicken named "Nugget" as a manager for his real estate firm.
• Totally Radical: Since the game takes place in the 80's, the English localization took a few liberties with the dialogue, peppering it with slang and pop-culture references. "That's rad" indeed.
• Tranquil Fury: Majima is first introduced subduing a perverted drunk groping one of the cabaret girls at the Grand, who responds by pouring a bottle of champagne on his face. He plays it off as if it were a good deed, but on subsequent playthroughs you know he's holding back the urge to break the guy's neck.
• Turns Red: When Mr. Shakedown enemies have their health reduced to a certain point, they become enveloped in a yellow aura, become stronger, and fight more aggressively. Random enemies can also go into this state when their buddies are beaten, but taunting them can instantly provoke them into doing it as well. Boss characters also gain glowing auras after their health is reduced to a certain threshold that powers them up.
• Uncertain Doom: Most of the Five Stars; every time Majima defeats one, it's heavily implied that Kotomi has arranged for them to be assassinated for outliving their usefulness. Downplayed by Kizuka of Club Jupiter, who totally understands the situation he's in and explicitly says he's going to get out of town immediately once Majima beats him. Even so, Kotomi and Tsukiyama are standing just down the alley, leaving it ambiguous whether that'll be enough..
• Undercover Cop Reveal: Marina, Yamanoi's real estate secretary, is actually a detective investigating who was behind the Five Billionaires as well as the money games plaguing Kamurocho.
• Unexpected Shmup Level: The car chase in Chapter 13, which turns the game into a Rail Shooter similar to the car chase in the first game but with massively improved mechanics. Kiryu can now utilize Bullet Time by using Heat, and the Panzer Dragoon camera rotation controls have been removed. The enemy sights from Virtua Cop are still present.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Mr. Shakedown. They all share the same limited moveset, either swinging their arms around or lunging at you, but will cause incredible damage to you if they connect.
• Variable Mix: During regular street fights, the music segues between different themes depending on which stance you're taking.
• Virgin-Shaming: Pocket Circuit Fighter is accused of being a virgin and gets mocked for it by some kids, even though they don't know what it means and only heard it from their parents. Kiryu goes out of his way to defend him, and while PCF admits he is one, Kiryu doesn't think any less of him for it.
• Virtual Paper Doll: For the cabaret club mini-game, you can dress up platinum hostesses in different outfits and accessorize them as you wish. There are also various unlockable costumes for Kiryu and Majima.
• Villainous Crossdresser: The Pleasure King, one of Kamurocho's Five Billionaires, is a drag queen who cares not one bit for his subordinates.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Kiryu and Nishiki have this dynamic.
• Wacky Marriage Proposal: One substory in features a man trying to propose to his girlfriend through the medium of getting her to solve a crossword, which when complete will reveal his proposal. The principle issue being, she's no good at crosswords. She eventually solves it with the help of the player (Majima), after which she gets upset and demands that her boyfriend say it to her face, rather than through a puzzle.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: The first time he's fought, Kuze warns Kiryu that the Yakuza toughs he just bulldozed through were just a warm-up. He isn't kidding; unless you know how to use both Dodge and Guard well, Kuze will wreck you. He also tests the player's mastery of swapping stances based on the situation; at the start of the fight, Kiryu can use Brawler to trade blows with him more-or-less on even ground, but once Kuze Turns Red and starts throwing guard-breaking attacks into his comboes, Rush becomes a superior option.
• Wham Line:
  • In Chapter 4, Majima is assigned to kill Makoto Makimura, a criminal under the orders of his boss. After a fight, when Majima is about to kill him, some Yakuza enter the place.
  Yakuza: We catch you at a bad time? You’re the owner here, Wen Hai Lee, yeah? Where’s Makoto Makimura?

  • And immediately after:

  Wen Hai Lee: (to the blind woman that Majima had met earlier) Makoto...
  Majima: What the hell?!
  Yakuza: Oh, perfect timing! Welcome back, Makoto Makimura-chan.
  • In the end of Chapter 7, Majima, disgusted with Lee trying to kill an unrelated woman to save Makoto, dodges the hell out of the place, and after getting a call from Lee, he is surprised to see him in a jubilant mood.
  Lee: Lookit you, playin’ the hero all by yerself. Still, now this whole thing’s behind us. You done good, Majima!
  Majima: What’re you on about?
  Lee: What am I... You did her, didn’t you? The girl from the photos.
  (Majima looks horrified as he sees the news.)
  News Reporter: Early this morning, the body of a young woman was found in the Sotenbori River. From her clothing, the deceased is believed to be Makoto Makimura, age 20. Her disfigured body has led Osaka police to believe Makimura-san met with foul play.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The end of the game features a brief recap of what happened to the surviving characters, focusing on their exploits up through Sohei Dojima's death in 1995 and the resultant turmoil in the Tojo Clan.
• Wrestler in All of Us:
  • Kiryu's "Beast" style features grappling Heat attacks that use wrestling moves like power bombs, piledrivers and a Human Hammer-Throw. His "Dragon of Dojima" style has Shinada's DDT and he can suplex enemies onto railings if he drags enemies near one. One of his HEAT moves with a partner allows Kiryu to perform a Shining Wizard on his opponent.
  • One of Majima's "Dancer" Heat moves is a spinning Hurricanrana that damages three enemies at once. Endgame Elite Mooks can also perform Hurricanranas as grapples.
• You Have Failed Me: Tsukiyama of the Five Stars does not tolerate failure from his underlings. Every time Majima conquers one of the other clubs in a Cabaret Club Battle, he orders Kotomi, his sinister secretary, to arrange their assassination. It's ambiguous whether any of these assassination attempts were successful, but none of the other Five Stars are heard from again.
• You Shouldn't Know This Already:
  • Averted. During the drug test substory one of the drugs makes you uncontrollably switch between Majima's three base styles. This will happen even if you complete the substory before learning all three of them.
  • If you attempt to enter Little Asia before Chapter 10, Kiryu says to himself that he shouldn't be poking around there and turns back. Otherwise it would defeat the point of Oda introducing him to the back-alley district proper, and the fact that the place is a refuge for Chinese immigrants.

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