YMMV / Yakuza 3

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Yakuza series
Yakuza | Yakuza 2 | Yakuza 3 | Yakuza 4 | Yakuza 5 | Yakuza 0 | Yakuza 6
Like a Dragon series
Yakuza: Like a Dragon | Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name | Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
Judgment series
Judgment | Lost Judgment
Other Spin-Offs
Ryū ga Gotoku Kenzan! | Yakuza: Dead Souls | Like a Dragon: Ishin! | Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise

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• Adorkable: Rikiya to an extent. His initial antagonism towards Kiryu is almost pathetic and quickly gives way to his Hot-Blooded yet earnest enthusiasm and idealistic naivete especially if Kiryu hangs out with him more in Kamurocho. Makes it all the more heart-wrenching that he ends up sacrificing himself to save Kiryu's life.
• Alas, Poor Scrappy: Regardless of how you felt towards the long-winded orphanage subplot, you can't help but feel bad when the orphanage gets torn down, leaving the kids without a home.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Yoshitaka Mine's sexuality is a source of debate amongst players, especially in regards to his feelings towards Daigo. In his confrontation with Kiryu atop Touto Hospital, he admits that Daigo is the first person that he genuinely liked even going so far as to say that he loved him. Whether those feelings are strictly platonic or romantic is left ambiguous. There is also the fact that given Mine's childhood, the lack of any loved ones in his life meant that he would be to quickly latch on to the first person who treated him with genuine affection. The Japanese guidebook describes his affection for Daigo with the term "心酔", which can be translated as both "adoration" and as "lovesickness/infatuation".
• Angst? What Angst?: An unusual case with Kashiwagi's death. Despite seeing the death of his Big Brother Mentor, Kiryu's reaction was rather lacking, especially in comparison to his reaction to Rikiya's death. However, if you play through the subquest where you lead Rikiya around town, Kiryu has a subtle emotional breakdown and goes to Public Park 3 with Rikiya so they can properly mourn him now that Kiryu doesn't need to worry about making an escape. It's entirely possible to miss this content, though.
• Best Boss Ever: Take your pick.
  • Joji Kazama. Three words: Lyricism Without Tears. Besides that, not only is the fight against Joji fittingly difficult, but it's also the closest Kiryu will ever get to fighting his late father figure. Especially considering how renowned Kazama was in Yakuza 0 and in the first game.
  • The CIA Agent, Andre Richardson, specifically the final fight against him as ridiculously over-the-top as it is. While the first two encounters have him prove to be a skilled and acrobatic hand-to-hand fighter, the last fight has him enter the scene with a gun in each hand. Now the agent's busting out all sorts of Gun Fu and Gun Kata, heavily employing kicks and acrobatics between countless gunshots while also periodically swapping to a shotgun and proving to be no less skilled with it. What would ordinarily be an aggravating boss fight in any other Yakuza game turns out to be surprisingly thrilling, engaging, and overly stylish in this instance since his guns aren't too damaging to a decently leveled Kiryu and it's surprisingly easy to dodge his gunshots. All while his catchy yet menacing battle theme, FM-Sounds Storm is playing.
  • As if Mine wasn't already cool enough in his own right, he has the honor of having the first ever Dynamic Intro of the series, which became a staple starting from Yakuza 4 onwards. And considering how Mine more than gives Kiryu a run for his money, it's no wonder Mine is considered by some to be one of the best Final Bosses in the series. his MMA-centered moveset is also based on a certain karate style used by a specific devil...
• Broken Base:
  • Many fans expressed their outrage when it was announced that the US/EU versions of Yakuza 3 would have cut content compared to the original Japanese release, enough that later games would keep these features intact. However, there are some who appreciated the changes, believing that players shouldn't have to be completely versed in Japanese culture to fully enjoy the game, and didn't mind it being toned down. And there were others who were okay with the changes as it didn't interfere with the overall experience or the story.
  • The infamous orphanage subplot is the lynchpin of most debates about the quality of this game. A lot of fans despise it for how long it drags on despite minimal relevance to the plot of the overarching series, but it also has quite a few defenders who enjoyed the slower Slice of Life elements as a nice change of pace that eases players into the world and provides a lot of good character moments and strong emotional payoff toward the end of the game and later entries in the series.
• Contested Sequel: Among the most heated in the series. While the game received good to average reviews, it was widely deemed inferior to its predecessor Yakuza 2. Many fans who had played the previous two games weren't fond of the game's sudden emphasis on the new direction focusing on the orphanage or the children, felt the plot wasn't on par with the previous games^note It was also the first game in the main series without the involvement of crime novelist Hase Seishū, and found the Final Boss of this game wasn't nearly as memorable as Ryuji Goda. On the other hand, there's a good portion of fans who consider it one of the better games of the series due to its sole emphasis on Kiryu (which would be lost in the sequels), loved the moments involving the orphanage, felt the game had its own memorable characters and story, and found the game's Final Boss not only to be a memorable and complex villain in his own right, but found the fight against him to be one of the best in the series. There's also the localization issue mentioned above.
• Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game: When it comes to Yakuza 3, particularly people moving onto 3 after 0 and both Kiwami remakes, the story has aged much more gracefully than the gameplay. It isn't that the game has poor combat or minigames on their own, it is just that, in the context of later releases, the story, while a slow burn, has more entertaining twists and turns than the combat has interesting fights.
• Evil Is Cool: Yoshitaka Mine. Like Ryuji Goda before him, he's well-received by fans for his stoic yet intimidating demeanour, a surprisingly complex personality, and being able to go toe-to-toe with Kiryu in what is seen to be the best boss fight by the game's release.
• Fan Nickname:
  • "Wesker" for the mysterious agent/Andre Richardson, as this game and Resident Evil 5 were released around the same time.
  • Yakuza 3 itself is called "Blockuza 3" due to the frequent occurences of enemies often blocking your attacks.
• Goddamned Boss:
  • Rikiya isn't meant to be that tough since he's only the second boss, but it's hard to get any damage on him because he blocks all of your attacks most of the time. That, and the paltry damage both he and Kiryu will do to each other makes the fight longer than it should be.
  • Kanda. While not particularly difficult, there will be a point when he will always go for a random piece of furniture in the room and use it as a weapon, which makes Kiryu fall on the floor with one hit. And the room is full of furniture for him to use.
• Good Bad Bugs: The PS4 release introduces a few of these chiefly because it's running at 60 FPS. In particular, movement speed while assuming a fighting stance, and the distance covered by a quickstep, are both doubled compared to the original PS3 release. This is still prevalent in the PC version, but the Xbox One port got corrected, if a bit overly so, for this bug.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Yoshitaka Mine turns out to have been a Spanner in the Works after Yakuza 4 and 5. It's likely his survival would've prevented a lot of the problems that kick off the main plots of those two games, since his immense wealth would've prevented the Tojo from becoming bankrupt and giving Katsuragi leverage, and his unshakable loyalty to Daigo Dojima and own talent for scheming would've undercut Kurosawa's plan to destroy the Tojo from within. This ultimately meant that his Redemption Equals Death moment ended up causing more problems for the Tojo Clan rather than resolving them.
  • Mine at one time calls out Kiryu for forsaking his responsibilities when the Tojo Clan was undergoing a crisis, and wonders why Daigo would still continue to look up to Kiryu. In Yakuza 6, Kiryu realised too late that he had been so consumed with desire to leave his life as a yakuza behind, that he had neglected to properly mentor Daigo and as a result, the Tojo Clan kept on facing difficult situations. He writes in his final will to Daigo that he could not call himself Daigo's father figure, ultimately proving Mine correct. And then Masataka Ebina walked in...
• Heartwarming in Hindsight:
  • Just before he sacrifices himself to take out Andre Richardson, Mine tells Kiryu and Daigo that he hopes that in the next life, he will have what it takes to earn their respect. This becomes more poignant come Like a Dragon: Ishin!, where the character Hihikata Toshizo (whose voice and likeness are based on Mine) becomes a stalwart ally of the protagonist Ryoma Sakamoto (whose voice and likeness are based on Kiryu). In a way, Mine is right.
  • While he survived despite Mine trying to kill them both, Andre Richardson's survival in Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth has him no longer a terrorist but rather a bartender in Honolulu.
• Ho Yay:
  • At one point Kiryu and Rikiya have to pretend to be a couple and engage in some Faux Yay to get into a love hotel to find Kanda. Rikiya gets a little too into it and keeps the act up past the point where it's necessary, much to Kiryu's chagrin.
  • During the Big Bad's Motive Rant he states that Daigo Dojima is the first person that he genuinely liked, and later admits that he loved him. The way it's worded in the English script makes it somewhat ambiguous exactly what he means by this, but the Japanese audio is a lot more forthright about it being that kind of love.
  • For that matter it's never said how much Daigo knew about this beforehand, or if he did how much it minded, but regardless there's no denying Daigo also cared about Mine, even if it's not necessarily in the same way. The first thing Daigo does after he wakes up from his coma is to protect Mine and fret over his wellbeing, even though he literally just tried to kill him a few minutes ago. And Mine's sacrifice leaves him crushed.. No wonder Mine fell head over heels for him.
• Jerkass Woobie: Mine may be a Manipulative Bastard with a serious Lack of Empathy towards anyone other than Daigo, but you get the feeling none of the mess would have happened if he literally was hugged more as a child.
• Memetic Badass: Taichi is one, presumably due to being a child with wrestling skills in a Beat 'em Up. Some say his Taichi Kick can instantly fell even the mightiest foes Kiryu has faced.
• Memetic Mutation: Shares a page with the rest of the series here.
• Narm:
  • The identity of the mysterious Kazama lookalike: he's Shintaro's never-before-mentioned younger brother who looks almost exactly like him! And he works for the CIA! It's the kind of twist you'd expect from the cheesiest soap opera.
  • During the climax of the game, once you defeat the Final Boss Daigo wakes up from his coma, rolls off his stretcher onto the ground, and immediately headshots a bunch of highly trained assassins in the face while leaving Kiryu and Mine unscathed. The sheer implausibility of this scenario makes it one of the funniest moments in the entire series. Though it should be mentioned that comatose patients are often able to hear people talking around them, making the part where Daigo knew exactly who to shoot despite having just woken up only slightly less ridiculous.
  • In a section of the Orphanage substory, your goal is to help Mitsuo in telling Riona that he loves her. In a line that was originally toned down for the PS3 release, but later given its proper meaning in the remaster, Kiryu overhears why Riona's spurning him: " I just can't see myself dating a black guy!"^note In the original PS3 release, it's "I can't go out with a guy like him! I have standards!" While eventually everything's resolved with a rather heartwarming scene, the conflict in this part of the storyline feels like it came straight out of a mid-2000's soap opera plot.
  • The mysterious agent Andre Richardson in general. Being the the only major character in the series so far to only speak English, having surprisingly hammy voice acting, and his odd pronunciation on certain words make him very hard to take seriously if you also understand English. Looking like a knock-off Albert Wesker complete with a ridiculously agile fighting style doesn't help either. Then again, he does hit Narm Charm and So Bad, It's Good territory for some fans.
• Narm Charm: How does the Big Bad ultimately go down? By Dragon suplexing the Greater-Scope Villain off the edge of a 30-something story building, while riddled with bullets. It's absolutely ridiculous, and in hindsight a lot of fans feel that They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character because of it, but it's such a ballsy way to go out that a lot of people don't care.
  • Nakahara hears Saki cry out "Dad!" and gains enough Heroic Willpower to throw a goddamn bull by its horns. It sounds silly but its also undeniably badass and heartwarming since he got that strength from the love he has for his foster daughter.
• Once Original, Now Common: For as much lambasting as this game gets for its story and gameplay compared to the rest of the series, it's easy to forget that 3 was a massive step forward with the technology and design that it inherited from Kenzan and would later be improved upon later entries, including ones that released on the same console as 3. Gone are the fixed camera angles in almost all places besides stores and certain scenes, and in came the fully rendered, in-depth Kamurocho that would be improved and iterated upon with every single game that followed. It also heralded a presentation and cinematography shift as well as updated character designs that would run for the rest of the franchise's lifespan. Yakuza 3 would also be the first game to have series staples such as the much-lauded karaoke and hostess minigames, though critics would note that these both would be greatly improved in later games.
• The Scrappy: Michiru, a Creepy Crossdresser with three substories involving him chasing Kiryu and subjecting him to Black Comedy Rape if you fail to escape. He is a character that needless to say has aged horribly, made even more noteworthy by the fact that he is in the same game as Ayaka, a character played by a transgender actress whose gender dysphoria is discussed and treated with far more nuance and respect. Virtually nobody was upset that Michiru was completely erased from Remastered.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Enemies just love to block, especially on higher difficulties, which ends up making combat a chore since you would spend most of your time during fights spamming the same combo to break their guard.
  • In the Remastered version, the 'Feel the Heat!' mechanic becomes this. Much like the PS3 version, you have to rapidly press the R2 button to charge up your heat. Problem is that the PS4's controller design makes it much harder to spam the R2 button (and the DualSense fares little better), and if your heat gauge is empty when the "Feel the Heat!" starts, it's unlikely that you'll be able to fill it up in time.
  • The Hostess Maker substory. Basically, Kiryu has to take the role of trainer for a failing cabaret club by scouting, training and dressing women for the best effect. In theory, this might sound similar to the type of management minigame that was in 0 and Kiwami 2... except for the fact that this version is still very rough compared to the later released entries. Hostesses in this game have to not only slowly learn from Kiryu, but you have to go out to manually inspect their progress to see how well or badly each hostess is doing, much more drawn out and slow compared to the other Cabaret Club Czar entries.
• Signature Scene:
  • The QTE with Kanda at the love hotel where Kiryu suggestively handles Kanda, combined with the pink vignette for added innuendo, is a very popular scene from the game, and tends to be included in compilations of the series' silliness.
  • The introduction to the Final Boss fight with Yoskitaka Mine as the very first of the series' iconic "Dynamic Intros", as well as being preceding one of the most-liked Final Boss fights in the series against. Mine himself being a one of the series' most well-received main antagonists also helps.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: The beginning of the game where Kiryu runs his orphanage and takes care of the children goes on for a looong time before the main plot finally kicks in.
• That One Boss:
  • Tetsuo Tamashiro. The very first boss with two health bars on top of being fought so early that your combat options are painfully limited unless you're playing on New Game Plus. The first phase is already tricky as his knife attacks are unblockable and he'll often try to side step your attacks before attacking, sometimes throwing his knives at you too though the pieces of furniture lying around can be effective against him as is grappling. Once he loses about a health bar though, he'll suddenly pull out brass knuckles and gain a Heat aura and is now much tougher, gaining resistance to knockdowns and as well as automatically breaking free from grapples. Most aggravating is that his punching attacks are super aggressive, hit like a truck and will always break guards. Chances are you won't have "Re-Guard" unlocked to alleviate the latter issue, forcing you to play very defensively to not get destroyed by his combos. Not to mention his rather lengthy Quick Time Event which is full of inputs where one mistake will lead to you taking heavy damage. It can also catch you off-guard since there's little warning when it happens and he'll even activate it twice too! If you haven't prepared for the confrontation with a decent amount of healing items and maybe a decent weapon for heat actions or blocking his brass knuckles, dealing with him can be rather nightmarish on Normal difficulty and higher.
  • Lau Ka Long, particularly the initial phase where he uses his Guandao. He will often spin it during combos or as a defensive technique which makes it difficult for you to try and land a single hit on him. Not helping matters is that he is a gruelling Damage-Sponge Boss, meaning that you would end up slowly chipping away at his health whilst trying to avoid his attacks. Even his later fighting phases can't be underestimated since he's an effective Lightning Bruiser at all times with his later usage of claws augmenting his skills with unblockable slashes.
  • If you thought Lau Ka Long was hard enough, his IF7 version will have you want to throw your controller against the wall. You fight not one, not two, but three versions of him simultaneously. Each one represents different phases of his aforementioned boss fight. And if that's not enough, you have to beat them within a certain time limit or you'll fail. The only remedying factor is that damage is shared between the three Lau's, meaning that you can focus your attacks on the Lau that has no weapons.
• That One Sidequest: If you're aren't very skilled at minigames like golf or pool, then several of the substories involving them will be especially brutal and time-consuming. There's also the hostess substories, but those are more tedious than difficult.
  • In general, the physics of this game are much, much more wonky and unforgiving. While the main story will allow for reshoots in golf to help compensate for how badly you might be at it during the third chapter, the substory with being a politician's golfing buddy will make you tear your hair out as he will always have a final score that's -1 (ignoring the random wind conditions), meaning you have to get -2 to get the best rewards. This is in addition to having to get -5 in the golf tournament to count to minigame completion. You had best hope that when you make your putt towards the hole when you're on the green, you don't undershoot so that it only goes a few feet or give it too much power where it'll bounce over the hole and travel a distance away.
  • Bowling is similar, as the pins just do not act like they should, making not only the bowling substory a pain, but getting a 200 score for completion. Similar physics issues plague pool and darts are also a giant pain. Especially when you have to face multiple sets of AI for completion that don't have the same issues that you do.
  • Fishing is also much more of a nightmare here too, compared to later games. Fishing closer to shore isn't super difficult, but getting maguro tuna is a nightmare that can lead you to spend long minutes on end to try to pull in close, only for your line to snap or the fish escaping the hook. While probably done to keep it from being an early game Shop Fodder, the sheer difficulty of even getting just one for completion can make people just give up entirely.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: While fans were pleased that Yakuza 3 would be released outside Japan after a period of uncertainty (considering Kenzan! didn't make it), they were furious when it was announced that several elements would be removed from the game, particularly Japanese-centric mini-games. This included, among other things, side missions involving traditional Japanese board games, quiz games and hostess clubs, some of which were already present in the first two titles. However, fans were very vocal in their disappointment and these most of features returned in the sequels, and the remaster years later brought these features back. The quiz game has yet to be translated as it would require extensive graphic recoding.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Yoshitaka Mine, the Big Bad, while well-received as an antagonist, lacked the screentime and presence that previous antagonists like Nishiki and Ryuji had. As a result, his personality and motives weren't truly fleshed out until the final battle. Even in his Redemption Equals Death Moment, fans felt that Mine should have remained alive rather than sacrifice himself to take down Richardson, believing that he would have been much better as a supporting character in future games rather than just be a one-off antagonist.
  • A lot of players felt that Rikiya should have lived and stayed a supporting character. He received a lot of characterization through the main story and his substories, and players were mostly disappointed that he died before he was able to do much beyond that, especially since he had an excellent mentor/protégé or older/younger brother dynamic with Kiryu.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: In the aftermath of Rikiya's death, the game suddenly rushes straight into the final endgame, a handful of substories and the opportunity to close others aside. Everything in Okinawa essentially gets brushed aside besides the player having the option to travel back to finish anything else up, and given the circumstances, this means the aftermath of Rikiya's death and the effects that this might've had on Mikio and Nakahara are completely brushed aside and never picked up on in the series again.
• Too Cool to Live: Kashiwagi (or not), Rikiya and Mine.
• Values Dissonance: This is a reason why the orphanage subplot did not resonate well with players, particularly from the west.
  • Orphans tend to face a lot of discrimination in Japanese society compared to western society. What is dismissed as an irrelevant side plot is actually one of the core themes of the game, as explained by this video, with many characters like the Morning Glory orphans, Saki and the Big Bad Mine himself being such victims of the system. Kiryu's acceptance of the orphans as a second family thus holds a lot more weight in Japan as compared to western society.
  • A related issue arises if you're not overly enamored of small town life or a belief that it should be protected from economic development. Nothing would stop the Tojo Clan from finding another spot for Kiryu's orphanage away from the resort's proposed location. What makes the place good is Kiryu's Good Parents skills, not the fact that it's beachfront property. Given the Tojo Clan goes bankrupt because of this, it's doubly Harsher in Hindsight.
• Values Resonance: There is a substory in which Kiryu has a heart-to-heart talk with a masseuse named Ayaka, who reveals herself to be transgender but is hesitant to reveal it to someone whom she has feelings for, out of fear of rejection. Kiryu reassures her by saying that if their relationship does not work out, she shouldn't blame herself for it and that they were simply incompatible and that she will one day find someone who will accept her. Luckily for Ayaka, her romantic interest accepts her and they begin dating. This substory becomes all the more meaningful once you realise that this game was released in 2009, when such representation was still a touchy subject back in the day.
• Vindicated by History: For years, Yakuza 3 was heralded as the most controversial game in the series, with many considering it Kiryu's weakest game until the release of Yakuza 6. The issues with the translated version cutting content in the Western release alongside the inclusion of the orphanage subplot conflicted with the new abilities to explore town with and enhanced combat system. With time, those issues have abated, as future games have helped emphasize the value of the orphanage content and producers like Nagoshi have made clear why they considered it mandatory story content instead of making it part of a substory chain. While still seen as a controversial title, reception to 3 has softened as the years have gone on.
• WTH, Costuming Department?: Among the hostesses, Rin Sasaba's turquoise dress with an orange heart-shaped polka dot pattern is certainly a choice.
• The Woobie: The orphans at Morning Glory Orphanage all become this when Mine had the orphanage bulldozed.