Reviews VideoGame / Yakuza 3

Too Many Kids Spoils The Plot

So having beaten Yakuza 3 Remastered a few days ago, I had enough time to realize my problem with it is how over-focused the Morning Glory children are to the detriment of the story. Forcing most of the first act to be about characters that ultimately don't have much to do with the story only hurts the truly important characters. It's not that I don't like the Morning Glory kids, I just think turning their issues into Substories would have been the better option for the sake of pacing.

That's not to say the story would have been THAT much better if the above were to happen. Yakuza 3 has Kiryu rubbing shoulders with Japanese Ministers, and the CIA, to combat international arms dealers, pretending to be CIA, who tried to kill Daigo, but are also working with Mine, to make sure the Okinawa land deal goes through, so other countries will keep buying illegal weapons from them, to combat Japan's growing military power. And this is without mentioning Shintaro's long lost twin brother, who honestly feels more like the devs regretting that they killed him off in the first place so they could keep using him for stories. It's all too much for what the story wants to say about Kiryu, Mine, Morning Glory, etc. The high stakes bury the character work without being good enough to make up for it.

It's a real shame too, because most of the characters are still good ideas with decent execution in spite of it. Rikiya is a good side kick to Kiryu and a better take on Shinji's relationship with Kiryu due to having a more fleshed out relationship and better dynamic. Rikiya's main problem is his inconsistent maturity.

Another good foil would be the Big Bad Yoshitaka Mine, another Evil Counterpart that reflect aspects of Kiryu's character by bastardizing it into villainous traits. Everything about his character is rock solid in concept and use, but he misses the mark of being as great as Ryuji Goda because the story overplayed the orphan card early in the game.

And that's the story side of things. Gameplay wise I'm aware that 3 is where many of the mechanics I love in 0, Kiwami, and Kiwami 2 originate. Unfortunately, that means it hasn't refined them either. The combat is decent enough, but the awkward at times fights boil down to them guarding until your heat down unless you somehow get behind him. Only a handful of these bosses feel fun to fight, and it makes exploring the combat options not as worthwhile to me in this game unless it was getting a nw weapon to use. The exploration I know I shouldn't hold against 3 because it was the first PS 3 Yakuza and all, but you guys can do much better than 3 fast travel taxis and no sprinting even then. The random encounter rate was also a bit too high in my opinion, which made exploring Kamurocho and Ryukyu, say it with me now, unfun.

Overall I'd say Yakuza 3 is only a better game than the PS 2 Yakuza titles, because those mechanical improvements are the only thing 3 can have over them.