So, for the Yakuza vets, where does 0 stand amongst the series? Has anyone been able to play 6?
Still need to play Y0, but I have played Y1-3 and am currently going through Y4 slowly.
Surprisingly I found Y1 was probably the weakest in the series. Not just that it's dated, but the extremely predictable plot really soured me(but it has a brilliant opening hour or two before things get dull). Not sure if the remake can fix up the sluggish pacing and exhaustive redundant expository sequences, but it really felt like a 90 minute mystery bloated to 15+ hours. Certainly the remake should clean up the combat at least.
Yakuza 2 fared much better. My major gripes with it being that it also had obvious bloat as the villain(and plot) disappears for large sections of the game while you are forced into pointless padding sequences until like the 11th hour where the story sadly doesn't quite stick the landing. Still, the central conflict is good stuff. Combat is still pretty rough being slightly enhanced from Y1.
Yakuza 3 just kind of was. Less memorable villains, some real pacing issues in the early hours, but nothing inherently poor about it. I didn't feel like it was patronizing my intelligence like Y1, nor did it ever reach the highs of Y2 either. Enjoyable if you can stick out the early game. Combat was much improved moving to PS3, but still a bit rough. I took a long hiatus from the franchise after this, just hit major fatigue.
Yakuza 4 is a nice change of pace so far which I recently began. Really enjoying the focus away from Kiryu(I actually grew sick of him after three games) and splitting the narrative to give some other personalities the spotlight is winning me back into the franchise. Still only a few hours in though, but I'm resisting jumping into Y0 until I at least finish this first.
