Before they became turn-based RPGs led by the world’s goofiest man, the Like a Dragon series—then known in the west as Yakuza—comprised about 6 mainline titles that followed the hardships of Kazuma Kiryu, gaming’s greatest yakuza and dad. Following him since his earliest days in the life of organized crime, the series has spanned decades as Kiryu grows from a young, but loyal footsoldier into one of the most revered and wanted men in Japan. Kiryu’s saga, which was set to end with Yakuza 6: The Song of Life, has since been repackaged and sold as Yakuza Complete Series, and it’s currently on sale at an incredibly steep discount.
If you go over to the GOG storefront, which sells DRM-free versions of games on PC, you’ll find that Yakuza Complete Series is discounted to $US33.59 for the next several days. It typically goes for about $US110, so if you’ve ever been curious about these sprawling games and have a capable PC, now is the time to strike.
Yakuza Complete Series does not include every game in the franchise, but it does feature everything that was released at the time that it was made, including what was then believed to be the conclusion of KIryu’s saga. The bundle consists of, in narrative chronological order, Yakuza 0, Kiwami, Kiwami 2, 3 Remastered, 4 Remastered, 5 Remastered, and 6: The Song of Life. It’d be the understatement of the year to tell you that picking up these games will likely set you up for the next several months, maybe even years.
I’m currently in the middle of playing Yakuza 0 for the first time. Not only am I 60 hours in and about 11 chapters deep, but I don’t see an immediate end anywhere in sight. These games are traditionally massive crime epics stuffed to the brim with characters and activities to do. At the moment, I’m in the middle of a cabaret mini-game that is its own management sim within Yakuza 0, which is a brawler, and features its own storyline about my character trying to reclaim the neighborhood from the clutches of cartoonishly evil business owners. That’s on top of all the other irreverent substories that are typically featured in a Yakuza game.
But these games are just as technically and artistically impressive as they are massive. Real-world settings, like Kabukichō, are the inspiration for the nearly 1:1 era-specific recreations that are rendered across the Yakuza games, which take you to pockets of Tokyo, as well as Osaka, Yokohama, and Hiroshima. I once recognized the exact place a friend had posted on their Instagram story because they happened to be in Dōtonbori, which is the real-world equivalent of the Sotenbori setting that regularly features in the games, especially Yakuza 0.
The Yakuza games are deep in more senses than just sheer content. I sometimes bristle against brawlers, which often feel too button-mashy for my taste, but I’m finding a surprising amount of depth in Yakuza 0’s mechanics. There are completely different styles of fighting that should be used in the right scenarios/boss fights, but there are huge skill trees attached to each of them, and even a storyline centered around the people training you. Six fighting styles split evenly across two protagonists on entirely different maps means that Yakuza 0 has felt tremendous in scope, but it also hasn’t been overwhelming. Chapters do a great job of giving either character ample time to breathe, and I’ve thus far been encouraged to go at my own pace and set my own priorities as far as goals, skills, and completion.
Extrapolate that formula across about six other titles that consistently grow in scale, and you’re in for a hell of an undertaking with Yakuza Complete Series. Once you’re done with those in about two years, which is the timeline I’m roughly looking at for myself, you can jump into the newest saga of the series, following a different protagonist named Kasuga Ichiban. He’s a rough and tumble guy like Kiryu, but he wears his heart on his sleeve and also sees conflict and the world around him through the lens of his favorite RPG series growing up, Dragon Quest. Yes, that’s why the newest Like A Dragon games have been turn-based RPGs. Have I sold you on this phenomenally bonkers series yet?
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