Not completely done with this one yet only on chapter 10, but I wanted to talk about it anyway. Some short thoughts. This is also my first Yakuza game.

This is at its core a beat em' up brawler and its a really fun one too. So you play as Kiryu Kazuma or Goro Majima depending on the chapter. You switch every 2 chapters and you can switch between them as the story progresses. Each one has 3 styles that they use and another 4th style that can be unlocked. The music changing depending on what style you're using was also a nice touch.

By using money you unlock different combos and moves for each style. I find myself liking both characters but I lean only slightly towards Majima. Many of the characters in this game are really and the voice acting is spot on.

Each character a bit later on gets their main method of making money besides beating the crap out of people. Kiryu has the real estate business and Majima has his Cabaret club. The only thing I didn't like was related to Kiryu's. The game doesn't mark where every building you can buy is it only tells you the general area but its not a huge deal.

My favorites have been Beast with Kiryu and Breaker with Majima. Kiryu furniture Beast style is a match made in heaven. Though arguably breaker is pretty busted against regular enemies. Many of the finishers called heat moves in this game are brutal there's so many different ones you can do against enemies depending on different scenarios. Its always great to see different heat actions in play.

• Crushing people with bikes.

• Shoving nails into someone's mouth.

• Pouring salt into someone's eyes

• Curb stomping into someone's face.

The amount of different moves you can do in combat really reminds me of God Hand on the PS2 and its roulette wheel moves.

The combat shows itself in action the best in boss battles. Won't spoil it but there was one particular character you fight multiple times throughout the game. His theme is one of the best tracks in this game

Aside from combat there are of course substories/sidequests that you can do as each character. I was honestly surprised at the quality of some of these sidequests. Some of them are funny, others are really heartwarming and I liked that. The main story is also great though I'm real interested to see how it ends.

This game in general can be serious at times then completely silly at another moment. Many of these crazy moments come from the other side activities and my god there's so many in this game. Bowling, Batting, Arcades, Catfight clubs, Majong, Shogi, Pool, Darts. That wasn't even all of them either, there's just so many. This game is going to keep me busy for quite awhile.

• There is an issue with framerate however. I was playing the PS4 ver. and sometimes there would be some dip in framerate when there was a huge amount of things going on in combat.

• I can see someone finding the gameplay a bit repetitive at times and you aren't completely wrong in that regard. With the decent variation in combat I found myself never getting bored though.

• It can be really easy to overpower yourself and make yourself stupidly strong early on if you know what you're doing so that's something that could be troublesome in terms of balancing.

• Lastly the graphics themselves aren't anything crazy. It looks like a PS3 game in most environments. The actual characters models on the main cast of characters are good though.