giwake

game developer, I think?

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i make games and music, sometimes.

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andrewelmore
@andrewelmore

Originally posted on the Cane & Rinse forum in 2023 as written correspondence for the podcast. It has been slightly edited for context, and formatted to fit your screen.

My wife and I have been playing through Yakuza 5 together, and at the time of writing this we're in the second "half" of Chapter 3.

At this point it's become quite clear that the bulk of this entry is made up of these individual characters' respective minigame-oriented campaigns, for lack of a better word. I suppose one could skip these segments when given the opportunity, to advance the primary story forward. But I'm so deeply endeared to these different threads. Kiryu's taxi/street racing career, Saejima's hunting/trapping journey, Haruka's quest for idol stardom, whatever Akayama's thing ends up being, my heart is bought all the way in.

But it's not the mini games themselves that interest me. They're fine, they're functional. Taken separately, they remind me very much of SIMPLE2000 releases of yore. The most interesting thing I've noticed so far in terms of (drumroll please) ludonarrative cohesion (I'm so sorry) is the two separate rhythm mini games for Haruka's dancing events as they compare to each other, and relate to their contexts. The mini game for a street dance battle is very improvisational. The button presses come in a shuffled order, with randomized meters subdivided to the song's tempo. Having to select the appropriate track with the d-pad before hitting the corresponding face buttons is, I think, an interesting abstraction of Haruka's personal creative agency and expression in an improv street battle like this. Particularly compared to the mini game for the formalized, rehearsed sessions. Those are events, designed to be practiced to a point of comfortable familiarity, and the rhythm game reflects that. You don't need to select a track, because Haruka knows what's coming and when. This is further cemented by the significantly longer note tracks, giving you ample time to prepare, as Haruka is thinking about the next several steps. This is a practiced routine, she doesn't need to think about what she's doing, only how she's doing it. I hope that makes sense?

Saejima's may have been an exercise in tedium at times, but it felt like I was helping this digital man do the honest hard work of helping to provide for this village that had saved the lives of himself and his friend. It made me proud to take my large adult son Taiga out to the small "Main St." pathway that serves as the village's communal gathering place of sorts, talk to everyone to learn how he can best assist them, and then load up his gear to go up on the mountain for the day, keeping an ever-vigilant eye out for opportunities to help out the locals.

This is already getting too long and if the resident Sega Arcade Racing Game Dork starts talking about Kiryu's quest we'll be here all day.

Suffice it to say that this game has been a delightfully welcome sherpa-lined throw blanket during a particularly cold and wet Seattle winter. I wouldn't want the whole series to be restructured this way, but having at least one entry that's primarily built out of a bunch of bespoke communal activities has been immensely relaxing. Regardless of anything else, this is the coziest Yakuza game yet.

I forgot to mention that Haruka's hoodie & t-shirt combo is colored like she's mimicking Uncle Kaz and that's adorable.


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in reply to @andrewelmore's post:

my sister and i share the yakuza series as Our Thing, and you've summed up that feeling really well i think; the motions these minigame campaigns go through are paced to match the feeling of the work being done. the work to become an idol, the patience for the inane for being a cabbie, the... yeah actually what did akiyama do in that game again?

point being, it feels like the "our family all has different lives now but we still check up on eachother" to yakuza 3's "defending family at home" and yakuza 4's "struggling on your own". really feels like you're watching the entire world mature and grow up. i think you're gonna have a great time with 6!

2 is my favorite in the entry for sorta 'I was there' nostalgia reasons (and also because ♥ Osaka) but 5 I think is like my "if I'm being real" favorite in the series largely for the reasons you listed. you've yet to get through my favorite character's arc and I'm excited for you to because it's ridiculous(ly great).

Like 4 was an interesting experiment in having multiple playable characters for the first time but I think the story, and Tanimura's chunk of the game, sorta fell flat. 5 really feels like they clicked with what made the characters and the relationships to one another special and really sincerely leaned into it.

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