The extra mini-stories don't help, with each one easily adding another 5-6 hours if you want to be a completionist on the matter. Yakuza 5 has a similar problem and it's only amplified to be longer with the addition of a fifth character. Yakuza 4's issue in my eyes was the fact you had four separate characters somehow stapled together into a big overarching plot. It's not bad, pretty standard for a Yakuza plot backed up by some very interesting characters like Aizawa, Watase and Park, but it's weighed down by the length. You follow the adventures of previous game's protagonists of Bazuma Biryu, Ahun Skiyama, Saiga Taijima alongside the new characters of Haruka and Baseball Dante as they try to deal with this week's wacky crime fight where Daigo has gone missing, there's a schism in the Tojo Clan and somehow it involves BOTH the largest idol competition in the entirety of Japan as well as a baseball game from the nineties. The fact I've heard the exact same idol song around 42 times has not helped me or my developing psychosis on the matter.

This game has good core concepts combined with needless extras and a slog of a main story that, while good, feels like you are wading through plot pudding. Don't get me wrong, I do still like it and recommend it in the grand scheme of things, but Yakuza 5 is a game that really highlights how the series needed to change if it ever wanted to survive. I'll be real with you, I don't like this game.

Yakuza 5 pc