Yakuza 6: The Song of Life is a Action-Adventure game originally for PS4 in 2018, and then was later confirmed for the PC and XBONE release in late March 2021, along with Yakuza Remastered Collection on late January 2021 as well which I've already covered the game for PS4 last month before it was revealed for Xbox Game Pass and Steam platform. It was developed by Ryu Ga Gotaku Studio and published by SEGA.
After finishing my review on Yakuza Remastered Collection, I'm finally going to review this game that I will talk about the positives and negatives parts in the game because it is a last great entry of the whole series to conclude the saga of the Kazuma Kiryu as a main protagonist of the series.
I am impressed with the story writing, the characters, the combat system, and the graphic design which is the positive parts, while I will discuss some disadvantages parts in the game later on the review.
So without go further do, let's start the review.
Presentation
The game takes place three years later after the event of Yakuza 5. It involves Kazuma Kiryu, who fully recovered from hospital as well as being released from spending in three years of prison, wanted to discover the truth about the hit and run incident that left his adoptive daughter Haruka into coma and learns that she has a infant son Haruto in which he, unsure whether Haruka will recover from her injuries, made his promise to protect him from one of the Yomei Alliance's gangs had planned to kidnap the baby, as well as searching for baby's lost father linked to Haruka.
He also learned that his two of his fellow Daigo Dojima and Goro Majima from previous entries were wrongly arrested for the Little Asia burning incident, six months prior to his release, which is the reason why Kiryu himself went on the investigation to find out who was responsible for burning down the town of Little Asia that framed two members of Tojo Clan, as well as preventing the continuous gang conflict between Saio Triads and Tojo Clan.
This game has well story written which covers with many surprising plot-twists, backstory, revealing secrets, and many mysteries that involves devastating events that has affected the clan family dealing with their gang rivalries that has threaten to destroy their family clan's life.
The story that focuses on Haruka's disappearance before hit and run incident, the search for the lost father of infant son, and confronting those who attacked Little Asia creating gang wars is what made the game got my attention.
Kazuma Kiryu is one of my favourite protagonist in entire series still kicking everyone asses is what I liked about him. In this game, he is very humble when it comes with kids especially with caring with the Haruka's baby is what made the game quite important.
Its one of the first game that included real-life actors that did such an amazing performance such as Takeshi Kitano, Shun Oguri, Hiroyuki Miyasako, Tatsuya Fujiwara, and Yoko Maki had really nailed their role that they looked really perfect on the cutscenes using the on-screen capture technology.
You have their supportive characters like crazy-ass gangster wannabes Tsuyoshi Nagumo, the young handsome Yuta Usami, the mature bartender lady Kiyomi Kasahara, the old-calming boss Toru Hirose, and the respected anti-villain Takumi Someya.
The overall design of cinematic sequences is just fantastic to watch because it feels like watching a crime drama TV series mixed with non-stop action films is what made the in-game cutscenes very appealing. I also liked the dialogue between the characters is adding the in-depths of the storyline which is great, but I think they overdone it with the overall lengths of dialogue and scenes which is about 30 mins in some scenes are kinda bit long to watch, but it doesn't mean it made the story went out of place because I still appreciate with their story writing is still quite a top-notch overall.
I got to say I really liked the locations of Tokyo which is just basically same as the previous entries as it still has the cool places like restaurants, pubs, dance clubs, karaoke, Club SEGA, convenient stores, streets, parks, and city towers, while Hiroshima is more of the small towns with some places like yacht boat, beaches, tiny buildings, cemeteries, and worship places which I finding it ridiculously small to explore compared with Tokyo has many things to discover, but I still liked the look of the presentation they put in the game.
Overall, it has outstanding story, amazing characters, stunning cinematic design, and overall presentation.
Gameplay
Similar to previous game, your goal is to complete the mission throughout the story scenario which can be marked with the pink symbols on the map screen.
You get to run around the city to discover places you want to go, while you may be encountered by groups of thugs which forcing you to fight them in beat em ups segments.
You have the health bar and heat power bar at the top-left corner which representing character's health and heat specials.
You have basic weak attack, harsh strong attack, and grabbing attack are mainly used for attacking on opponents. The weak attack are pretty much quicker to attack enemies, while the strong attack can also perform much of the heavy damage as you can make the amount of combos attack by mashing these two buttons in different combination which allows the character to perform more variety of moves depending on the stats of your character's fighting upgrades.
Grabbing the opponent which allows you to throw them into grounds or beat the shit of them with the bare fists while grabbing them.
You can also pick up these objects to attack them such as trash bins, bicycles, boxes, and other random stuff, while you can also use weapons such as swords, knives, and firearms which are very useful for combat battles allowing the player to defeat the enemies much quicker.
After filling up your heat bar which allows you to perform much punishable moves on the sequences such as breaking their backbones against the wall, bashing their heads with small crates, stomping their faces, and pressing their jaws off so hard with the hands or feet in brutal way.
Defeating the opponents off or beating the missions will reward you with these coloured tokens which can be used for upgrading your character's ability such as player's strengths, styles, heat action, and social life which really helps improving your healths, defense, fighting moves, and some lifestyle stuff like digestion levels and hunger capacity which really motivates the player to boosting up the player's stats to become a better fighter.
Besides the story mission, you can also do the side-story depending on which area you went on.
There are 51 side-mission to complete such as helping Haruka's fan to buy merchandise, a strange girl who leapt through time, a two student that switched bodies, joining with baseball team, giving old man helping hands for spearfishing, and many random side-adventures to discover. The game also introduces trouble missions which is another side-task just like side-missions, so it involve stuff like calming baby Haruto, finding woman's missing child, tracking down pickpocketer that stole money, and others which you can able to access the mission by using the phone apps via Troublr.
Clan Creator is kinda like castle defense game where you take control of groups of your mens to fight against the rivalry gangs in strategy RPGs style requires levelling up several of employees to improve their skills such as HP, attack, and defense.
During the free time, you can visit any places in the city such as convenience store where you can purchase the variety of items that allows you to increase your health and heat bar which is handy for the later missions.
The restaurant or fast food is the place you can enjoy eating the amount of food and drinks which also rewards you just the same as defeating the opponents or beating the missions, but it is also extremely limited which you will need to keep an eye on hunger level which took time to digest slowly so use it wisely when ordering the food.
You can also enjoy the activities like Karaoke, baseball, batting cages, darts, mahjong, spearfishing, gym, and of course many SEGA arcade classics like Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown, Space Harrier, Outrun, Super Hang-On, Fantasy Zone, and Puyo Puyo which I got to say this game definitely has the best selection of SEGA classics.
I am very glad with the game had turned out quite well thanks to countless of epic story missions, solid fighting system, and several of strangely fun side-missions which is a main highlight of the whole game that the Yakuza fans can able to enjoy themselves, but I do think the location of Hiroshima is ridiculously small compared with the city of Tokyo which I fully understand it is suppose to be smaller town, but the issue is that it didn't had much of the visiting places as you normally can do in Tokyo has way many things to visit in the game.
Overall, it has epic story missions, solid fighting system, and fun side-missions.
Graphics
The game does have the better looking graphics over the previous games because it is one of the first game to utilise all new Dragon Engine which features a stunning results of game's clean textures, great use of draw-distances, colourful special effects, realistic looking environmental visuals, amazing level structures of open-world area, and the best of all the character's animation with fantastic lip syncing and facial technology felt like a human being which is the reason the game has well builted graphical design that looked very impressive for the PS4 hardware standards.
I got to love the gruesome parts on the finishing animation where I liked to see their faces get busted in slow-motion, while it has a bloody special effects on most of the cutscenes where these guys get stabbed to death is definitely looked brutal for action-adventures genres.
Overall, it has clean textures, great use of draw-distances, colourful special effects, realistic looking environmental visuals, amazing level structures of open-world area, and fantastic character's animation.
Music and Sounds
The original soundtrack is just as brilliant as the previous entry that keeps you more pumped for crazy Yakuza action, while there are some darker tone music that fits well on the cinematic scenes for atmospheres and mood.
The sound effects are pretty sounds good for most part with crowded noises in the city and has sharp sounds on guns and knives effects while the Japanese voice cast especially with the real-life actors that I have mentioned on the presentation segment made a wonderful performance that nails their character's role.
Overall, it has brilliant soundtrack and incredible voice performance.
Special Features
The game does shares with new game plus and premium adventure for replay values, and some DLCs such as free costumes and paid super rare cards for clan creator. The best of the feature that physical copy have is the "essence of art edition" which has several of the fan art illustrations booklet is looked very artistic and amazing to look through pages featuring very stylish art book.
Overall, a solid overall features.
Advantages
Outstanding story and characters
Epic story and side missions
Solid fighting system
Fantastic visuals
Brilliant soundtrack
Incredible voice performance
Cool content
Disadvantages
Overdone cutscene lengths
Area of Hiroshima has limited exploration
Final Verdict
Presentation 9/10 - outstanding story, amazing characters, stunning cinematic design, and overall presentation.
Gameplay 9/10 - epic story missions, solid fighting system, and fun side-missions.
Graphics 9/10 - clean textures, great use of draw-distances, colourful special effects, realistic looking environmental visuals, amazing level structures of open-world area, and fantastic character's animation.
Music and Sounds 9/10 - brilliant soundtrack and incredible voice performance.
Special Features 8/10 - new game plus, premium adventure, and some DLCs such as free costumes.
Overall 9/10 - I am so happy to finally finished the whole Kiryu's saga, so what you get from this game is the well-written storyline, memorable cast of characters, great single player mission, and has many epic Yakuza action is what made the game a very last great entry in the series featuring original protagonist.
Just love spending time brawling around the city, sing karaoke, playing mini-games, grab something to eat and drink, and having to walk around with the baby just made my experience quite positive overall that SEGA had never been disappointing which proves that the developer team behind the whole franchise did a remarkable job for keeping up with the series well over 15 years since this franchise had started back in mid-2000s.
To conclude with this game, this is definite recommended to those who likes the mix of crime-drama action-adventure is a solid must buy on PS4, but you can also get this game on PC (via Steam) as well as the XBONE (via Xbox Game Pass) which these two re-releases will be available on this late March 2021.
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