GAME CLEAR No. 115 -- Yakuza 6: The Song of Life

Yakuza 6: The Song of Life (2016, Multiplatform)

Developer: Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio
Publisher: SEGA
Clear Date: 1/25/23
Clear Version: PS4
Clear Platform: PS5

Like an old friend, Kiryu has returned to me. Or, I suppose, I’ve returned to him. Regardless, we’re together again.

And it’s really just we two this time. Kiryu is the lone playable character of Yakuza 6, a significant departure from the whopping five found in Yakuza 5. The plot’s trimmed down considerably too, clocking in at around 20 hours if you’re mostly focusing on the main story.

For once, though, I didn’t do that. I did pretty much everything in this game. Not absolutely everything — a true stickler would not call my effort a 100% completion — but just about everything of consequence. Did all the substories, found most of the goodies. Y’know, things of that nature. As a consequence, this was a pretty different experience for me compared to most of the other Yakuza games I’ve played.

Would I recommend it? Man, I don’t know. I think doing all that side content really messed with the intended cadence of the story (which is solid, as ever). As much as I enjoyed the baseball side quest stuff, it does feel weird to be playing recreational sports when some major, dramatic story beat is hanging in the balance. But then again, one of the great things about Yakuza is the comic relief its substories bring to its high-stakes plot lines.

Ultimately, I suppose it’s up to personal preference. I’ve talked to many people who’ve said “oh, I never finished Yakuza 0. I got too distracted by all the minigames and side quests!” That is insane to me. I can’t imagine letting some mildly amusing side content get in the way of me seeing the story through to its conclusion. Just ain’t me. I understand part of this is FOMO. People don’t want to miss out on what may be a really hilarious side quest or perhaps a useful reward granted at the end thereof. Well I am here to tell you as someone who has beaten seven of these games (nine if you count the Judgment games) that you can absolutely skip some of this shit. As charming as some of the optional content can be, none of it is as satisfying as the main gameplay loop. And you know what happens when you finish the main story of a Yakuza game? You get to play the next one.

And I guess that’s why I just can’t quite empathize with FOMO-driven side questing (in Yakuza or any other game). The FOMO I experience when playing games is of a different variety. It’s just the basic opportunity cost of choosing to play any game. That is, any time I spend playing one game is time I can’t spend playing every other game that exists. So, very often, I get to the credits just about as fast as I can and move on. One of my chief motivations in life is to know a lot about video games (kind of pathetic, eh?), and I think it’s better to see, say, ~60% of a bunch of games by “just” beating them than to deep dive everything I play.

Do I feel a greater fondness for Yakuza 6 by virtue of having seen nearly all of its meaningful content compared to the other games in the series? Maybe a little. But I expect for future entries I’ll stick to my usual method of stopping to smell some — but not all — of the roses.