GAME CLEAR No. 22 -- Yakuza 4 Remastered

Yakuza 4 Remastered (2018, Multiplatform)

Remaster of: Yakuza 4 (2010, PS3)
Original Developer: SEGA CS1 R&D
Remake Developer: Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio
Publisher: SEGA
Clear Date: 4/6/2021
Clear Platform: PS5 via Backwards Compatibility

Lord have mercy. I just wrote a goddamn treatise on Ghosts ’n Goblins Resurrection over in GAME CLEAR No. 21, so I’m gonna keep this one relatively brief. Yakuza 4 kicks ass just like all the others. I guess I’ll talk a little bit about why.

First of all, it served as a fitting follow-up to Dragon Quest IV since it features four protagonists with their own chapters that all meet up for the endgame. Neat! I originally wasn’t sure how I felt about this because I really love series protagonist Kiryu and was worried any time away from him would simply be worse than keeping the series focused on him. I’m glad to report my fears were unfounded. Each of the new protagonists introduced in this game is cool both with respect to their unique fighting styles and with what they bring to the plot. This game ambitiously expands on the story established in previous games to bring these four gents together, which is a nice reward for those of us that have stuck with the series this far.

Mechanically, allowing the player to be someone other than the Dragon of Dojima turned out to be a real breath of fresh air. Each character plays fairly similarly, but the differences are significant enough to keep you on your toes. The differences are more or less what you’d expect. For example, one character is a big slow bruiser with tons of HP. Another is light on HP but has excellent evasiveness and defensive options. Then of course there’s Kiryu, who is sort of an all-rounder. Mercifully the game doesn’t make you unlock all his moves again. An oddity of the previous games was always playing as this deified ultra badass who is sluggish and useless early on until you progress through the skill tree. This time he’s got some great stuff out of the box. In general, though, all of the characters level up fast, which works well since our time with them is comparatively short.

Speaking of comparatively short, I think this game was somehow the one I put the least time into. It only took me about 20ish hours to breeze through the story while putting in some decent time with side quests as well. I regret this somewhat, since I really enjoyed each character and would love to fuck around more with them, but some new releases are finally also grabbing my attention, so I wanted to get this game knocked out to give myself a chance to give those some time.

Just two chapters left in the Kiryu saga. What wonders await? I’m sure I’ll find out later this year.