Yakuza 6: The Song of Life Reviews

The story in The Song of Life is by far the most emotional Yakuza story I've experienced. The themes of fatherhood and desperate acceptance truly struck a cord, especially while I was undergoing a stressful and uncertain period of my life. This game alleviated that stress somewhat all those years back when I completed it on Xbox. And it was a blast replaying it here. 8.5/10

The shortest yakuza game I've played so far, and yet, packed with so much stuff to do that the main story was but an afterthought.

I really enjoyed playing this game. A great story, with some of the best gameplay so far. I'm on a complete first play through of the the Yakuza games, and this game was a breath of fresh air after the hard work that was 3, 4 (kinda), and 5. The story got me, I wanted to see how it played out. Hiroshima was a lovely new location. The major side job/game was really good fun, and better than the one in Kiwami 2 (but similar). Yeah, really enjoyed it.

Dragon Engine Supremacy 🗣️🗣️🗣️🔥🔥 combat wise the least versatile and dense yakuza game but the whole engine was changed so it makes sense and half the budget probably went into kiryu's shirt folds swaying under the hiroshima sunset. 10/10 nonetheless for the story, characters and substories

I want to say I loved this game, but I can't. The story was good. It's a meditation on parenthood, and the horrible things parents and children can do to and for each other. Beyond that it runs through the hits of the previous games, with moments that will remind you of several previous plot points. It's a hell of an ending for the Kiryu era of the series, and a well earned emotional victory lap. Unfortunately, this game kinda sucks. First, the mediocre: The new minigames are fine, if clunky. The new substories are fine, if clunky. The new city is fun, yet tiny, and a lot of the city you're used to is closed off or wiped from the map. The real problem, however, is they managed to make combat a slog again. Going from 5 to this reminded me of going from Kiwami 2 to 3. This is not as bad as 3, but the drop off felt the same. I just wanted it to be over every time a fight started. Luckily there's tools for just brute forcing your way through, but I hate that I felt compelled to think of the fighting that way again. 5 was so good, and Kiwami 2, which this feels like a tech demo for, was also good. Recommended for a beautiful plot... but cautioned against for the slog.

100% the weakest entry in the mainline Yakuza games, gameplay wise. The dragon engine just doesnt fit me at all, I want Y6 to be graphically Y6 but mechanically Y5

so far I want next game somewhere similar like this series is might not be the best but the final boss extremely goose-flesh

Very close second to 0 as best Yakuza game, super engaging and very bittersweet plot, it being the (kind of) end of the Kiryu saga. Music is 11/10 and the combat just feels so tight and responsive, even among Yakuza standards

Really amazing story, Kiryu is the goat and based as always

I'm going to start off by saying ignore the playtime it shows for this game, as I played most of it on offline mode and apparently that doesn't count. That being said, I did complete the game and did tons of side quests. Yakuza 6 is a game that I put off for a long time because I did not want to burn myself out, having played Yakuza 0 to 5 in a short period of time due to how hooked I was to the franchise. I saw that some people like the game, and others consider it to be mediocre - and I always found latter a strange thing because I didn't think they would just drop the ball like that after such consistency. When I finally played the game, however, I began to see why people feel that way. But do I agree with it? That's a different question. Yakuza 6 is the perfect example of how uniquely fun a franchise can be, where even something that's not amazing can still be better than most of what else you can play in the genre. The drama is there, the characters aren't boring, the gameplay is serviceable, and there's a lot to do in terms of spending dozens of hours into the experience. However, it does fall short as a Yakuza game, compared to its own predecessors. The story lacks a hook and you don't really feel engaged until the very last act. The combat is perhaps the most underwhelming in the series besides 3 and vanilla Y1/Y2. It's not bad, but there's not a lot of variety and it begins to feel same-ish. The physics are glitchy as well, and the bosses are easily cheesable. It clearly met a deadline and the results can be seen. But the game does have its highlights too. Last act of the story is pretty fun, the characters grow on you even if they aren't as cool as what we had for the last 3 games, and the second city in the game is very calming to explore. I certainly recommend this game both for itself and for the importance that it has in Kiryu's saga - given that it later continued.