Review Yakuza 6: The Final Chapter of Kazuma Kiryu’s Story

After more than 4 years of waiting, Yakuza 6 is finally brought to the PC platform via the Microsoft Store, Xbox Game Pass and Steam.

Introduce

Yakuza 6: The Song of Life is the 7th part in the story of Kazuma Kiryu, a retired Yakuza guy who is still entangled in many troubles of the Japanese underworld.

Initially, Yakuza 6 was released exclusively on PS4 in 2016, but with the enthusiastic support of gamers on Xbox and PC platforms, this game was finally brought to the two platforms above.

Yakuza 6 is built on Dragon Engine, this is the new Engine of the series that brings better graphics than before but also improves the physics. If you have played through Yakuza Kiwami 2 and Yakuza: Like a Dragon, surely gamers will not be strange with this Engine.

Summary of the plot

After the events of Yakuza 5 ended, Kazuma Kiryu was hospitalized due to his injuries. The police searched for Kiryu with the goal of arresting him. The reason is because Kiryu used to be the president of the Tojo clan and the Tokyo police wanted to save face. Kiryu decided not to resist and was willing to serve three years in prison to ensure he could later live in peace with the children he had raised.

Upon his release in 2016, Kiryu discovered that Haruka had disappeared to avoid public scrutiny. Meanwhile Daigo Dojima, Taiga Saejima and Goro Majima were accused of burning down Little Asia six months before his release.

Kiryu returns to Kamurocho to search for Haruka, only to find out that she was in a coma after a car crash and fled. Beside Haruka is her infant son, Haruto. Not sure if Haruka will ever recover, Kiryu travels with the baby to Onomichi Jingaicho in Hiroshima to uncover the mystery of what happened to his adopted daughter during his three-year absence.

Onomichi – new location

Besides the all-too-familiar Kamurocho, the game will take Kiryu to Onomichi, a city in Hiroshima Prefecture. Unlike the busy Kamurocho neighborhood, Onomichi is quieter and highlights the series with its beautiful seaside setting and can be seen as a breath of fresh air. Not only a beautiful setting, Onomichi also has many side quests and minigame activities to keep players entertained.

Combat Mechanism

As for the combat mechanics, although the Yakuza series possesses somewhat simple gameplay with buttons such as light hit, strong hit, block, object and lock-on, players can completely find a way to coordinate buttons to Launch beautiful combos.

The strength of Yakuza compared to other beat em up/action games is HEAT. This is an energy bar that increases each time it hits an opponent and when the energy bar is full, Kiryu will be able to unleash impressive moves and have more than enough power to finish off the opponent.

Combining the above two elements with sound effects as well as vivid images, Yakuza 6 has brought to a combat system that can hold people for a long time.

Minigames

Besides fighting, the strength of Yakuza 6 is the minigames. In addition to the famous karaoke minigame, Kiryu can also play amateur baseball, visit a cat cafe, go to the gym, chat online with JAV actors and hunt sea fish.

Besides the minigames mentioned above, Kiryu can also visit the SEGA amusement park to enjoy games like Out Run, Super Hang-On and Virtual Fighter 5 FS as well as many other titles.

Minus point

Yakuza 6 is not a perfect game. As the first game to use the Dragon Engine, Kiryu’s movements in combat are somewhat heavy. This is an element that has been improved in Kiwami 2. It can also be understood that this is the developer’s intention to show that Kiryu is now 48 years old, not as young and strong as before.

In addition, although the player can pick up weapons such as knives, swords, and guns from enemies, the game does not allow Kiryu to store these weapons to use when confronting difficult bosses. However, this is not a very important factor because most Yakuza players prefer to play bare-handed.

End

Although the Dragon Engine version used for Yakuza 6 is not as complete as Kiwami 2 and Judgment, the gameplay of Yakuza 6 is still appreciated.

The plot of Y6 promises to make many gamers emotional, especially those who have experienced the entire Kiryu story. With a relatively cheap price of only 400,000 VND on Steam, Yakuza 6 is one of the games not to be missed in 2021.

Overall, Yakuza 6: The Song of Life is a good game and a great ending to Kazuma Kiryu’s story. This can be confirmed because RGG Studio has confirmed that Kiryu will no longer be the focus of the series in the future.