Yakuza 0

Yakuza 0 is an action-adventure game set in an open world environment and played from a third-person perspective. The game takes place from December 1988 to January 1989, in Kamurocho and Sōtenbori, fictionalized recreations of Tokyo's Kabukichō and Osaka's Dōtonbori areas respectively. The player controls series protagonist Kazuma Kiryu and recurring character Goro Majima, alternating between the two at predetermined points during the story.

Players can freely walk around Kamurocho and Sotenbori, interacting with people they meet to trigger side-quests, battling enemies who attack them on the street, or playing one of several minigames, including fully playable versions of Sega arcade games such as Out Run, Super Hang-On, Space Harrier and Fantasy Zone. Completing certain objectives, such as eating every dish at a restaurant or reaching a target score in a minigame, will also grant the player special Completion Point currency; these Completion Points can be spent at a shrine to receive additional bonuses, such as special items or character upgrades.

Character customization and growth is similar to the system from Ryu ga Gotoku Ishin!, with abilities earned by buying them off of a skill tree that is gradually unlocked during the game. Instead of using experience to buy skills, the player uses money acquired from fights or via Kiryu and Majima's side businesses. Money is more liberally awarded in Yakuza 0 than in previous entries, with every heavy attack causing enemies to drop cash. The player can lose their money if they encounter a special enemy called Mr. Shakedown, huge men who are far stronger than normal. If the player is beaten, they will lose all their cash, but can beat the enemy again to earn back their money and extra.

Kiryu and Majima also have side businesses that they run during the game to earn money: Kiryu invests real estate in Kamurocho, while Majima runs a cabaret club. Completing side-quests will often result in characters they meet offering to help with side businesses, allowing them to more easily and quickly progress. Progressing in side business sequences or training with specific masters will unlock additional abilities for purchase on the characters' skill trees.

A major innovation of Yakuza 0 is the addition of fighting styles for both Kiryu and Majima that can be switched in the middle of battle. Kiryu utilizes the balanced Brawler style, similar to that of previous entries; the powerful but slow Beast style, which allows him to use heavy weapons; and the fast boxing-based Rush style, which emphasizes mobility. Conversely, Majima uses the balanced Thug style; the weapons-oriented Slugger style, primarily focused around a baseball bat; and the tricky dance-based Breaker style. Completing Kiryu and Majima's side businesses will unlock an additional "Legendary" fighting style for the characters, the "Dragon of Dojima" and "Mad Dog of Shimano" styles, respectively.

In December 1988, during Japan's bubble period, Kazuma Kiryu, a yakuza, is suspected of murder in Kamurocho, Tokyo, after a man that he has collected money from winds up dead in the city's "Empty Lot", which is currently being fought over internally by Sohei Dojima's Dojima Family, a powerful branch of the greater yakuza family known as the Tojo Clan. The lot is a tiny patch of land that is essential for the "Kamurocho Revitalisation Project" worth multiple billion yen. Forced out of the family, Kiryu meets Tetsu Tachibana, a powerful real estate owner promising to help clear Kiryu's name, who was hired by his incarcerated foster father, Shintaro Kazama. Together, they try to prevent the Empty Lot from falling into the Dojima Family's hands and seek out the owner of the Lot, all whilst being hunted by the three lieutenants of the Dojima Family. The lieutenant Kiryu most frequently comes into conflict with is Daisaku Kuze, a former professional boxer who leads over the muscle of the family. After Kiryu's house is arsoned, he cuts ties with his oath brother Akira Nishikiyama to keep him safe, and keeps a low profile. Kiryu is later rescued by Tachibana, who reveals his true identity as a former Chinese mafia member. Seemingly out of options, they drive to the Tojo Clan's headquarters, where they negotiate and reach an agreement to protect Kiryu from the lower ranking Dojima Family. Tachibana later discovers the identity of the Empty Lot's owner: a psychologically-induced blind woman named Makoto Makimura, who resides in Sōtenbori, Osaka.

In Sōtenbori, Osaka, Goro Majima, an ex-yakuza, is the manager of a cabaret club. Years prior, in the aftermath of his sworn brother, Taiga Saejima, disobeying orders and killing 18 rival members with Majima's assistance, Majima was tortured by his boss, Futoshi Shimano, though Shimano later released Majima and placed him under the supervision of Shimano's sworn brother: Tsukasa Sagawa of the Omi Alliance. Majima manages the club to earn money for Sagawa in the hope that Sagawa will have Shimano reinstate Majima into the Tojo Clan. On Shimano's behalf, Sagawa tasks Majima with assassinating Makoto. Majima's search takes him to a chiropractic clinic, where he learns that Makoto is a receptionist and under the protection of the clinic's owner, Wen Hai Lee. Majima takes Makoto to an abandoned warehouse and sets out to find answers as to why Makoto is being hunted. Lee suggests murdering a look-alike of Makoto, but Majima refuses to do it; however, a yakuza patriarch named Homare Nishitani carries out the deed in his place. Suspicious of the killing, Sagawa sends men that discover the warehouse. Sagawa kills Lee with a car bomb, and is about to kill Majima and Makoto, but is stopped by Masaru Sera, president of the Nikkyo Consortium, the Tojo Clan's black ops group, who carries Makoto away. After Sagawa tortures Majima, they work together to find Makoto's location, eventually discovering Sera's identity from Nishitani, who is then killed by an officer who betrayed him. Majima storms through Nikkyo's base and confronts and defeats Sera, who reveals to him that Makoto had already been taken away by Tachibana Real Estate's men prior to Majima's arrival. Sera is then shot in the back by Sagawa, who pulls Kiryu's card from Sera's pocket. The two then decide to travel to Kamurocho in search of him.

Eight hours before, Tachibana's right-hand man, Jun Oda, met with Sera and Kiryu and escorted Makoto back to Kamurocho. On the way back, they are pursued by Dojima Family lieutenant Keiji Shibusawa and his men. They narrowly escape and hide at a construction site, but Oda attempts to betray them. Upon being subdued by Kiryu, Oda reveals that Makoto is Tachibana's sister, and he was the person who sold Makoto as a sex slave to the Korean mafia many years ago, when she moved from China to Sōtenbori in search of Tachibana. The trauma she suffered before being rescued by Lee is what caused her blindness. Kiryu and Makoto escape, returning to Kamurocho, while Oda is killed by Shibusawa. Kiryu meets up with Tachibana and prepares to take him to see Makoto, but is shot by Lao Gui, a Chinese assassin retained by Dojima who set up the Empty Lot murder and framed Kiryu. Tachibana surrenders in order to spare Kiryu. Kiryu recovers and finds Nishikiyama - the two of them track down Tachibana being tortured in a basement. After freeing him, Tachibana succumbs to his injuries and dies. Makoto partially regains her sight only after discovering his dead body.

Shimano reveals to Majima and Sagawa that he always knew Majima wouldn't have followed the order to kill Makoto. Shimano had hoped for Majima to be able to gain Makoto's trust, and convince her to give the Empty Lot's deed to Shimano himself without trouble, so he could sell it to the Omi Alliance in his plot to betray the Tojo Clan. Majima wanders Kamurocho in search of Kiryu; he defeats Nishikiyama, and from him, learns about Makoto's disappearance, and goes to the Empty Lot, where he finds Makoto on a nearby rooftop. She escapes Majima's sight, and goes to meet Dojima to negotiate a deal; she will give him the deed to the Empty Lot in exchange for the heads of the three lieutenants responsible for her brother's death. Dojima explains his recent discovery that if Makoto, as the lot's owner, were to be killed, then she would not be able to object to the revitalization project building over the lot, making the deed unnecessary to him. Dojima has Lao Gui shoot her; Majima arrives in time to rush her to the hospital, with the help of Sera, who survived Sagawa's gunshot.

After Kiryu defeats Kuze for a fifth and final time, Kuze reveals to him that Shibusawa had Lao Gui secretly ensure his shot was non-fatal, so that he could keep an eye on the movements of the Nikkyo Consortium as they tried to rescue Makoto and track down their base. Kiryu heads to their base, which is a ship that is being stormed by the Shibusawa Family. He makes his way through the ship, and after defeating Shibusawa's minions, duels against the man himself, emerging victorious. Nishikiyama stops Kiryu from killing him, not wanting him to cross the line of becoming a murderer.

Meanwhile, Majima arrives at Dojima Family's headquarters, fighting his way through the building. He defeats Hiroki Awano, a lieutenant of the Dojima Family, who is then killed while trying to defend Majima from Lao Gui. Dojima then commands the assassin to kill Majima, but he prevails and prepares to murder both of them. Sera arrives and stops Majima, announcing his new ownership of the Empty Lot from Makoto, convincing him to stand down. He instructs Majima to kill Shimano for betraying the Tojo Clan to the Omi Alliance, but Majima spares him, instead offering his life. Shimano, in response, kills an Omi Alliance envoy in return to deny his involvement with them, and reinstates Majima into his family as a captain.

In January 1989, Sera is promoted to the Captain of the Tojo Clan (and a few years later, he becomes the chairman itself). Cleared of suspicion, Kiryu rejoins the Dojima Family. Majima, inspired by Lee and Nishitani, decides to live a crazy, carefree lifestyle. As punishment for his failure to secure a deal with the Shimano Family, Sagawa is killed by the Omi Alliance. Majima encounters Makoto, who does not recognize him due to her past blindness, as well as her doctor, who has feelings for her. Majima encourages the doctor to take care of Makoto, then leaves.

In a post-credits scene, Majima comes face to face with Kiryu in Kamurocho, and greets him gleefully.

The top four most-voted AV idols in Sega's booth at Tokyo Game Show 2014. Left to right: Chika Arimura, Hibiki Ōtsuki, Ai Uehara and Mana Sakura.

The game was first announced in a special Yakuza event on 24 August 2014, together with a trailer. Thirty most popular AV idols, as voted by fans in an earlier poll, were also announced to make cameo appearances in the game, with the top 10 having more significant roles (the top five would appear as the highest tier hostesses in the finished game).[9] A Chinese-language localization of the game was announced in 2014 and eventually released in Asia in May 2015. Shonan no Kaze performed the game's main theme and ending theme, "Bubble" and "Kurenai" respectively; these songs were not licensed for the English release and were instead replaced by original instrumental tracks.

The Chinese localization of the game replaces late-game character Lao Gui, Chinese hired assassin of the Dojima Family, with a face model of Hong Kong actor Sam Lee.[10]

On 5 December 2015, at PlayStation Experience in San Francisco, Sony Computer Entertainment's Gio Corsi announced that Yakuza 0 would be coming to the Americas for the PlayStation 4. Initially, no official confirmation was made of a European release. In July 2016, it was announced that the game would release in North America and Europe for the PlayStation 4 in January 2017.[11]

Western localization of the game was led by Scott Strichart, associate producer of Atlus USA, who has localized Yakuza Kiwami, Yakuza Kiwami 2, and Yakuza 6.[12] The team took a year and a half to localize Yakuza 0, which has 1.8 million Japanese characters, nearly twice as many as the average JRPG, which has 1 to 1.2 million Japanese characters.[12] In addition to challenges translating tone and humor, Strichart's team at Atlus had difficulties localizing traditional Asian games, including Mahjong and Shogi. In order to make these minigames accessible to Western audiences, Atlus had to provide detailed rules alongside gameplay. During the localization process, Strichart said the team wrote a total of "34 pages of Mahjong explanation."[10]

Yakuza 0 received "generally favorable" reviews from critics, with the Xbox One version receiving "universal acclaim", according to review aggregator Metacritic.[13][14]

The game debuted at number 1 on the Japan software chart in its first week of release. The PlayStation 3 and the PlayStation 4 version sold 146,000 units and 90,000 sales respectively.[26] PlayStation LifeStyle's review of the import version was a 9/10, calling it the best in the series and "the result of 10 years spent not just perfecting a formula, but adding to it."[24] The game received a 36/40 from Famitsu on both platforms.[18] Eurogamer ranked the game 45th on their list of the "Top 50 Games of 2017",[27] while Polygon ranked it 44th on their list of the 50 best games of 2017,[28] and The Verge named it as one of their 15 Best Video Games of 2017.[29]

As of 28 June 2018, Yakuza 0 and Yakuza Kiwami were relaunched as PlayStation Hits. The games, as with all PlayStation Hits games, come in a red case and retail for $19.99 in both the United States and Canada.[30]

• Official website