Set in an 1980s Japan and heavily revolving around, you guessed it, yakuza activities, Yakuza 0 follows the stories of two men, Kazuma Kiryu and Majima Goro. Kiryu's story starts him out in Kamuricho, with a debt collection job that seemingly goes wrong. He is framed for murder, which is in a location called the Empty Lot which, unfortunately for Kiryu, is the focal point of a war between his clan, the Tojo Clan, and Tachibana Real Estate, with the plot being key in efforts to revitalise Kamurocho. Forced to leave his clan, Kiryu faces a fight to clear his name and avoid being horribly murdered by his former clan. Majima's story meanwhile takes place in Sotenbori, having been excommunicated from the Omi Alliance, but is still in service to the Alliance Chairman, Sagawa. In effort to try and work his way back into the ranks of the Alliance, Majima has taken over as manager of the Grand, a massive cabaret club, until events pull him out of a seemingly serene civilian life and into events that lead him back into the Yakuza life.
Whilst it's clear that Kiryu is meant to be the main draw in the story, Majima definitely steals the show through out. Whilst Kiryu is the more stoic of the pair, Majima is the guy I couldn't wait to play more of. From his introduction in the cabaret club, to the silent struggles he has from having to take orders from Sagawa, to the emotional payoff of his story arc, I had a blast playing as Majima. Not to say Kiryu's arc isn't good; he still has his moments of badassery and the relationship between him and his blood brother Nishikiyama plays fantastically well upon some aspects of Kiryu's character development. I just couldn't help feel a little twinge of disappointment when I reached the end of Majima's chapters, knowing I'd be going from the more eccentric styling of Majima to the more straight cut and almost stoic Kiryu.
Kiryu's and Majima's story arcs mostly stay separate from each other for the most part, but later on they slowly begin to come together with explosive results. It's a slow burning story which will keep you pressing forward to see what is going to happen next, coming with some emotional gut punches you weren't expecting from Yakuza 0. With that said, as interesting as the main plot is, you're not locked into it for the majority of the game thankfully, allowing you the freedom to explore. There's tons of sidequests around both cities, ranging from the almost normal to the exceedingly over the top. From helping a film crew shoot a food show, to helping a mother get her daughter back from a cult, on to helping a man called Mr Libido, there is always something you can find to do. The sidequests, or substories as Yakuza 0 calls them, are all varied and unique too, often adding interesting things to do. But they all come back around to one thing eventually; a quick brawl between your character at the time and a group of angry, probably armed men.
Fist fights can and will happen at any time in Yakuza 0; at the end of a substory, in the main story, even just wondering the streets at random. To help you out, both Majima and Kiryu have three unlockable fighting styles and one ultimate style, and all can be switched between mid fight. The three main fighting styles range between regular, heavy and agility based, but aren't the same styles between characters. Kiryu's heavy style has him moving slower, but hitting harder, hunched over and almost primal-esqe. Majima's heavy style, meanwhile, has him employ a baseball bat into his repertoire. No matter the style though, you still have your usual mix of fighting game mechanics; light attacks, heavy attacks, grabs, blocks, dodges and so on. What makes Yakuza 0 stand out a little more in the combat front is the Heat Gauge, which allows you to pull off Heat Attacks.
From the 'tame' ones that involve kicking someone on the floor across a room, to suplexing someone on to a bike rack and to straight up slamming someones head in between a car door, then kicking the door again for good measure, the Heat Attacks are gratuitously over the top, violent finishers which fit perfectly with the over the top stylings of Yakuza 0, and are designed to either take a chunk of health off of enemies, or end the fight in a explosion of cash. These are the attacks you're trying to get enough Heat to use by dealing damage using your regular attacks, and an incredibly flashy and over the top way of making sure the people that attacked you aren't getting back up. Unless you're called Kuze. How many times do we have to teach you this lesson, old man?!
Fights are your primary way of earning money in Yakuza 0, but fights can also cost you money if you run into Mr Shakedown, a big bad bruiser who can, and probably will, strip you off all your cash. However, don't think all Yakuza 0 has up its sleeve to entertain you is fighting and fun side stories. Early on in the story, Yakuza 0 introduces you to one of many side activities you can do; karaoke. That's not all you can do though; you can play pool, play Outrun in arcades, go bowling sans an annoying cousin, and even bet on underground fighting rings. If you're so inclined, you can even go to the disco and bust out some seriously sharp moves, or stumble around like a drunken cat at a disco. It also helps that in the karaoke activity, it will change from singing in a bar, to putting you in an over the top music video setting, allowing Yakuza 0 to flex its impressive graphical muscles when it's not already doing this.
Yakuza 0 has near photo-realistic graphics for its cutscenes, almost to the point you can count the amount of pores each character has during them. During regular gameplay, this is obviously toned back but Yakuza 0 still emits a colourful charm and still looks as good as many modern games when you're just exploring about. Yet for all its charms and fantastic story telling, there are a few technical areas where Yakuza 0 stumbles a little. The sound can sometimes sound like it's underwater if you put the master volume below a specific setting and for fans of autosaves, there is no such luxury here. At least if you do fail in combat and get defeated, you don't need to reload from an old save and can just retry the battle from the beginning, but it might frustrate those who forget to save regularly and exit without having a save recently made.
With all that said, I would heartily recommend Yakuza 0. It knows what it's working towards as the climactic final chapter rolls around. Everything you've done up until that point will pay off in an emotional and violent climax, neatly tying together the stories of Kiryu and Majima and setting up the events of Yakuza Kiwami. Yakuza 0 mixes heart wrenching emotion, light hearted jokes and over the top violence just right, never allowing one to outweigh the other in a story that has an incredible payoff that will have your heartstrings being tugged at and played with the entire way, whilst maintaining incredible style and charm through out.