The Yakuza games have always taken a different approach to the open world crime genre than Grand Theft Auto. In Yakuza 5 the series expanded its environments and added driving segments, but instead of coming closer to the GTA style, the game subverted the gameplay norms of the GTA series, as well as those of the prior Yakuza games. At nearly every turn, Yakuza 5 went against the grain of player expectations. The end result was certainly one of the most ambitious games in the Yakuza franchise, but also one of the most vexing, for some fans, as it made players work through atypical scenarios before returning to the core gameplay and story style of the series.
Though director Toshiro Nagoshi invited the comparison of Yakuza and Grand Theft Auto based on scale, the gameplay of Yakuza 5 continued to veer in its own direction. The game’s first chapter featured the longtime protagonist Kazuma Kiryu living in Fukuoka, distant from both his original turf in the fictional Tokyo district of Kamurocho as well as the Okinawa-based orphanage he ran that was introduced in Yakuza 3. While Yakuza 3 was polarizing in part for shifting the focus from Kiryu’s involvement with the world of organized crime to his role as a caregiver for orphaned youth for a large portion of the game, Yakuza 5’s opening chapter was even more off-putting for some. Kiryu’s life in Fukuoka was lived under the assumed name of Suzuki, where he acted as a taxi driver, separated both from his origins in the yakuza as well as his adopted daughter Haruka.
In an interview with 1up.com, the developer described Yakuza 5 as aiming to be what Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was to GTA for the Yakuza series. Nagoshi elaborated that the increased size and scope of the environments and storyline made Yakuza 5 a fresh start of sorts for the series, saying, “If Yakuza 5 was a building, this would be a complete rebuild instead of an expansion.” Yakuza 5 featured five playable protagonists, as well as five cities for players to explore. Aside from offering more ground to cover, the main storyline in Yakuza 5 was the longest in the series, up until Yakuza: Like A Dragon.
Previous Yakuza games did not include driving segments, but as a taxi driver, Kiryu took the wheel for the first time. The driving segments could be seen as a calculated parody of Grand Theft Auto, where theft and evasion are paramount, and speed is almost always of the essence. Players who elected to dive into the taxi driving minigame were rewarded for breaking early and smoothly, signaling their turns, and obeying the rules of the road. Making proper small talk with passengers was also incentivized. The simulation of a dutiful cabbie was in direct opposition to the typical GTA experience, but also a step away from Kiryu’s typical role as an indomitable brawler who never backs down from a challenge.
Later chapters would continue to subvert player expectations. After breaking out of prison, returning protagonist Saegima seemed on course to avenge the apparent death of his comrade Majima, but ended up spending much of his storyline in a rural village hunting wildlife and struggling to survive frigid temperatures. Kiryu’s adopted daughter Haruka became a playable character in Yakuza 5, trading street fights for dance battles executed through a rhythm game. Guiding Haruka to victory in a talent competition ultimately tied in with the story’s climactic arc, but her segment was also one of the biggest tonal shifts in the series.
Yakuza 5 did inevitably lead each character to a point where their story intersects with the elaborate criminal conspiracy that every Yakuza title features, and the shifts in gameplay style and tone added to the catharsis, for many players, when the heroes returned to being heroes. The “San Andreas of Yakuza” proved to be more than just an expansion of scale and scope as it was framed, as it embraced experimental gameplay that was not characteristic of the franchise. By subverting player expectations again and again, Yakuza 5 was unlike both GTA and other Yakuza games, but those forays into alternate styles of gameplay and storytelling made the conclusion that much more satisfying for many players.
Source: 1up.com
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