Game review - Yakuza 3

Today, I've decided to present a game that has been very dear to me since I played it for the first time (I plan to replay it, not sure when), a story that has stuck to me and that means a lot to me.

I will be attaching screenshots I took as I played that I also posted miscellaneously on my tumblr blog, on top of that I will be discussing the story so there will be story spoilers. The game is pretty old, so unless this is your first encounter with a Yakuza game, then you might know a thing or two about the story and even how it ends. If that's not the case, and spoilers really bother you, I suggest you turn back and look for a game review that doesn't include spoilers😉😁😁

I'll start talking about the story as a whole, then touch down a bit on some of my favorite characters and favorite plotlines; I won't be talking about minigames at all because, and I know I'm not allowed to say this 😁😁😁, I don't really like Yakuza minigames, and if I'm playing for the first time I just want the story to unravel as fast as possible, I hate doing anything else other than playing the story itself.

The combat, at least for now, is exasperating, the enemies are very quick to block, which is why you might have heard this game jokingly being referred to as Blockuza 😁😁😁, seriously, I remember being so frustrated I started crying!! But I managed to finish the game with my very limited skills so trust me, it does get better. This is due to the game being very old. However, one detail I liked is that you were able to unlock new skills and moves by helping Kiryu write entries in his blog, like this one lol:

Anyways, next I will be presenting the story in a very summary way, since it's a lot, and I just want to get to the plotline that really resonated with me the most, Mine Yoshitaka's story.

Too good to be true

Yakuza 2 ends, tragically, as every other game in the series; Kiryu is fed up with the yakuza life, understandably so, and retreats to a property in gorgeous rural Okinawa, which he turns into an orphanage. The game allows you to do many things around the orphanage and to interact with the kids, bond with them, and we get to see a more sensible side of Kiryu, as a fatherly figure. You are also allowed to go downtown and shop/play minigames. 

Kiryu leaves Kamurocho with his adoptive daughter, Haruka.

Kiryu's idyllic life is too good to be true and like clockwork, his landlords begin sending out eviction notices. To investigate this, he sets out downtown and meets Rikiya Shimabukuro, a representative of the Ryudo clan, a smaller clan based in Ryukyu, Okinawa, who owns the land in question, and he learns about plans to seemingly demolish the orphanage and build a tourist resort. This moment is the catalyst and the story begins to unfold. Kiryu does manage to buy some time by helping the Ryudo patriarch with a personal matter and delaying his eviction, as he tries to get to the bottom of who is behind this ambitious project involving his land. 

It seems that the plot is thicker than Kiryu initially thought; hell breaks loose in the Tojo when Daigo Dojima, the chairman, is shot by a mysterious man and a member of an American organization, the Black Monday; he enters a coma in which he will stay until the very end of the game. This is essentially a coup d'etat, someone has betrayed the clan as a whole and is trying to amass power, and now Kiryu has to find out who this person is and why they've done such a thing, while also stopping the building of the resort in its tracks. Rikiya, hostile at first, warms up to you (Kiryu, not you you), and becomes a trustworthy friend who will accompany and help you out throughout this story. 

As with any other game in the series, Majima is present as well, In fact, we have Yakuza 3 to thank for this iconic scene. If you've played Yakuza 2, you're aware Majima has his own construction company. It was contracted to build the problematic resort, and as he is still an active presence in the Tojo, he is conveniently willing to share important information with you; if you defeat him in the Coliseum, for old times' sake. So stack up on energy drinks.😊😊

Thoughts on some of the characters

Kiryu

I found Kiryu just really endearing all-around in this game. Kiryu has never been a stereotypical tough Yakuza, and in this story I think we get to see a part of him that is more authentic and true to who he actually is, in relation with his daughter, Haruka, and the other kids at the orphanage.

You get to spend a lot of the time at the orphanage, the story forces you to, but you can also choose to do minigames and other activities there outside of the main story, to bond with the kids. It's really nice to see Kiryu and his kids spend time together and talk things out like a real family. 

Rikiya

Rikiya seems to be a fan favorite, but I didn't really like him at first. I found his attempts to intimidate me quite amusing and I could see through his facade. He really ends up following Kiryu around like a lost puppy and calling him "aniki". I liked his viper tattoo:

Eventually Kiryu took him to Utabori, who had inked both his and Nishiki's backpieces, to get the viper's eye filled in:

I believe this really spoke to how important they had become for each other and how much Kiryu ended up meaning to Rikiya, since filling out the eye was important to him and he didn't want to have just anyone do it.

Daigo Dojima

Daigo was in a coma throughout the whole game. But we get to see him all grown up, a far cry from the emo teenager in Yakuza 2. I just want to say he is really handsome; and he has his mom's whole face, which is good, because if you've played the other games, you know his dad is fugly.

Yoshitaka Mine

I have a lot of thoughts on him so I will expand on that next.

The unbearable sadness of Yoshitaka Mine

I'm unashamed to say that my favorite part of this game was the villain and his story, maybe because I can sympathize with him in a way most people don't, or simply can't. Also in general I tend to gravitate towards the villains in stories simply because I enjoy dark fiction more than wholesome stories. 

In parallel with Kiryu's progress, we are slowly introduced to Mine Yoshitaka, a venture capitalist turned Yakuza chairman of his own clan and financial pillar of the Tojo. He is shown training MMA in his spacious home in Minato, Tokyo, driving flashy cars and attending Yakuza meetings. Unfortunately we are not shown his whole backstory (you can read about his earlier Yakuza days here), but we are shown a bit of his childhood: an extremely lonely orphan who feels utterly abandoned by the world. This all-encompassing loneliness drives him to desire an unwavering bond. The page I just linked describes this better than I can, so I will just post the quote: 

I was not loved by anyone, not needed by anyone... There was no adult who could reach out to me.

I was living in post-war orphan-like poverty, facing nothing but loneliness every day...

So I swore to myself.

"I'm going to be great. I'm going to be great, and I'm going to get money and status..."

And... I got it. Absolute money and status.

At the same time, I have been looking for something from the bottom of my heart all along at the place I have arrived at.

...What it feels like to have a “bond”.

My subordinates who admire me, believe in me, and follow me.

As I have lived in solitude my whole life, it is very comforting to me...

The fruitless search for a real bond is what pushes him into the Yakuza world in the first place as one day he gets to witness a Yakuza shoot-out involving Daigo Dojima (Yakuza 2, anyone?), and one of his subordinates putting his life on the line for his boss. 

(That scene I saw the other day... comes back to my mind over and over again.)

(I've heard that there are "absolute bonds" in the world of organized crime...)

(I want to learn more about this man named Daigo Dojima...)

He develops a sort of obsession with Daigo Dojima, because he wants to understand what exactly about this man is worth swearing lifelong devotion to. I guess he understands what his X factor is, because he develops an all-encompassing admiration and affection for him. Daigo's coma leaves Mine deeply shaken, unable to cope, he acts out, aggressively, hard to understand and, frankly, downright delusionally.

From start to end, he is very hateful towards Kiryu, harboring a deep jealousy, seeing him as competition in the race for Daigo's respect. 

He beheads his subordinate and takes the head to Kiryu to apologize for said subordinate's behavior, blithely unaware of how unhinged that made him seem. He stabs a subordinate with a butter knife for simply badmouthing Daigo. In the end he turns against Daigo, trying to take his life, justifying it to himself that he's just mercifully putting him out of his misery.

The climax of this story is what really stuck with me and put me through a rollercoaster of emotions. It takes place on the roof of Toto hospital, where Daigo was being looked after; it's the usual Yakuza-style confrontation between Kiryu and the main villain, this time Kiryu tries to assess what motivation Mine would have to betray the clan.

Mine starts out in a hostile manner; both him and Kiryu are orphans, but due to different circumstances, have developed wildly different mindsets - Mine is cold, cynical, pessimistic; views the world as inherently lonely, cruelly dog-eat-dog; Kiryu hasn't let his experiences wear him down like that, he embraces challenges with strength and grace and allows himself to trust and be trusted. Mine views this perspective as weak despite longing, deep down, for a close bond.

Defeated, he starts to second-guess himself, and a painful phone call solidifies his decision to end his life. His secretary calls; he picks up, but to his frustration, it was just a regular business call. Fed up with the coldness of the business world, where everyone cares about what you can do for them and not about you as a person, he hangs up and laments his loneliness once again. Earlier in the story, we are shown that his secretary does care about him as a person, urging him not to overwork himself and being upset when he dismisses her concerns; maybe if this phone call had been a personal and not a business one, he would've given himself another chance.

He helps Kiryu fight off the Black Monday as a last hurrah. His speech as he holds Richardson down, the representative of the Black Monday group he used to collaborate with, shows that he has realized the severity of his actions, and is aware he's beyond redemption:

Sorry, but the truth of it is... I don't deserve to live. Kiryu-san, I might be a sorry excuse for a yakuza... But I still know how to uphold my code of honor. Kiryu-san, I wish we could have met sooner. I really do. Maybe in my next life I'll have what it takes to earn your respect.

Despite pleas from both Kiryu and Daigo (who had woken up from his coma meanwhile) not to do it, Mine jumps the ledge. 

Mine's tragedy is deeply one of circumstance. He misread situations and people, saw rejection where it just didn't exist. He happened to be in the wrong entourages his whole life. The world of business is very cutthroat. People would already do anything for money, and it's a world where if you don't stab, you get stabbed. I don't think loyalty is a thing when it comes to running a company and having subordinates, I think it's obvious that they are loyal to your money, not you. The Yakuza is the same in a way, even if they preach about honor and loyalty. Most yakuza are your run of the mill thug who most likely doesn't care about loyalty, and truly honorable men are rare in that world. He sought trust and honest, solid bonds in two worlds where these things are already scarce. In a way, I think there is a bit of naivety to him (like when he allied with Kanda: wavering between trusting him and not trusting - considering to trust him, being betrayed, considering trust again as his last resort etc.. )

Not everyone would've betrayed him, not everyone cared only about money and not about him. His secretary did care about him as a person, but as I pointed out before, her wrong phone call at the wrong time convinced him that he is truly alone in the world. He seemed to be always in the wrong entourage and experiencing betrayal after betrayal, or at least seeing these experiencing as such. I understand his longing for a solid, absolute bond, but it's an unhealthy desire and one that can't be attained as humans aren't absolute. Things change, circumstances change, loyalties change. If you've never experienced the feelings he describes, he might seem a confusing and erratic character, but even so, I believe everyone yearns for a permanent bond, at least a little bit, even if they don't believe in it.

I also want to talk about his tattoo, because in Yakuza, each character's tattoo tells their story and predicts their future - for example, Nishiki has a koi tattoo, the fish which tries to swim against the current and become a dragon - like Kiryu - but fails, because it will always be a fish and never a dragon, symbolizing Nishiki's inferiority complex in relation with Kiryu and predicting his tragic fate. 

Mine has a kirin tattoo:

The man runs up in search of an unwavering bond, but beyond is an endless void. The Kirin barks, to vent his anger. The Kirin flies, to forget his sorrow.

This kirin, or qilin, is a noble mythological chimera, it represents a sage or a noble ruler, and is said to determine if someone is lying or not just by looking at them. It is a benevolent being who becomes fiercely protective when a pure person is threatened by a malicious one. I believe this aligns with Mine's mentality, the pure person in question being Daigo, whom he had put on a pedestal, and the malicious one, Kiryu, whom he was trying to destroy to achieve justice. 

Conclusions

I absolutely loved this game and I urge everyone to play it, even if you probably got spoiled by this review, because it's a pity not to experience the beauty of this game for yourself. This game walks you through beautiful Ryukyu, Okinawa and busy Kamurocho, Tokyo, bustling with people as always, enchants with nostalgic graphics and mechanics, and the story grips you with the softness and sentimentality of Kiryu, up against the unwavering cynicism of Mine, the bitterness of potential lost due to wrong circumstances after wrong circumstances. I will continue to play the Yakuza series, but no matter what, Yakuza 3 will hold a special place in my heart.💗💗💗