Yakuza (the series, not the original game)

Back in 2018, a friend of mine had been hounding me to play the Yakuza games, but I’d thrown Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s crime drama series into the abyss of my backlog for years and figured I’d get to it eventually. Yakuza 0 hopped to the top of my list when that same friend and I made a deal that if he played the Danganronpa games, I would play the Yakuza series. Or, at least a comparable amount of Yakuza, since Spike Chunsoft’s murder mystery franchise has fewer entries. But presumably, he figured, I’d be hooked on Yakuza and want to finish all the games in time for the next one. So we both started playing these games and were pretty into it. I could take or leave the beat-em-up mechanics, but I was very quickly invested in the campy, soap-opera drama of it all. Meanwhile, my friend was surprised to find he was into Danganronpa’s investigation and mock trial setup. By the time he was finished with the first chapter, he was publicly admitting the games were good, and I hadn’t just been talking out my ass about them for years.

But friends, there are two things to know about me: I don’t forget anything, and I can hold a grudge like nobody’s business. So when my friend stopped playing Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (not out of any malice or lack of interest, just because life things came up), I, too, stopped playing Yakuza 0, and swore off playing the games until that friend gets back on Monokuma’s despair train. I have not played a Yakuza game since, nor will I until this blood oath is fulfilled. – Kenneth Shepard