Yakuza 3
Play it on: PS5, PS4, PS3, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Windows (Steam Deck OK)
Current goal: Figure out its less-than-stellar cabaret club
Buy it from: Amazon | GameStop
I’ve been slowly replaying the Yakuza games this year to pump myself up for the release of Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth and the glorious return of one of the series’ best side-quests, the cabaret club.
Cabaret clubs, at least in Yakuza 0 and Yakuza Kiwami 2, play out like a frenetic match in games like Overcooked in which you must manage a rotating roster of hostesses as they get clientele to spend oodles of money on liquid libations. You also have to consider how the personalities of each hostess will match well with clients who want to dine with someone who is either a good talker, a great partygoer, or just drop-dead gorgeous, and accessorize your hostesses accordingly. The cabaret club side-quests in the games above are so good I spent hours ignoring their main quests to win a series of hostess club tournament series. Sadly, the cabaret club side-quest in Yakuza 3 is not as hands-on and frenetic. In fact, it is almost a different beast entirely.
Instead of micromanaging every aspect of customer service during the cabaret’s business hours, Yakuza 3 strips things down by having protagonist Kiryu eavesdrop on customers and guess the style of hostess they’d like to dine with by picking up hints of their preferences over dinners. What follows is what I can only describe as an accessorized guessing game in which all you have to go off of is a hostess’s vague facial expressions over the gaudy articles of clothing and jewelry you’re sprucing her up with before carting her out into the unknown for three shifts, hoping her look are what customers were hoping for.
Reader, I’ve stun-locked my early Yakuza 3 playthrough experience just trying to get someone—anyone— to dine with my first hostess. Folks said they want a “glamorous” girl but when I fashion Ritsuko, an aspiring chef whom I’ve renamed Ramsay, in jewelry and dresses whose descriptions fit the bill, customers still don’t come. But no matter. If I can become a two-time king of the cabaret club whilst ignoring Haruka’s umpteenth kidnapping, I can overcome this challenge as well. I hope. — Isaiah Colbert
