All Quiet on the Gaming Front


This week has been mostly same old, same old. My main project is still Yakuza 0, which has temporarily bid farewell to Kazuma Kiryu and his real estate woes. The focus is now on Osaka, where perhaps the most beloved maniac in the entire series, Goro “Mad Dog” Majima, is leading a most peculiarly serene life. He is the refined manager of the fanciest, most successful cabaret in town. Instead of indiscriminate acts of brutal violence, Majima spends his time entertaining his clientele and taking care of his staff. Still, for him such ostentatious high life is but a reluctant prison. Thanks to his youthful blunder, he lost both his left eye and his position in the yakuza. He’d like nothing more than a new chance, but that’s not even negotiable without a 500 million yen apology. Bubble economy or not, that’s a sum that will probably take quite some effort to raise.

Since I’m in charge, Majima has not been concentrating on earning money but enjoying the nightlife of Osaka. Just like in Kamurocho, amusing side stories and eccentric characters pop up almost everywhere. The most wonderful aspect of the game is still its good-natured jabbing at the 80’s. As Majima, you get to marvel at the emergence of cellphones, or even have your say on how the government should improve taxation in the coming decades. Osaka’s Sotonbori (Dotonbori in real life) is familiar from Yakuza 5 but it, too, has been given a lovely PS4 overhaul. The areas in Yakuza games have never been particularly large, but what they lose in size, they win back in attention to detail. Neon signs, street adverts, vending machines, convenience store shelves, even the pavement… Absolutely everything has been designed with extreme care and authenticity. It’s because of this impeccable pedantry that I’ve already played for 18 hours, yet the story is still in the bullpen. In these surroundings, just gawking around, doing nothing in particular, and breathing in pure Japan is the way to go!

Yes… Yes it does…

Over on 3DS, I’m still making progress in Rhythm Paradise Megamix, although awkwardly. As much fun as it was to go for perfection, I’ve now more or less given up and struggle through the challenges with minimal effort. For some reason, the game no longer feels entertaining. I’m not entirely sure why, but (inadvertent) discouraging might be it. Even if the challenges themselves are still spontaneous crazy comedy, the game takes its rhythm dead seriously. The required reaction times and hit windows are becoming so small that some beats seem to hit more by accident than skill. It’s frustrating when your head and your fingers convince you of your rhythm being right but the game begs to differ. It more or less requires you to reach a flow of some kind, but even if that would only take more practice and especially repetition, it’s starting to feel more like work than actual fun. Luckily the challenges are still less than a minute each, so the game is still tolerable in small bursts.


Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice is stumbling as well. Its third case was just as colossal and needlessly convoluted as the second. The fourth one, in turn, was weirdly short and remarkably detached from everything else. In other words, the pacing is off and the common thread lost. If Spirit of Justice was only about Phoenix and Maya adventuring in Khura’in, it might have risen to the excellence of the dreamy original trilogy. As it stands, it’s a disappointingly vague “something for everyone” experience. Despite all that, though, I must praise the holy priestess and princess of Khura’in, Rayfa Padma Khura’in. This condescending young woman resents lawyers with all her heart, but she has grown into a fantastic tsundere whose impetuous outbursts are a constant source of hearty laughs. I still have the final case to solve, too, so the game still has ample time to redeem itself. Besides, it’s not like Spirit of Justice is bad; it’s just not as good as us long-term fans of the series might’ve gotten used to.