For the past 2 months i have been playing through the Yakuza series and man i freaking love these games i love just about everything in these games from the fun and satisfying as hell combat, to the open worlds which are a good example that you don't need a big open world in games to have plenty of stuff to do in, and the crazy crime drama stories and awesome characters.

This is how i would rank the games from worst to best keep in mind though i haven't played 5 and Ishin yet so i won't be talking about them

6.Yakuza Dead Souls

This game basically borders on guilty pleasure for me it has some good moments and its nice to play as Majima and Goda. It took me a while to get use to the controls and the frame rate really was just the worst. Weirdly though i still manage to have quite a bit of fun despite those complaints and personally i have been getting tired of zombies so I it’s kind of tough for me to figure out why i enjoy this game the way i did but i will only suggest it to fans of the Yakuza series

5.Yakuza 1

If we’re talking story wise then is would be my third favorite in the series however though despite a couple problems such as its very loss lock on, having to completely turn around to attack from behind, and a very bad on rails segment towards the end of the game. With that said from the very start to the end I had was having a freaking blast to play and the story manage to keep my interest and entertain me for my entire 10 hour playthrough and by the end of the game Kazuma Kiryu became one of my favorite video game character. If you want to get into the series I really do suggest start with this one and use a PS2 emulator to play it which is what I did.

4.Yakuza 3

While gameplay wise this is a step up from Yakuza 1 and 2 in terms of gameplay this has my least favorite story out of all of the main line games simply because it took till the half way point for me to start getting interested in the plot and often in the story was paused in order to take care of an orphanage and while I did like some of the orphans some of should didn’t really get any development. My last problem with Yakuza 3 and my biggest problem is actually nonexistent in the Japanese version which is that for its western release Sega actually went in and cut content like around 30 side missions, some mini games and the hostess clubs. With all of those complaints said though I still had a ton of fun with this one for its gameplay which is mainly though a more refine version of the first 2 games and having my favorite boss’s and heat moves in the entire series.

3.Yakuza 4

While I did feel the story was didn’t have much focus this time that was mainly because this game introduce 4 protagonists to play as 3 of which are brand new to the series and all of them have their own unique fighting style which are all a ton of fun and with mini-games like hostess and fighter maker I could spend hours on. Though I was bummed that Kazuma was only playable for the last third of the game and the way he introduce in this game was really cool and pretty unique.

2.Yakuza Kenzan

This was the first game I have ever imported and man I’m glad I did this game was freaking awesome putting the series in edo period times and playing as real life legendary swordsmen, Miyamoto Musashi and basing his character of off Kazuma in both character design and personality wise was a fantastic idea. Despite the fact that this game is Japanese only and I know only a little Japanese I manage to get a lot done in this game from around doing around over 30 to 40 side missions, and managing to upgrade my weapons to the point that I had a pretty powerful sword towards the end of the game. Speaking of which the focus of sword combat instead of hand to hand was a nice change of pace and there are some really cool heat moves using swords. If you’re a fan series that and haven’t played this one yet I suggest you do trust it’s a fantastic game and its only 20 bucks on amazon and there is a walkthrough on YouTube that has all of the cutscene’s translated which I used when playing to experience this game awesome plot.

1.Yakuza 2 

I had bit of a hard deciding if I like Kenzan or 2 more but I’m going to have to go with 2.  The combat in this games fixes and irons out all of my gripes with Yakuza 1’s combat, has my favorite area’s to explore in the games, my personal favorite side-mission, a lot of my favorite moments in the series like Majima defusing that bomb had me rolling, and has my favorite love interest for Kazuma, and my while I though Sasaki Roujiro from Kenzan was a great villain I got to say I thought Ryuji Goda has a villain was a bit better in my eyes and the best villain the series. The story in this game also had me on the edge of my seat a lot with a lot of twist I didn’t see coming with some awesome boss fights like those Tigers. Also shout to the ending of this game for trolling me at 4 in the morning.