Yakuza 0

Yakuza 0 is a prequel to the entire series and also the best possible entry point for newcomers, which only reached Xbox One in 2020, straight into a subscription service. The story takes place in Japan at the end of the 1980s, during the real-estate bubble, and follows two heroes: young Kazuma Kiryu in Tokyo's Kamurocho, accused of a murder he didn't commit, and Goro Majima in Osaka's Sotenbori, who runs a cabaret club and dreams of returning to the clan. Both storylines revolve around a single empty lot on which enormous sums of money depend.

Combat is arcade-style, punchy, and built on switching between three fighting styles for each character, from quick strikes to heavy swings with a bicycle wheel or a traffic cone. Upgrades are paid for literally in cash, which pours in from every direction in the bubble economy. Alongside the main story, the game offers a huge amount of side content: real-estate management with Kiryu, running a cabaret club with Majima, karaoke, phone dating services, bowling, disco, arcade cabinets with old Sega games, and dozens of bizarre encounters with passers-by that swing between humour and touching endings. That mix of serious gangster drama and outright absurdity is exactly what defines the series.

Technically this is a game originally from the previous generation, which runs on Xbox One without a hitch and leans on density of detail within small but intricately crafted city districts; neon streets in the rain rank among the best the series has offered. The music mixes funk, rock and eighties synth-pop, and shifts into driving guitar action during boss fights. Reception was excellent, and this very entry helped the series break through in the West. Today Yakuza 0 is recommended as an introduction to the whole world of the clans and as an example of a game that can be gravely dramatic one moment and completely off the wall the next. Anyone who gives it a few hours usually ends up hooked on the whole series, and Kamurocho becomes as familiar a place to them as maps from their favourite shooters.