A little over a year ago, my wife and I finished playing persona 5 Royal and were eager to find another big rpg to play together. We went to the store and this bold, yellow game case covered in wild imagery sat on the shelf. It was yakuza like a dragon. This would be our first time entering the like a dragon franchise and it certainly wasn’t the last. Since then, we’ve played like a dragon 7, 0, Kiwami, Ishin and the spin offs Judgement and Lost Judgement. All of the games fabulous and, importantly, all games have independent enough narratives that it doesn’t really matter where you choose to get on board.
If you like big, narrative games, chaotic characters, eclectic and deep gameplay, and you don’t shy away from some intense tonal whiplash, DO NOT sleep on this franchise any longer.
Where I live, most of the games are on PlayStation plus, so you don’t have to go out of your way to buy them if you’re a subscriber. Otherwise they’re on frequent sale.
The rumor you mentioned originated from an article by Jake Adelstein, an American journalist writing about Japan, especially crime/yakuza. He claims he knows a lot of insiders in the yakuza and often covered stories about them.
In one such story, he claims he let a few yakuza guys play Yakuza 3 and they seemed to like the game and even praise some stuff as true to life: https://boingboing.net/2010/08/10/yakuza-3-review.html
However, this article (and others he wrote about the yakuza) may very well be fake - there are many doubts if Adelstein even knew any yakuza at all. I think one of the arguments is that it simply wouldn’t be possible for a ‘gaijin’ reporter to get inside access into the yakuza to be able to talk to them like this, and some of the stories he published are too fantastical, involving sex, martial arts etc. - just makes him hard to believe.
Just saying this because I see this rumor repeated from time to time and while it seems cool, it’s probably just fake.
Whoa, thanks so much for explaining the background behind that! I intentionally stated that it was a rumor because it honestly sounded farfetched to me as well!
Sounds like there might be some fun stories there, even if they are fictional. I’ll keep it in mind and share the knowledge if I see it come up again.
(Sorry if I replied twice. I got an error first submission)