Yakuza series
Yakuza | Yakuza 2 | Yakuza 3 | Yakuza 4 | Yakuza 5 | Yakuza 0 | Yakuza 6
Like a Dragon series
Yakuza: Like a Dragon | Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name | Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
Judgment series
Judgment | Lost Judgment
Other Spin-Offs
Ryu ga Gotoku: Kenzan! | Yakuza: Dead Souls | Like a Dragon: Ishin! | Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise
- Anti-Climax Boss: For all the buildup leading to him, to say that Tenkai is a complete joke would be an understatement. While his gun attacks do quite a bit of damage, they can easily be blocked, and he never even attempts to guard against you. Using your dual sword grab combo, which can be unlocked by doing training during the game and builds your heat meter up significantly, you can easily take him down in less than two minutes even if you aren't a very skilled player, making him by far the easiest final boss in the entire series. He's such a pushover that there has to be at least a chance he was designed to be ridiculously easy deliberately.
- Ass Pull: We never find out how Majima somehow survived his fall in Chapter 10. The game hints that he died, but he shows up briefly in the epilogue with no explanation.
- Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game: Sort of. While its story is praised by those who have read translations as being one of the better ones in the series, its gameplay is much less refined than later installments due to being the first "modern" Yakuza title after leaping to the PS3.
- Fan Nickname: Oftentimes referred to as Yakuza Kenzan, in a similar vein as its successor.
- Harsher in Hindsight: Haruka's impulsive decision making in this game in her attempts to get Kiryu to help her borders on Too Dumb to Live, putting herself at great risk for seemingly no reason but honorable payment. For years fans could just sum it up as it being a different interpretation of the character, given she's usually on the ball in the main series. Then the ending of 5 happens followed by the maelstrom of recklessness that leads to the events of 6, demonstrating this problem to be an inherent character trait when it comes to the Rule of Drama.
- Scrappy Mechanic: While you can still rapidly tap X to stand up after getting knocked down, there is no on screen prompt to do so unlike later games, and the game is vague about it even if you know Japanese.
- That One Boss: This game's incarnation of Majima can be pretty damn annoying. He blocks almost all the time, making the moments he's open to be attacked very sparse unless you're really skilled at sidestepping in order to hit him from the back. He also has a myriad of attacks that can knock you down hard if he manages to get you from the backside, and given that he moves around the battlefield a lot, you need to watch out for him.
- Visual Effects of Awesome: Especially considering that it was never intended for players outside Japan, the effort put into the visuals for the time shows. For an early PS3 game released not even a year-and-a-half into the console's lifespan, its graphics still hold up remarkably well 10+ years later, to the point that many fans don't believe it needs a full remake if it eventually gets brought stateside.
