Every Mainline Yakuza Game, Ranked (2024)

With the remake of Yakuza: Kenzan releasing this week, Like a Dragon: Ishin, just about every home console release in the Yakuza series has been released in the West in some form. Following lackluster sales of 3 and 4 on the PS3 outside of Japan, the series’ future was anything but certain. Even Yakuza 5 took three years to see a localization.

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Starting with Yakuza 0’s western PS4 release in 2017, the series hit far bigger mainstream success than it ever had before. The Yakuza series has been consistently solid, with most of the series' biggest issues being cut content and translation problems, all of which have been fixed with re-releases in recent years.

10 Yakuza 1

Starting with the original Yakuza title, the series gained notoriety very quickly and plans were made to market the title in the West. Great efforts were made to appeal to a wider audience of the time. The game featured an English dub with a cast featuring both Michael Madsen and Mark Hamill. Ultimately the series' biggest advantage was embracing its quirks and its differences from games of its era.

The series' staple gameplay and world map were ironed out very early with Yakuza 1. The series' bigger focus on minigames and substories began to form more in the PS3 era. Yakuza 1’s biggest problems compared to modern titles are the obvious technical limitations of the PS2, most glaring in the transitions between areas of Kamurocho. Both PS2 titles are also far more difficult than future titles.

9 Yakuza: Kiwami

While Yakuza 1’s shortcomings compared to the series’ later offerings, its remake in Yakuza: Kiwami 1 fixes plenty but ends up creating its own problems at the same time. The game shares its engine and assets with Yakuza 0, even continuing some substories over from 0. Kiwami’s biggest mechanic in marketing was the Maijma Everywhere system.

A majority of the game’s progression is tied to this system, which involves various different Majima boss fights throughout the game. They are different enough from one another to offer good variety, but the sheer amount of times you have to fight him, frequently while running around Kamurocho when it won’t advance your combat tree, makes the entire game a headache.

8 Yakuza 3

After the terrific reception of the first two Yakuza games, Yakuza 3 took a big turn in this regard. So much so that future games featured tongue-in-cheek allusions to the poor reception of the title. Yakuza 3 isn’t a bad game, but it’s a stark contrast to the first two titles. The gameplay becomes longer and more tedious given how much enemies block in combat and the generally slower pace of encounters compared to the series’ other entries.

Story-wise much of the game follows Kiryu’s orphanage, with the usual Yakuza crime drama taking a backseat at many points. Yakuza 3 also removed much of the side content from its initial Japanese release, like the Hostess Club. The series also features some of the worst translations in the series. A big leap forward technically on the PS3, Yakuza 3 falls short in the Yakuza charm that only grew bigger with future releases.

7 Yakuza 5

There was a time when it seemed unlikely that Yakuza 5 would ever release outside of Japan. Initially released in 2012, it took three years for an English release. The game took from the positive reception of Yakuza 4’s four different protagonists and increased the number to five in Yakuza 5. While 4 managed to juggle this fairly well, 5 struggled much more.

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Fan favorites Saejima and Akiyama return, but the Haruka sections involve no combat and a Pop Idol story focus and minigame. These sections would have been fine as an optional side objective, but locking story progression behind them makes it a drag. Kiryu’s taxi minigame sections also work similarly, although they are far less intrusive. Better than Yakuza 3, the title is bogged down by relying on well-received mechanics from Yakuza 4.

6 Yakuza 2

Yakuza 2 took off from Yakuza 1’s formula and improved by leaps and bounds. The English release didn’t waste time with an English dub, instead opting for the original Japanese language audio with subtitles, something that became a staple for the series until Like a Dragon’s reintroduction of it.

Targeting and fighting multiple enemies became much less frustrating, and navigating around the map was much smoother. Story wise the title got a lot more ambitious than its initial title. Between the first two PS2 titles, Yakuza 2 is almost universally considered to be the better of the two, and one of the best in the series.

5 Yakuza 6

Yakuza 6 was the first title in the series to utilize the dragon engine. The game itself was leaked early in the west behind a pre-release demo. The demo involved downloading the entire game, with only a one-hour section at the beginning being accessible. The barrier that was intended to prevent players from accessing the rest of the game did not work properly, meaning that a few thousand people (myself included) could play the entire game months before release.

The game’s usage of the dragon engine leads to some janky, but incredibly fun physics mechanic gameplay. Combat encounters are also much faster pace than 0, retaining much of the creative substory design as well, with some being outright continuations of substories from Yakuza 0. The game lacks the variety in combat styles that 0 had between both Kiryu and Majima, but its unique feeling of combat is a solid enough substitute.

4 Yakuza: Kiwami 2

The other of the Yakuza titles to feature the dragon engine’s combat, Yakuza Kiwami 2 is a massive improvement from Kiwami 1. Visually the game is the most impressive in the series alongside Like a Dragon. Like 6, it continues some substories from both 0 and 6. Kiwami 2 features the best combination of the fast-paced dragon engine gameplay and creative side content such as the Hostess Club and ToyLets.

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The game features an original side mode with the Clan Creator, which is more of a tower defense-like mode than the version in 6. Also like 6, the mode heavily features cameos from New Japan Pro Wrestling legends like Masahiro Chono and the recently retired Keiji Mutoh.

3 Yakuza 4

Widely considered to be the best of the PS3 era, Yakuza 4 finds the best balance between story, gameplay diversity, and fun side activities. The cut content from 3 in its western release was not an issue in 4. Yakuza 4 was the first in the series to have multiple playable characters, with Kiryu, Saejima, Akiyama and Tanimura all playing differently from one another, featuring much of their own story content before all coming together at the end.

The game does feature some of the least liked side content in the series, such as the create a fighter section of the game with Saejima. The combat is also much faster paced and largely back to normal after the longer engagements of 3. If you play just one of the PS3 releases, Yakuza 4 is the one to go with.

2 Yakuza: Like A Dragon (Yakuza 7)

Yakuza: Like a Dragon was the first in the series to switch to a JRPG-style game in lieu of the Yakuza games’ staple combat-heavy action-adventure style. Initially shown off in a fake April Fool’s trailer, the switch to a new protagonist, Ichiban Kasuga, and a move to JRPG combat was so well received that Sega opted to shift direction with their next title.

Yakuza 6 having some finality to it when it came to Kiryu’s story made this much easier in retrospect. The JRPG mechanics feel somewhat half-baked, but the variety in how you approach gameplay and the usual high quality of side content like the business management section help its pacing greatly.

1 Yakuza 0

Yakuza 0 is often cited as the game that saved the franchise in the west, and that’s with good reason. Often considered the best title to recommend beginners to the series, Yakuza 0 serves as a prequel for the rest of the series. Every Yakuza game up to this point featured some way of getting caught up on each of the game’s stories, but 0 didn’t need to. The cut back to just two playable characters, Kiryu and Majima, allowed for more fleshed-out combat featuring three different combat styles for each, with a secret fourth one for Kiryu locked behind late-game progression.

This philosophy worked for the story, with both Kiryu and Majima taking far different paths throughout the game. Even minigames such as pocket racer for Kiryu and the beloved hostess club minigame for Majima were far more fleshed out than any before it and even had their own lengthy substories tied to their completion. Overall, Yakuza 0’s reputation as the title that saved the series came with good reason, and will likely be considered the best launching point for newcomers for the foreseeable future.

NEXT: Yakuza 8 Must Improve on the JRPG Side of its Predecessor