<p>I&#8217;ve had the luxury of playing video games for almost 30 years, and I simply love them. They are a great escape from the troubles and woes of real life and I use them to take my mind off of such things. I&#8217;ve been doing that for decades, and up until recently, I&#8217;ve not had real-life slapped in my face so hard. I understand that developers want to be edgy and controversial, but they need to understand I&#8217;m not buying their game to be preached at by either side of the aisle. I also don&#8217;t like issues that are on the news to be displayed in my games, I want to be rid of all that stuff, even if it&#8217;s just for one hour to center myself. An enjoyable experience that takes me from the rut of my life into a world that without video games I would never see is all that I ask for. Oddly enough, one of my favorite games this year, <em>Yakuza 0</em>, is the game that slammed real life right back in my face as I was enjoying my time in 1988 Japan.</p>
<p>This past year has actually been pretty rough on my family and myself, so I&#8217;ve been diving into games more and more to relax. I put 38 hours into <em>Yakuza 0</em> to finally see the end and I loved every minute of it, except for two key points. Now, these are minor spoilers, so if you want to go into <em>Yakuza 0</em> knowing nothing, stop reading this, play the game and then come back. If you don&#8217;t care there are two points in the game that really resounded with my life at the time. Let&#8217;s start out with the one that won&#8217;t spoil the story, Goro Majima&#8217;s job. Majima is the manager of the trendiest and most popular nightclub in Sotenbori, The Grand. I&#8217;ve been in the restaurant industry for over fourteen years and having one of the coolest characters ever created be a manager of a nightclub was somewhat of a letdown. Every time the story took Majima back to his work I was reminded of my soul-crushing job and it bummed me out a bit. I will admit that I did enjoy the mini-game that had you actually run a shift at the place, that was fun, but I wish Majima could have had another job.</p>
<figure id="attachment_131835" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-131835" style="width: 640px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="size-full wp-image-131835" src="https://cdn.bagogames.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/16225535/Yakuza-0-Legends.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="344" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-131835" class="wp-caption-text">(<em>Yakuza 0</em> &#8211; Sega)</figcaption></figure>
<p>My life and my families lives changed a lot this year, my mother had to start home dialysis and that took a pretty stressful toll and her and myself. During one of my vacations I took my mother to the dialysis class every day, and when I got home I played Yakuza 0 to calm my nerves and take my mind off things. Little did I know that one of the biggest plot points of the game, possible spoiler here, is that Tetsu Tachibana has to get dialysis every few days to keep his strength up. I had no idea this was going to be a minor story element, but it really slapped me in the face as I played. There I was, sweating a little bit after an intense action scene then cutscene and I see Tachibana laying on a hospital bed with I.V. bags attacked to him. His number 2 man Oda explains to Kiryu that Tachibana&#8217;s kidneys no longer function as they once did. The loss of his hand and the blood put such a strain on them that he needed dialysis for the rest of his so that he could live. Of all the ailments Tachibana could have had, they chose kidney failure, I don&#8217;t know why but that scene really struck home and was always nagging at the back of my mind as I finished the game.</p>
<figure id="attachment_131836" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-131836" style="width: 640px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="size-full wp-image-131836" src="https://cdn.bagogames.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/16225632/YAK.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="360" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-131836" class="wp-caption-text">(<em>Yakuza 0</em> &#8211; Sega)</figcaption></figure>
<p>While these two plot points meshed this imaginary world with my real life situation, it didn&#8217;t ruin the game for me, thankfully. <em>Yakuza 0</em> will probably still be my Game of the Year for 2017 and I think the title deserves it. I was just bummed that I couldn&#8217;t enjoy a break away from life while playing it. Life kicked me in the nuts this year and for some reason, Sega wanted to remind me of it as I played one of my favorite franchises. Generally, I like realism in some games, I play <em>the Yakuza</em> series so that I can learn more about Japan since I doubt I&#8217;ll ever get to visit. It was just that this Yakuza game was too real for my tastes, I hope<em> Kiwami</em> and the others I need to play still aren&#8217;t as &#8220;real&#8221; to me as this one was. I like to play games to get away if I want real life I&#8217;ll watch the news or be on Twitter more. Games shouldn&#8217;t shove that in my face as hard as it did, and this may be one Yakuza game I don&#8217;t see myself replaying in the future.</p>
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When Games Get (a little too) Real – Yakuza 0
- Categories: Opinion
- Tags: SEGATop StoriesYakuza
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