The overlooked games of 2015: Yakuza 5

The common practice of bestowing praise on Yakuza 5, particularly on social media platforms, is to simply name off the myriad activities one can partake in this urban adventure by Sega. From making ramen to hunting wild game, reaching Twitter’s 140-character limit with a list of your favorite Yakuza 5 minigames isn’t hard.

More important, it’s just as easy to find substance and cohesion that unifies these activities thanks to Yakuza 5’s fleshed out, intertwining storylines and its mandatory battles strewn throughout its mainline path. Despite these virtues, its limited size (by open world game standards) and its late 2015 release on the PlayStation 3 makes it very easy to overlook. It has certainly lacked the level of recognition that other open world releases like The Witcher III and Fallout 4 have received this year. And as L.A. Noire and Red Dead Redemption proved, story can certainly be a main draw for some fans, so why not Yakuza 5?