Yakuza 0: Director's Cut is the latest Switch 2 iteration of Yakuza 0, which tells the story of Kazuma Kiryu, a young member of the Tojo Clan's Dojima Family. During a routine job, he's framed for the murder of one of his extortion targets and forced to go on the run. He needs to prove his innocence in the murder before every member of the Yakuza comes down on his head. Not far away, a low-level thug named Goro Majima is working as the manager of a cabaret as punishment for failing in his duty, but he's given a chance to get back in his family's good graces by doing one last job. Both Kiryu and Majima's stories intertwine over the mystery of the Empty Plot, a seemingly unimportant piece of land that is at the center of a vast conspiracy.

To me, Yakuza 0 remains the undefeated best Yakuza plot in the franchise. Part of this is that it is one of the most straightforward games in the series, with everything having clear and concise stakes and some of the most plausible plot twists (relatively speaking). It's the rare prequel that adds a ton to the games that come after, making characters like Majima or Nishikiyama feel like more than the one-note characters they appear to be if you played Yakuza (or Yakuza Kiwami) first. It's a genuinely excellent little crime drama. My only complaint is that the Director's Cut adds around 20-ish minutes of new cut scenes that add nothing to the story. At best, they feel like scenes that were deleted for a reason; at worst, they add implausible character survival where no such thing was needed before. None of them add much, and I think the story is better without them.

If you've never played a Yakuza game before, they are a combination of old-school beat-'em-up and open-world game. You take control of Kiryu or Majima (with the two swapping based on story progression) as they go through their respective stories and beat the ever-living crud out of everyone and everything in their way. Both characters have four different fighting styles. Kiryu has Brawler (default), Rush (speed), Beast (raw power) and Dragon, which is an unlockable super strong style, while Majima has Thug (default), Slugger (using a baseball bat) and Breaker (breakdancing). You can swap between each style at will, and there are often benefits to doing so, like how Breaker is better at crowd control, but you might prefer the more standard Thug style for individual enemies. You also have access to special context-sensitive heat attacks that can be used by filling up a meter and using them when a prompt appears.

Yakuza 0's combat system is genuinely a lot of fun. It's a good mix of straightforward button-mashing fun but with enough complexity to encourage you to learn the ins and outs. Beast Mode might shine when there are objects around for Kiryu to grab, but Brawler is better if you're in a mostly empty area, and each move has its own heat attacks, which can be the optimal (and coolest) way to take down foes. I think some of the later games in the series have better combat systems, but Yakuza 0 is still in my top three as far as the basic brawling goes.

The real meat of the Yakuza franchise isn't in the beat-'em-up aspects but in the dense and explorable world. Kamurocho and Dotonbori aren't the world's largest maps, but it makes up for that by having tons of things you can explore. There are dozens of side-quests, minigames, restaurants to eat at, arcade games to play, fight clubs to test yourself, and more. Both Kiryu and Majima have their own dedicated minigames, with Kiryu running a real estate agency and Majima running hostess clubs. Both give you a way to get a ton of money, and they're surprisingly fun on their own merits. It's very easy to leave the main plot on standstill as you spend dozens of hours just living in the world of Yakuza.

Unfortunately, there isn't a lot positive to say about the new feature in the game, the Red Light Raid mode. In theory, it is a really cool concept. Up to four players can choose from a massive roster of characters, ranging from major villains in the game to random NPCs and go on an old-school arcade beat-'em-up romp through massive waves of enemies. When I first booted it up, I was pretty excited. It looked like an awesome concept, and getting to play as some of my obscure favorites sounded awesome.

However, it doesn't play that well. To begin with, you are given enough cash at the start of the game to unlock a single character, and there's no way to test those characters. This is a problem because most of the characters aren't very fun to play. They have extremely truncated and basic move sets that leave them feeling as basic as a very old-school 2D beat-'em-up character. That's extremely challenging when they're pitted against the characters who do have fully fleshed-out move sets. If you select the wrong character, you get to grind out enough money to buy another one and hope they're more fun.

Even if you get a fun character, there isn't a lot to the mode. Yakuza 0's combat is fun but not deep enough to sustain nonstop fighting with reduced mechanics. Even if you are into that, you're stuck with either CPU allies (who are too strong and can often burn through stages on their own) or gambling on the game's online mode. As of this writing, the online mode was basically dead; there's nobody playing the mode even though the game just released. At best, Red Light Raid mode is a minor diversion that players will probably get bored of quickly.

While Yakuza 0 is an excellent game — perhaps the best game in the franchise — there's no real reason for anyone who owns it on another system to rush out to grab the Switch 2 iteration. The new story content ranges from forgettable to actively weakening the story, and the new gameplay content feels tacked on. Yakuza 0 is still a phenomenally good game, but it's not one I'd recommend double-dipping on, aside from the sheer delight of having a portable version.

Yakuza 0 does show its age with graphics that clearly are from the PS3 era, but it has aged surprisingly well due to some creative design choices and excellent motion capture. The age also means that it runs buttery smooth on the Switch 2's improved hardware. It's sometimes too smooth, as the cut scenes look a little odd at times, but it's a small price to pay for the higher quality. There's a brand-new dub exclusive to this version of the game that does a fairly good job. I'm not fond of all of the character voice choices, and I still feel that Japanese is the best way to play the game, but the dub does a solid job of providing a choice for players who've gotten used to hearing the series in English.

Overall, Yakuza 0: Director's Cut is a solid but unexceptional port of a phenomenal game. It runs smoothly, plays well, and is a ton of fun from start to finish. However, the new content adds nothing to the game, and if you already own Yakuza 0, then there's no major reason to pick it up again. However, if you're interested in learning about the franchise or if you've only played the recent RPG-like entries, Yakuza 0 is by far the best starting point for newcomers. The unnecessary extras don't prevent it from being arguably the high point of the entire franchise and well worth playing if you're curious about the Like a Dragon/Yakuza titles.

Score: 9.0/10