Club Sunshine
Yakuza 0’s substories hold more emotional resonance than any triple A game I’ve played recently.
spoiler warning; it be like that sometimes. no major main story spoilers, just the cabaret club substory.
I picked up Yakuza 0 after it’s price dropped to $20 on the PSN store. I didn’t know anything about the series, and really only got it after seeing fanart of the game’s characters. I went into it blindly, not knowing what to expect, story wise. 89 hours in; I beat the game and stayed on my couch for a solid hour sobbing and taking it all in.
Yakuza 0 is a crime drama action/adventure game set in the late 1980’s. It’s a prequel to the main series Yakuza games. You play through two protagonists who’s stories intertwine later in the game, unbeknownst to them. Both Kazuma Kiryu and Majima Goro are dealt with issues due to their ties to the Yakuza.
The game handles tonality in a way I haven’t encountered in games before. Yakuza 0’s main storyline showed a dramatic view into the novelty and sacrilegious life of the Yakuza and what it means to carry family ties. I’ve gasped through many of the cutscenes and had to accept some plot-twists despite how unpredictable and unnecessary they were.
As drama-heavy the main story line is, the substories are a great change from that. I could be grieving over a certain character’s death, then minutes later I would buy a boisterous young boy his first shrink-wrapped magazine. The juxtaposition of the game means that you can take your time with it. Being my first Yakuza game, I played on easy. The fighting and QTEs were enjoyable and playing it safe really helped me take it all in. (Although; I just started Kiwami and lowered the difficulty from normal to easy after my second chapter.)
Fighting my way through chapters; I’m introduced to the Cabaret Club business substory through Goro Majima’s main story during chapter 7.
In Sotenbori, there are five main cabaret clubs; Club Mars, Club Jupiter, Club Mercury, Club Venus, and Club Moon. The managers of those clubs are dubbed ‘The Five Stars of Sotenbori’, they rule the monopoly on cabaret clubs in the city. Goro Majima finds himself as the manager of Cabaret Club ‘Sunshine’ after offering to help Youda, the club’s czar with his mission of bringing Sunshine back to it’s glory days, meaning you’d have to steal fans and overtake the club business from the Five Stars of Sotenbori.
You’re shown how to play the mini-game that I’ve found easier to describe as ‘diner dash, but it’s speed dating’ to friends I’ve pushed to play the 3 minute long game. You assign a hostess to each guest based on the hostess’ stats and what the guest is looking for. Some guests want short sessions with a hostess excelling in talking and has ‘beauty’ as her strong suit, or others who prefer longer sessions with women who exceed in ‘love’ as a skill, while being considered ‘funny’. There are four tiers of hostess types; Platinum, Gold, Silver, and Bronze.
Platinum Hostesses are won through beating other clubs when progressing the substory; & these are the ones you’re able to ‘makeover’, which is without a doubt my favorite part of the game. You can choose different outfits, makeup, accessories, and hairstyles.
The makeover aims to boost a character’s looks; which are divided into beauty, sexy, funny, and cute. This is all happening whilst the best song I’ve heard this summer plays in the background. The track ‘As You Like’ from the game’s soundtrack is the best fitting track instilled in this game that presents itself as ‘hardcore’ but really has the softest characters.
Another option exclusively to platinum hostesses is the ‘special training’ feature, where Majima goes on practice dates that emulate a dating sim. You go through conversations, minigames, and with Yuki, one of the Platinum Girls you start with at club Sunshine, a whole substory within the substory that really shows how warm-hearted Majima is towards the hostesses. You build up relationships through these sometimes awkward and flirty exchanges in order to level up the hostess’ skills.
As for the other hostesses, you can gain them through other substories, gathering Completion Points, or just finding them around town in exchange for expensive gifts. Although they don’t have much to go on except leveling up, the ones you get through substories are great to have and show how important everything is in Yakuza 0 and how things intertwine. You can have a roster of 8 women each night to fill the 6 tables of guests in the club. The hostesses level up with each playthrough; and their stats increase as a result of how well you handle the night and their requests or fumbles.
Shortly after your first night opener, Club Mars’ Manager, Hino, introduces himself and warns you about the hierarchy of clubs placed in Sotenbori. The substory game is simple; you overtake potential partners that each of the five clubs have had control over and get more fans from each area that correlates with the club running in those blocks. Amass enough fans from specific areas by targeting members from them with each night, and you’ll be challenged by the manager in a mini-game duel where you have to make more money in one night to win. Although there is no consequence to losing except having some fans retreat back to their original clubs, these rival challenges were pretty difficult to pull through with a weak roster.
Aside from the gameplay and schematics, the relationships between the Five Stars of Sotenbori and Club Sunshine’s staff is played out through cutscenes that are either blissfully hilarious, or heavy hitting and retain the same level of drama as the main storyline. With each rival battle you get closer to the final star of the five clubs, Club Moon run by Tsukiyama and his assistant Kotomi.
The events that follow are great examples of how the plot in the main story is set up. With having such a story focused optional route, it just shows how important story telling is in video games, and how environmental storytelling is challenged in Yakuza. Every inch of the maps presented hold depth and subplots. The use of space in Yakuza 0 is realistic, and makes for a relatable play-through, even though I’m not a one-eyed ex-yakuza member working my way through an insufferable debt in a city I can’t escape.
After completing the substory and realizing how lovely the team is together, with all their ups and downs, Majima unlocks the “Mad Dog of Shimano” legendary fighting style. Well, that and 10 billion yen, but does money even matter in this game?* (*it does, you can level up fighting styles with it, but playing on easy was my little way of not caring so much about fights)
Without spoiling the ending, I really enjoyed what the substory cutscenes and ‘boss fights’ had to offer. The mechanics of the mini-game, and the plot of the substory carry themselves in such a way that could constitute it’s own game. I would love a Yakuza spin off game dedicated to managing a cabaret club, especially if the story was as fun and shocking as this one was. I’d especially appreciate being able to play as Majima again, imagine having to run The Grand? The customer is king!
