It’s finally holiday season! Where everyone is giving gifts and bundling up inside from the cold. It’s also a perfect time to play some new games! Of course, like with any festive season, it’s always fun to play a game that goes along with said season. Which is exactly why you should try Yakuza! And specifically Yakuza 0.

No, seriously. You should!

While there are lots of games to play for Halloween, since you honestly just need something scary to go along with that season, the end of the year holidays are a bit tougher to find a good game for. Thankfully Yakuza, the crime drama series with bombastic action and plenty of comedy, has you covered! And like I was saying before this isn’t even a joke! Well it kind of is, but hear me out!

There really aren’t any good holiday games. Or more specifically, there are no good Christmas themed games. Sorry to the other holidays that share this time of year with Christmas, but there are even fewer games about them!

Most games that completely focus on Christmas are generally smaller, shorter games and very gimmicky. Which makes total sense given I can’t imagine a full fledged game based just on Christmas. Thankfully, Yakuza 0 doesn’t focus too much on the holiday itself but it does feature plenty of imagery and takes place right around that time of year!

While lots of Yakuza games take place around Christmas and have plenty of imagery for it, you actually dress up as Santa for a side quest in Yakuza 5, I wanted to use Yakuza 0 as the example here since not only is it considered the best in the series, it’s also the perfect game to start the series with! Which makes complete sense given that it’s a prequel to the entry series. You could also start with Yakuza Kiwami, a remake of the first game that also takes place in December right around Christmas, but I’ll always recommend people start with 0 mostly since I think it’s the better game overall.

Yakuza 0 takes place in December right around Christmas. It’s snowing out, there’s decorations, and even some NPCs talk about here and there!

And that’s it. That’s why it’s a great Christmas game. Yuuuuuuuup.

Look, all I’m saying is if Die Hard actually counts as a Christmas movie, and I do count it as one, then Yakuza 0 and many other games in the series count as Christmas games! Heck, even the latest game in the series, Like a Dragon Gaiden, takes place right around Christmas, it has to count! You can find Christmas trees around and everything!

Now if you’re wondering if I’m just using this as an excuse to tell people to play one of my favorite series, you’d be completely right! But honestly this really is kind of the perfect time to pick up something like Yakuza 0. Not only does it truly have those Christmas vibes but given that people usually have some time off this time of the year, now is perfect for starting a long game like Yakuza 0.

The massive 60+ hour length of each Yakuza/Like a Dragon game, as the series is called now, has always been one of the biggest hurdles for people trying to get into the series and that is completely fair! Most people don’t have a terrible amount of time to play games so playing multiple shorter experiences compared to one really long one is a lot more appealing. Despite that though, I do think everyone should give the series a try. It’s such a fun, hilarious, heart wrenching series that has made me cry just as much as it’s made me laugh. So if I have to use some excuse to try and get more people into the games, I most certainly will!

I’m not going to go super in depth here on why people should give the series a try, I feel like saving that for a less jokey post would probably be for the best, but again I’m going to take any excuse I can to talk about it and I do honestly believe that playing the games around this time is pretty perfect. It’s exactly when I got into the series myself actually! I got Yakuza 0 as a Christmas gift years ago when it first originally came out without knowing it even had ties to the holiday. So believe me when I say it was a very pleasant surprise to realize the people of Kamurocho, the city that is just about always the focal point of each game, was also celebrating the holiday!

Of course, it can be hard to focus on all the festive things going on when you’re trying to fight your way through hordes of punks, hooligans, and Yakuza thugs but who doesn’t love some ass kicking with their holidays? Again, just look at Die Hard! So if you’re seriously looking for something fitting to play around this time of year, you can do a lot worse than Yakuza 0! It manages to check the boxes for being a Christmas game and on top of that it’s just a good game in general!

So if you do find yourself with a little too much time on your hands and nothing to play, be sure to give Yakuza 0 a try. The game has been out for awhile now so it’s pretty cheap and playable on most things besides the Switch. And if you’ve already played and enjoyed it yourself, give it as a gift! It is the season of giving after all. So why not give the gift of an awesome and wacky game like Yakuza!

Before I end this short post though, I also wanted to take a moment just to say thanks and Happy Holidays to everyone checking out the blog! It means a whole lot to me that there are people out there who actually read what I write or listen to the podcast, or even both! Keeping up the blog really does mean a lot to me so thank you so much for being along for the ride!

I hope everyone has safe and happy holidays, and I hope to see you all again next year for more reviews, discussions, and podcasts!

See you then!