Yakuza 0 Director’s Cut review for Nintendo Switch 2

System: Switch 2
Release date: June 5, 2025
Developer: RGG Studio
Publisher: SEGA

In the very recent past, it looked like there was no future for Yakuza/Like A Dragon games on Nintendo hardware. After the poor sales of the Japan-exclusive Yakuza 1&2 HD Edition collection on Wii U, then RGG Studio head and series creator Toshihiro Nagoshi decreed that the series had no market with Nintendo fans and weren’t going to release their games on those systems. This remained the case for a long time, until a massive staff reconstruction in 2021, when Nagoshi and other notable developers left the team. New studio leader Masayoshi Yokoyama decided to test Nintendo Switch waters October last year with a release of the Yakuza 1 remake title, Yakuza Kiwami. To RGG Studio’s and SEGA’s surprise, the game sold tremendously well and less than a year later one of the most acclaimed titles in the series has a new edition for Nintendo Switch 2’s launch: Yakuza 0 Director’s Cut.

Yakuza 0 Director’s Cut is an updated version of the series prequel title originally released in Japan in 2015, and worldwide in 2017. The events of the game’s plot take place in the late 1980s in both Tokyo and Osaka, during Japan’s booming economic bubble and before the events of the original Yakuza entry, and follows dual protagonists: series veterans Kazuma Kiryu and Goro Majima. At the time of release, this was Majima’s first playable outing in a mainline title (after having just appeared playable in the zombie spin-off Dead Souls) and thus was very exciting for longtime fans.

Kiryu’s plot follows the young Tojo Clan foot soldier working days as a rising Yakuza in the debt collection trade, when after roughing up one of the clan’s debtors, finds on the news later that evening that he has been set up for the murder of the same man he roughed up. Kiryu embarks on a quest to prove himself innocent and restore honor to his father figure Shintaro Kazama’s name, who is being made take the fall for Kiryu’s alleged misconduct and lose his place in the hierarchy of the Tokyo criminal organisation as he brought Kiryu into the family. Meanwhile, Majima’s plot focuses on the mobster’s efforts to get back into the Tojo Clan after being kicked out and made run a Cabaret Club in Osaka during exile for disobeying his family’s patriarch Futoshi Shimano’s orders and attempting to go on a failed hit against another family with his sworn brother Taiga Saejima. Majima’s story progresses from his efforts to impress his handler enough to get back into the family, and the lengths he goes to protect a complete stranger he happens to come across in his attempts to get back into the Tojo. Kiryu and Majima’s plots run simultaneously, and players alternate every few chapters between them as their stories intersect and intertwine.

This version of the game features over 20 minutes of brand-new cutscenes that add new context and different angles to scenes from the original, which change how some events have played out slightly. This might feel a little retcon-y to some returning fans like myself, but for the many first-time players on Nintendo Switch 2, this should have no bearing on the experience, and in my view, actually benefits the overall narrative. However, this is definitely an addition that might come off a little marmite. Director’s Cut also features a brand-new English dub for Yakuza 0, featuring a lot of the English voices who have been portraying the characters after dubs were brought back to the series in Yakuza: Like A Dragon in 2019. There’s also plenty more subtitle options too, for multiple languages which weren’t available in the original Yakuza 0 release.

Another big addition to the game is the multiplayer Red Light Raid mode, where you can squad up with your friends online or with some CPU comrades and lay the smack down on a succession of fights across various maps against mobsters you have encountered in the main plot and in sidequests. These get progressively tougher, but for every attempt at completing the ladder, you earn money to either buy new characters to play as or to level up your preferred fighter. If you lose even one fight, you have to start from the beginning again, but the cycle is addictive enough that this didn’t frustrate me. As a veteran fan of the Yakuza series, having been playing the games since Yakuza 5’s original western release, this mode made me very giddy because of the plethora of characters available for selection, including Akira Nishikiyama and Osamu Kashiwagi among others, who have never been playable in a Yakuza title up to press.

At the time of its release, Yakuza 0 was heralded as a savior for the series. In a lot of ways, this game did for the Like A Dragon series what Fire Emblem Awakening did for Fire Emblem, revitalizing interest in the franchise and bringing in a brand-new audience to become invested. Yakuza 0 was a starting point for a lot of fans, and that is because at its core, this title is fantastic. For those unfamiliar, the Yakuza series is largely a 3D beat-’em-up with RPG elements, where you take on the role of a mobster, usually Kiryu, and use his brute strength to whallop any and all challenges that he faces. Through quick attacks and heavy attacks, throws, and using weapons you find spread across the battle arenas, players beat the hell out of enemies in brutal fashion. The series is renowned for its HEAT system, where, upon charging up a bar below your health meter, Kiryu and Majima can unleash powerful heat attacks that deal heavy damage and are very cinematic and pleasing on the eye. Traditionally in these titles, you upgrade what moves you can perform through skill orbs unlocked from experience points gained from battle, but Yakuza 0 changes things up to fit the money-abundant time period the game is set in. Now, moves are unlocked in skill trees through spending your hard-earned money from scraps, quests, selling items and gambling, amongst other means. Both Kiryu and Majima have three styles of fighting, alongside a hidden fourth that can only be unlocked through side-story progression. For Kiryu, this is, and I’m not kidding, through real estate development and financial planning, whilst for Majima, it’s through an ailing club called Sunshine he takes over, where he manages staff and the hostesses that work there.

Through traditional main story progression, Kiryu has access to Brawler, Rush, and Beast styles. Majima can utilize Thug, Slugger, and Breaker. Brawler is a street-fighting style of combat closer to Kiryu’s traditional series movesets, Rush style is a fast combo chaining style that lacks power but can stun enemies to oblivion, and Beast is a slow but powerful stance that has Kiryu throwing enemies with ease and battering opponents with weapons in his vicinity. Majima’s Thug style, like Kiryu’s Brawler, is a street-fighting style vaguely resembling his combat style from his boss fights in other Yakuza titles. His slugger style has Majima wield a baseball bat and pummel all comers with it, and his Breaker style features the former Shimano family man busting a move and busting skulls at the same time through fighting and breakdancing at once. This emphasizes one of the Yakuza/Like A Dragon’s series’ greatest selling points: its disparity between its serious plot and combat, and its goofy minigames and substory content. 

As you progress through the main plot, Kiryu and Majima can engage with the many entertainment venues littered through Kamurocho in Tokyo and Sotenbori in Osaka. These activities include, but are not limited to; darts, pool, baseball, bowling, karaoke, betting on catfights, playing SEGA titles like Out Run and Space Harrier in an arcade, toy car racing, fine dining, and weapon craftsmanship. This may seem goofy at first and could take some out of the seriousness of the main story, for a lot of people (myself included), it’s a welcome breather from the heavy central themes and a fun distraction that breaks up the barrage of brawls players go through on Japan’s streets. These minigames are separate from the side-quests players can have fun with, which include stories like Kiryu helping a timid rock band engage with their rebellious, gang-like fanbase without angering them, or Majima helping a mother get her daughter out of an outlandish cult that she had become wrapped up in. Some of these stories can be really funny, like helping a statue-imitation street performer go to the toilet without breaking character, or really sweet, like the plot about a man who simply wanted to get a video game for his son and taking unfortunately drastic methods to do so. There are dozens of these substories for both Kiryu and Majima, and they are where a lot of your time playing the game will be spent. 

Some quality-of-life changes for this new Director’s Cut that are small but welcome include; reintroducing the original Japanese opening theme song, which had been replaced with an instrumental track for the first western release for copyright reasons; allowing players save wherever they are in the game without having to rely exclusively on phone booths, which was the primary method of saving up until Yakuza 6 introduced autosave; and graphical upscaling on par with the PC release. Loading times are also drastically reduced from the PS4 version, and the game runs rock-solid 60 frames per second in handheld mode, albeit with heavy battery use. These small changes on top of the earlier mentioned multiplayer mode and added cutscene material make up the entirety of this upgraded port’s new features. The question is then raised: is it worth it?

In my opinion, the core of Yakuza 0 is already near perfect; with a rock-solid and engaging plot, addictive combat and personality that absolutely bursts off the screen. The additions made for this Director’s Cut are welcome, but may not be substantial enough for fans who want to double-dip having played the original Yakuza 0 elsewhere. However, if you are a first-time player or just coming off the Kiwami port from last year, in my view, this is a must-buy because like so many others, this could well be the game that makes you fall in love with this fantastic series.

Yakuza 0: Director’s Cut copy provided by the publisher for the purposes of this review.