The Yakuza series is part Japanese organized crime drama RPG, and part slice-of-life about helping kids win the claw game at an arcade, teaching novice dominatrixes about self confidence, and writing the perfect postcard to a radio show. In Yakuza 0, it's also about side-hustling as a hostess club manager. If it were possible to see the breakdown of my 65-hour playtime, you'd rightfully think that Majima Goro had given up his life of crime for good and become a full time stylist, date coach, and bartender, because I absolutely love Yakuza 0's hostess club management game.
MANAGER WANTED
A few hours into the rip-roaring drama and distractions of Kamurocho in the 80s, Yakuza O's co-protagonist Majima is pulled away from his main daytime gig as the manager of a cabaret venue to manage a newfangled caberet club. It's a smaller joint, but a hostess club nevertheless, where men pay for a cover to chat up and buy drinks for pretty young women. Trouble is, Club Sunshine's nominal top hostess is awful at being chatted up, and the club itself needs a lot of TLC too.
I wasn't expecting to spend much time there. I didn't enjoy the Real Estate Royale minigame on Kiryu's side of the plot, and figured that the club management would be equally missable. There is not a single thing about the Cabaret Club Czar game that deserves to be skipped.
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Special Report- Stacked Deck - Monster Train, a deckbuilding roguelike that firmly entrenched itself as the crown prince to the kingly Slay the Spire back in 2020, was the kind of smash success you might call Champagne Big.
Monster Train, a deckbuilding roguelike that firmly entrenched itself as the crown prince to the kingly Slay the Spire back in 2020, was the kind of smash success you might call Champagne Big. Four years later, its successor Inkbound’s launch from Early Access was looking more like Sandwich Big.I’m not just saying that because of the mountain of lamb and eggplants I ate while meeting with developer Shiny Shoe over lunch, to feel out what the aftermath of releasing a game looks like in 2024. I mean, have I thought about that sandwich every day since? Yes. But also, the indie team talked frankly about the struggle of luring Monster Train’s audience on board for its next game.
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