YAKUZA O'S HOSTESS CLUB

Cabaret Club Czar could be a whole standalone game.

- Lauren Morton

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.