Ok so, mini-games. You've played these before. They're in GTA V, Saints Row 3, Mario Odyssey, Fallout 4, Witcher 3, etc. Any game that is largely open-world and sandbox, have these mini-games. Yakuza 0 happens to be a prime example here. With a mini-game that is pretty fun, managed to grow on as much as it was scintillating to play.
A mini-game is this small game in a game that is put there for the players to take a break in-between the main campaign, or a fun bit to play that is attached to the story as well. In Yakuza 0's case is a mini-game called Cabaret Club Manager. You manage Hostesses in a Japanese club that gets dudes to go in, and spend money on food and booze, long as they can chat up with the hostess.
A lot of games have mini-games for fun, this one is there for that reason, but also another; easy cashflow in-game. And while it seems tempting to sucker in NPCs to spend money, I had lots of fun because I was changing hostess dress, doing makeover, accessorizing, helping them train, and sometimes taking them out to a date if possible. And yes, despite some of these things, my manhood still largely remains intact.
Yakuza 0 has no short list of mini-games to show for like disco club dance, Karaoke singing, pocket circuit racing, and lots more to look for. Cabaret Club, much like some of them, have an attached story to complete, it does earn more money in the long run, but part of me also did this because I actually liked the hostesses.
Where I am from irl, there's no service that involves talking to women as social needs basis. Playing a game like Yakuza 0, which takes place during the 80s Japanese Bubble Economy, I only expect people with high energy, spending obscene amount of money. Then I go to a club called Sunshine, playing Majima and a different kind of obscenity ensues.
It's the one where it looks something akin to a ghost town, and the very girl I get suggested is a nervous, timid little thing who has social anxiety and little experience talking to men in general. After a brief conversation, the manager was shown getting manhandled by thugs from the other clubs. A large group in Sotenbari called The Five-Star clubs. Get to realize why things are dire here and Majima comes to rescue by taking the fight back to them with his experiences and financing, by managing the club himself.
My first job as a manager was dressing up my main hostess, just the way I wanted to start first before opening the club up for business. The second thing I did was special training for the same hostess, and wouldn't you know it, the timid girl was pretty childish in a cutesy sort of way, and would be made fun of through the game for her silliness.
As the game went on, she went from being shy to being spry. More expressive, that resulted in friendly, yet cute, silly conversations about her being a dolt at figuring out things people normally can do. But she's rated platinum, meaning as the game progresses, she grows to be on the top 6 of Sotenbori.
Stuff gets even weirder when you hire a mother of the child, just wearing a housewife casual dress, and this old lady who's no fit to be a hostess in the first place. Everything stops being grounded from that point. I still went with it, though, and found it appealing for the game. Transgressing the bounds of ethics in both business and entertainment.
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The quest to beat the Five-Star clubs needed me to attract people from each of their territories. Each of these have different kind of clients, so I had to switch up my roster of girls at each opening to fit their needs. I mean, guys also can have tastes too.
Love is a thing that could also be called a construct, but the mini-game explores how men deal with their problems in life by just talking to women of their preferences. Certain clients look for girls who look cute, and have a large range of skills to impress them. Others look for ones that have an aura of beauty, and are capable of engaging in conversations of all kinds.
Like, I am looking at this in an anthropological sense, but yeah, if society had more of something like this, maybe the world would actually have been a better place. Also, did I mention cashflow? I mean, this is the only mini-game there is that gives you heaps of cash, and it's required for unlocking abilities. Abilities, which consists of new fighting moves.
And learning how to play the mini-games wasn't hard, though. The main goal is to attract clients as fans of your club, you have to reach a certain fan level before challenging each of the Five to eliminate them so that you can keep getting fans from their areas. You have to look out for your girl's mood, and check to not exhaust them too much. You can only accessorize Platinum Hostess.
For a mini-game like this that is to be played alongside a good chunk of the main story, it gets better as you'll deal with wealthier clients with far more specific tastes, and it gets easier to not miss the hostess signals when they call you for help. And, of course, more and more money.
But a big draw, for me, are the girls. Japanese women actually have these unique, charming ways of making you become invested into their conversations, even if it's for Platonic reasons. There's also the fact that you CAN date the platinum hostess's too.
Most games these days have mini-games where it feels like a gimmick to waste time with or something that really is fun, but you just want your 10 mins of fun before you're done with it. I can tell you for a fact that I've invested over 10hrs into this mini-game. That is like 1/4 of my current playthrough.
The Yakuza devs, and the insanely talented people at Sega really knows how to create these games within games, that it makes you wonder what would really make a game fun, without some artistic compromise to worry about.