Like A Dragon Gaiden's Real Cabaret Club Clips Made Me Feel Like A Creep

If you’ve played any Yakuza game, you’ll know they have a fair share of quirkiness. There will undoubtedly be a side quest, passing comment, or entire cutscene that will raise an eyebrow. Panty snatchers, punching tigers in the face, diaper kinks… we’ve seen it all in this series. Yet it wasn’t until Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name that I felt uncomfortable with Yakuza’s unique brand of irreverence.

It’s not the subject itself, but how it’s presented. The thing that gave me the ick was the Cabaret Club — something I’ve played plenty of times in previous games. The difference in Like a Dragon Gaiden is that it’s no longer CG women you’re dealing with but FMV cutscenes. These are real women where you can see the reflection of their ring light in their eyes as they talk directly to you in a weird way that makes me feel like I’m watching the opening of some softcore adult movie.

After Like A Dragon Gaiden, We Need More Classic Yakuza Stories

Like a Dragon Gaiden has proven these smaller episodes work well, and there are plenty of Yakuza stories we could revisit in the same way.

It’s awkward and unsettling. It’s no longer just a silly minigame because it feels too real, or “immersive”, as one of the nearby NPCs refers to it. I’m sure some players will absolutely love this change, but it made me want to retreat away from the screen so much that I felt myself leaning back into my chair further to get back from the woman edging closer to the camera.

Those cringe lines are all worse when a real woman answers you. Talking about her body, making awful innuendos, and discussing what she likes to wear is all a bit much. When you get judgemental responses, it feels even more embarrassing. Having said that, I much prefer when they act appropriately to some creepy client throwing an awful chat-up line their way than when they giggle and love it, which just makes me recoil and pull a face. Nothing about it feels natural, and I can’t decide if that’s good or bad. If it felt more organic, I think I would be weirded out even more.

It gets so much worse, though. Filling the affection gauge three times with each cabaret girl will unlock a special cutscene that’s even more intimate and flirty. One has you in a pool with one of the girls before she steps out in her bikini, and the camera pans up and down her body while she tells you not to get too excited as you’ve got the whole night ahead of you. Retch.

These special cutscenes aren't skippable, by the way.

The next girl’s special cutscene that I came across has her posing in a Playboy Bunny-esque outfit on a poker table while you take photos of her before she suggests you go and take some “more… private pictures”. My husband walked into my office while I was doing the Cabaret Club minigame, and, like a guilty teenager, I was quick to jump up and explain it was for work.

You feel like a voyeur with no control. These things happen to you or around you, but you’re never really deciding whether or not you want to participate. The special cutscenes especially have this vibe about them, as you don’t know what they will be. If you sit and think about the idea of a man in his mid-50s who is not a photographer suddenly snapping lewd shots of this cabaret girl he’s just met, it feels sleazy. These are the sorts of things I never thought about much when it was all CG, but they would still ring true even if they weren’t FMV. Having these real clips takes a step out of the gaming world and into reality more, and I think that’s what makes it more unsettling.

And yet, The Cabaret Club guides for Like a Dragon Gaiden are proving to be very popular. That tells me either I’m in the minority for not liking the new FMV Cabaret Club, or people just really, really want those Achievements/Trophies. Even if it gives them the ick.

If you somehow stumbled into this article looking to find the answers for the Cabaret Club minigame, you can find all our Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name guides here.

Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name

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