Fading Afternoon (PC)

Fading Afternoon is the latest title by indie developer Yeo, mastermind by The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa, and Arrest of a Stone Buddha. Will the best shine bright or fade out to a flicker? Read on to find out.

Fading Afternoon puts you in the suit of Maruyama, a Yakuza who’s just finished a stretch in Prison and is met by his Oyabun at the gate to pick up where he left off. Maruyama isn’t quite the man he was when he went into Prison as you’ll find out quite quickly when your health is halved when Maruyama wakes up in the middle of the night to cough up a fist full of blood.

Much like Friends of Ringo the story direction relies on you and what you do, the main goal to be the best you that you can be before your disease takes hold of you, be that restoring your group’s former grip on the city or just trying to scrape by until that last flicker of life is extinguished.

The story is molded by your interactions with the cast and what route you choose to play, you can play a totally pacifist route and just focus on the simple pleasures of life though this tends to lend itself to a funding problem and will see you sleeping under the stars. Alternatively, you can start gang wars, draw out the leaders of rival gangs, and feel that familiar steel grip for a payday and respect, let’s face it, this isn’t Animal Crossing and you’re a man with considerable combat abilities so the impulse to make your mark in the most violent way possible is almost far too tempting.

I loved the stories told in Fading Afternoon and the fact you can’t see them all in one playthrough meant I went back a few times, especially to get a more ideal ending rather than the untimely fate that met me while I was discovering how to play the game, if you’re a fan of classic Yakuza films such as Sonatine and Outrage.

As mentioned this title feels like an amalgamation of Yeo’s previous titles, combining the hard-hitting grit of Arrest of a Stone Buddha and the slice of life from Friends of Ringo with the immersive and intricate details found in both, what kind of Yakuza-themed title would it be if it didn’t allow you to squat and smoke in the middle of the street or end your current game save by introducing your gun to your head in beautifully violent Beat Takeshi style!

The game switches from Slice of Life, walking around and taking in the sights style gameplay to side-scrolling beat-em-up combat with the gunplay seen in Stone Buddha seamlessly, be it you being attacked, starting a gang war or tracking down one of your hits and showing them why you’re the best in the biz. Combat controls are simple and taught in a tutorial quite early on, you’ve got a punch and kick, the ability to block, grab, break arms, disarm, and act like a one-man army as the family who controls the area you are in descending on you like lambs to the slaughter.

The controls in Fading Afternoon aren’t quite as intuitive as I would have liked but Yeo has included a toggle that tells you the button commands, they never really stuck with me and while this could have been a user error I just found myself relying far too much on the toggle to remember how to start fights, comb my hair or light a cigarette and intimidate passersby.

Visually Fading Afternoon is an absolute spite-based masterclass of beauty, the character models while not the most varied and so well animated it is hard to put into words, and the backgrounds are of the highest quality, we are talking SNK at the height of their popularity, a massive shout out to the countryside area where you’re practically walking around a painting.

There is no voice acting throughout the game but there is a fantastic soundtrack that nails the ambiance and just helps you get further immersed into your tale, it picks up when combat goes and the silence followed by the music kicking in after you shoot a target just feels so tight and jarring.

Each run of the game lasts around 2-3 Hours and you’ll come back to it time and time again trying to discover everything on offer and trying to get the best ending, Yeo is also constantly updating the game via bug fixes or additional content as of the time of writing so there is plenty of replay value.

Fading Afternoon was high on my “most anticipated” titles list and now it is here. I am so happy to say that it was worth the wait, if you are a fan of the developer’s previous titles this is their finest work, especially for fans of Yakuza drama. If you are a newcomer this is also a fantastic place to start as it doesn’t require prior knowledge of the previous games and isn’t quite as niche as Stone Buddah nor did it feel quite as ambiguous at times as Friends of Ringo. This is quite possibly my Game of the Year as once again Yeo has crafted an experience that also doubles up as an addictive and fun game.