I love the series, and I would like to recommend it to everyone, but:
-If you dislike J-drama, stay away.
-If you don't like tropes, and some crazy takes, stay away.
-If you don't like long cutscenes, stay away.
I love the series for its zaniness, and how very Japanese it is. It's the only long running series where I buy every game on day 1.
Can you compare the zaniness to the games of Swery65 (Deadly Premonition, D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die, A Good Life)?
Of his games, I only played Deadly Premonition. Deadly Premonition was basically Twin Peaks.
Most of the time, it is serious, the crazy stuff mostly happens in side stuff. One example that I found funny (in Y3, it's censored out now) was a side quest where you get chased by a buff tranny. The main character is absolutely terrified. There are powerful moves you can learn by filming certain events with your phone. These events are called
revelations. There are some other crazy stuff that goes on. Combat has heat moves, that can be used when your heat gauge is filled. When it is full, you can do all kinds of crazy shit.
I bought the Yakuza series after the recommendation of you and others here in the forum.
Of these games, I started playing Yakuza 0, since that is the game most people recommend.
I am maybe about a third into game - and I absolutely love it!
Although beat-em-up is not my favourite genre, the whole setup, story, athmosphere, some crazy minigames and yes, the zaniness make this game really, really great.
And it is kind of refreshing to play as really cool characters again.
So thanks a lot for the recommendation!
To answer my own question: It's no/yes/no.
The three games, I mentioned from Swery65, although all of them contain some strangeness, are quite different otherwise.
"D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die" does indeed contain similar zaniness than Yakuza - even pumped to eleven.
I still can't recommend it, though!
While it starts interesting, the game never got finished. Only the first 1 1/2 chapters exist with a very bad cliff-hanger.
