>>715494960
Play Yakuza Restored, it's the original PS2 game but with the JP voicelines restored instead of the awful 2005 English dub and character name changes
https://cdromance.org/ps2-iso/yakuza-restored-undub/
https://cdromance.org/ps2-iso/yakuza-2-restored-hack/
Then when you play the rest of the franchise, install the restoration patches for each of them
https://www.nexusmods.com/yakuza3remastered/mods/5
https://www.nexusmods.com/yakuza4remastered/mods/5
https://www.nexusmods.com/yakuza5remastered/mods/7
https://www.nexusmods.com/yakuza6/mods/66
>my gut instinct is to play it in release order, which means playing it after 5 and before 6, to sort of emulate the feel of how the games were originally released
Your gut feeling would be right. Yakuza 0 might take place in the 80s but its epilogue text takes place "in the present", talking about events as if you're catching up after 5's story