I've already completed Yakuza 0 and Yakuza Kiwami, am currently about 15 hours into Kiwami 2.
I fell in love with the franchise after playing Yakuza 0 and initially wanted to play each game chronologically at least up until Yakuza 7/ Like a dragon, but I keep seeing new games releases and spinoffs that look very interesting, such as Judgement, Ishin, and most recently Pirates in Hawaii.
With my full-time job and other adult responsibilities I can't possibly hope to get to play all of them, else I'll never catch up to the current releases.
Are there any titles you suggest I should skip? Are there any "absolutely must play no matter what" titles?
The day I catch up to current releases is the day I know I need to take a break from video games. Fortunately, I'm getting further and further behind every year, so that'll never happen.