Eliza Dushku

Genre: Action
System: Playstation 2
Developer: Amusement Vision Publisher SEGA

Published by: SEGA
Developed by: Amusement Vision
Genre: Action
Players: 1
Rated: M (Mature)
Release Date: September 5, 2006
Written By: Daniel Sims

SEGA finally breaks this year’s summer drought with their latest action title Yakuza, which takes many of the elements of urban adventure games and street brawlers to create what could be called a darker version of Shenmue tailored to immerse players into Japanese gang culture.

Yakuza starts out by dropping you right in the middle of an impressively faithful construction of Tokyo’s Kabuki-Cho district, filled with buildings, signs, and neon lights all rendered with incredible attention to detail and streets bustling with hundreds of NPCs, giving off the feel of being in the middle of a real crowded city with different things to do everywhere you go.

You can stop in convenience stores and restaurants (some licensed from actual stores in Tokyo) and buy Japanese food to replenish health, run by the batting cages to hit some home runs, or visit various bars, clubs and other places around the city that provide a wealth of distractions outside of the main story missions, which really fills the city out and gives it a sense of volume that is felt in few other games. This is further enriched by the fact that at any time, someone could jump out of that crowd of people and call you out for a fight.

At first it’ll probably seem like just anyone could come out and pick a fight with you, but eventually, the keen eye can pick out Yakuza and Punks on the streets, standing there, staring out into the street as if looking for someone to fight or rob. When you encounter these people, a fight sequence initiates, bringing you into Yakuza’s fighting system.

Yakuza is a game about how brutal the life of a Yakuza in the city can be, and this is reflected well in the game’s fighting system, which more than anything else resembles that of Final Fight. You have basic punch and kick commands, one main combo string, as well as other functions like blocking, juking, dodging, and special finishing moves. You can also pick up random objects strewn all over the place and use them as weapons. At first things start off very simple, requiring only the basic punch and kick commands.

However, as you progress further through the game and gain experience, which you spend on learning new moves and upgrading your abilities, enemies become stronger, faster, and their methods grow more varied so that by the latter half of the game, the potential of Yakuza’s fighting system becomes much more visible. Dodging enemy attacks, timing your counterattacks, and controlling your combos become essential to victory.

The only real problem that exists with the fighting is with Yakuza’s lock on system, which can be somewhat unforgiving, as one misplaced combo can take you out of lock-on, leaving you completely open to attack. However, more experienced players familiar with fighting games should eventually be able to work around this issue.

In the end, the fighting system in Yakuza although relatively simple, proves to be a fairly tight and well-balanced one that in some areas of the game feels deliciously visceral in almost exactly the same way that the old brawlers of the Super NES and Genesis did.

Though the oldschool beat-em-up style action is the central gameplay element of Yakuza, the main driving force behind the whole experience is the game’s storyline. Yakuza follows the story of Kazuma Kiriyuu, an ex-gangster fresh out of 10 years in prison, as he gets caught up in the middle of a civil war going on in his old clan while trying to solve a mystery of the whereabouts of an old friend along with billions in stolen money.

The plotline of Yakuza is incredibly well-written and well-paced, full of mysteries and intrigues within a complex social structure that keeps you guessing and wanting to know more right until the very end. Part of the reason the story of Yakuza is so entertaining is probably because of the main character Kazuma himself.

Kazuma Kiriyuu proves to be a very entertaining protagonist for this game, both to watch and to play as. If you cross him, he’s the kind of person who’d probably kick your ass, toss you through a window, and then proceed to smash your head into the ground before leaving you bleeding on the pavement. But at the same time however, he also seems to have his heart in the right place, generally being a very kind and caring person towards the ones he cares for. This makes Kazuma a character that players will probably be able to relate to easily, but at the same time, also a character through which they can to live out fantasies of being a badass who can solve just about any problem with his fists.

Part of the reason for this is also due to the superb voice acting of Yakuza’s main cast, which consists of some big names including Michael Rosenbaum (Smallville’s Lex Luthor), Michael Madsen, Mark Hammil, and Eliza Dushku. While the main characters are voiced excellently and supporting characters are performed well enough, there is no option to play the game with its original Japanese voice track due to disk space issues. The English script of Yakuza does however attempt to retain as much of the game’s Japanese culture as possible in that many of the terms associated with the Yakuza are still used liberally throughout the game, which helps to further bring players into Yakuza world. Let it be known though that Yakuza is probably one of the most foul-mouthed games produced, sometimes bordering on the obnoxious in its language.

The only really visible problem that persists throughout Yakuza is how the game handles loading. The Kabuki-Cho district in the game is really cut up into small sections, requiring the game to load for a few seconds at each street and for even longer every time there’s a battle or cutscene, which can annoy some of the less patient people who play the game.

Bottom Line

Yakuza is a product that takes a lot of elements used in many different types of games: big urban landscapes and street brawls, and uses them to create its own experience that successfully provides a compelling plotline as well as satisfying gameplay that nicely fits into the same context.

FINAL SCORE: 8.5/10

GAMEPLAY 8.0 Out of Ten GRAPHICS 8.0 Out of Ten SOUND 8.5 Out of Ten REPLAY 8.5 Out of Ten