"Gangster with a heart of gold. A unique experience from SEGA."

Yakuza is one of the newest Roleplaying/action games from SEGA. This game has done reasonably well in Japan due to it's profound japanese ambiance and excellent story. Sega has graced us with a solid translation that has gotten mixed reviews. Most of the magazines say this game is terrible,but after playing it, I can only conclude they must have been playing another game. This game is actually one of the better games to come out this year. Awesome story, totally original, and quite entertaining.

STORY 9/10: The story is written by a famous japanese novelist who combines the Yakuza society with an interesting love triangle and some heartfelt moments. You play Yakuza Kazuma Kiryu, a bigtime gangster that is about to start his own family. Although you are a gangster, you are actually a pretty fair guy which makes your character more charismatic and realistic. Akira Nishiki and Yumi are your best friends. One day, the head of your family decides to kidnap Yumi and rape her. Akira rushes over to her aid and by the time you get there, Akira has shot the boss. As you could guess, shooting your own Yakuza boss is a bad thing to do. Kazuma decides to take the rap and gets 10 years in prison. Ten years later, you get out and Akira has changed completely into a full fledged gang lord, Yumi is missing, 10 Billion Yen has been stolen from the Yakuza, and you are the only connection to all these events. The story has similar elements to Sega's infamous Shenmue game. You get to immerse yourself into the world the game creates and every character has a past and a heart. However, there is plenty of violence and a LOT of profanity in this game. Finally, this game is not Gran Theft Auto, nor is it trying to be or compete with it. So you should look elsewhere if you expect some Quentin Terrentino type of stuff. Yakuza is a unique experience.

GRAPHICS 10/10: Yakuza really makes the PS2 shine. Your get a very impressive representation of the red-light district of Japan. The city atmosphere is great. Plenty of Neon lighting and there are hundreds of pedestrians. Everything shows it's quality and really sets the mood of you being there. The scenarios are all pretty artistic with different filters used often. For example, the neon filters in the city create a different mood than the gray/brown filters used in the funeral scene, which give the feeling of death. The character models are realistic and have fantastic facial designs. The main characters are all very-well detailed and animated extremely well with a steady framerate. Not much more can be said about the graphics other than that they look great.

SOUND 7/10: Yakuza is a mixed bag of sounds. The city roaming areas use the distant chatter of crowds and ambient city sounds. The battle scenes use some fighting music that gets you in the mood but gets repetitive about 2 hours into the game. Many of the magazines complain about the voices and script. The voices are actually quite good and are directed by the voice director of Final Fantasy X. Mark Hammill, Rachael Leigh Cook, and Michael Rosenbaum are in the cast. Do you really think these professionals would do a bad job? I think the real reason is that there is no Japanese dialog option which probably would have made the game more exotic. Overall, the sound and music in the game complement the graphics pretty well. I wouldn't want to buy the soundtrack but the music does it's job adequately.

GAMEPLAY 7/10: The game flows pretty well. There is a 2 second delay while you wander from street to street that isn't really that important. However, there are plenty of 4 second loading times before cut scenes and when you have a street fight. Yeah, every time you encounter some random punk on the street, the game will load the scene where you encountered him for about 4 seconds. At this point, the music starts playing and you get the "Kazuma VS. (Insert Bad Guy Name Here)", screen. It's really not that bad but gets noticeable as you keep playing. The fighting system is a little temperamental. You have a lock on button that is doesn't really work that well... unless you know what you are doing. You have to manage the crowd of bad guys and attack cautiously. This game punishes button mashers! If you button mash you will get beat up and be incredibly frustrated. However, when you get used to the fight mechanics, the brawling turns into a pretty fun experience. You can grab anything laying around and start kicking ass. I was beating up people with bicycles, street cones, and of course the never-fail leadpipe. You get money from the punks to let them go, and experience points for upgrades. You can upgrade your moves which leads to stronger moves and devastating special attacks. You get this "Heat Guage" that charges up quickly as you fight. It allows you to do special weapon, hand, and area attacks that do more damage. For example, you can grab someone, carry them to the table and smash their neck on the table's edge. Upgrade your moves one more time and you get a crushing footstomp to the head after the head smash. The upgrades are rewarding and always pretty cool. Overall, the game is well built. It takes a while to get used to the fighting but once you get it down, it's pretty awesome. Short load times are all over this game but hey, it's PS2.

FUN FACTOR 7/10: Japan fans will definitely enjoy this game's setting. Shenmue fans will absolutely love this game. Everyone else will still enjoy the game's story and fighting. This is a breath of fresh air into the brawler genre. Sort of like Finalfight Streetswise, the fighting is not meant to be deep. Just violent and in ample quantity. Overall, the story kept me going and the fighting kept getting better as I learned new moves and got new weapons and special attacks. There are plenty of mini-games to provide variety. You can gamble, go to hostess-bars, get a massage... And other stuff you would find in the red-light district. It's a pretty fun game with plenty of stuff to do.

REPLAY 5/10: Yeah, this game is great the first time around since the story is so good and keeps you going. The fighting is repetitive and is kept going by the new moves. Once you beat it, the moves aren't new anymore and you know the story. I guess you could go back since this game offers a lot of mini-games and it's doubtful you'll do them all the first time around.

OVERALL 8/10: Yakuza is an awesome RPG/Brawler. The story is really good with action, suspense, and some heart felt moments. While the limitations of the PS2 make frequent load times a small nuisance. Those who can look past this will find Yakuza to be a very original and entertaining game.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 09/18/06