"More than Just Another GTA Clone"

Touted as a Japanese response to the popularity of the Grand Theft Auto series in the West, Yakuza has gained a reputation that does not entirely fit. Although, there are some similarities to Grand Theft Auto and other sandbox style games, Yakuza also takes inspiration from a variety of other games to create something that is unique and stands out from the rest of the genre.

The core gameplay of Yakuza consists of two alternating segments, the adventure segments and the battle segments. In the adventure segments you are given complete freedom to explore an impressively reproduced area of a large Japanese metropolis. Here you can complete side missions, search for hidden coin locker keys, shop, gamble, go to hostess bars and more. None of these activities are required to finish the actual game but they do add many extra hours of gameplay for those who are left wanting more after the relatively short main story. Unfortunately, navigating the adventure segments can become tedious. As you travel through different areas of the city the game constantly stops to load the next camera angle, which, feels completely unnatural at first and becomes more and more frustrating the more you play the game. Also, you are constantly interrupted by some of the most sensitive gangsters I've ever seen who want to fight you for some incredibly lame reasons. It's actually very similar to the random battle systems of many traditional RPG's, and it wouldn't be so annoying if it didn't take so long to load the battles themselves, which, can sometimes be over in only a few seconds.

The battle engine itself consists of a very simple control scheme that works well with the beat-em-up style of Yakuza. The square and triangle buttons are used for weak and strong attacks respectively, and the circle button is used for grabbing and throwing enemies or to pick up various objects scattered around the play area. By chaining simple combos together and using the weapons available to you, you should have no trouble winning the majority of the fights in Yakuza. And this brings up a major flaw in Yakuza. It's too easy. The only fights I had trouble with in the entire game were those against enemies who had firearms and then the game felt incredibly cheap rather than giving the type of challenge I was hoping for. Also, the adventure segments make it incredibly obvious as to where you have to go next requiring almost no exploration or brainpower to figure anything out.

The story itself is what really kept me unable to put down Yakuza. Written by a famous Japanese author the game is filled with great and believable characters and a story that kept me wanting to play a little more to see what would happen next. The ending definitely doesn't disappoint either as it ties all the loose ends together. The story takes you to many great environments that are wonderfully reproduced in the game and most will see you getting into a fair share of fights while you're there.

The sound is about average for a game that seems to have as high of production as Yakuza did. The sound of the downtown city sounds authentic but you start to notice a constant loop of audio after only a little bit of play. The music itself is pretty stereotypical with nothing really standing out. Upbeat music starts when you get into a battle and soft piano is used while inside your hideout. Pretty much what you would expect. The voice acting is above average for a video game although there is some cheesy delivery here and there, but that could also be due to some of the bad translations. This game definitely knows how to swear and you'll be constantly reminded why they gave Yakuza the “Strong Language” rating.

Overall, after all the negative things I've had to say about Yakuza, I actually enjoyed playing through the game immensely. Many genres have grown stagnant and it's good to see someone like Sega investing in a game that tries to do things differently. Also, many of the problems with Yakuza are very minor and take very little away from the entire experience. Sega has a start of a great series here and if they can fix some of the problems from this game for the sequel we could very well have our hands on a classic.

8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 10/04/06