"A decent Beat'em Up title but hindered by technical flaws."

Yakuza is one of those games that had some internet hype behind it. Almost like a Japanese version of Grand Theft Auto Meets Shenmue meets Final Fight. I almost fell for this hype and luckily I rented this game for free. That being said I'm kind of tired wasting my time with games like this and some of my more recent reviews I've done. Anyway, is Yakuza a GTA killer or does it fail to do anything well?

You're Kazuma and to protect your best friend and your girl you say you are the one who killed your boss. You're sent away for ten years and now your back and your girl is missing and the Yakuza is doing stuff and that's about it. The story tries to be Shenmue but fails. Constant cut scenes really hinder the game and the loading didn't help. I do enjoy a good story but this story was far from compelling for me. Characters were somewhat interested but under developed most of the time.

Graphic wise I was very disappointed with the game. Maybe I was expecting to see Shenmue quality but maybe it's my current addiction to my 360. Either way I wasn't impressed. Jaggies glare at you from all around, the city looks nice but feels lacking due to the not so seamless loading and stuttering frame rate. To be honest a whole lot isn't happening and the game is just stuttering along. The CGI stuff looks good and takes up most of the game so I guess that's a plus. Actual fighting parts look better than when you are in the city but not by much. Enemy design would be good if it wasn't repeated more than it was in the old school Final Fight games.

Maybe Yakuza is trying to be the new Scarface, as in the movie and not the game. I don't think I've ever heard or had to read the F word so many times in a game. It almost felt like it was every couple of sentences. Besides that the game does have pretty solid voice acting. Music is heavy in the rock are and while it's fighting I was sick of it after the first few chapters. Sound effects are what you'd expect. Smashing, grunts, smacking sounds and all that jazz.

Control in Yakuza is a slightly mixed bag. Moving around is easy enough and while the combat system is limited it does work well enough. The problem comes in two different ways. First of all the camera is about as alive as a rock. It's a pain to turn it and it seems to always be giving you the worst angle possible. The other problem is that every once in a while our hero seems to randomly turn around and attack air instead of the enemy that was right in front of him. Otherwise it's simple and responsive.

As far as game play goes Yakuza does do something right but many things wrong. The game is split up into 13 chapters. While you don't have to go from spot to spot on the map you can wander around the town and areas and shop and collect things, think of Shenmue. On the other hand if you want to advance the story go to the red spots on the map, watch lots of cut scenes, talk to someone, fight and wash and repeat over and over and it just doesn't change much from that.

At its core Yakuza is a beat'em up and to be frank about it, it does do that pretty well. It's everything else that bogs it down to mediocrity. While the fighting is simple it's fun as well and you gain experience which you can use on up your life, heat or learn new moves. I found learning moves to be the best thing next to life because it allows for the bigger enemies to drop fast once you learn the round house kick. Heat ups your special meter which really isn't that exciting. The heat meter rises as you do combos. It falls down slowly if you're not doing combos.

The areas in the game are nice; some fighting zones are tiny boxed in rooms while others are courtyards. The problem comes in the fact that a lot of fights require you to just kill the main guy so it can end quickly. One good thing is that the enemies tend to group up on you which can cause some problems when they are yielding weapons. That's another thing, almost anything can be picked up as used as a weapon but I found that kind of useless most of the time.

As for replay value the game offers a few post game things to do and there are secret missions and lots to collect and fiddle with in the game. The actual game itself is short, 5 hours at most but if you focus on everything that the game offers you can easily spend 20 hours or so on it. No multiplayer kind of stinks but this is a story driven beat'em up.

Would I recommend this game? It makes a fine rental but I wouldn't blind buy this unless it was $20 or less. It's not a terrible game but it isn't all that good either. It's slow at times due to the many cut scenes and the stuttering frame rate is killer for when you're just walking around. I also found the language to be a bit much at times and I really haven't heard another game use it this much.

Story - 6/10
Graphics - 5/10
Sound - 6/10
Control - 8/10
Game Play - 6/10
Replay value - 5/10

Final Score - 6/10

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 10/24/06