System: PlayStation 2
Publisher: Sega of America
Developer: Sega Studios
YAKUZA tells the tale of Kazuma Kiryu, a gangster who gets caught up taking the fall for the murder of his Yakuza boss. The intricate plot blends themes of love, betrayal, honor, the seedy underworld of Japan and more expletives than I’ve ever seen in a videogame to create an enjoyable, adult game experience.
YAKUZA‘s visual presentation is very well done for being a PS2 title. You’ll find the streets teeming with people. Whether they’re indulging in the various activities of the city such as gambling, strip clubs, hostess bars, restaurants and more, you’ll always see people busy with many things to do. From the neon lights to the multi-storied storefronts and buildings, the city really does have that metropolitan Japanese feel to it. Coupled with the above average ‘ambient’ noise in the city, the atmosphere will keep you immersed. The only complaint I have against it is the fact that the city is a little bit small compared to the other sandbox games out there such as GRAND THEFT AUTO and SAINTS ROW and you’ll soon feel a little bit confined in that space.
YAKUZA‘s core gameplay will have you trying to find and follow leads on this internal struggle for power within a Japanese criminal organization and how it relates to the people you love. Emerging from a ten year bid in prison with no contact to the outside world while on the inside, you find that your childhood sweetheart Yumi (voiced by Eliza Dushku) has gone missing and all signs are pointing to your best friend since childhood (voiced by Michael Rosenbaum) being involved. To find out this information, you’ll hit the streets, meet informants and kick a lot of ass along the way.
The game in some ways feels like SHENMUE, yet more focused and much heavier on the action. Considering a major complaint about SHENMUE was that it was light on the action, this should be a welcome addition to many players. The hand to hand fighting present in the game is much more about brawling and street fighting than the disciplined martial arts found in SHENMUE.
Like the aforementioned SHENMUE titles, you’ll also find an array of different activities and side missions that you can do. You’ll be able to hit the SEGA arcades, gamble in the casinos, participate in underground fight circuits, frequent strip clubs and more just to name a few. One cool thing about the side missions and such that separates it from GRAND THEFT AUTO and other sandbox games is how you access some of them. Some are completely random in that you’ll be walking down the street and you could bump into someone that will trigger an event that you can participate in. This makes things feel much more organic and spur of the moment than in other games where you’ll go to a particular location and just continue a string of missions.
The adult themes in the title are heavy. While we’re used to having an abundance in violent themes in games, you’ll find many sexual ones in this title as well. I have never played a videogame that has said more curse words than YAKUZA. When you hear Mark Hamill’s character talking about your woman when he tells you ‘I wish I could f*ck a b*tch like that’ or other choice quotes such as ‘F*ck that motherf*cker’ and ‘You can have that skank b*tch’ you’ll wonder if you’re playing a game at all. Still, I enjoyed every single second of it. This is a game about mobsters. I’m glad SEGA didn’t try to take the easy way out and clean things up for the localization. YAKUZA takes place in the belly of the city where people do whatever they have to do to survive. The prostitution, violence and other aspects of crime has the city in a chokehold and the gritty manner in which it’s all portrayed goes that much further into making you believe in it.
The sound is somewhat of a mixed bag, but it’s mostly positive. I felt that the soundtrack was great. It had somewhat of a Yuzo Koshiro feel to it and it brought back that feeling of classic SEGA action games. As far as the voices go, it’s pretty much an all-star cast. You have the likes of Michael Rosenbaum, Rachel Leigh Cook, Eliza Dushku, Mark Hamill, Michael Madsen and others lending their talents here. Fortunately, they’ve done a good job in pronouncing the Japanese names and such, but still sometimes the dialogue comes out just sounding awkward and not quite in place. This would’ve been a great game to have the option of leaving the Japanese voice track in with English subtitles as seen in UBISOFT’s ENCHANTED ARMS. Hopefully we’ll see more of that in the future as we get more games coming over that are heavily rooted in Japanese culture.
Overall, YAKUZA is a very enjoyable experience. Despite a few shortcomings, SEGA has gone to great lengths to ensure that the atmosphere and emotion was as authentic as possible. Their decision to leave the title in tact with the mature tones is a welcome one that should be applauded. If Nintendo is making sure that the youngsters and casual gamers are being taken care of, SEGA is playing the anti-thesis to that in making sure that adult and hardcore gamers are appeased.
