For years now, certain niches of the internet have told me to try my hand at Yakuza, a series of adventure/beat’em up games developed by Sega that deal in the more legitimate side of Japanese crime. I even went ahead and bought all the three available for PS3 in the West (Yakuza 3, Yakuza 4, and Yakuza: Dead Souls) and let them sit unopened on my shelf for several years, not trying them out. But before March hit with its numerous games I wanted in a limited amount of time, I managed to eek through Yakuza 3 just before Type-0 hit, and my number of completed games slowed to a crawl. But as for Yakuza, I was okay with this, as it allowed for some time for contemplation on a game I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about it.
Weeks, maybe months later, I still don’t quite know.
You see, Yakuza is a game supposedly about crime lords doing crime lord things, but these make up some of the least interesting bits of the game. You see, you play as Kazuma Kiryu (Nicknamed “The Dragon of Dojima, which is admittedly one of the most badass nicknames and quite earned), the former Fourth Chairman of the Tojo Clan, whose successor has been shot and is in critical condition. Kazuma had since retired to the coastal city of Okinawa to run an orphanage when he is drawn back into the events when he learns they might be connected to a government bill to create a resort on Okinawa that will force the orphanage to close.
What follows is a crazy train to say the least. Illegal government deals, dead fathers returning, and drawn-out talking scenes drive the main focus of the narrative and in spite of sounding like a soap opera it mostly stays dull throughout. The characters are extreme yet one note, punctuating the blandly directed cutscenes with bouts of insanity that places Yakuza in its own universe where a well known gang member can start up an orphanage run solely by him in a matter of years.
But what comes before that is even is even less related to the plot but equally as insane, at least in video game terms. The first third of the game is dedicated to running the orphanage, with only hints of the greater plot coming into effect. This includes everything from mediating crises between the children of the orphanage to gaining the respect of the local yakuza gang, This is the kind of game that has you fighting random people on the street one minute and then helping a young boy overcome a bully at school the next. If nothing else, the game kept me guessing as to what would come next.
These are also the parts of the game that work the best and where the character of Kazuma shines through. His interactions with the children feel genuine and as though they came from a completely different character who didn’t spend his free time punching people. Because punching people makes up most of the rest of the game.
The reason I spent so long with the story is that this game approaches Metal Gear Solid territory with the number of cutscenes and approaches a JRPG in terms of length. Make no mistake, this game is long. Not only that, its filled to the brim with minute details that really flesh out the world. The streets are bustling with people, the interiors of shops are painstakingly recreated from actual locations. And every single building offers something to do, from casinos to batting cages to karaoke. None of the minigames serve any real purpose, but they go a long toward making the world seem more vibrant and actual. It’s as if there was a Wii Sports Resort or Warioware built into the game, just because.
But as I said above, the main driving force of the game is the combat. The Yakuza series may be one of the few 3D beat’em ups left, a game where strict timing, spacial awareness, and a thorough knowledge of your moveset is necessary. I probably made a mistake playing on hard my first time, as the combat system required a lot more of me than I am used to. A good mix of offense, defense, and evasion is required, Blocking works against most attacks but only works from the front. Evasion zips you around the arena faster but gets finicky with multiple opponents, which is a common occurrence. Combos are made up of light and heavy attacks, heavy attacks mostly being used as finishers. There is also a grab, which some enemies are immune to and most bosses highly resistant. Avoiding damage and landing hits builds heat, which acts as the resource for special moves.
I addition to sharing the length of an RPG, Yakuza has the structure of an RPG as well. The game manual even divides the game into 3 distinct phases: Combat, exploration and story. As you explore areas, random passersby on the street will challenge you to fight for the most minor of reasons, simulating random encounters. Hilarious at first, the encounters eventually wear out their welcome and become tedious — just like random encounters. Not helping is the 10 second start up for each fight as the map shifts to an arena. Negligible at first, the time soon adds up and you’ll wish you just hadn’t had to fight them anyways.
As with any strong combat system, the highlights are the boss fights, all of which are quite difficult. Or at least the were for me. For the longest time these halted my progress until I started stocking up on healing items before long fighting segments, at which point I was able to brute force my way through the battles. Here is also where the game tends to be at its most bombastic, with you and the opponents ripping off shirts regularly to bask in each others general physique while trading blows, lifting giant gongs to use as weapons, or fighting off entire squadrons of police at a time. And then the day ends with you showing someone the city night life.
Yakuza is definitely a weird one, a game quite unlike anything else and in that regard I’m happy to see something like it. Noticeable effort has been put into making the game what it is and it is definitely a game that stands on its own. It also feels like a game that I felt I barely scratched the surface of. In my rush to beat it before the end of March, I ended up skipping a lot of what the game has to offer. But unlike other games where I am more intrigued by what I missed, I have no desire to return to Yakuza 3. I enjoyed my time with enough, small frustrations aside, but I definitely get a sense that I did not get as much out of the game as the devoted fanbase has. Maybe someday I’ll return to the series, but until then the Dragon of Dojima is still in his early retirement at his beach house raising a household of orphans.
And that previous sentence might be the reason this series has as many fans as it does.
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