Yakuza

Our expectations are high - were they met?

	Version PS2	Developer SEGA	Publisher SEGA	Genre Action

By Ian Dransfield

On playing Yakuza a person could be left confused as to why the game was touted by many as a 'spiritual successor' to Shenmue, mixed with a healthy dosage of GTA. Bar the Japanese setting, involvement of Sega and constant use of "I see..." by the title's protagonist, Yakuza does not have a huge amount in common with the much loved Shenmue. And aside from the mindless profanity, ultra-violence and free-roaming nature (albeit limited - more on that later), there is little in common with Rockstar's baby either.

Already Yakuza has been saddled with too high an expectation - it's meant to be a combination of two of the most loved series' of all time. This is simply an unfair expectation - it's a good, solid experience, but it isn't a finely crafted masterpiece. If people had said what they should have - namely that this has a lot in common with something like the Onimusha series, maybe a smidge of Devil May Cry, then it would be a fair comparison. I just felt that needed to be cleared up. So old preconceptions out the window and new ones forced in through the door, what does Yakuza play like?

Players take control of the 'Dragon of Dojima', one Kazuma Kiryu, a yakuza soldier and double-hard bastard. A man of honour and one that loves his friends as much as he honours his yakuza family. Also he's nails. In the early stages of the game Kazmua willingly takes the rap for a crime his 'brother' Nishiki commits - he's good to his friends, see - and gets sent down for ten years. These years in jail pass swiftly, and seemingly with only one fight, until Kazuma is released back on to the streets, dishonourably kicked out of his yakuza clan and into a world very different from the one he left back in '95, with infighting and double-crossing dominating yakuza clan politics, a murdered chairman and a few billion yen missing.

Throw in a little girl, a washed up cop and a plethora of twists, turns and morally-corrupt people and you have the beginning of what turns out to be a convoluted, but fairly gripping, story. There's nothing in it that you haven't seen before - whilst it is in a relatively untapped setting, dealing with the yakuza and all, the story really isn't that special and certainly isn't free of regular clichés. Game-wise, however, it is a pretty good narrative that helps the game flow nicely and ties everything together neatly right at the close.

Yakuza plays like an action-adventure/RPG-light hybrid (a genre that rolls off the tongue), with linear exploration, some (read: a hell of a lot of) brutal brawls and a simple XP/levelling up system. Everything is tight, gameplay wise, and nothing comes across as too out of sorts or shoehorned in in the main story-arc aside from an ill-advised stealth section in the early hours of play. Things do come apart when it comes to the few minigames that are on offer as side-quests to the main story though, but fortunately with these dating sims, casinos and massage parlours being minigames, they aren't necessary for progression and can be easily ignored without damaging the experience of the game in any way.

For the most part, Yakuza is like an everyday 3D brawler - on every corner of every street there seems to be a legion of punks, thugs and vengeful yakuza out for Kazuma's blood and each one of these encounters thrusts the player into a one-on-howevermany fight to the near death. After a rather intrusive loading time, the short and sweet battle begins, with Kazuma proving time after time his hardman credentials, battering hundreds of opponents into unconsciousness with his fists, feet, walls, poles, swords, bikes, signs and guns. The combat is frighteningly satisfying, and whilst not as in-depth as a pure fighting game, the simplicity lends itself to the experience with easy combos that are never too difficult to pull off and thanks to the experience system there are always new, more powerful moves waiting to be unlocked and unleashed.

It has to be said, though, that the sheer volume of random encounters through the game can get to be a bit much - just like any traditional RPG, an overwhelming amount of random battles does not a happy player make. And whilst the fighting engine is generally solid it is let down in a few ways, from the terrible lock on system when facing multiple enemies, through the fact that many boss characters have attacks you cannot break up that they can instigate halfway through a player combo (welcome to a cheating 80s arcade game..), to the painfully irritating and near game-breaking in parts camera, which on many fights seems to never show the enemies and instead focuses on NOTHING. Frustration, thy name be crapcam. These problems are annoying and can cause some rather loud rage-filled outbursts, but none of them ruin what is essentially a solid and fun experience, with punches that connect with almost as much brutality as those in The Warriors.

In-between the many, many fights comes the exploration and the already touched on minigames that come with it. Unfortunately, the free-roaming aspect of the game is severely limited by a very small playing area that is barely left for the entirety of the game. Familiarity with the area soon sets in and this is swiftly followed by boredom as another fetch quest begins or another strip joint is visited. Whilst the missions are never too hard to be really irritating, the constant "go from A to B and back to A again" setups soon prove an annoyance. However, the relative strength of the story and the fact that the fights are fun 90 percent of the time pushes the player on to progress, meaning that whilst there are a number of annoyances within the gameplay, nothing detracts enough to ruin the overall experience.

Yakuza is a pleasant sight on the PS2, with the small area in Tokyo open to the player portrayed in delightful neon glory with bustling streets and a general ambience that draws you in to the experience. Character models are generally nice, though there is a lot of repetition in enemies faced, but all in all this is a pretty good graphical achievement for the ageing console.

Sound-wise things are a very mixed bag - music and general sound effects: perfectly acceptable, in some places pretty damn good. Voice-acting: jarring, confusing and odd. This isn't to say the talent isn't up to task, just that the very, very American sounding Japanese people in the game prove to be stark wakeup calls every time the player gets wrapped up in the Japanese authenticity of the game.

Mark Hamill once again proves that he is a stellar voice actor, whereas the 'big' Hollywood name of Michael Madsen does a good job of sounding just like the 'big' Hollywood star Michael Madsen, nothing more. The actors playing Detective Date and Kazuma are both great at their jobs, but even though this is the case, the English-speaking cast simply does not fit in to the atmosphere of the game and it proves far too jarring an aural experience.

Yakuza is certainly a good game and is quite widely available at a discounted price point, making it - at that price at least - a near essential purchase.