Have you heard the news? Cancer is cured! Dogs and cats finally getting along! World hunger is solved! And FINALLY, the Yakuza series has exploded in popularity in the west! Actually, I'm just kidding; I made it all up, but not that last part though. Ever since the western release of Yakuza 0 back in 2017, a whole bunch of people have started to pay attention to this series, and very rightly so. These are all unique imports that succeed in their ability to present something you can’t really find anywhere else in the western market, while giving players a strong impression of the strengths of Japanese developers.
Of course, everyone already knows this, I'm just really late to the party with this one. However, in spite of its success, or rather because of it, its easy to forget how much of an underground niche Yakuza was in the west for the longest time. Since the belated release of the first game back in 2006, the series had always been treated to shoddy translations, long delays, and a general disinterest from publishers to give it any kind of recognition. For this reason, small passionate circles of fans grew to cater that need for a strong word of mouth that informed newcomers to the strengths and virtues of this quirky series of games.
The most interesting part of it all is how long its taken for this series to catch on westside when it’s always been a massive hit in Japan, selling 4 million copies by 2010 and receiving all kinds of attention ranging from feature film adaptations, gaudy marketing campaigns and so on. Yet, this is also fitting considering how much of the appeal of this series relies on presenting an accurate and lived-in virtual representation and celebration of Japan and its bustling night life, an aspect that’s fascinating for us westerners, relatable for Japanese audiences, but perhaps a bit too fringe for it to catch on with mainstream audiences for the longest time.
Now, before I move on, I want to make something clear. Unlike other franchises that I’ve previously reviewed, I have absolutely no stake or investment in the Yakuza franchise prior to now. I played the first game in the series at the behest of my friends who told me to start here and move up from there and for that reason, I went into the experience mostly blind to the game’s story and gameplay, with only a few hints and details on general consensus about this game and later games in the series.
However, this also gives me a unique opportunity to review the first Yakuza game completely detached from anything that came after it. While I’ve noticed a trend of people reviewing the first Yakuza game retrospectively, comparing it to the merits of its successors, I’m going to try to approach it completely detached from anything that came afterwards and evaluating it purely for what its trying to accomplish. For this review, it doesn’t matter if this is a good place to start or if its any better or worse compared to all the sequels and remakes.
Kazuma Kiryu, the fearsome dragon of the Dojima family, thought he could escape a life of crime to form his own family. However, fate had something different in store for him. After his best friend committed a crime he could not escape from, Kazuma had no choice but to take responsibility for him and be imprisoned for 10 years to atone for that sin. Even after being released, Kazuma would be dragged back into this world of sin after 10 billion yen is stolen from the Yakuza clan. 10 billion yen, a mysterious girl and a twisted conspiracy is the key for Kazuma to sort through his past and find his place in a world that has forgotten him.
So, on that note, is the first Yakuza game any good? Well, yes, it is, for the most part. The game is kind of a hidden gem in the PlayStation 2 library that offers a lot of unique aspects that couldn’t be found in other games of that time. In short, Yakuza does a really good job of presenting a convincing time capsule of Japan in the year 2000, treating the player to an immersive setting with plenty of charm and interactivity.
That last part would be Yakuza’s greatest strength, particularly for the time. It’s the kind of game that blends many different genres and playstyles to create an immersive and accessible experience that gives you a very unique experience. Unlike other open world games of its type like Grand Theft Auto, Yakuza is closer to Shenmue in the sense that it doesn’t revel in chaotic destruction, but instead exploration and immersion in the organized structures of its society and criminal organizations.
Yakuza’s lack of focus is probably its greatest strength, as it allows the player to mostly dictate the pace with which they go about exploring the setting of Kamurocho. One moment they’re experiencing the game’s gritty storyline, but the next they can be mindlessly playing games at the arcade or discovering many of the game’s zany sub-stories.
However, this doesn’t mean that Yakuza’s game flow is complete nonsense. There are three core pillars that make up the game’s design, each of which compliment each other quite elegantly. These three pillars are exploration of a small, yet dense district full of distractions and side-stories; brawler style combat that tests the player’s reflexes in quick, but satisfying showdowns; and a story full of drama, intrigue and mystery that unravels with plenty of twists and turns that flesh out the world and characters.
The first of these, and the most important one of the three, is exploration. Being set loose in the bustling district of Kamurocho is the cornerstone of Yakuza’s gameplay, letting the player become invested in all the unique side-activities, characters and details that populate the world. The game lets the player live out the fantasy of being a badass Yakuza that beats everyone up, but still has time to suck up to girls at the hostess clubs or get massively wasted in bars before spending the rest of the night in the arcade. It is a thoroughly charming and enticing experience.
One aspect that helps Yakuza and sets it apart from its contemporaries is its narrowly focused scope. While other games of this era would settle with larger cities to explore, Yakuza limits itself to a single district of only a few blocks in size. However, this small focus allowed the team at SEGA to create a world that was far more packed in detail and density than anything else out there, creating a setting that feels truly lived-in to this very day.
Yakuza’s attention to detail is immaculate. Every little store has its own image and personality, every pedestrian has an amusing line of dialogue to say and every street has its own distinguishing characteristics and purpose that make it all so memorable and enjoyable to explore time and time again. The game’s sound design particularly sells the impression of being at large on a town full of life; one where everyone has a story to tell and no one wants to go back to sleep.
The aptly titled Kamurocho is an incredibly detailed and accurate re-creation of the real-life red-light district of Tokyo, Kabuki-cho. Very few games of the era put the amount of detail that Yakuza does in re-creating a setting so immaculately, right down to the product placement. Though seeing real life products might be off-putting in other cases, in Yakuza it feels entirely natural to see products, landmarks and advertising from our own world to give flavor and legitimacy to the game’s setting.
Yet, its not only visual flair that populates the city. Yakuza is full of side activities and sub-stories that make this exploration worthwhile, showing the player a great number of unique and endearing storylines that happen parallel to the main story and give so much life and character to the setting. Of course, this is also complimented by the simple and accessible side activities that contextualize everyday life in Kamurocho.
The quality of these sub-stories can be pretty hit-or-miss. Some of these are simple gag stories with not much to them, acting as an obstacle that appears while the player is busy doing something else; sadly, these are the most plentiful. However, others can be legitimately gripping with hilariously personable stories or downright heartbreaking drama, as well as anything in-between those two. These unique sub stories show the lives and hardships of the people who frequent the lustful district of Kamurocho, as well as the crime, misery and pleasure that goes with it.
For all these great qualities, there are still various aspects that could receive improvement to make exploration smoother and more engaging; a good place to start would be the game’s fixed camera angles. Though I understand the technical memory limitations that restricted the game from having more controllable camera angles, these obscure a lot of visual information that the player should be able to see. Moreover, they also tend to cross the axis of action in ways that make the game disorienting to walk through.
However, while on the subject of these camera angles, they also enhance the mood of the game by presenting iconic angles and swooping camera motions that firmly establish the setting with memorable iconography. This attention to detail extends to the game’s visuals, which are great for the PS2. The lighting and theming of each scene is top notch, with excellent use of color, bloom and shadows to create a moody and gritty neo-noir atmosphere with a sleek edge that sets it apart from many other games of the time.
The most contentious aspect to the game’s visuals are the in-game 3D models. While a few of these cutscene models have perfectly stood the test of time and even go beyond what its considered standard for the PS2 era, others don’t quite reach such high standards. Most models are fairly simple, offering a level of detail that’s average for the time, however, a lot of the pedestrian models are so simplistic that they jarringly stand out as looking worse than what the PS2 is normally capable of.
Going back to the subject of exploration; it is inconvenient to find good sub-stories when none of them are marked on the game’s map and are only listed once the player has already started the mission. This issue is exacerbated by the fact that a lot of missions have a strict daisy chain of requirements that lets them be initiated to begin with. What all this means is that its entirely possible that a casual playthrough of the game won’t reveal the game’s best sub-stories, leaving the player only with the shallow mini games that exist only to give flavor and nothing else.
Of course, wandering around aimlessly isn’t all there is to Yakuza’s gameplay. Though part of the fantasy of the game is being set free in a bustling night life district, another part entirely is the fantasy of being the strongest and most formidable yakuza out there. To test your mettle, exploration will be broken up by random fights with other aggressive criminals, engaging the player in Yakuza’s second core pillar, which is its combat system.
Oddly enough, rather that incorporating a more typical action-adventure formula, Yakuza tends to break up its pacing with a structure more typical of JRPGs, where exploration is interrupted by randomly occurring battles and chapters conclude with elaborate boss fights. Often, Kazuma will have to fight a handful of opponents at a time using a handful of fist combos or even weapons to deal extra damage. Another way to deal extra damage is the game’s “Heat Riser” mechanic, where every action builds up a meter that raises the player’s defense and damage and can also be consumed by performing special moves that deliver massive damage to the enemy.
Combat is perhaps Yakuza’s weakest aspect, but that doesn’t mean its entirely bad, it’s just weaker and clunkier compared to how solid the rest of the game is. Thanks to some excellent animation work, posing and sound effects, combat is punchy and satisfying. Every hit Kazuma lands feels good to pull off, and juggling enemies is ever so satisfying thanks to the tumbling and tossing of enemies after breaking their guard and throwing them to the ground.
Moreover, the aforementioned Heat mechanic is a good way to keep the player on the toes and break up the pace of combos. Thanks to this mechanic, the player must keep a watch on the rising meter and make sure their actions aren’t interrupted so it doesn’t go down. Once the player has acquired a full meter, they can unleash the power they have been saving up this whole time in one devastating blow that’s entirely necessary to defeat some of this game’s most fearsome foes.
Yakuza is competent at getting the very basics of 3D brawler gameplay right, yet, there are many things that get in the way of its very fundamental success. Though it gets all the fundamentals correct, a lot of the depth and finesse that would make this kind of combat engaging from start to finish is glossed over, ending up with gameplay that is not very replayable or elegant.
First thing anyone is going to notice when playing this game is how rigid Kazuma feels to control. Even though games like Devil May Cry 3 had come out earlier that same year with built combat systems that worked with liquid smooth movement and targeting, Yakuza operates under a very old school execution of its combat system. When Kiryu starts attacking, there is little in the way of adjusting his movement or cancelling his actions midway, meaning the player is left open to enemy attacks more often than not and can’t easily correct simple mistakes.
When you attack, you must commit to that target, even if it means being juggled by enemy attacks coming from the back. And it doesn’t even work well half the time, considering that sometimes Kiryu will decide to target at complete random, starting combos in the opposite direction of where you’re trying to attack. Doing crowd control with enemies can be a bit of a hassle when considering that, sometimes, Kazuma won’t hit a single one due to how awkward the auto-targeting works in this game.
Part of the reason why people have such a hard time getting used to this combat system is how awkward the game’s progression curve is. At the beginning, the gameplay feels stunningly clunky and repetitive thanks to an extremely limited selection of combos and heat finishers. Though each of these combos have their own uses, they create an experience that is inflexible at first and inaccessible for new players who have difficulty getting used to Kazuma’s rigid movement style.
However, that’s not the end of it. Taking another cue from Role-Playing games, Yakuza includes an experience progression system where the player can earn points by beating up thugs and spend them to gain new abilities. As the player gains experience and learns new moves, the combat system becomes a versatile and strategic game of committing to your moves and chaining different abilities together to defeat enemies as efficiently and stylishly as possible.
Yet, most players will be discouraged from finding a lot of these new moves because the game starts out with such bad footing, and this is probably why the game has such a reputation for having clunky gameplay. It’s not until a few hours into the game that the combat really starts to get good thanks to the introduction of abilities that do help mitigate a lot of the stiffness and repetition of the game’s combat.
There are other nuisances that plague the game’s combat of course; these are only the issues that impact the experience the most. One minor issue that adds up as the game goes on is the overabundance of loading screens every time the player gets in and out of battle. This interruption brings the pace of the game to a screeching halt and it only becomes worse as later chapters will have the player fight countless of respawning enemies just to continue with their exploration.
Moreover, another issue with the game’s combat lies with its enemy move sets. Though there’s a decent amount of enemy variety and some great bosses that test the player’s skill at combat, there are also other bosses with frustrating move sets that run contrary to the player’s own abilities. These enemies will find ways to constantly side-step around Kazuma, keeping him from landing a single blow due to the game’s rigid movement style.
But for what it is, the combat is not terrible. The game has a solid baseline execution that is satisfying enough to carry the game and excuse some of the game’s more egregious faults. Ultimately, the real meat of the game is its third core pillar: the narrative, its most memorable aspect by far. Yakuza is a thrilling narrative with highly memorable characters, personable themes and a dramatic tone that gives it a strong sense of identity. Its melodramatic rollercoaster of emotions takes you on a journey that’s fun to watch unfold from beginning to end.
What sets Yakuza’s storyline apart from other games at the time is how it deeply explores concepts that are purely about modern Japanese society, particularly the underworld crime rings of the Yakuza. The game feels like a unique Japanese export for this very reason, as it has an immaculately detailed depiction of the different crime families, social structures, and different players in its convoluted crime opera.
Yakuza’s great worldbuilding keeps the player invested in all the detailed politics and labyrinthine social conventions of the Yakuza families. One of the main appeals of Yakuza’s storyline is seeing how all these complex relationships between the families, or even Japan’s own government organizations, play off of each other in one large power struggle that keeps these alliances dynamically twisted and unreliable.
However, no matter how complicated the game’s story gets, its still rooted in a very personal story that involves a limited cast of characters. Yakuza is a story about family and power. It tells the story of a familial bond that’s broken over time by the temptations of power and the passage of time, and how reclaiming your dignity and happiness starts not by rejecting your humanity for the sake of power, but embracing it to lead a new generation into a new life.
The game’s theming is utterly fantastic, and it is by far Yakuza’s second-best storytelling element. There’s something so engaging about a story that manages to feel so intimate while presenting grander themes about coming of age, accepting responsibility, giving value to family over power, and so many others. Once all these elements come together by the end, you get a very concise picture of the kind of story that Yakuza wants to tell, wearing all its charm on its sleeve.
Yakuza’s best aspect however is its highly memorable cast of characters. Almost everyone in the cast has their own well-defined role and contribution to the story that gives them a strong and memorable appearance. This presence gives characters a sense of magnetism that only gets stronger as the storyline fleshes out their personal troubles and tragic backgrounds. Its easy to love every member of the main cast as they have a story to tell with their presence and a way to make the player instantly recognize them.
To navigate through such complex backstories and criminal organizations, the game needed a protagonist that was strong and versatile enough to convey the game’s meaning and Kiryu was nothing more than a perfect match. He is an excellent protagonist; both a cool guy who embodies the idea of Japanese manliness, kicking ass and talking shit while also having a personal softness that makes him an endearing character to the player. His desire to help others and his tough, no-nonsense attitude makes him perfect for exploring all the different sub-stories in the game. However, his well-defined backstory and character arc is truly what makes it all come together into a protagonist that defines the experience of the game.
Complimenting this great storyline comes an equally as charming soundtrack that punctuates the experience and gives it its own sense of identity and charm. With plenty of hip-hop and rock inspired tracks, the game gets you excited for the action to come. Even if some of its more dramatic tracks are a bit too bland, the game has plenty of other memorable and fulfilling songs that elevate the experience and gives it its own character.
All this praise is not to say the story is perfect of course, as it suffers from quite a lot of wonky writing that holds it back from being all that. For once, the pacing is quite wonky, putting most of the interesting plot developments after the second half while filling the first half to the brim with meandering storylines that either take too long to build-up to the more interesting parts of the game or tell side-stories that don’t add much layers to the mystery at hand.
Yakuza’s storyline could’ve gone through multiple passes in the editing room before shipping, as inconsequential side-stories are given entire chapters of development while crucial relationships which needed to be fleshed out a lot more feel underwritten by comparison. By cutting down a lot of the fluff and strengthening the game’s core story arc and mystery, the game could have been a lot more poignant with its messages and characters.
The worst of the game’s pacing comes in the last few chapters, where important new story developments and plot twists are set up and then paid off in the span of a couple of hours. These story events involve revelations of massively important consequence yet seeing them juggled around with such a haphazard pace makes it fall short of expectations. Though it is satisfying to see a lot of the answers to the mystery paid off, I still would have liked to see them get more attention and development to build up to a much stronger climax.
One detriment to the storyline that’s exclusive to the western localization of the game is its infamously terribly dub. Though some people would call it cheesy or dated and then move on, I think there’s far more egregious problems with it that ruin the impact of the game’s story. The dub suffers from terrible mixing, flat or overexaggerated delivery from miscast C-list celebrities and a misguided attempt to make the actors deliver lines with a pseudo-Japanese accent that sounds horrendous when speaking the hyper literal translations.
On the topic of translation, the game does not have a great translation either. Its easy to spot plenty of typos when playing the game, as well as lines that sound awkward when spoken aloud in English. Though I appreciate the attempt to stay somewhat true to the original text, the execution of this dialogue leaves a lot to be desired, especially when its as choppy, hard to read and unpolished as it is here. Normally I wouldn’t bring attention to an issue like these, but in the case of Yakuza it was so pronounced that it had an effect on the experience.
When completely detached from the rest of the series, the first Yakuza game is a fun game to go back to. Its most definitely not the best game out there, but it is a great attempt to create a unique game that immerses the player in a setting of organized crime. Ultimately, the game would hold up a lot better nowadays if there weren’t other games like it released over the years that iterated and executed on its concepts a whole lot better.
Though I might feel less favorably on this game as I play more games of its series, right now, Yakuza is just the right kind of fun to make you feel like a dragon.