The VGChartz crew arrived in San Francisco a couple days before GDC started, so we decided to take a trip down to see our friends at SEGA. While we will be reviewing Yakuza 3 in the coming weeks, this preview should tide you over until then.
If you’ve never played the first two Yakuza games (or just want a refresher), you’ll be happy to hear that you have the option to watch two 30 minute movies which will get you up to speed. Basically, Yakuza 3 is an action RPG in which you play as Kazuma Kiryu, a man who decides to hang up his yakuza way of life and run an orphanage out in Okinawa. Of course, as fate would have it, escape from the fast lane is not that easy (or else this would be a pretty boring orphanage sim game) and Kaz is thrown back into the violently destructive lifestyle of being a yakuza.
The majority of Yakuza 3 takes place in either Tokyo or Okinawa. Tokyo will give you all of your big city brawls, dating options, and all around hectic quests. In Okinawa, you’ll be spending time at the Morning Glory orphanage playing with the orphans, catching fish, etc. There are also quests to help your orphans in need as well with situations such as bullying.
In the city, you can explore quite a bit. You can enter buildings that are highlighted in color on your map. I decided to walk into a Smile Burger, pick up a cute Japanese chick and invite her on a karaoke date with me on the spot. Upon arrival at the karaoke joint, you’re able to participate in a minigame where you ‘sing’ along by rhythmically pressing buttons as they scroll by the screen (think Dance Dance Revolution). There are a total of six songs to play (all with an easy or hard difficulty). If you were wondering, some of the places you will go in Tokyo actually exist in real life. Not only do they exist, though, but things like restaurant menus are accurate.
In combat, you need to pull off combos to gain heat. You accomplish this using light and heavy blows and grabs strung together. Also, feel free to pick up tables, chairs, crowbars, bats, etc and use them to your advantage. Once your heat gauge is full, you are able to execute a finishing move, which usually consists of curb stopping the crap out of a guy’s head or smashing whatever object you’re holding over your enemies head in a completely over-the-top, but all-too rewarding fashion. After pummeling four baddies, don’t be too surprised if all you get out of it is a not-so-rewarding shard of glass or 10,000 yen.
Yakuza 3 did lose a couple perks during the localization process from Japan. First thing you won’t see in the American version is the hostess club, but all is not lost. The women in the hostess club are still free to date, and can be found around town. The other feature that was pulled was a Japanese trivia minigame, which really wouldn’t make too much sense over here in America (unless you can name the news reporter on Channel 7 in Japan).
From what I saw today, Yakuza 3 looks like an entertaining game if you give it the chance to be. There is a good mix of fighting as well as side quests and a range of minigames such as fishing, karaoke, dating, and more, which gives the game some variety. The game doesn’t rush you along or take away features as you progress.
Stay tuned for our review of Yakuza 3 later this month, where we will check out the game in more detail.
