mushi
i'm addicted to serotonin
- Joined
- May 19, 2020
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I just wanted to tell people about a franchise which has, in my opinion, some of the best games you can get for the PlayStation.
Yakuza.
I don't think this series was much of a property in the west until a couple of years ago. The creative director for these games, Toshihiro Nagoshi, has said in interviews that he didn't think the games had a chance selling outside of East Asia; the first two (released in 2005 and 2006, respectively) didn't appear in America until the neck end of that console generation, and the same can be said for Yakuza 5, which wouldn't have even got a western release if it wasn't for petitioning from fans. The localization was pretty horrible, too - weird translation choices, content being left out and so on. Pretty much every game has either been totally remade or at least remastered for the PS4, though, and you can get the whole franchise of eight games (pending the release of Yakuza 7 in the west) for fourty-ish bucks on a good discount.
I hear these games get described a lot as Japan's take on Grand Theft Auto: it's a crime sandbox full of diversions with a super gritty, hard boiled main story tying it all together. Every character is a walking block of muscle, covered in full-body irezumi and apparently incapable of doing their top two shirt buttons. Every game seems to end with the main cast getting thrice betrayed and everyone punching it out (often without their shirts) on the top floor of a skyscraper - guns are hard to come by in Japan, after all. The main character, Kazuma Kiryu, is in the bad end of fifty by the newest game, and he's still beating thugs senseless for their fight money, still doing shirtless punchups on highrise roofs. The same thing happens every time - he talks big about being done with the life of crime, about how he's going to be a good man and live a quiet life, before he gets blackmailed or someone gets shot in front of him and he's dragged into it all over again. My favorite "exit from the business" setup is when Kiryu does a stint driving taxis, complete with battle dialogue, blue sparks and taxi themed "heat moves."
There's a lot that distinguishes this game from Grand Theft Auto. You're punching people rather than shooting them, for one, and those games are a lot more sleazy and grounded. That biker guy in GTA 5 got killed without so much as a word. If that happened in Yakuza, he'd get shot in the leg first - and there'd be five minutes of cutscene dialogue about virtue and honor, before he gets killed for good. The Yakuza games are more taut (you're in the same bit of Tokyo, inspired by Kabukicho, for pretty much every game), and the emphasis is on the flashy set pieces and the combat system. There are probably a couple hundred ways you can knock somebody out in these games: Akiyama, the kickboxer, can start handstanding and snap someone's neck with his legs. Or you can pour salt, or hot sauce, into the bad guys' eyes.
The other big difference is the tone.
Sometimes, Yakuza is as hard boiled and serious as it gets. Often times, it's an admixture of drama and comedy, kinda like an old school Jackie Chan film. A lot of it is too good to spoil. The GTA games have their quirky moments, but they're never this good, and they're always qualified by the odd nudge or wink. Like a Nicholas Cage film, Yakuza never stops to check how you feel.
The craziest part is how much GAME there is in all of these games. They fellow a strict seasonal release schedule, kinda like Call of Duty - but you can literally get ten times more playtime out of these games, especially if you're looking for side content. I checked just now, and my old Yakuza 5 save has 120 hours played. I love all of these games and, in my opinion, they're all different enough to justify buying, but I'd probably rank them something like this:
Judgement > Yakuza 0 > Yakuza 5 > Yakuza 2 > Yakuza 4 > Yakuza 3 > Yakuza 7 > Yakuza 6 > Yakuza 1
Yakuza.
I hear these games get described a lot as Japan's take on Grand Theft Auto: it's a crime sandbox full of diversions with a super gritty, hard boiled main story tying it all together. Every character is a walking block of muscle, covered in full-body irezumi and apparently incapable of doing their top two shirt buttons. Every game seems to end with the main cast getting thrice betrayed and everyone punching it out (often without their shirts) on the top floor of a skyscraper - guns are hard to come by in Japan, after all. The main character, Kazuma Kiryu, is in the bad end of fifty by the newest game, and he's still beating thugs senseless for their fight money, still doing shirtless punchups on highrise roofs. The same thing happens every time - he talks big about being done with the life of crime, about how he's going to be a good man and live a quiet life, before he gets blackmailed or someone gets shot in front of him and he's dragged into it all over again. My favorite "exit from the business" setup is when Kiryu does a stint driving taxis, complete with battle dialogue, blue sparks and taxi themed "heat moves."
There's a lot that distinguishes this game from Grand Theft Auto. You're punching people rather than shooting them, for one, and those games are a lot more sleazy and grounded. That biker guy in GTA 5 got killed without so much as a word. If that happened in Yakuza, he'd get shot in the leg first - and there'd be five minutes of cutscene dialogue about virtue and honor, before he gets killed for good. The Yakuza games are more taut (you're in the same bit of Tokyo, inspired by Kabukicho, for pretty much every game), and the emphasis is on the flashy set pieces and the combat system. There are probably a couple hundred ways you can knock somebody out in these games: Akiyama, the kickboxer, can start handstanding and snap someone's neck with his legs. Or you can pour salt, or hot sauce, into the bad guys' eyes.
The other big difference is the tone.
The craziest part is how much GAME there is in all of these games. They fellow a strict seasonal release schedule, kinda like Call of Duty - but you can literally get ten times more playtime out of these games, especially if you're looking for side content. I checked just now, and my old Yakuza 5 save has 120 hours played. I love all of these games and, in my opinion, they're all different enough to justify buying, but I'd probably rank them something like this:
Judgement > Yakuza 0 > Yakuza 5 > Yakuza 2 > Yakuza 4 > Yakuza 3 > Yakuza 7 > Yakuza 6 > Yakuza 1
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