Retro Review: Yakuza

Grade: B
Time Spent Playing: 15 hours

Meet Kazuma, awesome badass. As a soldier in the Yakuza, it's his job to collect money and administer beatings where appropriate (hint:it's always appropriate!). Unfortunately for this bare knuckled warrior, he also has this silly sense of honor which gets him into a heap of trouble early in the game and subsequently drives the story.

I remember, years ago, when this game was being previewed, it was often described as a streamlined Shenmue. And that's a fair descriptor; one that carries with it both negatives and positives.

It's similar to Shenmue in that it presents a living world for you to interact with. Though, instead of a small Japanese town or Chinese ghetto, you get to run amok in the Shinjuku district of Tokyo. It does offer less interactivity--no knocking on random strangers' doors--but it still feels like a real place. From what I understand, the representation of Tokyo's red light district is authentic. Except maybe the public park run by hobos that only has one entrance, through a public men's room. Did I also mention that the same hobo dominated park also leads to an underground--literally--black market where the rich and powerful can gamble and buy prostitutes?


In contrast to Shenmue, you're not bogged down with chores, day jobs, bed times, and painfully sex-free relationships with females. Unfortunately, the fighting has been stripped down too, to the point that it's insulting to compare that aspect.

It's a shame the fighting is so simple, because you do a shit ton of it. I'm not even talking about your missions, which offer plenty of opportunity to split lips and bruise egos. I'm talking about random battles. Yeah, like a jrpg. Leave your hideout intending to walk a couple blocks to meet your paid-for-girlfriend and you're bound to get into about three random battles. You do learn new moves and such, but it's pretty much button mashing the whole way through. The saving grace here is the joy found in picking up objects and beating the hell of people. Perhaps if I wasn't forced to do so much of it I wouldn't be as down on it.

The biggest draw for Yakuza is the world it portrays and the story unfolding within it. While the story does start off incredibly strong, in the end it gets too big and borders on ridiculous. It's still good enough to keep you playing, to find out what happens next, but it is disappointing when the potential of the first few hours was so high.

In the end, I'd recommend Yakuza. While the fighting and story do falter, the world realized is worth the price of admission. And Kazuma is a total badass.