Retrospective: Yakuza 3 (Ps3)

"Not Reality but Real (リアリティではなくリアル)"

With weekends being 'off days' for articles it means a couple of extra days are added to the SEGA week so it does in fact equal a week. That means articles will run till Wednesday and it will be business as usual from Thursday onwards hopefully. Seen as the Ps4 launched last Friday its safe to assume that the current generation is on it way out for most people. Personally though I think the Ps3 is still offering more than enough to stay relevant. Today though I'm going to look at, arguably, SEGA's best game this generation (One of the best games this generation. Period.) in Yakuza 3 with the curtain slowly falling on this 7th generation.



Unlike the previous episodes the story is not written by Hase Seishu but by Masayoshi Yokoyama. Yakuza 3 takes a departure from the first two games with its choice of setting: instead of focusing on the gritty cityscape of Tokyo and Osaka, it switches gears and sends Kazuma Kiryu to the Ryukyu Islands, Okinawa, where he runs the Sunshine Orphanage (Morning Glory (アサガオ Asagao?) in Japanese) with his adoptive daughter Haruka Sawamura (she calles him "Uncle Kaz") who accompanied him in the previous episodes and the Movie Version. Sunshine Orphanage is on a land that is owned by Shigeru Nakahara, the boss of a local yakuza clan or bōryokudan, known as the Ryudo Family 琉道一家 (Ryūdō Ikka?). Nakahara is under pressure from the country's government to sell the land, which is planned to become a seaside resort. When his friend Daigo Dojima, Chairman of the Tojo Clan, is shot - From here is where your journey begins and to be honest, Yakuza 3 features one of the best stories you'll come across in modern gaming. Its a roller coaster of a ride with so many twists & turns that it'll leave you stunned on occasion. It even manages to pack in a few moments of genuine emotion that may, like with me, have you shed a few man-tears. There is one lull roughly 1/3rd of the way in that threatens to ruin the experience, but once it picks up again it never stops! The end segment which lasts about an hour is one of the most epic parts of any game. I could go on & on about the story but I would no doubt start unleashing spoilers and for those that haven't sampled it would prove to be disastrous. All you need to know is that the narrative will keep you engrossed till the end without a doubt. IF your worried about not playing 1&" so your unsure of trying 3, 3 has the back story included on the disk for those that need to catch up!

The game plays like a free-roam sandbox brawler. That's how I would describe it anyway. Sure you can use guns and the like but most of the time you'll be teaching people a lesson with your fist like in the ol' days of arcade action titles. You can freely explore the 2 main areas of the game - The game takes place both in Kamurocho, a fictional version of Tokyo's red-light district Kabukicho, from the first two games and in a brand new location called Ryukyu. The area of Okinawa where the story takes place is a fictional area, based upon Naha's Makishi. There are real life landmarks included ie Karyushi Arcade in Ryukyu. Most places in these areas are open to explore, shops, restaurants & bars can be entered for example. There are tonnes of side mission for you to complete alongside the main story (roughly 100+ in total) that focus around mainly completing small missions for passer-by or acting as a bounty hunter. Numerous activities can also be taken up like Poker, Blackjack, Bowling etc to help beef out the content even more. If you skipped all this the main Story will probably last you about 15-20 hours, with all this other content to do your looking at more than double that. The fighting system also adds more depth to the game as you rank up and unlock new moves. Ensuring your Kazuma has the right skills to suit your fighting style is key (Extra moves can be unlocked by other means too ie Revelations [snapping pics and blogging insightful moments]) so you have to make sure you choose wisely what to spend your points on. Nowhere is this more relevant than for boss fights as going in unprepared can mean a slog fest that lasts longer than you'd like. Everything about the gameplay though breathes depth that's not at first apparent until you start delving into whats on offer. Once the game is done there's even a New Game+ to ensure you can get everything done you missed the first time.

Graphically the game still holds up considering it was released back in 2009 in Japan. This would probably be due in no small part to the superb engine dubbed Magical V-Engine used for facial expressions. With going for locations based on real places the game also has a more realistic look to it than its contempoarys. According to Wikipedia the game also supports 1080p upscale, but I'm guessing that was removed for the western release as you'll only be getting the 720p (odd 1024x768 internal resolution though) output on our systems. The only areas that hurt the game are aliasing though as no Anti-Aliasing is employed to combat it and also the odd, minor moment of slowdown. Still, in-game looks great, especially when exploring Kamurocho at night as the city looks as dazzling as you'd expect. The cut-scenes are where the game really shines though. Using a ramped up version of the in-game engine & the Magical V-Engine facial tech ensure they really do look the part. Its hard not to be engrossed in the game when it does so much right on the visuals front. No English audio is included for the 1 or 2 people who like playing these type of games in English. The soundtrack though is worthy of mention too, with the BGM used in the final segment being one of the best pieces of music in gaming. As you'd expect from one of SEGA's most talented studio's, there isn't much to fault with the games presentation

There's so much to Yakuza 3 that Ive more than likely missed something somewhere that I really shouldn't have forgot to mention. If you haven't played the game yet your doing yourself a great disservice. It really is a fantastic game. If I was to review it, It would be hard for me to not give it a 10/10 as it doesn't seem to have any faults to fault the game with. So go ahead and try it if you haven't. Its like playing an old arcade action beat em up wrapped in a modern game structure with an emotional rollercoatser of a narrative. It has the best of all worlds.