It seems to me that the life of a yakuza has some pretty major drawbacks. Besides the gang wars and the threat of your own personal safety, there's no way of truly leaving the business.
That's the vibe I'm getting as Kazuma Kiryu, former Chairman of the Tojo Clan who just wants a simple life running an orphanage. Instead,
Yakuza 3 will be the third time his past comes back to haunt him.
Of course, once you actually start playing
Yakuza 3, you start to appreciate the immediate perks of being a Japanese mafia strongman. Running around Tokyo districts, barging into people, laughing at the fat men who fall down and can't get up... but most satisfying is the smackdowns you serve to street thugs and hired goons who think they can bust you up.
Oh no, my gentle friends. It shall be I who will be busting you up, tonight.
Smash! goes Kazuma's fist into some punk's face as I hammer the Square button repeatedly for a combo attack.
Crack! is the sound of my foot slamming into the guy behind me when I interject the combo with the Triangle button.
Bang! will be the last thing my enemy hears as I pick up a nearby bicycle with the Circle button and proceed to crush it on his head.
And that
Crunch! would be my finishing move, jumping on top of a downed opponent's face with both of Kazuma's shiny white shoes. That one I'm able to do by building up a special bar called the HEAT gauge – the more bad guys I pummel, the quicker the gauge fills and the sooner I can pull of HEAT actions such as this with the Triangle button. Others include grabbing an enemy and slamming them headfirst into the nearest wall.
Yes, the life of an untouchable yakuza of legend is delicious. But these pleasures were almost never granted to us –
Yakuza 3 has been in Japan for around a year while SEGA deliberated on localising the game for the West. The lacklustre sales of the first two games – released on the PlayStation 2 but arriving at a time when all eyes were on the Xbox 360 – put the publisher off the idea, but I'm glad it had a change of heart.
For if I were to describe
Yakuza, I'd detail it as the closest thing you'd get to a
Streets of Rage and
Shenmue crossover. Sure, the fighting serves as the meat and potatoes of the game, but there's an equal opportunity to explore what amounts to a digital replication of both downtown Tokyo and the Japanese island of Okinawa. With all the brand names and optional minigames and side quests, it's a little bit of tourism on a Blu-ray disc.
The story pushes all of the action along though, and just like the first two games
Yakuza 3 features an intricate plot that makes you want to play through the game in one sitting. Kazuma's orphanage dream is threatened by a government bill that could see him and the children in his care evicted – but in a seemingly unrelated incident, the local Okinawa yakuza boss has been shot by a man that bears resemblance to Kazuma's dead foster father.
And with the Tojo Clan having internal wars between the families, it lies on the Dragon of Dojima to come back and clean up the mess – including a potential threat from the West and China. It's a story that unfolds as you play and packs just as much punch as the original
Yakuza game did, but it does take some time to get to some unrestricted exploration and gameplay.
