Playstation 2 Review: "Yakuza 1"

Publisher: Sega

Developer: Amusement Vision

Release Date: September 5, 2006 (USA)

Premise:

The first "Yakuza" game is the beginning of the saga. You play as Kiryuu Kazuma who is expelled from his Yakuza family after taking the fall for the murder of a Crime Boss his friend committed. After being released from prison after Ten (10) years, you come in contact with a Nine-Year-Old girl named Haruka who everybody is after because she is supposedly the key to the missing 10 Billion Yen that was stolen from the Yakuza clan.

Gameplay: 

Yakuza is an Action-Adventure game that focuses on Exploration and Melee Fighting. Throughout the game you will be able to explore an open city and roam around interacting with various people to perform Side Missions, Collect Valuables, encounter random gangs and thugs, all-the-while in search of the missing money and the truth.

The main aspect of the Gameplay is the Melee Combat. When you encounter a foe you will enter a cordoned-off small area where you fight in Real-Time Hand-To-Hand combat. You can also use any number of weapons to increase your damage, though most of the weapons can only be used a certain number of times before the item breaks. Most of the combat is with bare fists, utilizing combos and special attacks to defeat your enemies. There are some gun battles in the game and an On-Rails Shooting level.

While exploring the city you can enter many different buildings, play mini-games, visit casinos, stop at restaurants to eat and replenish health, purchase health and armor items and much more. There are also Keys to Lockers throughout the game that you can use to unlock storage lockers that contain special items.

Graphics:

The game was released at the very beginning of the Seventh (7th) Generation of systems (360, PS3, Wii) and therefore it utilizes all of the power of the Playstation 2. The character models are done very well for a PS2 title, though the polygon count isn't tremendously high due to the system limitations and at some points during fights or while exploring the city you can get some slowdowns. The graphical effects are very nice and the modeling of the buildings and their textures really fit in nicely along with the ambient lighting of the environment.

Sound:

In Yakuza there is a beautiful Musical Score that helps further improve the atmosphere of the game. There is somber, emotional music that plays during the serious moments in the game, as well as fast-paced action music that's used during fights and certain sequences. There're a lot of background sounds, such as people talking and moving about, that help immersion further.

Length:

There is so much to do in Yakuza that you will be very surprised to know how long the game can last. My first play-through I racked up over 15 hours, but I also skipped quite a few side missions and collectibles.

If you work on finishing every single side mission, collect all of the collectibles and perform all of the additional tasks, the game can very easily be over 20+ hours in length and also has replay-ability where you can play the game in an Arcade-type mode to complete challenges and rack up high scores.

Value:

I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of this game, and I think it was overshadowed by the Xbox 360 and the other Next-Gen systems when it launched. I would highly recommend picking this title up when you get the chance to. You can find this game for around $5-$20 depending on your location, and it is worth that amount of money for the great game that it is.