Yakuza 3 – The MMOMFG Review

Yakuza 3

There are few things in life more exciting than imported Asian video games, gang wars involving the Yakuza and fist-to-face action. Yakuza has been a long heralded SEGA franchise since the last installation, Yakuza 2, was released on the PlayStation 2 in 2008. Patiently waiting for an announcement regarding Shenmue 3 coming stateside, I was pleased to learn Yakuza 3 would be headed our direction, which might help alleviate my Asian gang war addicition. The most serious questions required of Yakuza 3 were “How bad ass is the combat compared to its redundancy” and “Does the story hold up in terms of keeping my interest?”

Nearly five hours into the title, I was uncertain that the latter question was going to be a positive answer. Yakuza 3 is a jack of all trades, but is it a master of any? Would the slow opening of Yakuza 3 and the case of the missing imported content lead to the game’s demise? Or would Kazuma deliver enough skull splitting high kicks to win over this editor? Read on to find out the final verdict:

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What’s Good

With karate I’ll kick your ass - My favorite component of Yakuza 3, as well as the previous Yakuza titles, has to be the fighting system. Simple, yet refined. The amount of attacks you can gain access to through unlocking experience points received by completing story missions, sub-story quests and random beat-downs, grant the ability to upgrade your fighting styles and mantras. If I were to play through the game again, I would potentially pick only one fighting style to max immediately for sake of being more destructive sooner, but each style has its perks. The homage to classic Asian martial arts flicks and crime films is shown in its spectacular glory when Kaz absolutely destroys an enemy with a finishing move or a brutal weapon attack. Few things are as satisfying as busting a crony’s kneecap with a bat and then lining him up Matsui-style and knocking his grill into the next zip code. Wait, do they have zip codes in Tokyo?

Shenmue has found its protégé - I’m sure some Yakuza-series fans and Shenmue-series fans are going to bust my balls here by comparing the two, but Yakuza 3 has met my standard for a classic Japanese martial arts based game that delivers as much story as it does punches. There will always be someone who prefers a specific title in a series over the next, but without another Shenmue title appearing in America anytime soon, I’ll gladly take Yakuza 3 and hopefully Yakuza 4, as it is appearing in Japan very soon. Yakuza 3 lacks those scenes you’ll never forget, such as the classic Shenmue 2 “Are you talking about the MAD ANGELSSSSS?” However, Kazuma unravels a story worth telling your grandkids about. That is if your grandkids want to hear about the time you played golf with a city councilman or broke a bicycle on a portly henchman’s groin. You should feel like you’ve accomplished your goals in Yakuza 3 by the end of the game and if you spent plenty of time doing the sub-stories and side-quests, you’ll feel like you’re the king of Okinawa and Tokyo. Or at least a kick-ass Duke.

This game is SUPER ASIAN! - I love every element of Yakuza 3’s game play, artistic style, humor, dialogue and voice acting. I’m a sucker for Asian culture and heritage. The game offers so much back story, that if you just played through without talking to everyone or reading every email sent to you, you’d totally miss out. The wise-cracking African American who sends you goofy texts regarding where to take the ultimate photo to upload to your character’s blog (this sounds insane and it is) allows you to learn new fighting moves while taking advantage of the game’s funny bonus features. The sheer amount of mini-games, Asian culture references, gang histories and side-missions like singing karaoke, is enough to satisfy any fan of the genre’s wishes.

Playing the night away, playing the night awayyyyy - After playing the demo, I wasn’t certain how much game play would actually occur in Yakuza 3. I was impressed to learn  with how much the game had to offer, being compared to a sandbox style title with many gaming routes you can take. Luckily, once you are engrossed in the story and explore Okinawa, as well as Tokyo, you begin to unravel the main stories that also offer access to tons of new quests and side-stories. All-in-all, one can expect to play Yakuza 3 for well over 20 hours if you take advantage of all the bonus missions, not to mention finding all the hidden trophies and gems like eatingdelicacies, completing the underground arenas, discovering every revelation, locating the locker keys in each city and accomplishing specific tasks like the golf and karaoke challenges. A job well done by SEGA for providing countless hours of mind-numbing tasks, but some how they all work with the game’s nature and feel.

New game modes keep you on your toes - As well as all of the sites, sounds and people (260+ characters) to see in Yakuza 3, there are a number of new features to take full advantage of. Seamless Battle allows players to stream data while advancing in between the adventure mode and the battle mode without running into the typical boring black load screen. Also, Chase Battles pit Kazumi in scenes that involve either chasing or being chased. It mixes up the action where you control your routes (to an extent) and help you either mow down that bully, catch that dog, or avoid the loafing police. Revelation mode opens access to new attacks and skills (as mentioned above), but the sheer genius of the system proves it takes more than simply clicking buttons to determine what makes for the right decisions in terms of proper blogging (see this does take skill). First Person View is another obvious bonus to the adventure mode, allowing players to take in the lush environments up close and personal..

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What’s Bad

Stuck in a moment that you can’t get out of - As soon as you turn the game on, you’re stuck in a nearly 20 minute opening cinematic without any control over the main character. This isn’t a huge issue as it is expected to weave the story, however, it would be nice to add in some sort of interaction to help one become familiar with the game play or even just provided a few options to determine how the story will progress. Naturally, you find yourself placed in the shoes of Kazumi Kiryu, the Dragon of the Dojima Family, years after the previous Yakuza 2 plot line. Grasped in a mission to save your orphanage, you are immediately (eh, kind of) thrust into action in terms to save your land, discover the potential downfall of your previous Tojo Clan and help avoid a giant Yakuza battle that is already raging in Tokyo. Kaz should have watched Princess Bride and learned that you never get involved in a land war in Asia. The storyline sounds great, but there is so much downtime in terms of clunky missions and delays in getting to Tokyo, that you never really feel thrust into the story until well over 10 hours of game play. Is this a factor that could have been avoided? Read the statements below to find out how the game starts off on a bad foot.

Don’t tell Mom the babysitter is Kazumi! - Just because an aging Yakuza decides to settle down and take over an orphanage, it doesn’t mean you should start the game trying to pamper the little kids at the Sunshine Orphanage. If they had just wrapped that portion of the story into the opening video in regards to the mafia trying to take over the plot of land the orphanage is set on, I would have been totally fine with that. What is another 10 minutes of video when I can’t control my character anyways? Honestly, the thought of reliving those five plus hours of playing hide and seek with the kids, or playing baseball on the beach, or trying to help pick out a kid’s clothes for a fashion contest literally make me shudder in sadness about the hours that were wasted. Kazumi is a freaking bad-ass, he shouldn’t be cleaning up these kid’s messes or teaching them life lessons about being cool or how to avoid bullies. He should have beat the kids unmercifully until they were Yakuza warriors . At least that is how the game could have played out in my mind.

Where exactly do I go now? - Having never been to Tokyo or Okinawa, the game sure expects you to know exactly where to go for each request. If I even try to ponder why they assumed I’d know where the hell to find dog food in Okinawa, my mother-loving head might explode. I spent an hour and a half looking for somewhere to buy dog food hoping to not have to use the Internet to find out, to avoid any spoilers. Luckily, I stumbled upon the location right before I gave up on the game for that night (no spoilers here). If the system for advancing during missions was clearer, or certain missions didn’t simply give you the run-around like looking for Rikiya in Tokyo, the game would have played much smoother and felt like less of a time-sink and more of an engrossing experience. Spending the majority of time running around hoping to find what you’re looking for doesn’t exactly place faith in the gamer that the series is headed in the right direction.

This game is SUPER ASIAN! - Sadly, unless your brain is a steel trap, you won’t appreciate a number of elements found in this game. I never felt a real connection to any of the locations, so I was constantly checking the map, as well as trying to constantly remember street names. In terms of references to the Clan members and specific history details, I just can’t be bothered remembering who is the Eighth Chairmen of the Tojo Clan when my one goal in the game is to smash faces with elbows. The game offers a nice option to reminisce about Yakuza 1 and Yakuza 2 for the histories from the two games, but by the time that option is available at the beginning of the game, all you want to do is go fight something. In terms of the Asian aspects, there really is no reason to have all of these mini-games other than to kill time. I can’t possibly fathom a karaoke mini-game similar to the rhythm-based version found in Yakuza 3 in any Western releases. The sheer thought that someone had to program that mini-game into Yakuza 3 slightly startles me. Either way, giving the game the Asian culture additions that come from the original release is nice, however, when they hold out and only deliver a portion of the quests and don’t even provide the hostess bar scene, one has to complain about the port.

Clunky controls are clunky – Normally controls aren’t a big part of the MMOMFG reviews, but I couldn’t help but feel that in some missions, they truly hindered the gaming experience. Does this completely spoil the Yakuza 3 experience? Certainly not, but one would benefit in a number of fights or missions, if you didn’t feel you had to press L2 to correct your line of sight constantly. If the camera would just gradually track your characters movements instead of staying stationary, it might reduce the chances of you facing a wall nearly an entire fight. There are worse things to complain about in this game (as highlighted above), so controls are not a make or break situation necessarily for Kazumi’s virtual fate.

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Worth Remembering:

You are going to take a lot of good memories away from Yakuza 3. There is something to say about a game that will throw you into a number of repetitive street fights randomly throughout its entirety, but never cause you to get bored with them. Unfortunately, there were times where I was dying for a gang brawl over completing a silly mission like teaching a dog to be friendly, but the heart of the title remains in its story and gruesome (at times) fight scenes. More power to SEGA for delivering the fighting goods.

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Worth Forgetting:

I can’t fight this feelin’ anymore. I’ve forgotten what I started fighting for. Sorry for referencing REO Speedwagon here, but at times I literally forgot what the main point of Yakuza 3 even was. I understand you can choose whether to take on the mini-games or side-stories, but in all honesty, the entire orphanage portion of the game could have been cut out as there is nothing worse than being a bad-ass Yakuza stuck taking care of a bunch of sniveling kids. More action, less babysitting, baby! Also, I’d like to forget that the Western import was snubbed of 18 percent of the quests that were available in the Eastern version. There is no faster way to upset me than not providing an Asian hostess bar scene that may or may not have included topless women. Son of a…

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Yakuza 3 is a solid gaming experience and despite not fully living up to my expectations, the game had a ton to offer. Just because I wasn’t a huge fan of the simple runaround missions doesn’t mean the entire experience was sullied. The game plays more like an RPG with action elements, typically with the enemies ambushing you throughout the game play experience (ala any RPG game). To its credit, Yakuza 3 does a good job of mixing the successful elements from the previous titles in the series and keeping it fresh with new modes, delivering a full title with many memorable moments. My suggestion would be to blow through the entire Okinawa portion of the game to really get into the backbone of the story and the best elements of the game as quickly as possible. If you liked the demo, buy it. If you aren’t sure about the game, try the demo first or rent it. I’ll stand by mantra, though. If you keep bringing on the Asian games and I’ll keep playing them.

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