Would you like to do something terrible today?
With a surprisingly multifaceted plot, a realistic set of characters, and an authentic portrayal of Japanese cityscapes from the smallest box of ramen noodles to the elaborate glowing vistas and entertaining combat, it makes for one hell of an experience. So, Let’s talk about Yakuza 4.
For now, starting Skin Deep: Graphically, the first thing that caught my attention is the level of facial expression in the cinematic performances. Subtle parts of human expression(even with reflections off of one’s eye) applied in Yakuza 4 all add up to a far more believable performance than the mannequin-styled Body/Facial motions more commonly seen in the video game industry. As far as the game itself, well, it varies. The engine looks to be from the Mid-PS3 era, though the frame rate seems to be better than some of its open-world competition. As mentioned above, it has a surprising sense of atmosphere; A Japanese metropolis down to an Assassin’s Creed-esque level of detail. They’ve also got some nice weather touches, like seeing the growth of rain puddles on the concrete floor.
Complaints… I’ve seen NPC pop-up. Not too frequently if due to the compact nature of Komurochi‘s streetlines. While the main characters can look more impressive than the current PS4 Line-Ups, minor NPCs are definitely showing their age. Other than that, the overall quality holds up a lot better than some I can think of. It’s also worth noting that the cinematics are also greatly enhanced to professional level Staging/Camera Work, akin to the Metal Gear Franchise. One scene in Act 3 makes something as mundane as walking around a cornered hallways a treat of anticipation, and they occasionally throw some curveballs like first person in some of the more tense scenes. Audio’s pretty great. Ambience of tinny radios playing Japanese tunes helps add the vibe of Japan’s petite shops and eateries. Voice acting’s spot on - Zero complaints there. Music’s pretty nice, and that one ‘Chase’ song sounds like it was pulled straight out of Deadly Premonition, with a saxophonist who sounds like he’s had one too many of the “special” brownies.
Characters are seriously boss. Shun Akiyama is Suave, Wealthy, and a grab bag of oddities. At least on the surface, he should have a beatles-style crowd of women falling for him.
Despite the debonair façade, he embraces humility and hardly thinks about the wealth obtained over the years. Maybe a little lazy, but just a little. Of the Main 4, he’s the one I identify most with. Taiga Seijima; Perhaps a simple man, but his history is anything but. It’s *really* easy to put him off initially as a mindless thug based off his cinematic debut, at least due to superficial(Superhuman?) reasons. To an extent, he puts out that flame during the story as well, albeit maintaining his badassery After-The-Fact. Tanimura, don’t have much to say about him. His character holds an important role, but seems more interesting for plot reasons than personality.
The Gameplay would be a bit like taking Rockstar Games(GTA, L.A. Noire) and mixing them with Shenmue. Outside of Cinematics/Dialogue, SEGA gives the player quite a bit of variety. The combat is a jumble of fighting games and wrestling games. The moveset seems less focused on lengthy combo memorizations of classical Fighting Games, and more on context-sensitive moves I.e. grabbing your opponent’s legs, and pressing a button to send him twirling towards freedom. This can also depend on your character as well; Shun is the more balanced starting character, and the more “spunky” of the 4. He’s the Ryu of Yakuza, the balanced starting character. Saejima is a bear. He focuses mostly on grab attacks and the brute strength that comes with being a Classy Colossus. Tanimura is very conservative, being most notable for his enhanced parry attack. On the direct opposite side, the last character available is an absolute showboat, making use of the HEAT system’s cinematic specials to piledrive your way to victory. Also my favorite fighting character.
The HEAT system is the meter that grows as you beat up baddies and such - more special moves become available to use as it grows. You’re blue now, if you did it right. Despite being by and large an entertaining romp, there are some downsides to the fighting. The AI can vary between very boring and overbearing. Your average mob on the streets of Kamurocho mostly spend their time wobbling about with hands raised in fists and *occasionally* throwing a swing, essentially being a Glass-Joe punching bag for the player. On the other hand, the named characters put up a much better fight and have AI/abilities unique to their character. HP Bloating is a thing. Sometimes it matches fairly well…but in one case near the very end of the game, I was literally surrounded by health-ballooned minions and a person who should’ve easily fallen the first few times I twisted his arm. I had to redo a huge length of fighting due to only having a few health drinks. And this was on easy mode.
The frequency of the street fights is seems a bit high, and the reasoning for half of them is pushing the envelope of believability. Other cases like opposing gang members seem like more tangible reasoning, though. It’s amusing to see crowds build around the two in true Street Fighter logic.
Still, the way they made dynamic events play out instead of the old walk-into-a-scripted-moment shtick of common GTA/Saints Row is a nice touch. It’s not perfect, but I had a hell of a time with Yakuza 4’s combat.
Outside of the brawler’s corner, the entire city holds an extensive list of secondary options for your entertainment, advancement, and enrichment. As they *are* aiming for true-to-reality depictions, there’s a wealth of electronic entertainment. Arcades hold a shooter and the ole’ crane game, and Karaoke is an appropriately kooky Parappa-The-Rapper-esque Maraca-thon. Ole? More hardcore games like Competitive Mahjong allow for long-lasting fun. If you’re more of the management type, both recruiting Fighters and Hostesses in Dojos/Bars is pretty neat, and comes with a healthy level of customization to boot. A couple of these are tied in quite well into the story, keeping them from being thrown out as trivial pursuits.
Typically, our preconceived notion of Organized Crime involve a few bad men playing chess with the lives of men with even worse ethical dispositions. All games of chess have their pawns; And after 18 hours for the main story alone, it proved to be a long game indeed. Juggling a list of character arcs with a lengthy list of intrigue and growing sense of mystery to the world of Yakuza, Y4 has one of the best Main Stories to a video game I’ve seen quite some time. It’s pretty much the only time I could empathize with characters tied into Mafia-esque scenarios.
I didn’t like the Godfather. Sorry.I can definitely see Chewin enjoying this moreso than something with the borderline-gonzo tone of Deadly Premonition. Metal Gear certainly has an influence(and there *is* a character named Hideo with a slight resemblance), but I’d say it has more to do with emphasis on Cinematography/Character Focus than the Supernatural Hyperrealism and more Tech-Heavy themes MGS is known for. Also, they have major connections to previous games but can be enjoyed independently as well. They’re similar, but I definitely wouldn‘t categorize it as a clone. Despite the fact that people are piledriving each other and some of those revelations are absolutely nutball, the main story keeps itself grounded in reality. Their ability to make “villains” with complex circumstances, building and growing certain “events” in meaningful ways over time is stellar, and seemingly innocent observations early on can flip it into something more eye-opening.
The meeting between Lily & Shun seemed like a casual take on classic P.I. shtick. Again, more playing off of innocent observations like “Drama Queen”. A bit curious why someone who murdered so many would grab evidence that *might* lead others there. Doesn’t look like a smoker, but I guess we’re going by “she’s thinking unclearly cause brother” logic. I like the sense of professionalism, honor, and respect that’s a bit more apparent with Yakuza than classic mafia stories. Not that there isn’t backstabbing, but the way they do it is goddamned brilliant. I was metaphorically blown away by the true story for the “Ueno Incident”, I’d have never thought of *that* being on the table as a possibility.
Act 2 is a bit more tense for a start-up, another set-up in characters/settings which add subtle foreshadowing. I’d forgotten Kiryu was even a main character while playing, so it was a neat suprise to see him get a bigger tie-in to the story than what I’d expected. Playing as Seijima in Komurochi is like playing Nosferatu in VtmB.
That tournament scene, pretty ballsy. In the game’s scenarios where unnecessary death is constantly at their doorstep, it’s a nice addition to see at least some of our “mindless thugs” still hold their humanity.
Act 3 is *slightly* boring, until Yosuka gets thrown into the mix. It becomes more apparent in Act 2 that there’s an air of mystery for this particular story, but it’s Act 3 where that sort of kicks in full gear. Fortunately even as that gets unveiled, there’s still other major events like the 2005 Millenium Tower incident and where dat moneh went that come into play. Katsuragi’s probably the closest we have to a mwahaha villain, but he doesn’t really revel in it. Like a cockroach, he’s dead set on staying alive. Kido & Dojima aren’t evil per se, but they’re certainly a product of an environment where the only way to climb up(or stay alive) is kicking off those below you. We fight or we die, that’s the plan. And Munakata, well, it’s harder to say since he lived through a very different time than most of our characters(and players).
The end itself is a clever mix of Poetic Justice and Parallel. Use the root of all evil to literally root *out* evil. And everybody takes their shirt off so 10 out of 10 wait wtf?! I didn‘t know grabbing your shoulder was an insta-naked move. I guess this is Shokugeki no Soma logic or something. Ok. The epilogue is appropriate in keeping with Kiryu‘s mantra of Tojo Clan‘s stamp on the world. Overall, that was really something special.
So yep, it’s the exception to the rule. Lol
S’great. Go git it.
Despite the debonair façade, he embraces humility and hardly thinks about the wealth obtained over the years. Maybe a little lazy, but just a little. Of the Main 4, he’s the one I identify most with. Taiga Seijima; Perhaps a simple man, but his history is anything but. It’s *really* easy to put him off initially as a mindless thug based off his cinematic debut, at least due to superficial(Superhuman?) reasons. To an extent, he puts out that flame during the story as well, albeit maintaining his badassery After-The-Fact. Tanimura, don’t have much to say about him. His character holds an important role, but seems more interesting for plot reasons than personality.
