If you have a PS3 and a Japanese account on PSN, there are 2 demos available. 1 seems to be a fighting level, the other an exploration one. Just a heads up.
The fighting demo has horse riding as well. Honestly, the story had better be good, because the gameplay was subpar
Well in all honesty it plays like the previous titles which considering they sold quite well in Japan, seems to be playing it safe. Quite colourful to look at in places, however it needs background music and sound BADLY as that only seems to come into play with a cut scene.
It hasn't in North America yet, Japan got it in Dec '06. Sega annouced in Sept 07 that it would be coming out sometime in 2008 for NA.
Have they announced anything about a cross-platform release for Yakuza 3? Not to be a fanboy about it, but an exclusive might not reach the same numbers as the first game.
I was disappointed. It reminded me strongly of Shenmue, both gameplay wise and graphically. Not that Shenmue is bad, you understand, but those are pretty old games now.
My impression was the Yakuza was what everybody wanted out of Shenmue, minus all the tedious life simulation and morality plot. Sandbox missions linked together with brawler combat, boiled down to just the fun stuff. I liked Yakuza a lot, but then again I'm a big Shenmue fanboy too. I'm not sure what the sales figures were, but the critical response was okay.
I see. I haven't played the first two games, and the demo is not a very good demonstration of the gameplay it would seem.
Did you play either of the Spikeout games? It's explicitly stated that the combat in Yakuza is an evolved version of what was created for the Spikeout series. A row of Spikeout arcade games can be seen as background decoration in the first Yakuza game.
Not quite. The first one didn't do so hot in NA hence the wait for the sequel. The only similarity between it and Shenmue vs something like GTA is the attention to detail. Being able to talk to seperate peopls in a crowd etc.. walking into buildings, offices etc... Shenmue it's not, but it's easy to see why someone would name check it. The first one is worth a play, it's not with out it's issues Camera is annoyning and the combat is pretty loose. The PR campaign ROCKED ! Takashi Miike did the promos (and is rumoured to be the shooting the movie) think you can still find them on http://ryu-ga-gotoku.com/2006/2005/index.html It's a decent story and decent game. Haven't played the sequel yet. The first demo is as said previously, you get a section of village to explore and people to talk to. I can't believe they brought the lockers over from the first game !!! and a few people to fight. The second consists of the mini games that are in the game. My write up of it should up at some point today
The similarities between Shenmue and Ryu ga Gotoku (Yakuza): They're set in Japan and there's dialogue. That's it. http://www.gamengai.com/gm_inf.php?gm_id=1193
I think it did great for a ps2 game, although it needed some work. The street fights got real repetitive, and you couldn't really keep a lock on your target. It also had lame english voice overs, with the high amount of pointless profanity. Hearing a street thug say "die shithead" like 3 times in a row during one fight just got annoying. I did like the game as a whole though, and figured they'd polish it up for other versions. I think keeping it out of NA for this long will kill whatever following it did have though. Too bad.
Completely agree johnnyv It also gave your ps2 a workout in terms of disc accessing. Attacking a guy with a bicycle never gets old :thumbsup:
I don't know if that's entirely fair. There was an essential Sega-ness to both games that had people comparing them the minute that the first Ryu Ga Gotoku screenshots were made public. No, Yakuza doesn't use the whole FREE exploration engine but I can't help seeing certain elements of it being put to use. I'll admit up front that I don't ordinarily play the sandbox crime drama games (GTA, Crackdown, etc.) so it's likely that Yakuza draws heavily from those titles as well and I'm just not aware of how much.
Shenmue was one of the last good things Sega put out before effectively dying. By the time Ryu ga Gotoku came out, Sega was already gone.
