One great game. The long wait and hype built up to one supreme experience that ~isn't~ GTA or Shenmue, guys.
Yakuza's got a complex story. It's everything you'd expect from the title - yakuza families warring with eachother, backstories on at first seemingly ruthless gangsters, and violence without over the top DMC-ness - and more. Once you get out of prison for taking the rap for your brother, things have changed. There's the matter of 10 billion yen gone missing, serious business with people conflicting in your town and a mysterious murder trail, and one missing girl you wanna get back asap. As you play on, you learn more about your home, your friends and family, your business, but most importantly things need to be explained and set right and justice must be served. Lucky for you, you're not the kind of guy to take sh*t lying down.
Kazuma Kiryu. A sharp dressed badass, a yakuza with a heart of gold, and one of the coolest characters I've personally ever played as. It feels good to play as the kind of dude who lays down the law with golf clubs or whatever else is lying around and speak friendly with you afterwards. The gameplay's slow, but not sluggish. Yeah, there's a way to center on opponents, but you're better off getting some space, picking a chair up, and flipping out on your enemies. The speed of the beatdowns in the cutscenes and the actual fighting engine are the same - a steady violent pace, with beautiful special moves and takedowns. Randomly, you'll get into battles with rowdy civilians and local hoodlums. And by randomly, I mean when you bump into the wrong dude. These fights add to your experience, like in an RPG, to which you can apply to soul (for slowing down your heat gauge), technique (to add moves and combos), or body (for HP and speed increases). Battles are played out simply with square and triangle delivering familiar beat 'em up controls. Your heat gauge charges up special attacks you can perform at certain areas of a room or with weapons.
The loading times are not as bad as what people are saying everywhere, but they are indeed annoying because they're so frequent. The most annoying occurances are when you're nearing a camera angle change in the city. Your game freezes, which is terrifying the first few times, and resumes when you're now facing the other way, Resident Evil 3 style. This is not welcome. However, aside from targeting and camera flaws, everything is seamless, which does feel nice. It gives it a nice centralizing feel. And in yakuza movies, most of the film happens on a few blocks anyway so I for one am alright with this.
The graphics are good. Everything is as detailed as they need to be without looking unsatisfactory. I wouldn't have expected more, but it's clear that many things could've been touched up on. The audio, however, is where people will debate: should it have been dubbed? I think the voice acting is well done. Maybe not so much for the female characters, but Hamill and Rosenbaum did an incredible job. As much as we'll vouch for them and once again pat Madsen on the back for completing his, what, 18th video game?, the star of the show was the star of the show. Kazuma's voice? Pure badass. Notorious for sucking hardcore, English voice acting can make or break a game like this, especially since a lot of Japanese terminology and yakuza slang were kept in the script, but Yakuza pulls it off even if they do have to put an expletive between every other word. Even though it sounds good overall, I think that the vulgarity further proves why we shouldn't pay these voiceover directors and actors so much. I'm sure myself and a few of other GS reviewers could as good a job without forcing an MA rating, right guys?
When you get past the loading times and f-bunker busters, you're left with NOTHING LIKE GTA OR SHENMUE, so get off it, kids. There's a map on the bottom left, like GTA. And Sega made this game, like they did with Shenmue. But that's it! In fact, if Rockstar ever attempted to make a yakuza game, it'd be like a more pompous and obnoxious (yeah, seriously) Lost In Translation with more profanity and hooker killing - you all know this. Oh no, I've given the trolls fuel. Eeesh. In short, this game is not what you were expecting if you were comparing this game to anything else out there. However, if you waited patiently for a brawler-RPG with a great story, likable characters, and a nice introduction to the world of yakuza in videogames, you're gonna love this game. And that's not even to get into all the minigames and side-quests you can play, and coin lockers with items you can open. It's easy to get into and a lot of fun.