Yakuza attempts to recreate a Shenmue-like journey with a darker side.
Yakuza takes place in Japan entirely and the player will witness a story that unfolds for the most part within the present day. At the beginning of the game, it'll switch back and forth between past and present, critical moments to distinguish why the character in which you control exists. Kazuma, the protagonist, is in a city filled with heavy crime - - including the mafia - - and the country's honored, controlling families. And of course, Kazuma is a member of one of the high-class families. What moves him into the story is that he eventually covers up a murder committed by someone else he knows and takes the heat for it and is eventually jailed for 10 years over the murder he had nothing to do with. This sets up the events up 10 years later when the city he comes back to is overrun by the corrupt around every corner.
Kazuma's name becomes known by almost each and every person he comes in contact with throughout the story from the supposedly actual truth that he murdered someone of high-class within a family.
The characters that the player revolves around in the story are detailed and acceptable. What I mean by acceptable is that they can be easily recognized as realistic and aren't unbelievable. Each character has a specific role to the story and it works rather well. There might be a problem to most players, however, when you try to figure out what Kazuma is really fighting for. Perhaps, overall, Kazuma is determined to set everything that was wrong within the city back to what is right. Of course, during his journey, he faces family members that want nothing more than to beat him into the ground and that happens all the time. It rarely stops. With all the families believing he murdered his own "father" of the family, there is very little who trust the man.
Meanwhile, a subplot, per say, becomes apparent when he finds a ring with the name "Yumi" carved into it. This same ring was found at the murder site before Kazuma was dragged away for 10 good years. Throughout the rest of the game, aside from beating up baddies, he tries to locate Yumi. I won't go much into the story otherwise, but what I will say is that this game presents a deep story that one will most likely enjoy.
The city is pretty big, and it'll take you about 10 minutes to get from one side to the other if you were to run. While that may not sound like a lot, it certainly is when the city is filled with gangsters who are out for your own throat. Due to this feature, your venture throughout the city will be interrupted with random fights almost similar to regular role playing games. The game presents itself with some RPG elements as the more you fight, the more skill points your require and in your status screen, you can level up certain areas that you wish to train - - such as body, spirit, technique. With that in mind, it'll take you quite a good amount of fighting to level up at a considerable rate. It's a good way to keep the game running instead of just a main story to follow. Although, as Yakuza tries to implement a way for side games or stories, there's really only one primary way to keep the story moving, and that's getting from point A to B. Sounds rather linear and at times, it often is, but if you like doing side missions and gaining experience points, you'll have a fun time with those little missions that could be something simple like 'Retrieve glasses from Mr. Doe' to something deep like 'Locating an object on a street only for it to take you to another part of the city and having to talk to different people for clues'.
There's lots of things to do around the city like for example: you can visit the arcade, or go gambling, or if you like, talk to some ladies at the hostess bar and get together with them for some fun. It's really interesting with how much effort they put into the side stuff. The only problem would be is if I would compare this to Shenmue, Yakuza would be lacking really interesting elements with arcade games. But there's no need to lower the score just because of comparing this with a previous game. Moving on to other stuff you can do among the main story is: locating about 50 locker keys that are misplaced all over the city. Sound bizarre really. You find these keys pretty much anywhere and in the center of the city, there's a room with all the lockers. You take the keys there and find new items that you could use for yourself or they could be items for side missions. You can't really guess what could be in the lockers.
As Yakuza is a big game of fighting for experience and the natural story, you have to wonder if this fighting system is well worth having for the whole game of 20-40 hours you may be playing with it. I think the fighting system is perhaps the real big thing that's letting this game down, extremely. As you encounter these random encounters with strangers who want to fight, you'll be sent to a loading screen and then you see yourself against about three or four guys. Usually, gangsters who just feel like fighting with you are really easy to conquer. A few hits and it'll send them to the ground. The problem consists in the gameplay. When you're mashing the square button for a combo and your enemy sidesteps, you can't stop your combo and Kazuma will go flying with blows that only hit the air. This leaves your back vulnerable to attack - - all the time. There's no way around this . . in the entire game. You just have to make sure that your hits are smart and thought out and you're not just senselessly holding down the punch or kick button. Because that'll be a terrible disadvantage. The battle system is clunky and tedious when it comes to your errors in combat. You can't get around the missed combos, but you can certainly dash out heavy blows when they connect.
There's lots of ways you can find money in the city, whether it's just by helping someone find an item in the city or a gangster gives you some when they cower after their fighting loss. And of course, there's many ways to blow it all. That's what gives this game a plus and lends the same thing from Shenmue.
Since this game is dark, you'll have to tolerate the constant dark dialog that's said in almost every cutscene. Yes, you'll be hearing all the vulgar words about five or more times within one cutscene. I feel as if they kind of went too far with the language because I can easily understand the story without someone calling Kazuma a ". . .f***ing asshat" in EACH cutscene. I can tolerate language, sure, but there was just, by far, too much in this and could have been easily ignored.
This brings us to the voice acting. Yakuza was given some English voice acting. We're talking about some top list movie actors on this project: Michael Madsen, Rachel Leigh Cook, Michael Rosenbaum, Mark Hamill, Eliza Dushku. Even with this top class of actors, I still felt it wasn't necessary. Mark Hamill did a great job with Mr. Majima . . but English voice actors were not necessary if the game takes place in Japan with Japanese characters. There's no reason we need English dubbing when subtitles are sufficient. Japanese voices sound obviously natural when the story takes place in that world. I wasn't too happy with the English voice acting either. It was mostly boring and predictable aside from the useless cursing. Japanese would have worked.
The camera in the game is probably one of the worst things I've encountered in the few past years. It's usually stationary when you're running around in the city but when it comes to fights when you desperately need a good view, you shouldn't expect one. I don't want to see Kazum's face when I need to see what's in front of him - - usually enemies who carry handguns or tasers. Seven times out of ten, you'll get hit and your excuse is because the camera didn't give you a good shot of your enemy's move. During combat, when you're running around the environment for possible health, the camera goes berserk when you want to look elswhere. It's bothersome and could have easily worked if the camera was stationed behind the character in combat the whole time. I don't care for a 360-view of the action when my life bar is at risk.
The animations of the characters from major to minor are good. In combat, you can somtimes have the option to use the 'special' button which gives you the ability to do . . special moves when you're heat bar is up. Heat bar is activated when you land consecutive hits. It's almost like "You're on fire" so you can do extra moves. Good addition when you can use your surroundings with the special move.
In the end, and overall, this game, aside from its problems, you can still enjoy it's story and have fun with its other minor side games and missions. It tries very hard to become the next epic thing and you can realize that but it's just under that bar and this is where Shenmue is still the better game. If you've never played Shenmue, you'll understand after you do. I had fun during this game and certainly, my many hours spent on it was more beneficial than they were wasted. With a few alterations to the gameplay and such, it could have been a great game. But to me, it's just good. It's official that Yakuza 2 will be coming to the PlayStation 2 later and I'm anticipating that because I'm a sucker for a good story. Yakuza might not have the best story, but it's something you may not want to miss out on if you really enjoy action and adventure games.