Protoman85 updated his Youtube review series of the Yakuza franchise by covering Yakuza Kenzan! and the Yakuza movie.

Yakuza Kenzan! was the Yakuza franchise’s entrance into the next generation of consoles after the PS2. There are quite a few similarities to Ishin: namely, the presence of multiple fighting styles, playing “as Kazuma” under a different name, and the Edo period setting. Shortly after this game came out, Yakuza 3 was released, and though the latter was localized Kenzan! never left Asia.

The Yakuza movie is a live action adaptation of the first game. It was released to Japanese theaters in 2007 and directed by Takashi Miike, who might be recognized for the 2012 Gyakuten Saiban/Ace Attorney film among the eclectic tastes reflected in his extensive portfolio. As someone unfamiliar with all of his work, it seems by the time Miike worked on the Yakuza movie he was quite acquainted with depicting violence and the yakuza. The movie was released with English subtitles on DVD in 2010. The only acquaintance I have with the movie is a scene where Goro Majima and his gang look for Kazuma Kiryu, and personally it left a good impression.

Yakuza Kenzan! Review

Yakuza Movie Adaptation Review

Protoman85’s Yakuza Review series on Youtube moves forward with both Yakuza 4 and Yakuza: Dead Souls.

Yakuza 4 is a novel entry within the franchise. You play not only as Kazuma Kiryu, but also as three other characters: Taiga Saejima, an ex-Yakuza of the Ueno Seiwa clan and more recently an escaped convict; Masayoshi Tanimura, a cop who seems to also have a corrupted, darker side that loves gambling; and Shun Akiyama, a loan shark whose life circumstances, generosity and general philosophy of money deeply impacts his understanding of life and people. Each character comes with their own fighting style, storylines, and unique gameplay elements (for example, Akiyama is able to romance more hostesses than other characters.)

Yakuza: Dead Souls is a spinoff game set in a zombie-infested Kamurocho. IT also features four playable characters: Yakuza 2’s Ryuji Goda also perhaps identifiable as “the former dragon”; the return of Shun Akiyama from Yakuza 4; the affably crazy Goro Majima who makes his playable debut in a Yakuza game; and of course it’s not a proper Yakuza party without leading man Kazuma Kiryu. It’s a polarizing title in no small part due to being the last one localized, and the apparent ambition in developing Yakuza 5 perhaps only exacerbated the fans’ appetite for the next proper Yakuza game.

Check out the reviews, and share with us your experiences in the comments section!

Yakuza 4 Review

Yakuza: Dead Souls Review

Nagoshi recently spoke to Siliconera about the differences between the PS4 and PS3 versions of Yakuza: Ishin. He prefaces his observations by stating that it was coincidental that the PS4’s release was such that it became possible to develop a PS4 version of Ishin. This was not accomplished without much effort to meet the Japanese launch deadline, he claims.

Nagoshi then explained that taking advantage of the PS4’s unique features was a constant focal point for the development team. He also revealed that Sony did make some suggestions to his team about elements to incorporate into the PS4 version.

Beyond talk about features, Nagoshi made an interesting statement regarding the PS4’s power and working with it:

“With high performance hardware comes the ability to make things more expressive. And the more time the modelers are able to pump into doing so, the more expressive the results we’ll be able to get. However, we do have a limited development budget and time. So from a producer’s standpoint, deciding how much of the hardware’s high performance we should take advantage of was particularly difficult.”

Coupled with his earlier statement on the timing of the PS4’s launch, it at least means that Yakuza: Ishin’s PS4’s version doesn’t represent the full rendering capacity of the PS4 and that the development team could have accomplished more with additional time. Gaming enthusiasts have made plenty of observations suggesting the PS4 version could have looked better. The PS4 is a powerful machine; Nagoshi calls it ten times more powerful than its predecessor, the PS3. The fact that two versions were being developed concurrently across console generations probably ate into the team’s time and budget, too.

That being said, the PS4 version does still contain the superior graphical experience. Fights are smoother and more effects are rendered. It runs at 60 frames per second on PS4 compared to the PS3’s 30 frames per second. However, Nagoshi stresses that the development spent considerable care on the PS3 version and that he believes the PS3 experience is one fans will still be happy with. In addition, he teases special bonus content for the PS3 version if the hard drive contains save data of previous Yakuza games on it.

With all of this in mind, Ishin will indeed be the last PS3 Yakuza game. A year ago, Nagoshi remarked that Yakuza 5 was the last PS3 Yakuza title in the series. However, the somewhat ambiguous word choice could suggest Yakuza 5 was to be the last mainline entry on the PS3. It’s likely Nagoshi’s team had already been working on the PS4 version by the time that statement was made. But this new Siliconera interview seems to suggest Ishin’s development initially started on the PS3.

Yakuza: Ishin is a PS4 launch title and both the PS3 and PS4 versions were released on February 22. The demo is also available on PSN.

Credit to Siliconera for the interview.

Segalization came upon a fun video review series by a Youtuber named Protoman85 on the Yakuza titles. They are enjoyable to watch, particularly because of the creativity and care placed into the editing of the videos alongside the colorful commentary. We hope that these videos can inspire newcomers to check out the series and fans to comment on the observations the author has made on the development of the games over time.

As of this article’s writing, both a video review of Yakuza 1 and Yakuza 2 have been uploaded. We’ll be making posts for each subsequent video Protoman85 releases. Check out the videos here:

Yakuza 1 Review

Yakuza 2 Review

During a presentation at the Sony Building in Ginza, Yakuza Ishin’s producer Masayoshi Yokoyama and director Hiroyuki Sakamoto announced that a demo for the PlayStation 3 version of the game will be made available on the Japanese PlayStation Store on February 13th, a few days from now. At the moment it’s not clear if Sega also intends to release a PlayStation 4 demo. The game is set to launch on February 22 in Japan on the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4. As of yet there’s been no word on a possible localization of the title.