Yakuza 4

Set in the "Sin City District" of Tokyo, Yakuza 4 continues the popular series' tradition of providing players with a glimpse into the yakuza underworld. Only this time the story is told through four characters: moneylender and club owner Akiyama, crooked detective Tanimura, escaped convict Saejima, and, hero of the previous games, legendary ex-yakuza Kiryu.

In the first part of the game, two seemingly unconnected events occur: a yakuza is killed and a mysterious woman is desperate to borrow a large sum of money. You're pulled into the plot and it slowly starts to develop through each character's story, revealing how each is tied to those two events. The narrative is one of the strongest parts of Yakuza 4 and draws you into this colorful world that Sega's created.

In addition to the interweaving story-lines, each of the four characters has his own fighting style and goals. Akiyama's missions involve lending money to clients and managing his hostess club, while Saejima, after fighting his way out of prison, must keep an eye out for cops as he gathers info from homeless people in the city.

The graphics may not be up to par with other PS3 exclusives, but the cut-scenes look good overall and have an epic cinematic quality to them. There's no english dubbing in this game so you'll be reading subtitles, which isn't an issue in the cinematic cut-scenes, but in-game dialog has no voice work at all, only line after line of text. As good as the story is, you can get tired of reading it with no voice acting to emphasize the significance of the moment or the emotional state of the characters.

Selecting the "Reminisce" feature from the title menu or the save menu will let you revisit cut-scenes but more importantly summaries the previous Yakuza games. This is incredibly helpful with understanding the earlier events as well as the back-stories of characters and yakuza clans that play major roles in Yakuza 4's storyline. Definitely a great feature to have whether you're new to the series or just need to refresh your memory of the previous games.

There's a very long list to things to do in Tokyo's "Sin City District" which is called Kamurocho in the game. You can go to hostess clubs, drink at bars, shop, eat at restaurants, and there are tons of other activities, including batting cages, casinos, bowling, golf, fishing, darts and karaoke. You can also talk to pedestrians to get information, tutorial memos and side missions which are referred to as sub-stories.

Unfortunately, the random street fighting is a big part of Yakuza 4 and is one aspect of the series that I wish would be retired. It's been around since the first game and just gets in the way of exploring the area and completing missions and sub-stories. It's repetitive and isn't much more than button mashing for the sake of gaining experience points. Throughout your adventure in Tokyo, you'll have enemies running up to you and starting unavoidable and very monotonous fights, the vast majority of which can easily be won by just repeatedly pressing the square and triangle buttons.

If you complete enough combos, you'll fill up your "Heat Gauge" and once you get near an enemy who you've knocked down you can press the prompted button and execute a violent finishing move on him. You can also use weapons and various objects in the environment, everything from glass bottles to shop signs. But sadly the novelty of knocking enemies down with traffic cones loses its appeal after the 20th time or so.

The boss battles manage to stand out since they require some strategy compared to the mindless button mashing of the random street fights. Quick-time evens also add some variety and excitement to fights. As you play and gain experience points through completing missions, sub-stories, and fights, your character will level up and you can upgrade his fighting moves.

The sub-stories are fun and varied -- from recruiting new hostesses to feeding a pair of stray cats. The sub-stories are another highlight of the game, and I really would have liked to see more of them and a lot less random street fighting.

The creators of Yakuza 4 definitely have a sense of humor. There are some pretty funny and even weird moments mostly involving sub-stories or "revelations". Revelations involve observing bizarre action sequences and in turn learning new fighting moves. One of my favorite revelations occurred while playing as Saejima. A guy sitting in his running car in an underground garage drops a lit cigarette on himself, panics and ends up hitting the gas, slamming his car into the wall. Saejima suddenly breaks out a tree stump and starts carving a figurine of the event. (I swear I'm not making this up.)

However, there are some elements of the game that could use some refinement and updating. You can only save manually by visiting your hideout or a phone booth or when prompted to save in between chapters. While creating manual save files is vital for any RPG, I don't see why this game wouldn't also have an autosave function. The map is easy to use and helps navigate to your objectives, but you can't set waypoints. Also the music is noticeably dated. Though the main events in the game take place in 2010, you'll hear either elevator jazz and what sounds like bad 90's techno.

In many ways, if you've played at least one of the previous Yakuza games, you've already played Yakuza 4 too. I loved the first Yakuza and I was hoping for something new, a next step in this series. I'm not sure if this game is able to deliver that, though I think having four main characters' perspectives instead of just one is an interesting twist that adds more depth to an already great story. The bottom line is that Yakuza 4 is a really fun game in spite of the obstacles it places in its own way, even so I'd love to see it evolve into something greater. I almost feel as though this game has an identity crisis. It's not sure if it's a brawler, an RPG, or sandbox adventure game. Yakuza 4 perhaps tries to do too much and as a result doesn't execute either identity perfectly. Fortunately, the engaging narrative and fun activities are really what save it in the end.