"It could be Dead Rising Japan if it had zombies in it..."
That's what I said in my quickie review of Yakuza 3. Little did I know that they had planned to make their fifth installment to be a zombie apocalypse theme. Its been less than a year since the inception of this blog and here I am, about to review my 3rd Yakuza title. This blog was basically a project for a class and I needed a game I really liked and played recently so I reviewed Yakuza 4. Ended up falling head over heels for the game, quickly becoming one of my favorite games on the PS3. With this new ripple in the franchise, lets see how it stands up to its predecessors.
YAKUZA: DEAD SOULS:(PS3)
This installment of Yakuza takes place not long after the events of Yakuza 4, and opens up with previous games protagonist Kazama Kiryu enjoying simple but happy lifestyle running the Sunshine Orphanage until he receives a call notifying him that his de facto daughter, Haruka, has been taken hostage in Kamurocho. He asks to speak to her to this ominous voice, where the game cuts to Haruka captured in the penthouse of the Millennium tower in Kamurocho crying into the phone to Kazama for help, and that everything in town is dying. It pans out to show a zombie infested Kamurocho and buildings falling apart. After this intro the game then cuts to into 4 acts where you play as our four protagonists during stages of the outbreak. It opens with Shun Akiyama returning from Yakuza 4 at the beginning of the outbreak, Goro Majima in his first playable appearance during the midst of the outbreak, and returning Ryuji Goda from Yakuza 2 in the later stages of the outbreak before bringing in Kazama for the finale.
The main thing to remember about this game is that its not Yakuza 5. The game is more or less a alternate reality kind of spin off so its more of a Yakuza 4.5 kinda thing. There is a degree of a disconnect in the story here because they know they are dealing with fictitious monsters so they take some pretty interesting leaps of faith, such as a character with a chain-gun for an arm. They do a pretty good job of managing to tie in the current Yakuza franchise lore that has come before it to give the game some degree of relativity to the characters. But really, bringing back some older villains from the first two games really doesn't do much to make this a Yakuza game, it really needs to be seen for what it is, just a quirky off shoot that should not really be seen as Yakuza canon. As soon as a story introduces zombies into it most people already know enough zombie lore to know how the story line is going to progress anyways.
The Yakuza games bread and butter has always been the fun and visceral martial arts 3rd person combat. Getting a tight collection of baddies around you so tight that you can stomp their teeth in so deep that they have to pass them like kidney stones. But when you throw in the concept of zombies, you really take away the ability to use any real melee combat with the exception of some hand weapons. So basically they had to change the core of the franchises combat to something that was more accommodating to the new enemies. Basically, the game changes form a 3rd person spectacle fighter to a 3rd person shooter. And the transition is not smooth. When wandering around the map in 3rd person mode the controls seem familiar. But when you go to shoot your have three options. You have a blind fire where you can just shoot on the run, for large thickets of enemies a chain gun or shotgun works great with this, but it does have a lack of accuracy. Your second option is with L1 button, which puts you in a strafe mode. its still somewhat inaccurate but it allows you to mow down a crowd in front of you. Finally you can use L2 to go into reticule mode, basically its the same thing as the previous but instead you can focus your aim to a specific spot. The problem with this it that it locks you into the spot you are standing. But that's not too bad right? Resident Evil 4 did the same thing and that game was great right? Not quite, because in addition to that there are some camera issues as well. When you are moving around the right analog stick will spin the camera in the tried and true method we all know, but when you go into aim mode, the control then flips to the left analog stick, so if you go into aim mode on the run you will more than likely be aiming at the floor or the ceiling. To make matters worse, when you go into aim mode, the camera immediately whips around to the direction the character is facing and not the direction the camera was facing. So there are going to be situations where you are in a tight space and you are going to make a quick turn and fire only to find yourself staring at the wall as a horde of zombies bite you on the ass. This is a problem that plagued Metal Gear Solid 4 as well. There have a been a billion shooters that have already addressed this problem so that fact that this game has it is really fucking annoying. It takes a few hours to get used to, or if you are like me you just say fuck it and switch to a shotgun so you don't need to deal with it.
Instead of the bizarre sandbox RPG hybrid of combat that the previous Yakuza had you aren't randomly attacked on the street. Instead there is a quarantined area of the map that progressively grows as you play the game. And you have to jump in and out of there to complete missions, rescue survivors, or level grind. When you leave the hot zone you are able to explore around the city much like in the previous games and visit the shops, arcades, restaurants and clubs. You receive instructions for main quests as you play through but running around town will also allow you to meet people for side quests. Sometimes you will meet up with other survivors who want to help. You can train a handful of these people to come into the quarantined areas so you have an extra gun with you. Some of them are pretty effective, some of them are next to useless. There is a location on the map where you can train them to be more useful but it always seemed like I was going back to save them more than I was tearing through a crowd faster. Yakuza was never overly known as for having a fast paced story, but it all linked together as you played. Yakuza: Dead Souls breaks up into missions where after you complete them you are given a grade and experience boost. Its not really annoying per say but it is a bit of a change from what I have become used to.
I love the characters in this series. Probably to unhealthy levels. I think Shun Akiyama might have beaten out John Marston for my fictional gay crush. They cast of Yakuza franchise may get a little long winded in the cut scenes but they are generally sympathetic characters all with their own interesting quirks that make them all lovable and entertaining. I've already discussed how Akiyama is a mauve coat wearing chivalrously suave mother fucker, and that Kazama Kiryu despite being a ruthlessly violent martial arts master, hes a sucker for kids and really has a heart of gold. But special mention goes Goro Majima in this games installment. Majima has always been a bit of a lunatic in the Yakuza series but as you learn more about his back story you find that he isn't exactly all that bad. I mean, he's no good guy but he certainly does the right thing when it counts. But in Yakuza: Dead Souls his chapter literally opens up with him watching a zombie movie, laughing hysterically at it about how dumb people are in the movie, to see some of his men bust in the room in a panic and die from zombies pretty much on the same way as on screen. He immediately gets a childlike grin on his face and cocks his shotgun. Its a refreshing change because hes probably one of the first characters in the history of zombie lore who actually realizes the ridiculousness of it and has fun with it. Even a large majority of the missions in it he basically responds with plans that he's concocted from watching zombie movies. Even more so, the guy is a total prick too, so its funny to watch him interact with people. People who plead to him for help he basically tells them to fuck off, people who are impressed with what he does he basically blows them off because he's having too much fun killing to care, and there is a scene where some little girl excitedly asks if he's going to save them and he's taken aback and confused, and complains that being a hero completely killed his buzz. I wish his chapter was longer because I was having so much fun playing as him.
The enemies in this game.. sigh.. Look, I want to be more lenient here, but the games originality needs to be called into question. Alright, the ground is littered with Japanese zombie stereotypes, that didn't bother me. Then there was the "Crybaby" which is a woman zombie that walks around a cries and screams loudly summoning more zombie, that seemed a bit like Left 4 Dead's Witch and unused Screamer but ok, still sort of original. I started to get suspicious when the "Monkey boy" came out , a fast moving hopping zombie that dressed like a skater and acts suspiciously like the L4D's jockey. But then the game threw the "Meat head" and "Fattie" came out to play and I literally dropped the controller in a stunned awe but not the good kind. The Meat head is seriously an exact replica of a "Tank" in L4D only slower and far less intimidating and the Fattie when shot explodes and releases a gas/fluid that makes the zombies enraged and chase after you. Those blatant copies would be bad enough but one of the first bosses in the game is a large monster that moves on all fours with giant claws, can climb on walls, has no eyes, sharp teeth, and can attack you with a long tongue that can stab you. Did that sound like Resident Evil 2's Licker? Yeah, it did to me too. I was about to be really upset by the lack of originality but I am willing to forgive it because the game has a nice plethora of bosses and mini bosses to fight (and as we all know I am constantly bitching about the lack of bosses in games these days) and they do come up with a handful of original concepts and monsters to get me off their back. Yeah some of the bosses borrow from the zombie games that came before it including a particularly Wesker like boss but the later stages of the game I'm so engrossed in the universe and so excited to go to the next boss it doesn't phase me.
I found this installment of Yakuza to be significantly shorter than the rest of the series. I skipped an awful lot of the mini games this time around because I didn't find very many new ones while I played the game and finishing the story offered me a 32% completion which is more than I've ever had in a Yakuza before, but that basically tells me that the game was significantly cut down. Strangely, despite having a brand new concept from the series and almost a completely new control scheme to it, the game has this surprising feeling of being shorter. Which means the game still has a mind numbing level of things to do and you could probably get hours of play to try to complete it all, but if you already own Yakuza 3 or 4 like I do you wont find the need because you won't want to shill out your hard earned money to get blue balled by a new set of bitches at the hostess clubs.
So would I recommend the game? Well that's hard to say. The controls alone are bad enough that anyone who has played any competent shooter would quit playing after the first gun sequence and really I wouldn't blame them. And I can't say I would recommend the game to anyone who was looking to get into the Yakuza franchise, because as far as the Yakuza lore and story is concerned its a bit lacking, I'd tell them to play 4 for that. This is game is really just expansion for that niche of people like me who have completely fallen in love with this universe. It is just a new ripple in a well established story line to give the player a few more hours to spend time with some characters they've grown attached to. They game has some rocky spots and definitely is buggered by some bad control issues, but I was able to have fun with it, play it through the finish and had the desire to keep playing it when I did. I was a fun little stroll back through Kamurocho but really, this game is really here to just wet the pallet before Yakuza 5. Pick it up if you are a fan of the series.
The main thing to remember about this game is that its not Yakuza 5. The game is more or less a alternate reality kind of spin off so its more of a Yakuza 4.5 kinda thing. There is a degree of a disconnect in the story here because they know they are dealing with fictitious monsters so they take some pretty interesting leaps of faith, such as a character with a chain-gun for an arm. They do a pretty good job of managing to tie in the current Yakuza franchise lore that has come before it to give the game some degree of relativity to the characters. But really, bringing back some older villains from the first two games really doesn't do much to make this a Yakuza game, it really needs to be seen for what it is, just a quirky off shoot that should not really be seen as Yakuza canon. As soon as a story introduces zombies into it most people already know enough zombie lore to know how the story line is going to progress anyways.
The Yakuza games bread and butter has always been the fun and visceral martial arts 3rd person combat. Getting a tight collection of baddies around you so tight that you can stomp their teeth in so deep that they have to pass them like kidney stones. But when you throw in the concept of zombies, you really take away the ability to use any real melee combat with the exception of some hand weapons. So basically they had to change the core of the franchises combat to something that was more accommodating to the new enemies. Basically, the game changes form a 3rd person spectacle fighter to a 3rd person shooter. And the transition is not smooth. When wandering around the map in 3rd person mode the controls seem familiar. But when you go to shoot your have three options. You have a blind fire where you can just shoot on the run, for large thickets of enemies a chain gun or shotgun works great with this, but it does have a lack of accuracy. Your second option is with L1 button, which puts you in a strafe mode. its still somewhat inaccurate but it allows you to mow down a crowd in front of you. Finally you can use L2 to go into reticule mode, basically its the same thing as the previous but instead you can focus your aim to a specific spot. The problem with this it that it locks you into the spot you are standing. But that's not too bad right? Resident Evil 4 did the same thing and that game was great right? Not quite, because in addition to that there are some camera issues as well. When you are moving around the right analog stick will spin the camera in the tried and true method we all know, but when you go into aim mode, the control then flips to the left analog stick, so if you go into aim mode on the run you will more than likely be aiming at the floor or the ceiling. To make matters worse, when you go into aim mode, the camera immediately whips around to the direction the character is facing and not the direction the camera was facing. So there are going to be situations where you are in a tight space and you are going to make a quick turn and fire only to find yourself staring at the wall as a horde of zombies bite you on the ass. This is a problem that plagued Metal Gear Solid 4 as well. There have a been a billion shooters that have already addressed this problem so that fact that this game has it is really fucking annoying. It takes a few hours to get used to, or if you are like me you just say fuck it and switch to a shotgun so you don't need to deal with it.
Instead of the bizarre sandbox RPG hybrid of combat that the previous Yakuza had you aren't randomly attacked on the street. Instead there is a quarantined area of the map that progressively grows as you play the game. And you have to jump in and out of there to complete missions, rescue survivors, or level grind. When you leave the hot zone you are able to explore around the city much like in the previous games and visit the shops, arcades, restaurants and clubs. You receive instructions for main quests as you play through but running around town will also allow you to meet people for side quests. Sometimes you will meet up with other survivors who want to help. You can train a handful of these people to come into the quarantined areas so you have an extra gun with you. Some of them are pretty effective, some of them are next to useless. There is a location on the map where you can train them to be more useful but it always seemed like I was going back to save them more than I was tearing through a crowd faster. Yakuza was never overly known as for having a fast paced story, but it all linked together as you played. Yakuza: Dead Souls breaks up into missions where after you complete them you are given a grade and experience boost. Its not really annoying per say but it is a bit of a change from what I have become used to.
I love the characters in this series. Probably to unhealthy levels. I think Shun Akiyama might have beaten out John Marston for my fictional gay crush. They cast of Yakuza franchise may get a little long winded in the cut scenes but they are generally sympathetic characters all with their own interesting quirks that make them all lovable and entertaining. I've already discussed how Akiyama is a mauve coat wearing chivalrously suave mother fucker, and that Kazama Kiryu despite being a ruthlessly violent martial arts master, hes a sucker for kids and really has a heart of gold. But special mention goes Goro Majima in this games installment. Majima has always been a bit of a lunatic in the Yakuza series but as you learn more about his back story you find that he isn't exactly all that bad. I mean, he's no good guy but he certainly does the right thing when it counts. But in Yakuza: Dead Souls his chapter literally opens up with him watching a zombie movie, laughing hysterically at it about how dumb people are in the movie, to see some of his men bust in the room in a panic and die from zombies pretty much on the same way as on screen. He immediately gets a childlike grin on his face and cocks his shotgun. Its a refreshing change because hes probably one of the first characters in the history of zombie lore who actually realizes the ridiculousness of it and has fun with it. Even a large majority of the missions in it he basically responds with plans that he's concocted from watching zombie movies. Even more so, the guy is a total prick too, so its funny to watch him interact with people. People who plead to him for help he basically tells them to fuck off, people who are impressed with what he does he basically blows them off because he's having too much fun killing to care, and there is a scene where some little girl excitedly asks if he's going to save them and he's taken aback and confused, and complains that being a hero completely killed his buzz. I wish his chapter was longer because I was having so much fun playing as him.
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| Akiyama, Kiryu, Goda, Majima. |
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| Between Zombie slaying, Majima enjoys telling people off on the street and Karaoke |
The enemies in this game.. sigh.. Look, I want to be more lenient here, but the games originality needs to be called into question. Alright, the ground is littered with Japanese zombie stereotypes, that didn't bother me. Then there was the "Crybaby" which is a woman zombie that walks around a cries and screams loudly summoning more zombie, that seemed a bit like Left 4 Dead's Witch and unused Screamer but ok, still sort of original. I started to get suspicious when the "Monkey boy" came out , a fast moving hopping zombie that dressed like a skater and acts suspiciously like the L4D's jockey. But then the game threw the "Meat head" and "Fattie" came out to play and I literally dropped the controller in a stunned awe but not the good kind. The Meat head is seriously an exact replica of a "Tank" in L4D only slower and far less intimidating and the Fattie when shot explodes and releases a gas/fluid that makes the zombies enraged and chase after you. Those blatant copies would be bad enough but one of the first bosses in the game is a large monster that moves on all fours with giant claws, can climb on walls, has no eyes, sharp teeth, and can attack you with a long tongue that can stab you. Did that sound like Resident Evil 2's Licker? Yeah, it did to me too. I was about to be really upset by the lack of originality but I am willing to forgive it because the game has a nice plethora of bosses and mini bosses to fight (and as we all know I am constantly bitching about the lack of bosses in games these days) and they do come up with a handful of original concepts and monsters to get me off their back. Yeah some of the bosses borrow from the zombie games that came before it including a particularly Wesker like boss but the later stages of the game I'm so engrossed in the universe and so excited to go to the next boss it doesn't phase me.
.jpg) |
| Go ahead, Try to convince yourself otherwise. This thing is a Licker. |
So would I recommend the game? Well that's hard to say. The controls alone are bad enough that anyone who has played any competent shooter would quit playing after the first gun sequence and really I wouldn't blame them. And I can't say I would recommend the game to anyone who was looking to get into the Yakuza franchise, because as far as the Yakuza lore and story is concerned its a bit lacking, I'd tell them to play 4 for that. This is game is really just expansion for that niche of people like me who have completely fallen in love with this universe. It is just a new ripple in a well established story line to give the player a few more hours to spend time with some characters they've grown attached to. They game has some rocky spots and definitely is buggered by some bad control issues, but I was able to have fun with it, play it through the finish and had the desire to keep playing it when I did. I was a fun little stroll back through Kamurocho but really, this game is really here to just wet the pallet before Yakuza 5. Pick it up if you are a fan of the series.
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