YAKUZA (2005)
Roaming the streets of Kamurochō always leaves me with a strange feeling. The whole district is beautiful, you have these wonderful looping crowd sound effects with extremely obvious seams. A large stutter occurs every time that you switch scene in the town, with the audio buffering alongside it. None of this is to leave you with a negative impression of the technical aspects of the game, it sounds and looks absolutely beautiful.
What it does do is makes the world feel as if nothing happens without Kiryu being present. You'll hear a roaring crowd from everyone in the city one moment, and a deafening silence the next.
It must be said that most video games are like this. The player is often the centre of the universe, but in this game and a quite a lot of sixth generation titles, it occasionally feels strange in an eerie manner.
Going into the game, I had very little knowledge of the series as a whole. I completed Yakuza 0 back in September 2020 (going against how I play games now), but most of the events and tone are gone from my mind. From what I remember, the tone felt a bit sillier than I expected, but I didn't hate the game at all.
The tone in Yakuza felt quite different, a more serious noir type setting permeated the city. More often than not, before setting out on a mission or two, I felt as if I was playing the role of the virtuous detective rather than a cold-hearted gangster. This was definitely enhanced by spending lots of time with detective Makoto Date, who was a highlight for me. I just have an affection for cool detectives in video games.
What stood out to me most about Yakuza's story was the theme of taking responsibility for your life, or for some running away from those same responsibilities.
Kiryu is quite an interesting guy to me, he spends quite a lot of the game as your strong, silent protagonist. I do believe he has a lot of love in his heart, though he is mostly moved by violence, whether it be directed to himself, vulnerable citizens or his friends. By the end of his journey, it feels as if this falls apart, and he can't handle it anymore, opting to give up and run away from his responsibilities to live, before being brought back to reality by Date.
I did find it difficult to form connections to a lot of the characters in Yakuza, beyond feeling bad for them and their circumstances. There are so many games in the series, though, that I suspect my views on this within the original title will change significantly with time.
The gameplay was really fun, and it was at its best when you were fighting others 1 on 1. A highlight is the colosseum, where you take opponents on in an old UFC style gauntlet of fights.
Overall, I really enjoyed my time with Yakuza. I think if you find crime stories even a little bit interesting, you should go ahead and give it a go. I played the game with the 'Yakuza Restored' patch on the PCSX2 emulator.
