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Entertaining to the max

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 15, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Yakuza is really a work of art. Its an awesome Japanese theatrical-style game that could be compared to grand theft auto, but its really quite different. You are Kazuma, this dude that just finished his 10-year prison sentence for murdering his boss(which he didn't actually do). There is an awesome plot and some really talented voice actors. You can progress with the game as you please, fighting people and doing other cool stuff on the side. When not progressing through the plot, you can go to bars and get Kazuma hammered, go to the arcade, fight people, and check out babes at hostess bars. Lots of cool secrets and items. The whole game is just amazing and its taken me quite some time to beat it. I'd definately recommend renting or buying this. Can't wait for yakuza 2 to be released in the US

Incredible

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: July 31, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Yakuza is a fantastic game with wonderful visuals, tons of mini games, and one of the best stories ever told in a video game. You play as Kazuma, a former yakuza who covers up for his best friends who kills a yakuza leader. After spending 10 years in jail, you figure out that 10 billion yen is stolen from the yakuza vault and your girlfriend is missing. You also meet a girl named Yumi who is being chased by the yakuza for certain reasons. The story progresses slowly at the beginning but as you play through the game, you will really love the story.
Do not compare this game to Grand Theft Auto though. It is like a darker version of Shenmue (which is a great game too). The graphics are amazing and it really is like a virtual Tokyo. Also, the fighting is very fun although random encounters are frequent. While fighting, you can pick up many weapons to destroy your enemies with. Actually, I think that most of my gameplay experience with the game came from playing mini games and other activites. You can go to the slot house, eat beef bowl, go to the batting cages, fight for money, and get massages. My favorite side activity to do though is visiting the hostess bars. Like I said before, this is a fantastic game that is fun and interesting. If you have any interest in action or japanese type games, I highly recommend Yakuza. You will not be disappointed!

cool game derailed by too many mindless fights

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: November 30, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This a "story brawler". Kind of like Shadow of Rome or Shenmue. Interesting cut scenes and a solid plot with various fight sequences to give you interactive action. There's numerous mini-missions to explore and you can actually score with some different "hostess" girls. My main problem with it is that you get drawn into another street fight every time you walk a block or two. Winning fights gives you experience and builds up your power. But you have to do it so frequently it becomes a nuisance and chore. Now, there are numerous scenes in which you NEED to fight to get on with the story - and those are fine. It's more the dozens of endless random butt-kickings you give to street punks start to get pretty tedious and detract from the overall quality of the product. I stuck with the game to finally reach the end as the plot was so good. Overall, a good game that can get on your nerves and takes hours to progress in.

You are Kazuma Kirryu - The Dragon of Dojima.... Neat game!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 12, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I recently only played it as it had been in my collection for quite sometime, The story was phenomenal for a game and it moved very well.

Yakuza tells the story of Kazuma Kirryu a yakuza who is sent to prison for a crime he did not commit (which i find to be hilarious as he is a criminal in the first place!) and then returns in the middle of a conspiracy which he must solve and get out of. It presents typical Yakuza cliche's of cutting one's little finger as a sign of shame on not meeting his Oyabun's (Underboss) instructions among other things japanese. But its done well.

Now i rate this game 4 stars as i felt the gameplay could have been improved more and made more productive in terms of removing those silly street fights that become more irritating and not necessary. The controls were a bit dicey as the camera angle can be a bit weird to get used to when fighting and adjusting the hits to face.

But beyond that its a decent enough game which i enjoyed and look forward to the sequel. Recommend strongly 4 Stars, for rent.

Looking Forward to Yakuza 2.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 21, 2008
Author: Amazon User

The game was pretty good. The storyline wasn't bad and the learned fighting moves were ok. Looking forward to Yakuza 2, hopefully there will be different fighting styles to choose from and some different free-roaming mini-quests.

Good Storyline and Entertaining Game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: July 22, 2008
Author: Amazon User

The storyline for Yakuza is probably the best part about the game. The loading screens are undoubtedly the worst. It can get annoying especially if you are stuck at a certain spot in the game. Fighting multiple people at once takes some getting used to but it's fun.

Good story which suffers from rather poor delivery

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: August 28, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Yakuza follows the life of Kiryuu Kazuma, a Soldier in a prominent Yakuza family. After his beloved Yumi is kidnapped and nearly killed by the Oyabun of the family, Kazuma covers for the murder of the Oyabun by one of his friends. After emerging from prison 10 years later, the story really begins, as Kazuma searches for Yumi, and 10 billion yen stolen from the Yakuza families, while fighting off other Yakuza out for revenge, not to mention his former friends, who've turned into cold blooded monsters while he was incarcerated.

Anyone who has played the Bouncer or Fatal Fury, or any other progressive brawler will like this. The controls are overly simplistic, but it does present a challenge if you don't play it smart. People will jump you in groups of twos and threes, and attack with enviroment weapons such as chairs and golf clubs (You're in Japan. Golf clubs count as part of the environment pretty much). There're many well done special attacks, and your character progresses at a decent pace, learning new attacks and abilities.

The problems are more with control and camera work. The camera is somewhat static and oddly placed at times, and is impossible to move at times. The fighting controls are somewhat haphazard, and you frequently launch attacks at an enemies side rather than striking them. Some aspects aren't explained well, and you could easily be lost in the new cultural concepts of the Yakuza, not that it makes any difference to the game itself it seems, but it'd be nice to know why you are getting bows and groveling one moment, and bullets in your back the next.

Overall, the game is solid, with a good story, and rather inventive sidequests, though the constant attempts at mugging get old very quickly (who in their right mind robs a gangster to begin with) and several moves are fun to watch (the special attacks with the Thermos and the umbrella in particular). Considering this is retailing new now for around $20, it is worth the price.

Gets me in a personal soft spot, but objectively pretty good too.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: December 14, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I will concur with some of the other reviewers that say that this game is not quite what it could be. The gameplay is somewhat repetitive, but in a way that most brawler type gameplay is. It's a fun repetitive. It also has a nice modern-RPG feel to it, with the inclusion of certain aspects like buying food in restaurants or convenience stores to recover health, experience points, items, and the way money tends to work in the game. It's very cut-scene heavy at times, but the story and voice acting are surprisingly good, considering how bad both of those aspects have gotten to be in most recent games.

What I want to praise this game on the most is the detail and nuance with which it recreates its aesthetic setting. This was done absolutely superbly -- possibly the best representation of a real-world locale I have ever seen in a game. To compare, it is not as massively-accessible as the Grand Theft Auto games (San Andreas most of all), not as block-for-block tightly researched as True Crime or The Getaway, but it absolutely feels like the parts of Tokyo it sets out to feel like and it portrays not just a landscape that looks real but a living-breathing urban organism complete with crowd ambiance, realistic store fronts, and plenty of shops and businesses that can actually be accessed during the game. It makes the locales in the other games I mentioned feel generic and stale. I can't give this game enough praise for this aspect of its execution. It would be nice if the camera could be freely rotated while you wander around in the city (it can be rotated during battle sequences), and I would have liked the addition of some means of real-time transportation around a larger physical area (namely vehicles, whether cars or a subway), but it's easy to ignore the lack in these cases by how much is delivered within the lush, zoomed-in frame the game designers decided to take. I'd really like to see this game set the standard for future instances of games that have a player traveling around a large-scale urban setting (like GTA, The Getaway, True Crime, whatever) in terms of NPC activity, ambiance, and detail.

Why I don't give it five stars is because I think that this is the only part of the game worth praising so heavily. Nothing else about it is bad, but if it didn't have the fantastic attention to detail in setting and aesthetics, it would almost be a mediocre game. Gameplay consists of walking, brawling, and RPG-style two-or-three choice multiple-choice dialogues that effect side stories and certain scenes (something I'm happy to see in a game considering that the industry seems to stopped including details like these), and that's about it. The fight system is fun but could be better. All in all a good start for a franchise, and a real breath of fresh air cross-genre piece that's somewhere between Grand Theft Auto, River City Ransom, and Shenmue.

Yakuza

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 5
Date: September 13, 2006
Author: Amazon User

THIS GAME IS AWSOME!!!!!!!!!!!Pros:Great combat,movie-like,Terrific Dramatic stoyline.Cons:Terrible camera,michael madsen just doesn't fit the voice of a crime boss,bad language gets old.But this is still a good game,I like the freshness the most,though

One of the last greatest PS2 games

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: September 09, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I picked this game up yesterday and once I started playing I couldn't stop. The game is very realistic and you can go anywhere you choose. You can go to the batting cage, or the casino, or talk to ladies. Most of all however, you can fight with puncks and gangsters. While fighting, just about anything around you is a weapon. Bats, Bikes, trashcans, golf clubs, and much more. And if you are a story fan, then Yakuza has a fantastic story. I'll let you see that for yourself. Even if I have been saying all these great things about it, it still has problems. Load times are so annoying and there is just to much language, it gets so old. This is not a game for kids. Overall Yakuza is one of the best PS2 games left.

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