Yakuza 4 Review

I've always been a fan of J-RPGs. So much so that I was shocked playing Dragon Age: Origins when Leliana invited me to her side of the camp and announced indignantly that she was less than happy with the fact that I was cheating on her with the Swamp Witch. What? You saw me go into her tent? No, no, haha, nothing like that, I was merely showing her the wonderous support provided by a bra whilst the two of us played a jolly good game of chess, Leliana, my dear. I'd never even think of becoming romantically involved with a woman dragging around a 3000 year old umbilical cord smelling like a Chasind wench... This point's getting away from me, isn't it? What I'm trying to say is that it's good to play a game that takes the J-RPG stance on how to treat women. I like to imagine the expressions on the hostesses I've repeatedly told I would stay away from hostess clubs while the two of us are going out as I walk into the club and designate a different hostess, the bubbling rage they feel when I rescue this different hostess from whatever peril her endearing character traits have brought about this time around, her nail-biting horror when I drag the new hostess to the privacy of the hotel district, presumably to show her the wonderous support provided by a bra and for a jolly good game of chess.

Yes, from the institutional ingrained sexism to the food with the consistency of snot, from the hideously cute cartoon animals to the men who roll their R's when angry, from the overly bouncy 'punks' to the statuesque, stoic 'cool guys' whose main tactic in winning a fight is standing as stock still as possible in an attempt to fend off Japan's natural T-rex: Godzilla, from Tokyo to Osaka this game is as Japanese as it possibly can be without selling its underwear and dressing as Lelouch. And I love it.

One of the things I love most about Yakuza 4 is, in true Hideo Kojima fashion, the game isn't afraid to stop for five seconds and to tell the story at a proper pace. Cutscenes are long in places but only because they need to be, if the story wasn't any good it would be a real pain, but the game far from disappoints there, with the story being one of its strongest points. I won't try and explain it fully, there are so many double-crossers, triple-crossers and ulterior motives that I'd be in very real danger of going cross-eyed, and what little gaming skill I have at the moment couldn't take such a blow. Just trust me when I say it's worth every yen and more.

Gameplay on the other hand is a double edged sword. Not literally, Akiyama does not at any point in the game pull a Darth Maul and decide that sometimes one light-saber just isn't enough compensation for all those bald jokes he got as a kid. No, what I mean by that is that the battle system can unfortunately begin to grate on the nerves after several hours of using it. The game fixes this by giving each of the characters their own fighting style but toward the end of each 12 or 13 hour segment (assuming you did a fair bit of star trekkin' and side questin' across the universe) you'll find yourself mashing one button every battle with a bored look on your face. Still, this isn't so bad, it fixes itself toward the second half of the game when strategy breaks down a door and makes you acknowledge it through force and hey, at least it's not the 50 hours of pressing X that was FFXIII. Never again. Ever. ...Until FFXIII-2.

That was the bad end, the other end of that double edged gameplay sword (the end that goes where you want it to, assuming you aren't a hardcore masochist or an ad hoc suicide attempt) is the sheer volume of game that there is to play. This is without a doubt my favourite thing about the game. As you'll see if you take the time out to watch some of a video walkthrough of the game there will often be 4 or 5 hour breaks from the storyline simply to dip into the games substories, the various minigames, the aforementioned Hostess clubs (a Japanese phenomenon I will never understand or see the allure in) and the incredible... well, I'm going to call them side-quests since they seem too grand in scale to fit into the minigame section (such as one side-quest involving the training of several rookie fighters Karate Kid style, I have never caught myself singing the Rocky soundtrack as much as I did playing that side-quest.) Now, I made a lot of complaints about Final Fantasy XII (until FFXIII came out, whereupon I realised how bad Final Fantasy XII could have been) but one thing I loved about that game was the sheer amount of side-questing and extra content outside of the main storyline. The same can be said for Yakuza 4. What game designers don't seem to grasp is that when I say "replay value" what I mean is an excellent story and lots of fun things to do along the way, what I do not mean is an unlokable outfit and infinite ammo, nor do I mean a different ending. Here, Yakuza 4 stands with my other favourite games.

Finally, the characters. I absolutely love the characters, that's why the lucky bastards have gotten their own paragraph. I'm even going to go through the main characters and describe why they're so fantastically designed. I know, I know, get a room... First off, Akiyama. Good old Aki-Yamaha reminds me a lot of Nathan Drake from the Uncharted games, the only difference being that he feels like a real person and you don't get the Nathan Drake impression that if you pulled on his arm like a crank cogs would turn and he would churn out some random piece of dry sarcasm... and he's Japanese... and he doesn't fight fishmen... seriously though, fishmen? What were they thinking? ...anyway. Next up is Saejima Taiga, a man so angry his brow is permanently attempting to attack his eyes. Tenori Taiga is a stone cold killer understandably pissed off with the world, seeing as everyone seems to have sold him out. However, we see a few of his soft spots for people who remind him of his sister and for other tough guys who go in for all that honour stuff, bless their little hearts... not that Saejima's heart is likely small, the man doesn't look like he watches his health. Tanimura is next, a corrupt cop. What's that? "How origional," you cry? Well, he's actually giving the money he coerces from people to the poverty-stricken Chinese immigrants in Japan. This extra layer helps me see the characters of Yakuza 4 as deeper than those of your average game, take it from someone who made a Code Geass reference 4 paragraphs ago when I say I love a character who gets a good job done through seemingly evil means. No one likes a white knight. And by no one, I mean me. So yeah, no one likes a white knight. Finally, there's Kiryu, the muscle-bound demon from a circle of hell so deep they don't tell new arrivals about it for fear it'll scare them off. Kiryu, while being a nice sort of guy, has the dark past that comes with the territory of organised crime. He also has a daughter that compliments his character and makes him look like a big teddy bear armed to the teeth with muscles that can take about 4 magazines of ammo, not to mention she must have stirred up a storm with the Humbert Humberts of the world. I'd put an emoticon here, but I'm doing so well without them.

To conclude, says the one who spends their life writing exams in continuous prose, Yakuza 4 skyrocketed from the moment I bought it from a good opening cutscene to an absolutely fantastic game chock-full of extra content and acceptably subtle hilarity. For example, at one point a hostess complains that she doesn't enjoy the company of other women as they always want your approval of their opinion, rather than your own opinion. She asks you what you think and, for full hostess marks, you say "I couldn't agree more." She thanks you with implied sex and 10,000 experience before you throw her away in the style of Persona 4. True, the city of Kamurocho may seem a little daunting to those playing Yakuza 4 for the first time, but take time to explore shops at random and have fun with the games many activities while learning your way around. Yakuza 4 currently stands proudly (I've got it leaning against one of my speakers, game cases don't have legs so they can't really stand up well) as one of my favourite games. Definitely worth a try, a playthrough and then another playthrough.

Total Score: 176% out of 49 stars.
And that's what I think about score systems.

 About the author: metutials is a talking windmill who lives exactly on the magnetic north pole. Aside from asking riddles through the medium of rhyme to the few people who pass by he enjoys scaring the local wildlife and devouring lost children.