Yakuza 2

"My name is Kazuma. I'm here to beat you mercilessly."

Thank you, Sega! I mean, it only took you *looks at watch* 2 years, but you finally got Yakuza 2 over to western shores. Good thing too, since I really enjoyed the 2005 original's brutal combat and excellent crime story. Japanese gamers may have been enjoying this game since 2006, but will western gamers still care about a late in life PS2 title when the next-gen is in full swing? I hope so…

STREET-FIGHTING STORY

It's been one year since the events of the original Yakuza, and series protagonist Kazuma Kiryu, the legendary “Dragon of Dojima”, has giving up his spot as the chairman of the Tojo clan to retire and live a normal life with Haruka, the 10-year-old daughter of one of his best friends that died in the original game. However, as it is with all organized crime, it just keeps pulling you right back in. The current chairman of the Tojo clan is murdered right before Kazuma's eyes by the Korean mafia, who is trying to muscle in on Yakuza turf. Deciding to help out his former clan, Kazuma travels back to the mean streets of Tokyo and Osaka to reunited with old allies, work with a detective known as the “Yakuza Eater”, deal with another “Dragon” named Goda Ryuji, and fight an escalating mafia war almost all by himself.

Much like the original, Yakuza 2 tells a phenomenal crime-tale full of twists and turns with characters you will come to know and care about. Leading the pack, Kazuma is still the badass hero that you'll enjoy rooting for. A special nod also goes out to the returning Goro Majima, who provides some very funny comic relief in such a serious tale. By far one of the best stories in a video game this year, second only to MGS4. Mafia movie fans will probably enjoy it even more (the story was written by a famous Japanese writer of yakuza novels, if you didn't know).

STREET-FIGHTING GAMEPLAY

Gameplay in Yakuza 2 is divided up into two sections: adventure and battle mode. In adventure mode, you're let loose in one of two districts: Tokyo's Kanto district (the same setting as the first Yakuza), and Osaka's Kansai district (a new setting that's a little smaller than Kanto). Sega really should be commended for creating such a life-like city setting on the aging PS2. Every building, block, and store are individually designed and look different from one another. Lots of pedestrians fill the streets, having conversations with each other, walking around, taking breaks, hanging out, etc. It makes me wish that Sega put in a free-camera system when walking around with Kazuma, but unfortunately the camera angles while in the districts are fixed for the most part. Anyway, the game gives you a GTA-like mini-map in the corner of the screen to point out the way to Kazuma's current mission objectives and the locations of the many shops, restaurants, and amusement centers in the districts (they are color-coded for easier identification). You can fill up plenty of playtime doing many of the extra-curricular activities that Sega has provided you, including: Bowling, battling cages, golf driving ranges, slot machines, casinos, impressing girls at the hostess bars, going to a strip club (no actual nudity, pervs), watching a video at the DVD store, getting a massage, and the list goes on. On the other hand you could just walk around and find the 100 coin locker keys strewn all over the place, or initiate the many engaging side quests in the game by entering the right area or talking to the right person. The city atmosphere and many things to do can easily rank Yakuza 2 up there with the PS2 GTA games…well, almost.

Next, we come to the fast and fluid and brutal Yakuza 2 beat-em'-up battle system. Whether it's against gangs of mafia goons or random thugs on the street, Kazuma is a master at using his hands and feet to “solve” all his problems. Controls during battle are still very simple: Square is your basic combo button, Triangle handles strong attacks, circle is the grab button, and L1 guards against attacks. Various weapons still litter the fighting grounds, and everything from traffic cones to bikes to swords can be picked up and used to deal out massive damage to opponents. Also returning to deal massive damage are Kazuma's special HEAT actions. As you land successful blows and defeat enemies, a bar below Kazuma's health meter fills up, and when it maxes out he can use it to perform some very violent maneuvers with his foes in the right position by hitting the triangle button when “HEAT” flashes on the screen. Perform a HEAT maneuver when you've grabbed an enemy near a wall, and Kazuma will introduce his face to it. Perform one near a bench, and Kazuma will suplex his foe onto it. Other HEAT actions include throwing enemies down flights of stairs, throwing them into rivers, kicking them off balconies, body-slamming them through food stands on the street, and so forth. Most weapons also have their own HEAT actions that can be preformed. Nothing beats smashing a child's bike over some goons head, or flinging dudes around with a steel pipe. So while all these actions are brought over from the first Yakuza, Kazuma does have some new tricks up his sleeve for this outing. First off, you can now fully control the camera during battle with the right analogue stick, which is definitely a welcome addition. Kazuma now also has an easier time fighting enemies that surround him, and you can perform multi-directional attacks by pointing the left analogue stick in the direction of the enemy and pressing either attack button. Special finishing attacks can now be preformed against most bosses in the game by whittling down their health to almost nothing, knocking them down, get close to them and repeatedly hit the R2 button to build up a gauge followed by the triangle button. Finally, there will be times when Kazuma will be joined in battle and adventure modes by a partner, and during battle his partner will help out and they can even perform special double team HEAT moves (think “GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL” with some dudes head). All this battling will earn Kazuma items, Yen, and most importantly, experience. Earning experience fill up bars above Kazuma's health meter, and you can then use your accumulated experience bars to level up Kazuma in three categories: Shin (increasing the HEAT gauge and the strength of HEAT actions), Gi (allows Kazuma to learn new fighting techniques), and Tai (Increase the max HP level and learn various recovery techniques). Some levels will even let you choose which technique or enhancement Kazuma will learn, allowing you to customize your fighting machine. Yakuza 2's fighting system will definitely give beat-em‘-up, action, and RPG fans a kick-ass good time!

Despite the engaging districts and the fun battles, there are still some kinks in the armor. In the first Yakuza there was no lock-on during battle, which made things a bit frustrating at times. For Yakuza 2, Sega has somewhat elevated that issue by giving us a “soft” lock-on function. By holding the R1 button, Kazuma will automatically face any enemy that is close to him. While locked on, Kazuma can strafe his target and even perform a quick step by pressing X. Sounds good, but unfortunately Kazuma will only stay locked on while his opponent is in front of him, which means that if you're locked on and in the middle of a combo and the opponent moves to the side or such, Kazuma won't follow his movements and will end up concluding his combo on the air. A definite step-up from the original game, but it could have been a lot better. However, one annoyance that Sega has not addressed from the original game is the inventory system. Kazuma can hold up to 9 items and 3 equip-able weapons on his person at all times. Problem is that the game throws items at you almost all the time, especially during side-quests when you need to keep key items on you. If your inventory is full, items are sent to an item box for safe keeping, and you would have to run all the way back to your safehouse to get the item from your box. This isn't like an old-school Resident Evil game where there was an item box in almost every other room, oh no sir. In Yakuza 2, if I'm not mistaken, there are only 3 item boxes in the entire game that Kazuma can access regularly: One in his safehouses in each district and one in front of the battle coliseum (another awesome extra-curricular activity, BTW). As you can imagine, this leads to management hell and I sincerely hope Sega addresses this for Yakuza 3. Other complaints are minor but worth mentioning: the camera system is your typical third-person system, which means that while it functions fine in outdoor environments, it can be somewhat problematic in buildings and small rooms (where you'll be fighting many a battle). Also, the game is somewhat easy, with plentiful healing items and not-too-tough opponents. I had to retry after losing battle a total of 5 times during my playthrough, and all 5 of those times were against the last boss. Finally, one section of the game involving a golden castle just seemed waaaaaaaaaaaay too out of place and silly to be in a serious crime drama. However, I might be in the minority on that one, since the section does end in a pretty cool boss fight.

STREET-FIGHTING GRAPHICS

Sega has squeezed out every ounce of power from the 9-year-old PS2 to deliver a very impressive graphical showcase. Like I said before, the game's districts are impressively designed and rendered and give off an excellent atmosphere. Battle animations are fluid and fast, and attacks look absolutely brutal when they connect. Character models for main characters are good enough to be in most next-gen games, ditto for the extremely cinematic and motion-captured cut-scenes that could easily go toe-to-toe with the best in the business. This impressive piece of eye-candy even has an widescreen option.

Still, there are some signs of age. Character models for regular pedestrians and shopkeepers are pretty bad, and indoor environments can be bland. The annoying loading pause that happened when you changed sections while walking around the Kanto district in the first game remains in this one…in both districts. There are also some noticeable aliasing as well. Finally (and this may just be nitpicking), Kazuma's walking animation looks like he's holding one in and can't find a bathroom, while Haruka's running animation reminded me of Sora from Kingdom Hearts, which actually made me laugh. Yeah, it's probably just me on those last two…

STREET-FIGHTING SOUND

Sega obviously thought that the first Yakuza game would be a pretty big hit over in the states, so they spared no expense in getting together a star-studded English voice over cast for it…which of course didn't work out too well. Kazuma was played by some guy no one has ever heard of, Mark Hamill over-acted as Goro Majima (although you can't really blame him after more than 10 years of playing the Joker), and Michael Madsen did a fantastic job of portraying Michael Madsen. For Yakuza 2, Sega has wisely left the original Japanese voice-acting intact with English subtitles. Definitely gives the game a more authentic feel, and matching lip-synching is a great bonus. All other sound effects in the game get the job done as well. The nice music ranges from guitar tracks to jazz beats, and the sounds of pedestrians talking and rain falling come in crystal clear through the back channels of surround systems. Also impressive is the sounds of battle, from punching a guy in the face to kneeing him in the back of the neck and hearing a sickening crunch sound, you'll probably wince as you fight. Impressive with nothing to complain about.

DON'T FIGHT, YOU KNOW YOU WANT IT…

Yakuza 2 is easily longer than the original. It took me 23 hours to complete the main story and do about 30% of side missions. Those who want 100% completion (which include eating everything at every restaurant, drinking all the booze at every bar, wooing all the hostess girls, etc.) should be prepared to spend at least 50 hours here. That's not all though: after you beat the game, you can play a new game with all your items, Yen, upgrades, and completion percentages in-tact. You also unlock a cut-scene viewer and the adventure mode, which lets you play all the side-missions in the game without going through the main story missions. Unlike the first game though, there are no special survival or battle modes to unlock.

Yakuza 2 definitely improves upon the original with more stuff to do, a slightly upgraded battle system, and a excellent story, despite some lingering flaws. For only 30 bucks, action fans would be hard pressed to not dust off their PS2's (or take advantage of PS3 backwards-compatibility) and enjoy the hell out of themselves.

KEWL
+Free-roaming districts offer TONS of activities to do
+Very fun battle system
+Phenomenal and engaging story
+Mostly impressive graphics for a PS2 game
+Phenomenal cut-scenes
+Excellent sound and voice acting
+Lots of replay value
+Only 30 bucks! A hell of a deal!

LAME
-A better targeting system for battle would be nice
-Crummy inventory system
-Camera can be crap in indoor environments
-Some underwhelming graphical issues
-Somewhat on the easy side

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 09/23/08

Game Release: Yakuza 2 (US, 09/09/08)