Like A Boss

I love the video montage at the beginning of each Yakuza games. No matter how many times I have seen it, I rarely ever press to skip especially if I like the theme music too. It reminds of those Hong Kong TVB series where you also have a video montage before each episode.

When you first play the game, those video montage offers a glimpse of the story that lies ahead. As you progress through the game, the montage turns into a mixture of scenes you have seen and those you have not. These montages are carefully mixed so there are no big spoilers but just enough teasers to entice you to play on and on. I loved picking out the scenes to come and predicting how the story will unfold based on those scenes.

It really does feel like a TV serial and in a lot of ways, the Yakuza series is actually more like a TV serial than a summer blockbuster. The cutscenes are usually grounded on human drama with most of the action occurring during the game play. That's probably one of the reason why the series have difficulty breaking out of Japan in terms of mainstream success. For all its criminal undertones, it's more about the characters themselves rather than the shady stuff that yakuzas do.

Casual observers often compared the Yakuza games with Grand Theft Auto which is such a poor comparisons. You hardly ever do any criminal activity in the Yakuza games, just regular badass stuff that makes you feel like the boss.

Badass stuff like this following video montage

Double Dragon

Importing the Yakuza games has been a sound decision so far. I started with a late purchase of Kenzan and never looked back. At first I had doubts as I didn't want to double dip but looking at the trend, I might never had to. I finished Kenzan and RGG5 this way and was planning to start Ishin soon. Now maybe I will play Zero first.

There is one thing I didn't count on that is the online guides won't be online forever. It daunted on me when some translators took their RGG5 guides down after the English version was announced. It's a strange feeling. It's almost like owning a digital copy of the game but not having it on your HD and not knowing how long it would remain on the servers. Ishin and RGG5 aren't so bad because I still have the chinese scriptbooks but not Zero and Kenzan. It's impossible to archive the entire guide as different translators have their own way of expressing them with most using subtitled videos.I don't have the greatest memory either so it's not like I can remember every dialogue after finishing it once.

Maybe I do have the buy these games twice after all but the real question is, are there more localisation on the way?

Digitally Yours

I would like to talk about a gaming trend that has became more and more prevalent over the years, digital distribution of games. Some say it will spell the end for brick and mortar game shops eventually though maybe not in Japan where they still love their game box arts and so fore.

The reason I'm bringing this up is because it's starting to affect me, several of my favorite series have recently announced digital-only distribution of their new releases. Unlike some other fanboys, I don't feel less ownership of the game if it's digital, it's just I would like to have some tangible to add in my proud collection. I do enjoy the convenience of not having to get up and swap discs when it's digital but to me, it's just a minor annoyance I would gladly put up with to own the physical copy.

Now developing games are becoming more costly and putting out a physical copy isn't as cheap as one may think, there are logistics involved and not just the mere cost of writing the actual disc. I get all that but I really wonder for the case of Yakuza 5, is Sega allowing the fate of the series to continue down this road? It's really a chicken and egg dilemma, are you going to able to foster new fanbase if you don't spend the money to put physical copies in stores and promote the game? Rebirth HD and Revelations 2 will sell on their own even if it's digital only as the Resident Evil franchise is huge so in Capcom's case, it's just a matter of Capcom trying to save some bucks by going this route (to be fair, Capcom did distribute Rebirth on disc in Asia region and also give a significant discount for the digital version of Revelations 2).

Yakuza is a series on its last legs in the West, each sequel has seen diminishing sales so it's almost like Sega is doing this just for the fans and not hoping to reach out to new fans. While I applaud Sega (and Sony) for doing this, I'm also sad that Sega is no longer interested in investing in this franchise overseas though it's probably been that way for some time now. Well I guess I will always have my Asian copies and now not have to worry about ugly box art on the western version anymore.

Days of Feeling Dumb

As a gamer these days I tend to be more nostalgic about old games than excited about forthcoming new games. Sure there are occasional upcoming games that get me interested but more often than not, those happens to be sequel to a favorite game series I can care about like Resident Evil or Yakuza. Perhaps it's a sign that I'm slowing down or maybe just a lack of fresh games in the current market I can't really say because I'm still clocking about the same amount of gaming time every month.

While reminiscing about past games with an old friend, it occurs to me that sometimes our strongest memory about a game isn't how good or bad the game was but where in the game we got stuck in. Bear in the mind, I don't mean being stuck at a difficult puzzle or a tough boss, I'm talking about the silly things like missing an important route because the background happens to be pre-rendered or over-thinking a puzzle when the solution was much more obvious and simple. I have had my fair share of those and I suspect I will have much more of them to come. 

I'm actually experiencing quite a number of them while playing The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess for the very first time. I got stuck in early dungeon and I got lost a few times because everything is so dark and dreary compared with the bright skies of Wind Waker. While it's undoubtedly a great game (some say one of the best), I reckon when I finally finish it, I will remember it more for the parts I got stuck in than how great the game actually is. 

Blackout in Kamurocho

I managed to track down a used copy of the first Ryu Ga Gotoku to add to my collection, having never played the first game in Japanese voice-overs since Sega wisely decided to dub the game for Western audience. Even then I didn't have much complaints about the English voice-overs, as a matter of fact I remember most of the main characters were really well done but Sega did used one too many celebrities for this one.

Before she was WET, she was Kiryu's first love interest

I missed having Kiryu at the center of the story, these days in the newer games he tends to just show up at the end of the story to beat the main bad guy because he's after all, the face of the series. I also missed gritty feel of the yakuza society, these guys are not nice people and the original writer set the tone in these first 2 games which team RGG have since failed to keep up and do justice to his characters. 

The loading time is not as bad as I remember and the graphics still look pretty good for PS2 games, I like how every cutscene looked consistent because there is only one engine to render all cutscenes (save for the FMV videos which SEGA used very sparingly). In the PS3 games, the story sometimes unfolds using the video cutscene and game engine cutscene but there is always an awkward fade-out black screen when switching over and it can get annoying when there are numerous switch overs. SEGA needs to create a more seamless transition between these or just stick with one form of cut-scene because it looks very outdated for a modern game like Yakuza. 

Fatal Fantasy

I have gone and done it again; despite all the savings and great deals i was able to find this past week it didn't take long for me to blown it all away with a costly deal on an import game. The japanese import of Fatal Frame IV has re-surfaced at the worst possible time when i'm at my most vulnerable state during my recent Wii craze and demand for the import is still high with the english patch reportedly working. I was considering between ordering it now or wait till my friend who's going to Japan later this year and ask him to track down a copy for me, hopefully at a lower price.

The fact that i'm still struggling to finish Fatal Frame III certainly doesn't bode well with the decision to commit now via Play-asia. This is quickly turning into another repeat of Yakuza as i move immediately from one installment to another and one generation of console to another. Hopefully these will ultimately all end well as i do have a penchant of fantasizing about playing games rather than actually playing them.

Host Gone Ghost

Yakuza is shaping up to be a series where Sega seems to never get things right from the beginning of the franchise up until now. Yakuza 1 was dubbed much to purists dismay though Yakuza 2 was left pretty much intact after localization, it was released way too late to even make an impact.

Now Yakuza 3 will have some content cut from its original Japanese version because of cultural differences and lack of time to properly localise everything. Its the kind of stuff that fanboys will chew and debate over for ages to come though it's unlikely to make or break the game. The problem is the content removed though trivial to the eyes of the Sega team happens to be the main appeal to many of Yakuza fans. Yes the hostess game which has evolved from each of yakuza game will not be featured in this forthcoming yakuza release. Not many will admit it but i have seen enough forums and friends to know that a lot of gamers play yakuza because of the hostess side missions.

Yakuza 2 on PS3

Yakuza 2 being a late entry into the Playstation2 game library plays very well on my backward compatible 80GB PS3 as expected. The graphics upscaled to 1080p still has a very soft grainy look on certain scenes such as the opening demo which i suspected was badly compressed judging from the sheer size and depth of the game. The other cutscenes which were rendered by the in-game engine i presumed, looks much better even when the game zooms in upclose to the characters. The game supports 16:9 widescreen so everything's in proper proportions on a LCD display unlike some ps2 games when you set your ps3 to upscaled the image to fill the entire display. The loading times has also improved significantly, you don't even have to wait for the option to press start to skip the loading come fight sequences. While it's not as fast to the point when it's seamless like in yakuza 3, gone are the days when i would dread getting into a fight in the first yakuza for fear of the long loading time.
You could certainly do much worse than yakuza 2 when looking for a game to play on your ps3 as my previous other ps2 games have been known to display a glitch or two during playback.

Does What A Spider Can

There was an article recently that suggested that superheroes are just too powerful to be portrayed accurately in video games. I on the other hand don't seem to think so, in fact just about the only sandbox-styled games that i would play other than SEGA's yakuza series happened to be comic superheroes games.

Back before free-roaming games became possible on console, there was one noteworthy superhuman game on the PSOne simply called spider-man. While it isn't sandbox-styled, it was one of the first that actually lets you do what a spider can. It was a game was made for fans of the comic book, from the rogue gallery of villians included to the hidden comic covers and bonus costumes spidey have wore over the years. It also takes its cues from the animated series with spidey voice-over done by the same lead actor and narration from stan 'the man' lee. You don't have to be a comic book collector to enjoy this game but you will definitely appreciate the little touches thrown in for long-time fans. It also benefit from the timing because the sam raimi's spider-man movies have yet to be released so the developers have the free reign to create an original storyline and pull the characters from the beloved comic book series. The problem i find with most superhero games these days are the developers aren't sure whether to follow the movie franchise or the comic storyline, most of the time meshing the movie plot with some familiar characters from the comic creating one fine mess. With the comic book industry in a state of flux, the movie franchise often take precedence these days so it's nice to pull one a retro game from a time when things are in the right perspective.

The Dragon's Coming

Having made a decision not to play any new games on my Platstation3 until i finished Okami on the Wii, i have been keeping myself busy re-playing Yakuza in anticipation for the US release of Yakuza 2 next month. I don't get a lot of chances to use my Nintendo Wii these days for reasons i rather not indulge here but since my Playstation2 is always around lying idle, it's a good time to warm it up again. Sega has fallen behind quite a bit in localising Yakuza 2 and in an effort to save some time (and money) decided to keep the original Japanese voice-overs instead of hiring Hollywood talents like they did with this first one. It may come as a surprise but i enjoyed the US voice talent for Yakuza quite a bit, apart the the script having a bit too much swearing, most of the voice talent delivered the goods.

Now the real question is will the future Yakuza games retain their original Japanese voiceovers ?