VRebooting ideo games is usually done to drag the long-standing brand into the modern era of the 21st century. However, Like a Dragon adds a new twist to another genre, while retaining the old-fashioned, slightly unreconstructed feel of previous yakuza games. Like its predecessor, it’s an interactive yakuza movie in nature, but instead of defeating Street Gone by bashing buttons, you can choose actions and attacks from the menu like in Final Fantasy. This allows you to control a group of characters, not just one. This is a bold move that makes perfect sense in the context of a yakuza game. This is a gangster buddy movie, rather than following a single character.
The action begins in a familiar environment in Tokyo’s fictional Kamurocho district. There, Ichiban Kasumi is happily employed as a low-level yakuza. The most interesting character. Growing up in lonely soapland (a brothel disguised as a public bath), it was just too good to be a gangster. He continues to cause people who are supposed to shake off their debts to have a stroke in the chieftain. Fortunately, the Patriarch of the Clan considers him a surrogate son, but soon everything is upside down. First, he fell into prison for the next 18 years, showing blind loyalty to his boss for a murder committed by another clan member.
In his release, things don’t work as planned, and that’s the side of the yakuza buddy movie: where they start collecting steam like a dragon. A cop named Adachi, who was washed away, meets him at the prison gate and shows him how the yakuza’s balance of power has changed radically while he was in prison. The conflict became disastrously worse, first literally going to the side of Skidlow and recovering from a gunshot wound with the help of the former nurse, Minamiha, the butt.
After that, a convincing and complex story unfolds about the underground world of Yokohoma crime. The first is to get a group of friends and sometimes feel like a dragon and a soap opera. It is conversational, slowly unfolds and presents all sorts of blind alleys for exploration. How you behave will change your personality, and conversations during walks and in restaurants and bars will help him deepen his ties with the gang. Like all good Japanese RPGs, the food is very distinctive.
In addition, the game has a hilarious obsession with work (which begins when the first lives on the street). The work each character on your team undertakes determines their fighting style, and some of them are interesting and original. Glory is that if the first is to get a job as a breaker, he fights with breakdancing moves, but Saeko can adopt a pop idol fighting style that makes her crazy about her enemies.
Yakuza: Like a dragon, it’s one of the most entertaining games you’ll encounter this year. There are a huge number of sub-stories, some of which are played purely for laughter, including those involving the Patriarch of a clan who likes to dress up. Baby. There are also almost confusing mini-games (from driving a tricycle around a skid row to collect empty cans to a full-fledged company-run sim), as well as hidden objects to collect. It can be quite vulgar, as it fits the game about the lower abdomen of Japanese criminals. For example, you might fight a trash bag-covered flasher in the sewers of Yokohama, or deepen your bond at a hostess club.
Yakuza: A perfect blockade game like a dragon Yakuza: Yakuza: Offers a unique brand of escapism that should provoke laughter about every 5 minutes. One of the unintentionally interesting elements is the voice actor. This can be gratefully eliminated by choosing to keep the original Japanese conversation with subtitles. Sega’s yakuza games have always seemed like a well-kept secret, but these days they’re enjoying more reviews abroad. If you like the idea of a very Japanese gang-themed interactive comedy soap opera, you will definitely love it.
•• Yakuza: Like a dragon, it’s out on November 10th. £ 49.99
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