PLAYSTATION 3 FORUMS: PS3 News and discussion

Made in less than a year with the same engine as Yakuza 3, you’d be forgiven for thinking Yakuza 4 would be a rehash or a lazy update. The similarities are plain to see; there’s not much to differentiate the teeth-smashing, limb-snapping combat or fastidiously detailed setting from its predecessor’s, at first glance. The differences, though, particularly the introduction of three new characters with which to roam the neon-lit streets of fictional Tokyo, have a huge impact on a series that’s notoriously resistant to change. It’s a notable improvement.

Practically everything that was true of Yakuza 3 also applies to Yakuza 4, which makes it rather difficult not to repeat myself. Its visual representation of Japan is astonishingly accurate, and though its endless series of street-brawls and bizarre side-missions can hardly be called a true-to-life portrayal of everyday life in Tokyo, the game does offer a fascinating insight into Japanese attitudes and melodramatic storytelling culture - right down to the institutionalised sexism, unfortunately, but we’ll get to that. It’ll fulfil your Japan fantasies, even if those fantasies merely involve actually winning something from a UFO machine.

But Yakuza 4’s four-character structure completely changes the pacing, turning the game from a soup of open-world tasks interspersed with six hours of cut-scenes into a structured, episodic story. The Yakuza series’ enduring problems - irritating random battles, ponderous story, repetitiveness and lack of direction - are mostly alleviated by the variety that four different characters bring to the fighting system and plot. It’s a bit of a revelation.

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