PS3 Review – Yakuza 3
Sega held off on bringing Yakuza 3 stateside, even after the game saw great sales in Japan. After a year of waiting, the game has finally hit the US, bringing GTA-style gameplay with a heavily Japanese flavor. The game features plenty of fights, story, and a ton of mini games to keep you busy during your trip into Japan. The question is though, is this game worthy of its Yakuza name or does it fall a few punches short of a knockout?
Yakuza 3 continues the story of the legendary 4th Chairman of the Tojo Clan, “The Dragon of Dojima,” Kazuma Kiryu. Looking for a way out of the life of a Yakuza, Kazuma decides to settle down and run the Sunshine Orphanage that he grew up in. The story is told in its original language with English subtitles, something that really adds to the presentation of the game. The game is all about the Japanese culture and setting, so having it in its original language further enhances the feeling of being in Japan. A great feature in the game for those who have not played the first two or need to refresh their memory, is a setting at the start screen to view a recap of the first and the second games. This is a great way to get backstory and catch you up on all the events leading up to this third game.
On your attempt to run the straight and narrow, you find that trouble follows you, and you cannot help but get caught back up in the wrong crowd. Luckily, though, your character is always up for throwing his knuckles around and he just happens to be very good at it. This is where the combat comes into play, and boy is it ever fun to throw down with your fellow combatants. Fights happen at random on the streets, with punks and Yakuza alike approaching you and picking a fight. Once the fight is started, you are introduced to the combatants, and then it’s on. Combat breaks down into light and strong attacks, with the ability to block, grab, and dodge.
Fighting won’t just be done with your bare hands as you can pick up various different objects around the fighting area, which happens to resemble a school-yard fight where a group of onlookers encircle the combatants. The objects you can pick up vary from bikes along the side of the street to trash cans and couches. Each object that you pick up has a set number of uses and once these are gone the object will break. Aside from these objects you can also equip various different weapons for your character to use and these can be easily cycled through using the D-Pad during combat.
Additionally, you build up your heat gauge with each successful attack on an enemy. Once you have filled up your gauge, you will notice a blue aura around your character, indicating that you are in heat mode. This mode allows you to pull off secret techniques to put a major hurt on anyone caught in them. Most of these secret techniques can only be used in certain conditions, like when holding an object or grabbing an opponent. During boss battles, you will get to use a Super Finish, which again is based around your heat gauge. Combat also employs the use of Quick Time Events, but these are not as intense as say the ones in Heavy Rain. For the most part, you will only have to use these during the boss battles and sometimes during story fights.
The combat can become very intense, as every hit taken and given feels very heavy, and you will almost always fight more than one enemy, outside of some boss battles. Enemies will come at you with various different weapons and fighting styles, meaning you will need to make sure to block and dodge correctly. The boss battles are very interesting, as each boss has a unique set of moves, meaning you will have to employ a new strategy during each fight. You will also have the option to improve your character’s attributes and learn new moves through experience gained during combat.
New to the combat side of things is the chase battle. Just as the name sounds, you are given a task to run down someone attempting to flee from you. Both the chaser and the chased have a running gauge that decreases as either character runs into something or someone in their way. You must successfully navigate through crowded streets and jump over obstacles to gain on your enemy. Once close, you can bump into the person you are chasing to decrease their gauge, then tackle them once they are empty.
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22 Responses to “PS3 Review – Yakuza 3”
Top notch review Cameron. 5 out of 5 eh? Looks like I will be picking this one up. Thanks!
really?? I have to say this is the first review from PSLS that I have to disagree with completely. I played the demo and thought it was atrocious. They couldn’t even include voices for most of the dialogue in the game, you just have to read the conversation. I thought the combat system felt like something I played 10 years ago and the graphics of the environment seemed like something for the PS2 (I never use that comparison because I remember how different graphics were between the PS3 and PS2). I understand that you have to consider the actual age of this game since we had to wait so long to get it here, but they still could have made some changes to make it seem like something that was made within the last 3 years.
I didn’t like the demo at all either. Combat was stiff and was as shallow as any other button-masher, the graphics/animations were unimpressive at best, and the cutscenes were long and uninteresting. To each his own.
this game is awesome, but not for everyone(especially not for kids who only play generic military shooters), it is not linear, there is a lot of stuff to do apart from the main story, and the “battle system” is so fun and deep, I remember when I used to play a lot of RPGs, there was always a point in the game when I started saying -I don’t want to grind anymore, damn this random encounters-, but with yakuza 1 and 2 that was always so different, you’re always waiting for someone to challenge you to a fight and then punch, kick, grab, throw, pick weapon, finisher…ahhh so many good times.
awesome review and the score this game deserves.
Cameron
im getting confused on the rating system.. isnt 5 a platinum picture?
@the troll
February 26, 2009 was when Yakuza 3 was released.. hardly 3 years ago.
I was going to support this game, but Sega removed too much content (much more than they stated).
The people who have played both versions are compiling a list of missing content and it seems like quite a bit. Sega should have lost at least 1 point on this review for being lazy on their port.
They used the excuse that they didn’t want to delay the game (just so they could compete with FF and GoW??) but I think the real reason is that they just wanted an easy cash grab. Let’s wait and see if they try to sell it all back as DLC.
btw great review….I have no doubt about how great this game is. I’m just P.O.ed at Sega and their actions.
sega wont get any more money out of me after the garbage that was
AvP……… i should have known better after playing the demo
giese095 and Jonathan Leack, glad to see some people who agree with me. I played both the Japanese and English demos multiple times, and had basically the same sentiments. While the story is at least intriguing and there are a ton of things to do in the city, the dated fighting mechanics and lackluster graphics really hold this back IMO. When fighting, for example, the animations are un-interruptable. This means if you start an attack and see that someone else is coming at you from the side, there is nothing you can do to try to counter it. Even God of War III allows this now, one of my gripes from the earlier entries. Oh and while you run around in the city non-important people constantly fade in and out of existence only a few feet in front of you! I’d rather have less people who I can see off into the distance than that…
But it seems you don’t buy this game for great fighting or life-like visuals. You buy it for the story and the culture of Japan, which I totally get. So I’ll likely rent this from GameFly and if it grows on me then Keep It, if the price is right that is…
Good review. Will be renting this bad boy soon.
Wow, just short of 50,000 copies sold in its first week, it’s already sold more than three times as many copies as Yakuza 2 over here!
I don’t care what u say, after playing that demo I’d NEVER play this game. Straight up Shemue fighting mechanics, they could have called this game Shemue with anew coat of paint or Shemue Reloaded. This crap should have be ported to Xbox. I could only see people for a few blocks Shemue did better than. Why would you put out a half ass demo like that if u WANT to sale games. Lets say that the graphics r better on the BluRay version, the fighting mechanics aren’t. That was the part that I couldn’t forgive. This is agame made in the country that PS3 was created in there is no excuse. I just go dust off my Dreamcast
yakuza is awsome asain gta
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I am enjoying the game so far, but it is definitely not a 5 out of 5 in my opinion.
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I would completely agree with this review.this game is brilliant one of the best this year.im still playing it trying to get the platnuim trophy.Cant wait till yakuza 4 comes west in 2011 !
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I like a few gamers on here didn’t like the demo at all. I felt like I was playing a game from PSone. I tried really hard to like the demo and like the combat but it bore me and I deleted it. It’s not interesting to me. That’s just my opinion.
And for the final version of the game to have such a great score and overall review, I’d have to think it did a 360 from the demo. I doubt that. I’ll pass on this game. It’s great that some are enjoying it.
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