Yakuza 4

richymcdermott

so sega came out recently and said if you want yakuza 4 in us and europe buy yakuza 3 , im new to the franchise and i put roughly bout 12 hours into yakuza 3 and its awesome, sooo much stuff to do wasant really likin the demo but my god its so much fun thanks to GothPunk for encourging me to buy it , so ya hope alotta people buy yakuza 3 so we get it over here , either that or i have to go study the japanesse language , so what ye guys think of yakuza 4 trailers looks better than the 3rd one anyone excited

Retr0gamer

The first 2 yakuza games were fantastic and the 3rd one I'm sure is excellent as well. I'll be getting it when I've the money. The demo really isn't a fair representation of the series.

GothPunk

A lot of people on NeoGAF are saying that Yakuza 4 is the best out of the series, including the spin off, Kenzan. That both excites and disappoints me, as whilst I would love to play it I know that with each game the liklihood of it being released here decreases and I don't want to get my hopes up. The fact that Sega cut stuff from Yakuza 3 is a worrying sign, although in my case I didn't miss it as much as some people would have. What would they cut from Yakuza 4? It will be interesting to see the sales for Yakuza 3 in the States when the NPD numbers come out, I think if it charted in the top ten (which lets face it, is nigh on impossible) Sega would definitely release Yakuza 4 in the West. Maybe a placement in the top 20 would leave them happy? Sega didn't do themselves any favours with all the negative press they got over the cuts either.

The Yakuza 4 demo is still available from the Japanese store if you guys are interested in seeing what all the fuss is about. There are 4 playable characters!

johnny_ultimate

I'll start getting interested once I've actually had a chance to play the 3rd one for more than an hour :pac: Sitting on my PS3 waiting to be played in-depth. The 'Japan simulator' aspect of the game is good enough for me.

But I agree with Gothpunk that Sega are their own worst enemies with this series. It is always going to appeal to a niche audience with an interest in Japanese games. They'd be best off just sticking subs on the Japanese disc and letting people import it. PS3 is auto region free, so there's no trouble with that like the 360. Cave have the right idea making a few of their games region free as there probably isn't enough interest for a retail release in the West (although Death Smiles is getting an American release, which damn well better be region free!). Sega should follow that sort of trend, rather than spending money cutting content for a Western release. The fans will happily import it, and I can't imagine adding English subs would be too expensive. Hell, the game makes enough money in Japan to justify it. Treat the fans well, the series isn't going to catch on big time over here anytime soon.

jmx009

According to Wikipedia, there is a demo for the Yakuza 4 on the japanese PSN.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ry%C5%AB_ga_Gotoku_4

You can download it if you have a japanese account. It is very easy to create a japaneses one ( if you dont already have one). Here is a video tutorial on how to do it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uz2xTGbe1Mk

Retr0gamer

Sega really are their own worst enemies. They released Yakuza 3 and Resonance of Fate within the same time window of Final Fantasy XIII and Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey and other big games which was bound to eat into the sales of both games.

tman

Meh... Might pick it up if it drops to < £15, but really wasn't pulled in by the demo at all.
I guess the combat system will have a lot more depth when you unlock more moves further into the game, but it just ended up frustrating me.

richymcdermott

well according to vgchartz.com Yakuza 3 sold 20,688 weekly and its total numbers is 683,905, i dont know why they wont just release it over here aswell, even if it only sells 20,000 copies thats 20 thousand more copies that adds to the sells in japan, and even if they dont want to reelase it over here , ive no problem importing it only if they had english subtitles, cost ya very cheap to that translating it
i used to lie sega but very slowly there showing there true colours , fans will gradually start leaving them

johnny_ultimate

http://kotaku.com/5558199/we-are-getting-yakuza-4-after-all

It is coming this way after all

I'm nearly 30 hours into Yakuza 3 and still only on Chapter 6 :pac: Hopefully I'll have finished the damn thing by the time 4 comes out.

noodler

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

http://kotaku.com/5558199/we-are-getting-yakuza-4-after-all

It is coming this way after all

I'm nearly 30 hours into Yakuza 3 and still only on Chapter 6 :pac: Hopefully I'll have finished the damn thing by the time 4 comes out.

How would you describe it?

Retr0gamer

It's actually an RPG more than anything. The structure is even the same with kind of random battles as well. If you've played Shenmue it's very like that. It's a hard series to describe because really there's nothing like it.

johnny_ultimate

noodler wrote: »

How would you describe it?

If I could use one word to describe it, it would be 'distracting' :pac: It's a peculiar game, and the closest I could come to describing it would be a lite JRPG / Japan Simulator / 3D beat 'em up. The Japanese bit is the key, it's chock full of weird little mini games and distractions that keep you from getting things done. There's pool, golf, karaoke, blogging (a particularly strange one), batting cages, gambling (I still haven't a ****ing clue how to play Cee-Lo or Koi Koi) etc... There's almost a hundred side quests too, although most end with you beating someone up. It can get a little repetitive, but for the most part the combat system is fun and visceral. I usually go two or three 2 hour long sessions without making any main story progress at all, just so much other stuff to do (and the storyline is mighty confusing at times, although I haven't played the other two). It's the anti-Final Fantasy 13 - an RPG full of diversions. Main thing is that it's wonderfully Japanese, just walking around taking in the surprisingly accurate representations of Tokyo and Okinawa.

Sephiroth_dude

Im playing yakuza 3 atm and liking it it so Im looking forward to this.

Grayditch

Haven't played the first two so maybe that affects things, but I wanted to much to get into Y3, but the enormous and frequent cut scenes killed me off. I enjoyed the gameplay, while I hung in there, though.

pablomakaveli

I finished Yakuza 3 last week and i enjoyed it. I found the combat enjoyable but thats because stamping on a thugs blood covered face never gets old.

I'll definitely get Yakuza 4. I read a review of the of an import copy and it sounds good with some different playable characters added who have different combat styles which will hopefully add more variety to combat.