I hope we all know about Killer 7 and it’s controversial, messed up, and or unique gameplay/story/whatever. To keep the story short it’s an on rails action adventure with fps combat. The game pits you behind the mask of a psychotic assassin who sports multiple identities which you can manipulate.

The result is one of most charming and inspired games last generation. It’s quite a game, and I don’t understand the hate. Yes, it’s on rails, but what exactly is wrong with rails? Have the detractors of the game ever played a shmup? Or Panzer Dragoon? Or Rez? Or even Time Crisis? On rails gameplay is unique so that it constantly offers the game a good amount of action. This keeps Killer 7 from being boring in the gameplay department; the level, enemy, and character variety makes it even better. Furthermore, despite being on rails, the game does the same thing you’d do in most modern action adventures. The difference being you can’t exactly move where ever you want. Still, pressing A to go forward is no different from pressing up to go forward. Pressing B to turn around is no different from pressing down and going backwards, and best of all, K7’s control scheme is so smooth I don’t see how it’s a problem in the first place really.

And then there’s the story. This game is exactly how I like my game plots: mature, unique, with extemely varied themes and topics; K7’s ensemble ranges from rape, organ trafficking, corporate commercialism, and politics in general. It’s a pretty beefy story, and the best part is that it doesn’t shove a cutscene down your throat every 5 minutes, it paces itself ever so softly, while feeding the player bread crumbs to keep them going and yet..it still has impact. Killer 7 packs some extremely questionable content and makes me wonder why other games haven’t brought up the topics it mentions, and even though it has such debatable content, it never lets go of the humor in it’s dialog. The other great thing about the story is that it’s like a puzzle: half the fun of the game is figuring out what the hell is going on and yet, the story isn’t too overly convoluted when you come down to it. Let’s just say that Killer 7 has a really smart story and put it at that.

Each level (chapter) feels like it’s very own episode. This game is like Cowboy Bebop the game for me, where every episode is not related but still offers something to the grand scheme of things. As you continue through the game, engaging with NPC’s you unravel the plot ever so slowly, and it keeps the player always guessing. I like this a lot and it gives me more anticipation the more I continue through the game.

It is a shame that this game is as under appreciated as it is, because it’s too good to warrant the scores it received. The fact it bombed so hard that I bought it for 9.99 NEW is even more sad. While I will definitely say it’s probably hate it or love it, the amount of people that [i]love[/i] Killer 7 is such a small number and I really don’t understand why.

So, for the sake of debate here, what exactly is wrong with Killer 7 and why was it not so accepted by the mainstream press and the public? Is it because it’s too wierd? I’d actually consider that a reasonable argument as some may find it way over the top, but I haven’t gotten that feeling with the game and I actually [i]like[/i] how weird it is. People often say “great experience, but bad game” but I don’t understand that, because it’s fps combat and boss battles are some of the best I’ve seen from most games lately, extremely clever stuff, definitely more creative than 99% of the fps’ on the market. The puzzles that are featured in the game are Capcom staple puzzles, and anyone who has played a Capcom game since Resident Evil knows the drill: find puzzle pieces to stick into doors and the like. It’s really only there in this game to give breathing room between battle gauntlets though, and they’re definitely less nonsensical than what we’ve become accustomed to in past Resident Evil titles.

I guess some games just aren’t destined to be appreciated by the masses, but I definitely think K7 deserves better. It’s like I’m the only person who likes this game.

Okami has been hyped to hell and back for the past 2 years. A Capcom game developed by Clover, directed by Kamiya – the head honcho for DMC, RE2, and Viewtiful Joe; that sounds like a recipe for success. An action-adventure title that throws in a couple of Zelda gameplay concepts with a new and innovative drawing gameplay mechanic? Nice.

For what it is, Okami is a breath of fresh air. It is unique not only visually, but also in concept. The graphics sport a traditional Japanese painting look that feels straight out of a novel from an old Japanese time period. In fact, the graphics in this game make it quite possibly one of (if not the) most beautiful games ever developed. The music is rich in quality, boasting a classic Japanese (and sometimes Chinese) beat and rhythm. It’s really majestic and has to be seen and heard to truly appreciate.

The story, while definitely cliche’ and not anything new, is still extremely likable and entertaining. In fact, I’d say the story is the best part of the game. Be forewarned however, that detractors of cutscene heavy games should stay away. This game features a hefty load of text. More so than I expected from an action adventure title such as this. The characters all feature likable and creative dialogue which keeps the conversations interesting, but you will often find yourself getting itchy fingers, longing to skip a couple of lines. One of the problems with Okami’s dialog is that npc’s often, more than not, say extraneous information that doesn’t really feel necessary or even relevant. It can be quite annoying when someone rabbles on, when this said character could have easily finished up what they were saying on the second or third line of text. Still, this charming dialogue is actually on par with some of the greats.

The characters, depending on the type, are completely forgettable or come off as striking, but by far the most memorable character is the main character Amaterasu. Amaterasu is full of life. From her mannerisms, to the abilities she eventually gains through the game’s story, Ammy — the nick name her annoying comrade Issun gave her — definitely comes off as one of the more fun and original characters in awhile. The great thing is that despite being a Goddess, she still acts like the wolf that manifests her physical body. When Ammy falls asleep when talking to someone extremely important, you’ll laugh. Quirks like this make Amaterasu definitely one of the highlights of the game and I applaud Clover for making such an original, funny, and best of all – likable – main character. When you consider that the main character is a wolf, you begin to appreciate what Capcom has done here: they made a silent character that has more charm than the majority of most talking characters that have appeared in recent games.

From there, Okami’s gameplay comes up and it’s by far my biggest niggle with the game. The gameplay in Okami is mediocre at best. While I did say the concept is extremely creative, the mechanics and drive behind the development of these said concepts is done so spotty, it actually makes the game feel premature and gimmicky. I think as we all know now that the basis of Okami’s gameplay is the Celestial Brush. The Brush, which allows you to draw objects into the game world, is utilized by simply holding the R1 button and drawing the object in question with either square or triangle. This is used to solve puzzles, interact with the environment, and even fight. The concept feels right out of a DS or Wii game, actually, and amazingly enough the Brush’s controls are extremely intuitive and done extremely well with merely an analog stick. Just after learning how to draw with the brush it’ll click like that, and you’ll be drawing tons of stuff. The controls in this game are to be praised highly. They really out did themselves with the controls in this one. Nothing feels uncomfortable, everything feels natural, and it’s easy to pick up and play.

The whole point of the game is for Amaterasu, the Sun God, to heal the land from curses and evil. Using your brush you can heal trees and bring them back to life, mend areas that are broken, slash enemies by drawing a single line stroke, and a myriad of other abilities. Throughout the game, Amaterasu and her comrade Issun encounter much danger and peril. It’s your job to heal the land and rid the country of Nippon (Japan) of evil. In a Zelda like fashion the two embark on a journey that takes them through multiple dungeons, locations, and areas. This is where Okami’s designs start to fail.

Okami is an easy game. A really easy game. Easy usually is not a problem because even the easiest games can be fun and a blast to play, Okami however replaces fun with brain dead puzzles, linearity, and boring tasks. The game is set up in a linear fashion. You go from one town, curing the area while doing dungeons, and then move on to the next area. The game is extremely linear and offers little to do, which is a shame because the world is pretty decent in size to pull of some nifty tricks. What’s more, in order for you to enter most “dungeons” (I will use that term lightly and you will understand why later on) you are often asked to do tedious and menial tasks you really don’t want to do. For all the hate Wind Waker got for it’s Tri-Force quest, Okami does a couple of these quests ten times as bad. It’s not that the tasks are hard, they’re actually pretty easy, it’s just that the game uses these quests as padding to prolong the game time, and they often made me question why I was doing them in the first place.

The game flow in Okami is really off. One moment you’re trying to get into a dungeon, the next minute you’re collecting ingredients for a dinner. Most of these things appear to be thinly veiled sidequests at first, but it always turns out that they’re actually apart of the main story. So when you’re finished with these tasks the world ends up feeling barren, lifeless, and devoid of any side things to do. Most side quests or side things you encounter are actually rehashed versions of what you already experience in the main story, so it gets redundant. And the worst part is that you don’t have dungeons or puzzles to fall back on. Once you finish these fetch quests and tasks, unlock their assigned dungeons, and finally get inside them you realize that there’s nothing all that great in the first place. Most dungeons in Okami can be completed in just a few minutes, and that is no exaggeration.

I brought up the brush before, and as I said, the concept is fantastic but the delivery lacks creativity and an overall fun factor. Most puzzles in this game utilize the brush, but they are often so simple that they require literally no train of thought. Making wind to blow windmills. Slashing things with one stroke cutting them in half. While the games feature is definitely admirable, it gets boring and old fast. One of the reasons for this is the lack of variety in the things you draw. Since they all are of the circle or line variety, when you learn new abilities sometimes you’ll blink twice questioning yourself if you’ve seen that ability before: drawing a line from the water to the enemy, drenching the monster with it; drawing a line from a fire to the enemy, causing them to catch fire. Things like that pop up but rarely, making most of the fights play out the same way. While the idea is great, these abilities are rarely ever used and the game never gives you any excuse to use them creatively because it’s so easy. They come off as forced and gimmicky. The brush leaves little room to explore, due to the fact once you get a new ability you’ll probably never ever use it again. The game, unlike Capcom titles in the past, does not force you to get fully accustomed to the abilities you obtain to make due. The best thing about Capcom games is that they force the player to learn the ropes and if you don’t, usually you’re out of luck. In the end, you have a colossal amount of brush techniques but you use only maybe a few of them. The rest end up as filler.

Still, for what it does, the brush works. It’s a very charming idea. My problem is the use of it. You find yourself drawing circles around trees and making simplistic dots to make stars rather than anything truly creative and memorable. Of course, this could be because the developers wanted to make the mechanic accessible to all users, it still could have been evolved more. If the brush were more interesting to use past the first few hours, I would have enjoyed the game a lot more, but for what it is, the brush is only as a good premise rather than a good game mechanic.

Furthermore, the puzzles could have been done much better. The “puzzles” in this game are not only laughable, they insult the player’s intelligence. Okami really makes you wonder if you’re playing a kids game. Perhaps the most unsettling thing about the dungeons, puzzles, and the game in general is the amount of hand holding the game does.

Your comrade Issun is an extremely opinionated little fellow. He is Okami’s version of Navi. A more talkative, annoying, and ear grating version of Navi. He often goes out of his way not only to solve the puzzles in the game for you, but he constantly interrupts the flow of the gameplay by talking in general. If you want to open a door he’ll often blurt out something like, “You sure you want to continue? I don’t know about that..this is scary!” and it is beyond annoying. The thing is that the game is so brain dead in difficulty that it’s rather insulting to have some guy always breathing down your neck telling you what to do. In one dungeon where you receive the wind brush technique Issun will go into detail how to use the brush ability, asking you to try out the brush on a windmill. You know Issun, I think I’m smart enough to figure out I need to use a wind ability on a windmill. This whole hand holding segment was bearable in the introduction because it could have served as a tutorial, but this continues throughout the entire game. He even interrupts boss battles. This is a very sad thing indeed because the fun of the entire genre is figuring out the puzzles, exploring, doing sidequests, and the dungeons. Okami lacks high marks in all of these.

Okami features a level progression system, one quite similar to many rpgs on the market, but a little different. Praise is acquired after doing good deeds, whether it is healing the cursed land that surrounds the area, feeding animals food, doing quests for people in town, and many other things. Due to lack of belief in gods by the people at this point in the story (something which is reflected many times in the plot extremely well without coming off as preachy), Ammy needs to show the people of Nippon that gods truly do exist and look out for them. Praise is required to level up the amount of Ink bottles you can carry, how much life Ammy has, the amount of money she can receive in her pouch, and so forth. It’s a fun system, but unfortunately getting most of the praise in the game is received by doing the side quests, which honestly did not interest me much in this game. Near the end of the game, Praise is needed in mass amounts. This means that at every present opportunity your goal at the end should be to acquire some praise, in order to level up your stats. It eventually gets dull and quite frankly, it does not feel very rewarding due to the fact the difficulty still ranges low at that point in time.

If I was to improve the Praise system in any way would be something that is the complete opposite of what’s presented in Okami. Since Praise raises the belief people have in the gods, it would be fun if there was a system in place that lowers that said belief, making a certain element of risk vs reward. Depending on your praise level, you could invest in certain abilities, participate in certain quests, and it would definitely make the game a lot less linear than it already is. Much like Knights of the Old Republic in principle, but I truly feel that would lend a more realistic and interesting take on Okami’s concept.

You would think that battles (especially bosses) would suffice. Not in Okami. Fighting is one of the more boring aspects of the game. It starts off fine but it swings into mediocrity due to most lack of weapon variety, moves to pull off, and difficulty (just a little less easy than the puzzles, so I can give the combat that). Battles are either uninspired, tedious, or both. In one boss battle you have to get the boss drunk. Instead of being creative, the game simply has you draw a line from the Sake to the bosses mouth. I don’t know about everyone else, but drawing lines is not my theory of an engaging boss battle. Much like the dungeons, the only particularly good boss battles are the first and last bosses, with a few interesting ones in between. If the battles were in an open field rather than being in field zones surrounded by impassable walls the battles would probably feel a little more involving. The fights, like the rest of the game, had the right idea but they lacked a significant amount of scope. Most battles can be avoided — and in my case I went out of my way to. Battles have little emphasis here, and come off as unnecessary and plain. While the enemy variety is definitely nice, it’s still not enough to save the plain battle system that’s featured in Okami. The battles work, but from the developer that currently makes the best action games on the market, they were simply disappointing.

You’d think with all of these complaints that Okami’s brain dead difficulty would be satisfied for fun, right? At least it has interesting side quests…right? No. If fun to you is doing fetch quests and feeding squirrels nuts then Okami is for you. I personally find it dull, and while I don’t have anything against fetch quests (it honestly depends), Okami’s quests border on unbearable. It’s the ultimate form of “being good is boring” in games I’ve seen. I don’t want to feed squirrels nuts or make trees happy. I don’t want to fetch you vases. I don’t to wake up a sleeping bear balancing on a nut. While there are other types of sidequests, they’re not that engaging either, and the ones that are actually fun rarely pop up – such as fishing. There are monster hunt quests, but as I said before, fighting gets boring so that’s usually out of the question. Many of the sidequests in the game feel unrewarding due to the game’s lack of any difficulty whatsoever. You receive many items to help you out on your quest but you don’t need them because the game is so easy.

Exploration is like this as well. Usually in Okami, I found myself not even bothering to explore areas because I knew I would get something that would make the game even easier. Capcom should have balanced this out more. The world, while big, has a significant lack of side quests and things to do. Actually, there are lots of things to do, but they aren’t particularly fun. You can revive all the trees in the game, which is the result of drawing a circle around them (which gets boring by the second time you’ve done it), feed animals by giving them food you’ve bought, collect beads, do fetch quests for villagers, and that’s about it. The developers said that the game was so huge that they neglected to add any extra stuff, but the game could have used this because the rest of the game is padded. You have a 30 hour adventure in Okami and most of it is spent giving nuts to squirrels or drawing circles around trees; I simply didn’t care so I continued on with the game, but was delayed by even more fetch quests in order to progress the story.

The biggest flaw of this game is the pacing. You spend so much time flailing and wailing and doing meaningless tasks, that by the time you do something interesting you don’t care anymore. The intro itself takes up more than half of the game, which is pretty bad. The game starts out as great, but as you delve more into it, it continuously gets more underwhelming as time goes by.

Okami is definitely a step in the right direction but the delivery is nothing but an extremely flawed adventure. Capcom and Clover can do better than this. If and when a sequel is released, I hope that they toughen the game out, and give the player more choices.

A bit overrated, but unlike other overrated titles I can’t see the appeal of Okami to make people give it 9.0’s, call it GOTY, or even call it a great game. I guess this one was not my thing and while I didn’t come out of it being overly positive, I still praise what was done here and I applaud having the balls to at least try something new. What is here is a pretty decent action adventure game with a new take, it just didn’t pull off these unique features as well as it could have.

Synopsis:

+ Amazing graphics
+ Great music
+ Startling art direction
+ Admirable premise
+ Great story
+ The game has a lot of soul.
+ Excellent controls.
+ Some extremely creative boss fights…just not enough of them.
+ Grade A translation and dialouge.
+ Lengthy game.

- Overly simplistic gameplay
- Gimmicky game mechanics
- While having a good story, the game has WAY TOO MUCH TEXT. I often find myself skipping what a lot of people say due to the extraneous amount of text, most of which is unecessary.
- Issun tells how to do practically every puzzle
- Boring side quests, and for what there is of them, there’s a significant lack of quests as well.
- Pacing is out of whack.
- 30 hour game, and yet most of it is padded and overly long. Could have been easily achieved with 15 hours.
- Dungeons are too short.
- Beyond easy difficulty.
- Dull combat.
- Lack of drive to explore due to brain dead difficulty.
- Too linear.
- Load times.

RATINGS
Gameplay: 6
Graphics: 9
Sound: 8
Value: 7
OVERALL: Suggested only if it can be found cheap.

Released in 1997, Intelligent Qube, was among many reasons for gamers to invest into a Sony Playstation. Along sideFinal Fantasy VII, Parappa The Rapper, Klonoa, Ray Storm, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Crash Bandicoot 2,and many others, IQ helped seal the deal that Playstation was indeed a gaming powerhouse.

The concept was simple. The game was a puzzle game, similar to the Tetris/Dr. Mario formula, but created in a completely original and interesting new take on the genre.

There are three cubes types:

Normal cubes, which are gray and can be destroyed at anytime.

Advantage cubes, green cubes, which after being destroyed set off a linked combo destroying cubes adjacent to them. It’s possible to set off more than one green cube at once.

Forbidden cubes, which are black. These are not to be destroyed or even touched. It’s suggested to let these cube types to completely fall off the platform because you get bonus points for doing so. Destroying a black cube will result in losing a whole row of tiles on the platform, making the situation that much more tricky.

The main character, Elliot, is placed on a platform with multiple cubes. The goal is to not fall off the end of the said platform. The thing is, the multiple cubes that are placed in the area continue to roll down. Unlike other puzzle games that take the Tetris take, IQ has the objects set up as obstacles, so there’s a bigger sense of interactivity. They can crush, push, and literally kill you.

In order to make sure they don’t end up pushing you off the platform, the player has destroy them before they reach the end, resulting in a game over. The goal of the game is to destroy as many gray and green cubes as fast as possible to prevent them from pushing you off the edge. To get most of the cubes deleted, the player has to take advantage of a feature that lets you combo green cubes together, allowing you to take rows upon rows of blocks. The tricky thing is that you have to watch out for the black blocks, so there’s a deep sense of risk vs reward here.

To break cubes the player has to position him/herself with the cube they’re targeting, press the activate tile button, and wait for the cube to fall on it. Once it’s reached your target tile, you press the same button, deleting the cube/s you went for.

While it sounds pretty easy, it’s not. IQ’s gameplay definitely lives up to it’s name. The marketing campaign of the game even went as far as asking players to try to game out, just to see how smart they are. It would be great if I could have some of those old IQ magazine ads.

What’s more, is that the game features some of the best music in a puzzle game. It really sets the mood I think.

IQ has always had a lot to offer if you’re into arcade gameplay or simply like puzzle games in general. I still pop it in even to this day for the occasional block ass kicking. With multiple characters to unlock, scores to beat, and other things to do, I’d say IQ has a moderate replay value level if you’re into the game, but it’s the type where you’ll come back over and over despite these extras just because it’s so fun.

Highly underappreciated, and although I wouldn’t say it’s the best puzzle game ever (Devil Dice/Bombastic is that folks), it’s certainly up there. Unfortunately, it has a high fetch price online and it’s next to impossible to find in stores. We can only hope the PSP version gets released here so everyone can play this gem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4YGOfDRLec

Misunderstood

I recently had the opportunity to get my hands on Sega’s “Yakuza”, an action rpg title for the Sony Playstation 2. Developed by the recently merged teams of Sega’s old Amusement Vision (Super Monkey Ball, Spikeout) and Smilebit (Jet Set Radio, Jet Set Radio Future, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Gun Valkyrie) teams, Yakuza utilizes many elements from a few well known open-ended games, such as Grand Theft Auto and Sega’s very own Shenmue. The game ends up being a completely unique experience, and is a very compelling take on a play style which is flooded with dozens of “me too’s” on the market.

First and foremost, it must be said what Yakuza is, and what it isn’t. While it was indeed suggested that the game is definitely inspired by a few open-ended games released prior to it, it is nothing like these games and the similarities are small. Many reviewers and profressional game journalists seem to be giving this game the most mundane and out of touch titles, many of which the game doesn’t deserve. Game Informer’s beyond tepid review described the game as “not GTA in Tokyo” like they thought it was going to be, and this actually made them dock points in their review. In fact, it was perhaps their biggest complaint. Instead of concentrating on what Yakuzais, most reviewers seem to only care about comparing this piece to it’s peers.

Whether the game is GTA in Tokyo, Shenmue’s core gameplay aspects revisioned – which is what I truly believe – or not, Yakuza still stands on itself as a unique intentity and does many things right. Although there are a few hiccups that may deter some players from enjoying the game in full, these problems do not ruin the experience, as Yakuza is a game where it’s fine points overcome it’s apparent (mostly technical) flaws.

Gameplay

Yakuza features a blend of many well known elements from specific games, which is the reason why the title is being compared left and right to every open ended game on the market, or the beat em up genre, something Sega was once very proficient at.

The two main gameplay elements are adventure and battle.

Yakuza’s main setting is in the fictional district of Kamurocho, a take on the Kabuki-cho district of Tokyo. Kamarucho, like it’s real life counterpart, are red light districts heavy in yakuza hangouts, strip clubs, hostess bars, and many other vicinities. In Yakuza, your main form of exploration is by foot in what I call “adventure mode”. Here, you have access to a map which shows various blips and places Kazuma can visit. It’s something very much comparable to the likes of Grand Theft Auto, while at the same time there’s no form of transportation anywhere in the game (aside from the taxi you can use to instantly teleport to various locations in the district). The game offers a good amount of freedom, but it’s a different type of freedom compared to GTA, which is a sandbox. I would like to emphasize that Yakuza is not a sandbox. You cannot even kill or intereact with random bystanders. While in adventure mode, the player has access to missions, or sidequests, by talking to various npc’s. These sidequests range from fetch quests, to character specific side missions that add to the overall plot, atmosphere, and setting. The game features over 70 missions, so there is definitely plenty to do and keep players busy. The open-ended nature of the game is apart of it’s draw and appeal. I found myself doing nothing but side stuff for hours on end without touching the story. Yakuza truly is an immersive game, and my clock time is there to prove it. This is where the Shenmue comparison comes in: most of your time in the game will be spent dawdling, and doing side quests rather than venturing through the main story (as good as it is). In fact, doing missions is key to actually enjoying the game, as rushing through simply makes the game feel unbalanced, incohesive, and inconsistent. While exploring the moderately sized Kamurocho, players may encounter many ways to invest his/her time without actively participating in the main story, whether it be mini games, like hitting balls at the batting cage, or getting drunk at hostess bars attempting to get pixelated women to become attached to the player, where they’re eventually rewarded with rare items.

While continuing with the comparison to Shenmue, Yakuza is a sort of spiritual sucessor to the game series, albeit more approachable. Shenmue was a series so stuck in it’s bid for achieving life like results, and emulating real life, that it wasn’t as approachable as other games. It was typically a hate it or love it type of game. In Shenmue,which was a detective game of some sorts, in order to get your information, you needed to go to the right people to get the right clues. Any NPC could be engaged, any drawer in a closet could be opened, rarely was a texture ever reused. While still technically amazing, even to this day, that element of seeking life like results cast away a lot of potential fans of the game series. Yakuza kills off any type of distinctive line that Shenmue created between it’s fans and detractors, all the while still retaining many aspects that made Shenmue games amazing: the attention to detail, and common sense puzzles. Do you need to feed that little kid who’s starving and poor? Where do you buy food? The convience store. Need some medicine because someone’s sick? Go to the pharmacy. Need to find some seedy organizations and people? Go to raunchiest street in town. I appluad Sega for reinventing this approach and making it more accessible, they did a job well done.

Continuing, we have battles. While the adventure elements are perhaps the meat of the game, battles is another big emphasis in Yakuza. Potential battles in adventure mode can be seen. Gang members, Yakuza, or just about anyone can start a battle with you. They stand out from the rest of the crowd so it’s easy to spot them. Battles are “random”, and I say “random” because while you can indeed see the enemies you fight before you engage them, the rate that they appear is not set at any interval, and they often respawn randomly.

Battles are done in a beat em up fashion. You start out with only a few moves, which makes combat sort of dull after awhile. You have a few combos, and that’s really it. Kazuma has the ability to pick up weapons in the battle field, ranging from pliers, street signs, poles, traffic cones, swords, and guns to even shields, sledgehammers, chef knives, axes, schimitars, lances, even the meat you can find hanging in a kitchen, and many many other forms of weaponry. The weapon list is perhaps the most varied, diverse, and expansive than any game I’ve played that is not Dead Rising.

The magic in Yakuza’s battle system is the heat system. A guage that acts like a Super guage in a fighting game, racks up points when you kick tail. When it reaches to a certain point, a blue aura surrounds Kazuma, allowing him to pull of abilities he other wise wouldn’t be able to do. Heat moves are preset to the triangle button, allowing various moves, whether they are enviromental, weapon based, or whatever. Grabbing an enemy and walking them toward an object (wall, desk) allows you to slam their head into it. Equipping a weapon and pressing triangle lets you do it’s heat specific attack. As you learn more and more moves, the battle system depth rises from archaic and basic, to some of the funnest crap you’ll ever lay your hands on, and it’s all thanks to the Heat guage, a genius game design mechanic.

As you win battles, Kazuma gains experience. After gaining a certain amount of experience, players can customize Kazuma, docking their points into three seperate categories: Body, Soul, and Technique. Technique makes Kazuma learn new moves, whether it’s a kick that charges, or a throw where he grabs the enemy and swings them around in a circle, hitting their comrades in the process. Body increases HP, defensive maneuvers, dodge ability, and other things. Soul gives heat specific attacks, like the ability to use heat with a weapon, or using the taunt to increase your heat guage.

If there is any game that applies to the phrase “You ain’t seen nothing yet!”, Yakuza is that game. The gameplay continously gets better and better. If all games had gameplay pacing like this, they’d be unstoppable. As you learn more moves, the depth of the battles truly open up. Certain moves are heat specific, so players will find themselves fighting their best so they can pull off these seriously badass (and useful) moves. Yakuza is not the type of game where, upon getting new abilities you don’t use the old ones. In order to understand and utilize the battle system, you have to take advantage of everything. This makes the battle system not getting boring, because when you get a new move, it will prove usefullness and you will use it. Throughout the game, Kazuma can learn multiple throws, parries, counters, reversals, moves that hit behind his back (completely nulling the fact that you can’t change your move direction in mid-combo), the ability to safe fall when in mid air to prevent falling on the ground and being subjected to a down attack. What was once a battle system that was nothing but combo after combo and the occasional block turns into a game about strategically placing yourself on the field, learning how to counter and parry (think Street Fighter III: Third Strike or Devil May Cry 3’s Royal Guard style), learning when and how to use a heat attack, and what weapons to use. Add in the QTE like sequences, which make battles absolutely intense, and you have a winner. Yakuza offers one of the most deep and fun fighting systems I’ve played with since Devil May Cry 3, and nearly trumps any battle system in recent beat em ups, and for an action rpg that’s saying a lot, especially considering the fact I often find action rpgs to be the most repetitive and boring action games out there. The battle system has a lot to offer, and will keep players coming back. What’s more, the later battles in the game are difficult and take a certain degree of skill, but it still doesn’t cut off players who are struggling and want an easier ride, because after a certain amount of deaths in a row the game asks if you want to switch the difficulty to easy mode.

Quite possibly the only bad thing about the gameplay are the load times. Load times are frequent, and usually long, but you will find that by the 5th hour you don’t care at all because the game is that much fun. Still, it’s an issue you can’t help but hope is fixed in the upcoming sequel.

Story

Yakuza is based around an ex-yakuza gangster, recently released from prison. Ungrettably admitting doing a crime he didn’t commit, to protect those he loved most, Kazuma spent 10 years in jail. Once he was released, it seems a few people decided to start brewing a tea I like to call “trouble”. 10 billion Yen was found stolen straight from Tojo Clan safe, the Yakuza clan Kazuma was expelled from, and a little girl named Haruka, is at the center of it.

Yakuza features an extremely well done, serious story. Everything from the direction, the characters, the side quests that enrich the plot even further, are all very well told, even if cliche’ at times. The main character in particular, Kazuma Kiryu, stands as one of the more likeable main characters in a new video game IP in some time. The guy is not only a badass, he has a good heart too. Many video game characters come off as trying to be badass just because they can – one of my favorite characters, Dante from Devil May Cry, is a very good example. Kiryu’s badassness never comes off as over the top. When Kazuma does something, the player can’t help but cheer and root at the tv screen. Kazuma is such an interesting and overall fun character to play as, he can make even the most tame players really get into the game.

While the story is very good, it’s not perfect and it’s definitely not for everyone. Some may not like it as it could come off very B-movie like. Others may not be satisfied with the twists and turns in the plot, some even going as far as calling the story convoluted. I, myself, was very into the story of this game, and couldn’t wait for the next cutscene. It’s the type of game where you want more cutscenes instead of less, which brings up my next point: the flow and development of the story. While the direction is definitely up there, cutscenes are haphazardly ruined because of a problem that plagues other parts of the game: the loading. Instead of making one long cutscene, Sega treats it’s audience with multiple ones seperated by load times. This can absolutely kill the mood, as a lot of these scenes are either aprupt or poorly developed with little if any transition. Unfortunately this is not new to games recently as many rpgs lately have had this problem. But while a lot of those games are low budget, Yakuza is an extremely high budget game with production values leveling at nearly 20 Million. Surely, with that kind of budget, more care could have gone into polishing the game’s cutscenes up. We can only pray Sega will fix this problem in the upcoming sequel.

Another problem is the characterization. Perhaps this is because I wanted more of the story, but certain characters simply were not developed as much as they should have been, which is disappointing, as a lot of interesting character relationships are present.

Despite these small niggles, the story still presents itself as an extremely well done and cohesive plot that will keep the player coming back for more.

Yakuza is the type of game where it’s good points overcome it’s flaws. It’s a flawed beauty. Even though it’s not perfect, it gets the job done, and it does it extremely well. While I did not like the load times before battles, the heart pumping heavy metal music made up for it, making me anticipate the battles even more. Even though the cutscenes had a serious problem with consistency, I got over that problem much more easier than I thought I would. I felt there were far too many fetch quest type quests in the game, but I still enjoyed them. In the sequel I really hope there are more character specific missions, and personal ones, as those were my highlights of the first game.

Yakuza offers a lot to players, and they can expect 15 hours of playtime if they play for the story. Doing all 70+ missions, beating the secret boss (the hardest boss in the game), and all other extraneous stuff could prolonge the game easily to 30 to 40 hours (my clocktime). And even after that, the game offers some semblance of replay value – aside from being an awesome game – through Adventure Review Mode and Battle Review Mode. Adventure Mode lets players have access to the entire city district of Kamurocho and every single mission is unlocked right at the beginning. However, all story elements are absent and Kazuma starts at level one. Adventure review mode makes Yakuza feel like a completely different game. Battle review mode lets you replay various battles in the game with set conditions, whether Kazuma is customized to a certain play style or level, or you fight every boss in the game in a marathon boss rush mode.

Yakuza is the complete package. Highly suggested. Although a flawed game, the attempt and heart was there, and it’s the type of game that simply gets better the more you play.