![]() Collectively, the saga spans multiple decades and it’s thoroughly rewarding to see where Kiryu ends up. ![]() Over the course of the series, he adopts a young girl named Haruka and becomes her guardian, opening up an orphanage to take care of her and other children who, like him, had nowhere else to go. Kiryu is a thoroughly honorable and good-hearted man (with lovably dated fashion sense) and in many ways the moral rock of the series – despite his criminal background and his reputation as a ferocious and unstoppable fighter, he is fiercely loyal to his friends and those on the margins of society, making time to protect the homeless or help a struggling family reconcile after a loss. “We don’t deserve him and we should all try to be like him.” I asked my wife, a fellow fan and my partner-in-crime playing through the series thus far how best to describe him. Kiryu is, without hyperbole, one of the greatest video game characters of all time. The Yakuza series bounces between time periods and protagonists as it goes on, but the bulk of the franchise’s story is built around the story of Kazuma Kiryu, a former yakuza who steps away from the life after doing time for a crime he did not commit but keeps getting dragged back in out of a sense of loyalty and duty. Who am I and what am I doing in these games? Believe it or not, this isn’t the worst night Kiryu has at a bar. They also act as unique and interesting takes on Japanese history and culture – for instance, Yakuza Zero comments on the 1980s Japanese bubble economy by making money absurdly plentiful and tying excessive spending to improving your stats. Pick up a Yakuza game and you’re in for 20-30+ hours of outstanding serialized crime drama and brutal street fights punctuated by the occasional stop at a crane game to make a random child happy, hitting the driving range, or even managing a nightclub. Yakuza (or Ryū ga Gotoku as it is known in Japan – which roughly translates to Like a Dragon) is a multiplatform series of 3-D action/role-playing games that began on the Playstation 2 its most recent release (which just dropped on Februrary 11th) is Yakuza Remastered Collection on Playstation 4, which combines Yakuza 3-5 into one package and for the first time makes the entire mainline series playable on one console.Īt first blush, the closest analogue to the series is likely Grand Theft Auto, due to its themes of organized crime and free-roaming 3D world map – but really it’s closer to fellow Sega franchise Shenmue thanks to its sprawling narrative and plethora of goofy side activities, or a 3-D version of the classic NES game River City Ransom thanks to its urban setting, wacky sense of humor, random street fights, and food-based level-up system. Recurring antagonist and later ally Goro Majima brandishes a baseball bat. ![]() With that in mind, you should play the Yakuza games. ![]() In the grand arc of video game history, we are at the point where obscurity is now a relative concept – since distribution has exponentially improved and online chatter has talked up even the most bizarre concepts and franchises to a pseudo-mainstream level – but there are still series that are so uniquely committed to carving out their own specific corner of the medium that they’ll never quite hit the heights of a Call of Duty or Super Mario, but are absolutely still worth your time and energy.
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