Yakuza 4 is a PlayStation 3 exclusive game, created by Japanese developers primarily for a Japanese video game market. It is important to make mention of this, because it is quite unlike the ‘western’ games that are the standard fare in South Africa. For this reason, if you intend on playing Yakuza 4 and you aren’t already familiar with the distinctive Japanese style of video game design, you will probably have to hang your pre-conceived gaming notions at the door.

A story driven 3rd person melee fighter at the core, Yakuza 4 is set in the fictional Japanese district of Kamurucho, in which most of the game takes place. The district is pedestrian only and is populated with all sorts of fun and interesting distractions. It’s almost like a condensed sight-seeing tour of a modern Tokyo district (or at least what one would assume is as accurate a representation as one can get through a video game, allowing for creative license).

Visually and aurally, Kamurucho is quite interesting to wander through, and it displays a convincing veneer of the urban life in a Tokyo red-light district. One of the biggest bones of contention is the pop-in of relatively generic pedestrians. It’s a minor distraction, but one that doesn’t ultimately detract from the atmosphere of the game. The main characters are well-textured and detailed with convincing and realistic animations that put on a good show during the extensive cutscenes.

Yakuza 4 continues the story of the main protagonist from the previous titles, Kazuma Kiryu, who has tried to leave his life of organised crime behind him to run an orphanage, but finds himself drawn back.

In order to revitalise the series, along with Kazuma there are three other playable characters: the benevolent loan shark Shun Akiyama; the corrupt policeman with noble motives Masayoshi Tanimura; and escaped death-row convict and former Yakuza Taiga Saejima. All of the characters feature a distinctive style of combat and their own story arc, all of which will converge as the main plot slowly unwinds.

Each of the characters has their own unique secondary objectives (a side-game) which must be completed for 100% game completion. Akiyama will have to create the ‘number one’ hostess at his club; Saejima will train fighters to compete in tournaments; Tanimura will fight street crime; and Kazuma will combat street gangs in order to take down their leader.

The appeal of these side missions will likely differ among players – I found Akiyama’s virtual dress-up-doll game particularly tedious for example, but responding to police radio calls was a welcome distraction from the main plot.

Each of the character stories are rather interesting and do a good job of driving the player forward to the final resolution in which all of the characters team up. The tales are full of intrigue, betrayal, violence, murder, love interests and a good dose of humour – all the key elements of a well told story.

The delivery is through a typically Japanese style of storytelling, with plenty of character development and well directed, fully-voiced and lengthy cutscenes. One may forget their controller for 15 minute stretches as a scene plays out. One could argue that this breaks the flow of the gameplay, which I suppose is true to an extent, but it also serves to bring the characters to life and this permeates into the city of Kamurucho as a whole.

The voice acting is entirely Japanese though, so you best enjoy reading subtitles – there is plenty of detail and subplot to digest.

Something which hearkens back to an older age of Japanese style RPG and rather disjointed in the flow of the storytelling for Yakuza 4, is the scrolling text dialogue boxes that constitute a significant portion of the story delivery. It’s rather strange to watch a lengthy cutscene, return to the game engine to click through lines of text, and then be sent back to another cutscene, all with no actual gameplay taking place in between. It begs the question as to why certain story elements deserved their own voiced and pre-rendered cinematics, while others were glossed over. To add some inflection to the scrolling text portions, the characters over-exaggerate their generic response noises, creating a rather comical tone in juxtaposition to the otherwise serious nature of the cutscenes. Despite all this, the game has enough charm to be forgiven its foibles.

There is an abundance of distraction from the main storyline, with mini-games and other pursuits to keep one busy. Pachinko, saucy table tennis, hanafuda, baseball batting cages, bowling, shogi, darts, pool, dating girls from a hostess club – the list goes on. All of the mini-games are of good quality and don’t feel merely bolted on, although the novelty of certain games will likely wear off quickly. In order to play the mini-games one will need money which is earned through completing side-missions, beating up street thugs, or even actually completing some of the main story line.

Speaking of street thugs, I can finally get around to discussing the actual gameplay of Yakuza 4. Simply put, it is a beat ‘em up with a bit of gunplay. As one wanders the streets of Kamurucho, the stupidest thugs in Japan will frequently stop the most powerful fighting force in Japan on some feeble pretext of not paying enough respect or some such nonsense excuse. This is usually a good reason to dish out a tremendous beating.

Each character has a variety of upgradeable moves to work towards obtaining through the classic mechanic of ‘the more stuff you hit, the more experience you get.’ Each character is sufficiently well-designed in their combat techniques to remain interesting throughout their portion of the game, and the various moves are all functional as well as spectacular. As the player strings together impressive combinations, they will build up a ‘heat’ level, which allows the execution of powerful finishing moves. These moves will also evolve during the course of the game, so things never become stale.

The combat is flashy and stylish and quite simply good fun to be a part of. The environment can be employed in battle, with skulls being cracked on street poles, and bodies being thrown through storefront windows. Of course, it’s not only the street thugs that need disciplining; the story mode will obviously call for a hands-on approach aswell.

There really is a ton of content to explore in Yakuza 4, over and above the already substantial main story line quests. For those that spend the time getting to know the game and don’t mind gaming a little outside of their comfort zone, Yakuza 4 might be a breath of fresh air in a stale gaming catalogue.