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Published by: SEGA
Developed by: Amusement Vision
Genre: Action Adventure
Players: 1
Rated: M (Mature)
Release Date: September 9, 2008
Screenshots: Link
Amazon: Buy Now!
Written By: Daniel Sims

One of the first releases in the last major wave of Playstation 2 games, the original Yakuza was a pretty unique action role-playing game that brought back some old school gameplay elements and had a very captivating visual aesthetic considering its release nearly a year after the Xbox 360�s launch. Yakuza 2 is basically a more optimized version of the same game with about twice as much content.

The Yakuza games have been called many things, from a Japanese rendition of Grand Theft Auto to a relative of Shenmue, incorporating elements of both of those games like a Japanese city to explore and a crime drama storyline. In reality the Yakuza formula is something of a Japanese RPG set in a faithfully re-created urban Japan where battles play out like Final Fight.

The original Yakuza was compelling for its deep mystery/crime drama storyline, fun for its old school-flavored combat system, and immersive for being set in a virtual city that felt truly dense. Yakuza 2 introduces a new storyline, cleans up some of the gameplay, and brings players to a new city (and lets them return to the old one).

Picking up a year after the first game, Yakuza 2 has protagonist Kazuma Kiriyu return to Japan�s criminal underworld to stop an all-out war between his old Tokyo-based families and a clan based in Osaka, which has him kicking ass in both cities and eventually dealing with Korean mafia. Understanding Yakuza 2�s story almost definitely requires experience with the first game. Yakuza 2 offers a recap of the events of the original early on in the game and then immediately bombards players with returning characters and groups that it fully expects them to recognize. Overall Yakuza 2�s storyline is more straightforward than the first game�s with fewer mysteries and twists but still entertaining and well told with excellent real-time cut scenes for a PS2 game.

Kamurocho - the impressively realistic rendition of Tokyo�s Kabuki-cho district from the first game is back here and looks pretty much the same but is still just as impressive as before considering few cities in videogames look this vivid. Players travel back and forth between there and Sotenbouri � a recreation of the area around Osaka�s Dōtonbori canal which looks equally impressive.

Both cities are used to turn Yakua 2, like its predecessor, into somewhat of a catalogue of Japanese urban night life. Along with the hours� worth of RPG-style side-quests, there are also minigames played out in batting cages, bowling alleys, mahjong parlors, hostess bars, and other fun places. This is all in the midst of dozens of bars, stores, and restaurants, probably far more than would ever be useful in a game, but they�re still there as product placement for the sake of realism.

What�s interestingly pleasant about Yakuza 2�s pacing is how the designers at times purposefully set aside moments in the game where you�re free to explore a city without pressure from the immediate obligations of the main quest � something that very few RPGs have the presence of mind to do. Better yet, after the game is finished a special �Adventure� game is unlocked where players are planted back in the game world but with no main quest, freeing them to pursue any side content they may have passed up before. All that and the fact that Yakuza 2�s main quest is about three chapters longer than that of the original ensures that players will probably spend significantly more time with Yakuza 2 than they did with the first game.

Combat is the same brawler-based system as before but with more weapons and moves to help Kazuma better manage fights with large crowds of enemies which is when Yakuza is at its best. The environmental finishing moves Kazuma performs, including special ones for each boss, look and sound especially brutal in Yakuza 2. Some of them, like kneeing a man into a wall before he hits the ground from being slammed, or punching a man�s face into the ground, came off as so brazen that I sometimes felt like apologizing to defeated enemies.

One particularly amazing thing about Yakuza 2�s combat is that it incorporates a lot of Quick Time Events� that are actually fun. When they became really popular in console games I started to hate QTEs, viewing them as a cheap route to interactive storytelling. However, there�s something about how QTEs are used in brawlers � their birthplace, that makes them feel very visceral and overall just right.

Overall the fighting in Yakuza 2 just feels more polished as a challenging and somewhat deep system that�s not hard to learn, although the game doesn�t really contain any sequences as memorable as the Chinatown fight in the original Yakuza. Lastly, Yakuza 2 runs noticeably better than its predecessor. Load times overall have been just about cut in half and are completely absent going into random battles.

Bottom Line
Yakuza 2 is undeniably more of the same of its predecessors with small tweaks and optimizations in its gameplay, but fans of the first game should be pleased with Yakuza 2�s new storyline and with how much extra content has been added.

8/10

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