Some of the more obscure references might skip by someone who isn’t so familiar with Japan, but not many. These are just three examples across the dozens of typically hilarious sub-quests, filled with a keen awareness of the silly, sublime, and pop culture of Japan. That is reserved for the sub-quest where you help out another Yakuza boss and then to reward you he takes you to a kink club where patrons dress up in nappies and are mothered by the women workers there. Kiryu, the muscle-bound, heavily tattooed former head of a major yakuza clan, is there posing like he belongs to AKB-48, while undies-man is wriggling around on the floor looking for the perfect angle. Things will get really weird when Kiryu gets pulled into a photo shoot with a dude wearing nothing but bright red underwear, and being told to make an idol-like love heart symbol with his hands. So Kiryu finds himself dragged into a competition to build the best hostess club in the world, complete with an absolute mockery of a sinister rival club owner to deal with. Most of the humour is found in the sub-quests, as a way of breaking down what would otherwise come across as a too-earnest B-grade yakuza crime drama. Of course, that authenticity doesn’t stop Yakuza Kiwami 2 from having a wicked sense of humour and the surreal, and this game had me laughing as much as in any other title in the series. A confident, artful developer understands the value of tiny background elements like that in building a genuine sense of place and time. A lesser developer simply would have forgotten the Christmas setting altogether, or gone overboard with it. It might sound strange to spend a paragraph on such a tiny element of the aesthetic, but it is perhaps the best example of the complete attention to the smallest of details that has gone into this game. So the presence of Christmas is conveyed in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it way in Yakuza Kiwami 2 – a Christmas carol will play over the audio in a store. But Christmas doesn’t mean much to the Japanese – it’s not even a public holiday – and while the country celebrates it, it’s more as an excuse to buy your partner a gift and enjoy the cold winter snuggled up together – it’s not that much different to Valentine’s Day. In any game developed in the west a “Christmas” setting would mean red and green tinsel everywhere and covering everything. One aesthetic feature in this game in particular that I loved is the way it depicts Christmas. The above applies to all Yakuza titles, and it applies to Yakuza Kiwami 2 as well. Where most are simply filled with boring nothingness in the name of scale, the Yakuza titles have always had small worlds, but so intricately designed ones that you’ll never go a minute without having your attention pulled somewhere. Yakuza is the kind of game where I’ll wander around to explore every nook and cranny just to see what is around a corner, and in that sense it’s one of the few franchises that has ever delivered on the promise of open world games. It’s not that I’m involved in the actual yakuza in any way, but the way the developers have captured the vibrancy, colour, and design of Japanese cities and life is just too authentic to ignore. Seeing it in HD glory on modern systems, it’s hard to argue that analysis.Įvery time I review a Yakuza title I talk about how one of its greatest qualities is the way that it reminds me of the Japan I truly love, and how every time I play one of these games I find myself planning my next trip immediately after. Thankfully, the publisher has gone back and started the process of bringing those older entries in the series to PlayStation 4 for English speakers, and even more thankfully, Yakuza 2 happens to be the one many agree is the best the series has ever thrown up. It was one thing to say that the Yakuza series has somehow balanced out a brilliantly surreal sense of humour with all the drama and style of an 70’s, 80’s or 90’s yakuza crime film, but it’s quite another to witness that blend in motion and say to yourself “you know what, that’s actually brilliant, and I’ve got to play this.”įor many people, 2017’s Yakuza 0 was their first real bite and the franchise, and then, in jumping straight to Yakuza 6 in 2018, SEGA potentially could have lost a lot of new converts. It’s easy to understand why, in an era of social media and ready video sharing. Related reading: Our review of Yakuza Kiwami – the remake of the first Yakuza
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