Friday, January 8, 2010

The Dragon of Dojima Vs. The Dragon of Kansai

I finally polished off Yakuza 2 last night, total game time about 27 and a half hours.

I have to say, it was pretty awesome. These games look pretty dated now, being PS2 titles, but they have it where it counts, in presentation and play mechanics. The brawling in Yakuza 2 seems to have a lot more variety than the first, and the story is still very good, though maybe one or two twists past totally believable, in the end. It's a good time.

The semi-open world and RPG mechanics mixed in are all really evocative of a true Japanese city, and that's really cool. How many other games have multiple bars you can go into, order the finest whiskeys, and have the master give you a little history of the brands? He'll even stop you from ordering more if you drink too much.

I already own Ryu Ga Gotoku 3, the Japanese version of the sequel, but I'll probably pick up the localized version when it hits in March, provided Sega doesn't fuck it up by making it with an English dub only or something. It's bad enough they're releasing more than a year after the Japanese version, in the same month as FF13 and God of War 3, and just before Ryu Ga Gotoku 4's Japanese release.

I'll probably also have the wife pick up the spin-off, Ryu Ga Gotoku Kenzan! when she's in Japan this month for her friend's wedding.

4 comments:

Greg said...

Latest video of me sucking online in Forza 3.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26cuxd92KyA

Count Elmdor said...

Cool. Why does the car go transparent during the crash?

Greg said...

I think it is part of the anti-griefer mechanic to disarm the types who are inclined to drive the course in reverse to purposely make others crash.

Listening to COP 14 now which is good as it is keeping me from going to work on Sunday.

Greg said...

I should mention that after that roll over crash, my car 's performance was severely impaired such that I could only go about 40 mph.