Just about two years ago Sega brought to the UK a new franchise called Yakuza. It followed the events surrounding a small clan called the Tojo Yakuza and its chairman Kazuma Kiryu. It was an underdog at the time of release with the distinct feel of a GTA clone with a Japanese flavour, but it was a smash hit. Sega had managed to blend a Sandbox style game with a traditional JRPG to create a wonderful albeit brutal RPG brawler. Now after two years the sequel has hit our shores, but can it live up to the greatness of the original and can it bring with it enough of a change to make sure that things aren’t stale.
Yakuza 2 starts off with a 20 minute optional recap of the first games events, to ensure that any newcomers have fair idea of the events that have lead to the beginning of this tale. The recap though quite short in duration is quite detailed in showing you want actually happens in the first game, having never played the original myself I must admit I felt quite comfortable about what was going on after watching the recap.
Once again you take on the role of Kazuma, now the ex-chairman of the Tojo Clan and pretty much full time father to his adopted daughter from the first game. You are called out of retirement to help your old clan who are on the edge of an all-out-war with a rival clan. As the story starts out it seems that your mission is just to prevent the war from happening at all. But as the plot unfolds it is revealed that there is a leader of one particular clan whose only wish is to be considered the “dragon of Japan”, this ego-charged freak leads Kazuma to not only start but also fight pretty much single-handedly the war that he wished to prevent. This description is but a very small overview of what the actual storyline is though as it is possibly one of the deepest and most complex game storylines I have played through.
The gameplay in Yakuza 2 is well-balanced mixing in the different elements to ensure that things don’t get too monotonous. The one thing that does bore after a while though is something that seasoned JRPG players will know all about and that is random battles. They are a curse in all games of this genre, but a little less so in this game, the random battles are still completely random and pop up everywhere but a nice change is that although you can’t avoid them you can see them coming as the angry thugs will call out to you and insult you before attacking.
As an RPG you can guess that it does feature a levelling up system that does work well and exp is dished out each time you lay someone out for the count. This normally means just an increase in your life and heat bar, which can also be gained by taking some of the side quests that are littered around the game. The just mentioned Heat bar is something that changes the dynamic of the battle system a bit. Basically the Heat bar is like a MP bar on some more traditional games, this bar allows you to access power moves such as executing a brutal wall smash move where Kazuma will face plant a guy’s head into the wall then roundhouse kick his head back into the wall afterwards. At certain points in battles you can enable a charged Heat Mode which allows Kazuma to deal greater damage with his attacks, which is handy against higher levelled characters or bosses.
The combat system is quite basic and feels like some of the old beat ‘em ups of yesteryear, with Square and Triangle doling out the combos and circle giving you the ability to grab opponents and use them as a human shield or throw them around. The problem is that it is quite hard to use the Heat Power in all this, basically you to activate the Heat Power you need to grab hold of an enemy then get them over to a wall or object to perform the attack. This is a problem as it is actually quite hard in later parts of the game to grab people or if you do manage it they usually kick out of your grip before you have them where you wanted them.
The graphics are both the games biggest letdown and the biggest strength. This is because of the age of the game, though this is a new release for both the US and the UK the game has actually been out in Japan for almost two years beforehand. So what were top of the range graphics are now quite dated, this isn’t so much down to the coding but the hardware for which it was designed, the aged PS2 just simply has met it’s match with graphical content here. Though saying that if you look at this game as a PS2 game rather than comparing it to the recent Xbox 360 or PS3 games then it really is the Gillette of graphics. Playing Yakuza 2 on an SD TV is the only way to experience the true power of the graphics as if you view it on a HD TV the colours look washed out and it has a fuzzy film all over it.
Yakuza 2 is linear to the extreme with very little deviance from the main mission. There is a few side quests mainly to get additional power-ups for your energy bars, which are quite fun if only for a limited time. The one thing that can be said about the game is that it does capture the wonderful vista of Downtown Tokyo in an amazing reproduction. This really is a great game, if only it had come out a bit earlier then perhaps it would have faired a bit better. That said though rest assured Yakuza 2 is most definitely the last jewel in the most magnificent crown of the PS2, a must buy for lovers of the original and brawler fans alike.
