Yakuza 2

[steaner]

The first Yakuza was something of a mess. Oh, the game itself was decent in parts, but so much of the effort taken to localize the game ended up muddling an already uneven game experience. The storyline, one of the main things the beat 'em was supposed to rely on, got bogged down with way too much extraneous cussing, some laughable voice acting choices and a narrative that wasn't always as compelling as it probably could have been.

With the sequel, though, novelist Seishu Hase and producer Toshihiro Nagoshi are aiming to right some of the wrongs in the first game. It's a theme that actually carries over into the story of Yakuza 2, and thanks to a much-improved translation (albeit with perhaps a few too many instances of "yer" and "ya") that actually looks like it respects and aims to give the source material a solid foundation in English instead of peppering it with excessive expletives.

This mall has everything.

Much of that comes from the fact that the game is entirely without dubbing. It's presented in Japanese (and, at times, Korean because the story apparently deals with the Korean mafia -- or at least that's what the game's brief 1980s flashback introduction seems to indicate) and subtitled as needed, but otherwise untouched. It's a wise move, and helps steep the characters and story details in the already rich backdrop that was introduced in the first game.

Much has changed since the events of Yakuza, though. The year has meant some differences in characters from the first game; people are older, fatter, more mature, less mature and some are just complete wrecks. It's one of the more impressive ways a sequel has been handled in videogames, and to help bridge the gap between the two, an option to recap everything is available in bite-size chunks (so that it doesn't spoil everything or take up hours of disposition). At a few preset intervals, the flashback from the first game will break and, after popping back into the present day, we were given the option to "continue to reminisce" if we wanted to keep watching things.

If you haven't played the first game, you'll be filled in rather quickly (well, relatively quickly; it actually took us about an hour before we got into the story proper). If you have played the first game or even just have a game save from the first one on your memory card, the file unlocks a special item in your inventory. That said, you probably should play the first game to get the full back story, as Yakuza 2's takes up a full two DVDs -- a rather rare occurrence on the PS2.


Tree hugger.

As mentioned before, the game opens in Kamurocho, in the early '80s. A detective bears witness to a screaming Korean man being gunned down. The "mystery" assailant looks an awful lot like Kazuma's foster father, and after quietly leaving the scene, the detective scurries over to the dying man who tells him to rescue his child. The detective races upstairs to find the whole floor in flames and, after bursting through a few doors, finally discovers the child being held by a Korean woman who nearly takes her and the child's life by leaping out the window. Thankfully, the detective stops the crazy lady (by slapping her across the face, no less; yes, his pimp hand is strong) and apparently brings them to safety.

It's an interesting setup, and it's one that quickly jumps into the present to help link the end of the last game to the beginning of this one. Returning leading man Kazuma and his rescued gal pal Haruka have arrived at a graveyard to pay their respects to their friends slain a year ago. It's here in the graveyard that the game's initial tutorial level starts, playing out almost identically to the original game (a series of control "challenges" are issued and we merely had to complete them a few times in a row before moving on to the next one). This time around, though, things felt quicker, more responsive and with some slight differences (the Heat Gauge tutorial, for instance, insta-fills instead of having to power it up each time).