Graphics:

The idea of a virtual Japan is fascinating. Yakuza reproduces the atmosphere of an upscale Japanese city with the blazing neon, the jumbotrons, and the packed streets full of people. I wouldn't mind a game that was just a sim of Virtual Japan alone. There is so much to explore in this game and it only scratches the surface of what it could be.

The characters are blocky and clumsy. The shops look interesting on the outside, but many of them are exactly the same on the inside. The art becomes repetitive, as if the designers just took on too much and couldn't finish it. In some places like in Purgatory you have an enormous, beautiful aquarium, but there are only two fish in it. There is a highly detailed control room, but you can't use the maps in it. In other places the environments are stagnant. While in a fighting sequence the environments become interactive and most of it can be used as weapons. It lacks consistency. The cut scenes are long and are what holds your interest.

Marketing Efforts to Women:

This was not designed to be a female-friendly game, but it is one that some women might enjoy despite of the ruggedness and sexism of it. The language is filthy. The women in the game are being kidnapped, always running off someplace or being killed. The entire game is one female-in-peril rescue mission after another. The story has so many plot twists that it keeps you playing and swearing right along with the characters since it is so frustrating to play. Yet you become involved in it and want to know what happens next. The game would have benefited from having a playable female character. It might have changed the story a bit and made it interesting to play as that character Yumi for instance, who is absent for most of the game. In the Tenchu series of action adventure games, you can play as a female Samurai and the story is slightly different when you play as her or her male counterpart. Female Yakuza may be rare but not entirely unheard of as in the case of the anime Gokusen which is about a young woman who is a female Oyabun.

Conclusion:

The gameplay is frustrating and annoying. It depletes the enjoyment factor down considerably. If you adapt to the blind spots and weirdness of the controls in this game you might enjoy it. However all that adjustment can hardly be called fun. Even still I was compelled to play the whole game to see the ending. This isn't a graphic novel though, it's a video game. I don't play video games to read, I play them to have a good time playing them. I give Yakuza a disappointed and below average 4 out of 10.

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