Yakuza 3
Released: January 28, 2021
Game Length: 31 Hours
Grade: B
Different Direction
New Director: If you played through substory #55 in Yakuza Kiwami 2, you would have gotten a little taste of what really happened behind the games. Although Ryuta Ueda was the director for Yakuza 1 & 2 in 2005 & 2006, it was Daisuke Sato who continued the series three years later for Yakuza 3. The games retained the original ideals with Masayoshi Kikuchi still the leading producer and Masayoshi Yokoyama as the writer, but the overall "vision" of the series was different. Instead of being thrust into the middle of a Yakuza war, Kazuma Kiryu takes an extended vacation in Okinawa where he watches over a bunch of kids in an orphanage for a huge chunk of the game. There are a total of 12 Chapters where you will be bouncing between the Morning Glory Orphanage in Ryukyu and the "new" Serena in Kamurocho. However, the majority of the game doesn't become available until Chapters 4 & 5 and the game practically spirals to a resolution from Chapter 10 through 12 even though some things do not become accessible until the final chapter.
Changes: So what sort of things became immediately apparent that we were playing a completely different game? Well, there is barely any music to speak of. There was a project that restored some music like "Loser" from the new intro, but there is barely any music to speak of playing in the background of the whole game. You will now only hear the sounds of things happening around you like the waves of the ocean or that lovely little jingle from the crosswalk. You practically ditch every meaningful character from the previous game in the prologue and pick-up a few new ones after the second chapter. Of course, most of your time will be spent taking care of all the kid problems that occur at the orphanage. This also reflects in your character as you use more persuasive arguments to fight your battles instead of your fists. Chase sequences is also a new thing to contend with.
Old Technology
Remastered: If you are like me, playing through an entire series for the first time in this day and age, you might have discovered quite a few distinctions from one game to the next. For starters, Yakuza 3 did not get the Kiwami treatment. This means that there is no added content. Unlike the first two games, the games following were only touched up graphically with a few minor Quality of Life improvements like adding Question Marks for some of the substories. However unlike the versions that came out on the PS3 and PS4, most of the cut features were restored for this edition.
Aged Content: Since this game is now classified as using the oldest engine in the series, one must provide a little bit of lenience when it comes to the rudimentary systems. And boy are there a ton of them. From the start, visiting the shrines of previous characters will only give you a few lines of text instead of full-blown cutscenes. Although they provided a means to modify your gear using material and weapons inside your storage unit, you will still need to balance a small-scale amount of inventory for your equipment, reagents, and recovery items. Other than the basic increases to damage and armor, none of the items specify what exactly they do. In fact, a lot of times you won't even know how "good" something is until you use it. A lot of elements in the game will require you to access first-person mode, but you aren't allowed to physically move or take photos to save for later while looking around.
Things like sub-story introductions, battle previews, eating food, and map accessibility are all rough around the edges. The map is incredibly bad as the names of streets and locations only appear on the surface when you hover over them with your cursor. Characters move in a very Grand Theft Auto way with arms swinging like hockey sticks. Enemies won't have floating vital bars, and there is no option to turn down the amount of blood that appears on the screen. Crowds also seem to just appear and disappear depending on how you are facing. There is a severe lack of taxis for fast traveling and telephone booths to exchange your gear or save your game.
Combat
General: Considering the age of the game, your fighting style isn't going to be very elaborate. You will have your basic combination of strikes and heavy hits with some special abilities mixed in. However, it is going to take you a very long time to unlock everything. For example, I had to interact with the homeless, unlock the Dragon Palace, talk to another homeless man in front of a bar, then visit the Dojo all within Chapter 5 in order to unlock Komaki's Training. Because of the combat's rigidness, using LB & RB becomes more important than ever. Random thugs are more of an annoyance since your mini-map does not track their movements neither do you see them coming down the street. Your heat bar is properly balanced, so don't think about using a special move on every opponent. Your heat bar will also slowly "dry up" overtime and drop a fair amount upon receiving damage. Boss fights are fair! I recommend utilizing a combination of any of the random objects placed around you or weapons to fight against the tougher opponents.
Weapons: I really do think that Yakuza 3 has the best weapons. You don't have to track down material around the world or pay an exorbitant repair fee like in Yakuza 0. There are a lot of "fun" weapons you can use like the fake dynamite and the toy hammer. The way you swing each weapon is distinctive to its style of fighting. You can properly "modify" the weapons to increase their damage or durability. The cost to repair is based on the percentage of times it has been used and cost about half the total to buy one brand new if the durability is used up entirely. The only items you have to watch out for are the one-of-a-kinds (which can cost upwards to 400,000 yen to repair). Weapons also have a sort of super strike when pressing the 'B' button which expends 10 points off their durability. My only gripe is that they made guns a little too powerful for you. Enemies barely use them as is and it is far too easy for you to pick one up and completely destroy any opposition.
Substories
Uniqueness: Yakuza 3 excels in their substories. Unlike the previous two games that had roughly 75 substories, Yakuza 3 has a total of 119 substories. These substories don't just focus on multiple choice selections like in Yakuza 0 or a long-range of scams from Yakuza Kiwami. No, some of these events get pretty elaborate and involves a series of steps to fully complete. There are a few of them that can "conclude" with a simple check-mark by their substory in the completion list if you go about it a certain way. Otherwise, a ton of them will require you to pass a certain chapter, unlock a particular feature, or complete a previous substory just to start. I'd say half of them won't even have a question mark appear. A lot of these will also require you to learn the various streets and have a good memory when it comes to locations as many won't have guide markers to show you the way. This means you need to be more aware of your surroundings and talk to anyone that might seem out-of-place. For example, substory #9 Murder at Café Alps begins in Chapter 9, provides you with a book full of different profiles associated with the case you need to talk to, but cannot be concluded until you find the detective hanging in a bar at night in Chapter 12.
You have interesting ones like the three girls who talk about the Seven Mysteries of Ryukyu, the young man who fell in love with the lady at Smile Burger, playing hide-and-seek with the kids, learning English, teaching a dog tricks, facing off with a man who recognizes you from a photo taken a few years ago, Date's interest with the lady at Serena, having a look-out for strange things high up on the side of buildings in a busy square, the club members in Stardust wanting to open a second club, and the casino wanting to track down some bouncers for the club.
You have some good ones like carrying giant ice cones very slowly across the street, the man who wants to make the perfect instant ramen, and the reactions of the crew when you are trying to remember your lines during a play in Silver Screen Dragon.
Then you have some bad ones like the return of the Honeymooners, pushing your way through a crowd of old ladies, the woman who constantly moves from one job to the next, dealing with a suicidal man that owes some Loan Sharks a lot of money, investing in a tuna fund, the mistaken identity in Comforting Yakuza, or going on a treasure hunt.
Night Life
Hostesses: Unlike the Cabaret Club mini-game, Yakuza 3 includes 10 hostesses you can visit and chat with in three different clubs (one unlocks after completing the other nine). Similar to Yakuza, you sit down to dine with each one of the girls and converse with them over a series of visits. You can find out what each girl likes to eat or drink from the Men's Entertainment Booth (MEB) and what type of personality they have before you visit them. Make sure you wear the appropriate clothing: Dragon Shirt, Popularity Bracelet, Lucky Bracelet, Charisma Ring. You don't have to go out of your way buying the most expensive cuisine or gifts for the ladies since the game only allows you to obtain ten hearts followed by additional five and another five for each visit. After you obtain the first ten hearts, you will be able to "drag" them along to various other locations outside the club. After gaining all twenty hearts, you will be able to resolve a little substory to conclude the girl's storyline.
Entertaining the hostesses was rather difficult, because they were all pretty annoying. Figuring out what a girl likes or dislikes was pretty easy as most will allow you to drink for free and love eating some good ol' fashion chicken. The problem is how unappealing each of the girls were, and perhaps a tad unprofessional as well. Mika did well informing me how different it was living in Okiwana away from Tokyo and loves to talk about her pet cat Tuna, but she constantly talks about how old and frail she is even though she is only 29 years-old (Kiryu is 34). Nao is into anything superstitious, takes care of her plant named Sandy, and worries about her family. Saya is an annoying airhead who thinks and acts as a child even though she is 20 years old; she would like nothing else but to be told everything is alright, have people listen to her random spontaneous outbursts, and sing karaoke for 6 hours at a time. Rin is a spoiled fashion designer who is so full of herself that she hates sore losers, demands tall guys, and loves to expedite the dating process to the point of dumping someone when a cuter one comes along. Kana is a country girl that moved to Tokyo and therefore worries about her accent, gaining weight from her transition, and the expenses of living in a city full of people; she loves eating and talking about her pet dog Newton, but has a habit of not being available at the club when you show up. Yui might appear as a mature woman through her sleek appearance, but in reality she hungers for the extravagant lifestyle, playing hard-to-get and charming men into buying her stuff, hating on the boring and mundane; sadly, she is pretty proud of her wild side and not afraid to show it either. I grew tired of the conversations that I gave up after chatting with 6 girls.
Mini-games
Coliseum: The introduction to Purgatory never ceases to amaze me with the giant arena you saw in the previous games is still intact. However, there is still the problem of it coming late in the story. Only becoming available after Chapter 8 and unlocking certain tournaments as far as Chapter 12, there is much to be desired when it comes to completing certain matches. You must complete each tournament a total of three times before progressing to the next one. It saddens me that I didn't have the patience to go beyond the first four tournaments. There's a total of 13 tournaments and 5 Tag partners you can recruit following certain guidelines, but all of it felt rather frivolous when the stiff combat didn't appeal to me.
Hitman Missions: Do you want money? This is how you make money. Tucked away in a place hidden from the overhead map is the Honest Living Association (HLA) where the Ibuki are concerned about rehabilitating retired yakuza members and learning more about the mysterious Reaper faction that is interfering with the process. Although technically not "substories," these missions honestly do contain a nice bit of backstory. There are a total of 20 unique fights you can obtain from the Kamuro Castle in Kamurocho and Shogi Ryukyu in Okinawa.
Hostess Maker: Substory #109: Straight to the Top! is so in-depth that it could be considered a mini-game all in itself. Unfortunately after going about it for twenty rounds, I didn't have the patience to keep going. Reverting back to an age when absolutely nothing is shown to contribute to your rising stars, you must figure out what exactly each dress, cosmetic, and accessory does to help your chances of success. Not only that, but you must calculate when to apply specific training and alleviating the measure of stress your gal can handle during each visit. Even with the designated guide, I still wasn't sure on what I was doing.
There are a few other problems I had with this game other than the lack of statistics. For example, there isn't a way to back down from going a full-day once you pop into the doors of South Island. You can't leave. You must "walk the floor" all the way around to see what the guests are saying. You must enter the locker room between each round. Instead of preparing a hostess once for one round, you are constantly juggling her outfit to fit the guests for a total of three rounds. You cannot use your own money. The club has a set amount of funds they will allow you to use to buy whatever is needed for the hostess.
Locker Keys: There is a total of 100 hidden items between Kamurocho and Ryukyu. That is a ton! I only managed to find 68 out of 100. Although this is not anymore than what was in Yakuza 2, this time around the items can be located anywhere. You must use your first-person camera within the environment to collect those pesky ones hidden above the ground. The good news is that most of these will be shown during a conversational cutscene. The bad news is that some of those cutscenes will take you away from the area upon its reveal. There is also a little problem on when they appear as well. You must wait until Chapter 4 for Ryukyu and Chapter 5 for Kamurocho.
Inner Fighter 7: There is a scientist by the name of Minamida that looks very similar to Doc Brown from Back to the Future with a virtual reality video game he called Inner Fighter 7 (IF7) where he plugs you into a virtual fight with previous bosses without the benefits of using any equipment, weapons, or special abilities. This can be rather difficult as it relies on your skill to defeat your opponent within a given time frame. Oh, and your heat gauge determines how much health you have. Most of the rewards you get are unique crafting reagents that will help upgrade your equipment.
Fishing: I must admit that the fishing in this game was rather tricky to pin down. It has its own set of rules that I've probably never seen before. In order to begin the game, you need some kind of bait. This can be almost any type of food, including those little worms that you can loot in the front yard. Depending on what you use determines the distance you can fish. Now, you can't use different kind of rods like in Yakuza 0. All you have to do is click on the fishing rod in the sand on the beach to begin the mini-game. Time your distance appropriately so it matches up with the visible fish on the bar. If you don't like how the fish are situated, you can reset the game simply by backing out and clicking on the rod again. The goal is to keep the amount of stress put on the string without going over or under. The direction you pull on the rod determines how much stress gets added on. How much you reel in can also make or break your mini-game. If you do everything right, you will gain a fish. If not, you lose your bait.
I must admit that I enjoyed fishing immensely. The problem is that I wasn't really rewarded for my efforts too much inside the game. Things like time of day and distance of the fish matter when it comes to what type you catch. There is also the annoyance that everything I catch only had the purpose of being sold to the vendor. Meaning that I would receive anywhere from 50 yen to 1,200 yen for most of the things I dragged onto shore. There is one substory that involves bartering a tuna in exchange for saving 300,000 yen, but even then I gave up trying to catch the ultimate fish. In the end, this mini-game was just another distraction of the main story.
Golf: Wait... I get to play on a real golf-course? That's right! No virtual make-up or enclosed campus here. In fact, they even added a semi-power bar where you need to not only determine how hard you need to hit the ball but also how far. Things to also consider is the current direction of the wind speed and what type of putter you are using. For the main story, you have the option to "redo" your strike if you feel like it wasn't good enough. But no worries since the game proceeds no matter if you win or lose.
Revelations: After Chapter 4 (because everything happens after this chapter), you will meet Mack Shinozuka asking you to find the "perfect shot" using that cell phone of yours. Afterwards, he will occasionally send you little messages hinting on where to go. There are a total of 10 revelations that reward you a new ability each, and these events are hilarious. Not only do the hints from the e-mail avoid spoiling the event, but choosing the wrong revelation will allow you to re-watch the whole thing over again.
Karaoke: Reverting back from the solid scroll bar to the large text format, the karaoke machine manages to hold itself together pretty well. However, the text seems to be a little too big. There is some sort of disconnect when it comes to the bar resetting on every line. I'm also very disappointed how there are no music videos. Any character that sings will be placed in a spotlight with a mic in their hand with things glowing all around. You can still bring a hostess over to sing with you. In fact, there are some that are really good singers. However, you will be stuck singing that same stupid Kamurocho Lullaby over-and-over again. If you refuse to sing, the hostess becomes upset.
Mack's Running Training: One thing I've never seen before in the Yakuza series is the ability to "chase" after people. The original Yakuza simply had you transition down several different streets. If you want to improve your status in these chase sequences, you will need to have some fun with your pal Mack over at the Construction Site. You'll also get a few nice rewards too.
Haruka's Trust: As previously left unfinished in Yakuza 2, I found myself pretty bored of taking little Haruka around both towns and helping fulfill every one of her personal desires. Food, I can handle. It's the occasional perfect mini-game runs that annoy me. Forget trying to catch anything from the UFO Catcher either. There are some decent rewards, but the amount of effort it takes to get that those points is pretty demanding. I'd personally do a few of these while finishing the substories that require her assistance.
Massage Parlor: I think I know the reason why "Love in Heart" was originally cut out
of the game. The whole synopsis of this mini-game is to gain points
while keeping a bar steady between two ends. And why don't we include
provocative shots of the masseuse aroma therapist in the process. Despite a particular transgender substory also being cut in the remaster, they seem to have kept in the awkward substory involving the person in the parlor.
Batting Cage: Yakuza 3 version doesn't have an auto-aim feature, but does provide you with a cursor to properly aim the bat while swinging. However, knowing when to strike the ball is the whole challenging aspect of the game. Easy Mode simply tests your reaction speed without any sort of aiming required. Normal Mode sets three separate "home run" bars that you will need to light up by hitting them one at a time. Hard Mode sets you up with 9 different targets. There isn't really any clear indication what all the rewards are, but there are some decent equipment you can get if you manage to pull off a perfect game.
Gambling Games: So both casinos are still in the game. You have your high-rolling ones with Blackjack, Poker, and Roulette. You also have your homeless style ones with Cee-lo, Cho-han, Koi-Koi, and Oicho-kabu. There are plenty of cheat items that you can get from the lockers. The best ones are the five automatic wins in high-stakes Blackjack/Poker and the high returns from Roulette. Just know that these items are limited and a few of them won't guarantee you wins. Not all of these games have a cheat item associated with them either.
Other Games: Because of the contrast in Japanese culture, you will not see "Answer x Answer" in the SEGA Arcade. However, both Shogi and Mahjong have set up "ranked matches" that you can play against the computer. Your traditional Darts have returned. You may dare to read through all the sub-menus to learn more about them if you wish. Boxcelios is the one video game you can try in the arcade. The UFO Catcher is as bad as ever. However, I discovered something unusual when it came to Bowling and Pool. I'm not sure what it was, but the games felt a little out of balance as if going from 30FPS to 60FPS messed with the physics. It could also be because how much Yakuza 3 aged over the years.
Miscellaneous Notes
Interface: When I think about this game, I can't help but wonder if things would have been better if the UI was performing as well as the newer engines. I liked being able to Exit to Windows without having to backtrack to the splash screen. I liked how you could activate "Auto-play" with the right analog stick when you are having a conversation over the phone. Being able to enter areas you couldn't before like Stardust was definitely a plus in my book. But then I think about how horrible it was going through every single sub-menu when obtaining information about the girls at the Men's Entertainment Booth (MEB) or trying to learn about all the different categories of Darts and wish for something better. And why does the mini-map keep switching between large, small, and non-existent every time I do something?
Notes: Then there are the weirdest things I included in my notes. The fact that enemies pick up random objects off the street to use against you. How despite the vast number of things you can do in your completion log, you gain absolutely nothing for finishing any of them. That's probably why I spent 46 Hours with only a 46% Completion Rate. How the sound of your shoes against the pavement always sounds like a horse galloping. Your alcohol meter lasts longer than ever. And what is with that ending?! You can't copy Yakuza Kiwami 2 by ending the game with a cliff-hanger, having you wait through the list of unskippable credits, and then get a cheap resolution at the very end? I guess the new splash screen sound effect and a cool 2 million yen to spend in Premium Adventure Mode makes it all alright.
Review: Yakuza 3 is an interesting beast. Despite it's flaws of a rudimentary ancient system dating back to 2009 with a couple of touch-ups to its graphics and interface, the game still holds amazingly well with a battle system that is properly balanced and a laundry list of stories to explore. There is a mixed bag of oddball mini-games to keep people entertained and a new locale that adds a twist to what many would expect to find in a yakuza story. Although the main story will prove to be lacking in any substance outside the general problem-solving of little children, the interesting encounters you have with the populace is enough to bring a satisfying experience. I'd definitely consider playing this game only if you are a fan of the series.
3-24-2021