Yakuza 0 PS4: Quirky free roaming brawler in 80's Tokyo and Osaka

The Game Room
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The Yakuza series is fairly unknown in the west despite being a huge hit in Japan. They’ve already released 6 on PS4 in Japanese and the localizations are always a few years behind so we just got Yakuza 0 released for english a couple of weeks ago. Yakuza 0 is a prequel so the perfect time to jump in if you haven’t played any of the other games in the series. What I love about the Yakuza games is the detailed faithful recreations of real areas of Tokyo and Osaka and the huge variety of substories, side stories, mini games and just stuff to do. Lots of the side missions are surreal in that unique japanese way, while the main story is crime melodrama, and with rather good writing and characterisation.

Review here on Ars Technica:

So if it sounds interesting watch some youtube vids to see the style, unfortunately they didn’t release a playable demo in English. Just one warning, graphically the Yakuza games are not really cutting edge, they sacrifice the highest end graphics for lots and lots of content.

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No one?

Oh well, anyway this release seems to be getting a lot more attention in the west than the previous releases including some reviews by high profile youtubers.

Here’s angry joe’s:

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Well, I don’t really go in for games anymore, especially violent ones, but speaking of violence, one of the stories under the article made me chuckle:
Teen’s selfie with the dying boy he shot leads to murder conviction

Perhaps he was laying the groundwork for a plea of severe diminished mental capacity.