Today’s Shigeru Miyamoto news shows that not even the biggest names in development are around forever. One man, though, plans on sticking around forever. One very brown man.
Having campaigned for months for a localised version of Yakuza 3, many fans of the series feared that releasing the game so close to other big PS3 titles – like Final Fantasy XIII – would hurt its sales. Nope!
Yeah, this clip runs for eleven minutes. Lots of Japanese talky-talky, so the verbal stuff won’t make much sense, but the vibrant colours and smooth gangster stylings? Those are universal.
Good times! Sega’s announced today a release date for Yakuza 2 in the US. Yes, we know, it came out in Japan in 2006, but let’s try and look on the bright side for once, eh? It’ll be out on September 9 (Europe, you get it on September 28), and instead of trying to get the likes of Michael Madsen back into the recording studio, the sequel will just be sticking to the Japanese voice actors, with English subtitles provided.
A third, proper Yakuza game? For the PS3? Exciting stuff. So let’s go over a few of the game’s finer details. While we already know the game will be an immediate sequel to the second, featuring the same characters and the same storyline, what we didn’t know was that the game’s going to be taking a pleasant break from the streets of faux-Tokyo. While the game will still be based around Kamurocho, it’ll be adding a “second city”: island getaway Okinawa (or, at least, a fictional take on Okinawa). Toshihiro “Brown Man” Nagoshi talks up the addition, saying the addition of the island’s resort lifestyle and touristy atmosphere – coupled with its “darker side” – will stand in stark contrast to the gritty, urban atmosphere of Kamurocho, and as far as the story goes “fits the bill perfectly”. No doubt the location testing will also fit Nagoshi’s sun-bathing bill perfectly, so it’s a win-win situation for all involved.