I really didn't think I would enjoy the Yakuza franchise at all which is why when I booted up the demo for Yakuza 3 I really didn't have the best of expectations. I think I saw Yakuza 2 in video review form a when it came out and decided it was too GTA for me. But this demo shattered my preconceptions. The main part of the demo seems to jump from a kind of cinematic story telling to an in-game engine hit the X button RPG element. The story was pretty unclear but I'm sure it is explained more throughly in the actual game. The player is given objectives via the main characters cell phone. Which while this very much like GTA, Infamous, and every other open world game out there. The thing that isn't is the combat.
The combat in Yakuza 3 allows you to pick up items in this brawler/fighting game style system. The game is good at mixing these two elements and the two fights in the game also included boss characters that need to be the concentration of your focus during the fight sequences. There don't appear to be any guns and one of the bosses had a sword. But this didn't seem to give him an unfair advantage. I was playing on Normal, so until I got my head around the combat system I did die a couple of times. But the combat was so much fun and had a really nice depth for a brawler that I really wanted to keep trying.
There is the promise of a couple of arcade games to play and a karaoke mini-game that I didn't get a chance to try; considering I got into a fist fight on my way to it and the demo ended.
The demo certainly wasn't long enough to show what the entire game will do. But the promise of this game is what really sold me on it. The fact that the fighting aspect of the game, seems to be pretty central makes me even more interested. Because rather than being repetitive and a throw away. The fighting is deep, fun, and every fight seems to be a little different. Will this pan out throughout the entire game? I don't know, its a demo.
So go out and try the demo out. Because, if this demo was good enough to get me interested in getting the full game. Perhaps it will at least entertain you for a while.
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