Yakuza 2 finally(!) hit game stores in the United States this week, and it's been worth the wait so far.
It's very much like the first game(a beat 'em up with RPGish elements, side quests and mini-games), and I've only logged about six hours. The fighting, a big part of the experience, has been improved. Kazuma's repetoire is expanded and his lock-on is less finicky. The guy is almost too powerful early on, but if you played the last game you turn on your Playstation 2(or in my case, Playstation 3 with "Fullscreen" and "Smoothing" options enabled) expecting to whoop ass anyway. No disappointment here.
Since I've just started, the story is only just beginning to unfold. So far I'm enjoying it and I find the characters believable. It takes place a year after the first game, so you'll see some familiar faces along with the new ones that are seamlessly introduced. One thing I miss from the first game is the liberal F-Bombing. While there certainly have been a few dropped and I'm sure there are more to come, it feels as though the decidedly adult language has been cleaned up a bit. The dialogue doesn't suffer; I just miss the occasional chuckle I'd get from classic exchanges like.....
- "Excuse me."
- "Excuse you? No....F--- YOU."
Or my personal favorite, "Step the F--- up and DIE!".
Hilarious.
I've pretty much gotten over it, though:-P. SEGA delivers in every other department. It's a shame it took this long for the game to hit the United States, but at least it did, and it was worth the wait.
Fans of Shenmue will no doubt draw comparisions. I sure as hell did when I played the first game. We all know how that ended; AGGRAVATION at not having the story concluded. A prequel to the series has already dropped in Japan, and Yakuza 3 is supposedly in the works already. Let's hope both games get all the recoginition they deserve.
