The Yakuza Remastered Collection shows that Sega understands the importance of this series and how much it means to its worldwide fandom. By updating the visuals, framerate, adding characters and content, and just proving that they are invested in the long haul for this series, shows that Sega is starting to get itself back in the game. This collection is worthy of any Yakuza fan's money.
You might think we’re late on this review, but I assure you that the collection made us late. In a good way.
The Yakuza Remastered Collection was released mid-February from Sega and contains Yakuza 3-5 that are remastered in 1080p/60fps. For us non-FPS peeps who just want to see a PS3 game on the PS4, we’re happy for different reasons. Regardless, the collection as a whole is an impressive feat that maintains the original look and style of the games when originally released but brings them onto a platform that has missed them desperately. In addition to upgraded visuals, which are a big deal, the bigger deal for me was the collection’s retooled localization, added content (side games), and some once-lost-but-now-found moments. Sega treated this right because they knew how much this series meant for a lot of fans out there. It has been a slow build in fandom for this series, so much that it took a lot of pushing early on for Sega to release additional games in the series worldwide. I remember moments where Steven McGehee and Eric Layman had to pray/hope that Sega would scrape up enough effort to push out the series to North America. Thankfully, they did, and Layman/McGehee was absolutely twitterpated. We like keeping them happy. They’re good folks.
Anyway, let’s get into it.
While you might want the review for Yakuza 3-5, we’re not going to reinvent the wheel here. We reviewed these back when they came out, so you can check out Steven McGehee and Eric Layman’s reviews (minus Yakuza 3). They give enough detail and love in the game that it’s unnecessary to review each of these as if we’ve never played them before. Well, I’ve never played them before, but Eric and Steve give a better overall review of each. Anyway, I’ll just briefly give some opinions and talk more about the look/feel to each.
Here we go!
Yakuza 3
Review (sadly, consumed by a server outage — but it was a good review, like, trust me)
I’m incredibly fascinated by the progression of a series over multiple platforms and through the test of time. Seeing how Sega found new ways to visually improve their Yakuza series over the years on the PlayStation 3 is a treat. There is a visual upgrade in style and performance between 3 and 5, which shows off exactly how far the developers at Sega took the PS3 hardware before moving on. The original Yakuza 3 had colorful cityscapes, large characters with the typical ‘stiff-hand’ motion, and more work on the expressions of characters more than the rest of their body. By the way, did anyone ever notice how oversized the hands were on these folks? They were pretty big.
With the remaster, while Sega kept most of what the original game served intact, they did some clean-up on some of the modeling (including those faces, which look solid), and upped the resolution (1080p), as well as made that framerate a cool 60FPS. Visually, for a game that was originally released back in 2009, you can’t place it in that year with the remaster job. They did good work making sure that each addition to the series on the PlayStation 4 drew closer together. That’s not to say that Yakuza 3 still looks 11 years old, it does, but it looks less 11 years old if you get my drift. Sega took some time and care on this. The faces impressed me the most, as you get a bit more realism from expressions and movement.
The story is also cleaned up quite a bit. The localization for this one was a tiny bit rough with original go around. This was my entry into the series eons ago, so while trying to figure out the story, the translation sometimes didn’t go as planned. I love connecting with stories, which is why I almost always adore Kojima games. His titles are more about competent and complicated plot points and payoffs. Yakuza never really connected with me, but this time around, the story seems a helluva lot smoother and worked out. It’s like someone went in and did some actual proper re-write and editing. Everything was more crystal clear, which provided a smooth transition to the additional stories. I’m a huge story guy, so this was important to me. The acts were a bit more defined.
Moving along…
Yakuza 4
Review
For me, I really took to Yakuza 4. I think that it did a lot to expand the world through Akiyama, whom I adore in the overall narrative. His presence and grounded story adds a bit more dimension to the overall Yakuza tale. For me, he is a balanced Yakuza member, who mainly tries to not only keep the peace amongst other members but also simply do what is right because he knows what it means to be down and out. He is fascinating and adds more flavor through his own tragic beginnings. He is a more grounded character in the series that probably speaks to a lot of gamers out there. Morally, even though he isn’t perfect, he is good construction. Having said that, I know that while the game was mostly praised when it originally released, it’s also a game that doesn’t appear to be the favorite of the bunch to most Yakuza fans. I guess I can understand because it does take a bit of a lighter tone (as light as a Yakuza game can get) than the others in the series. For me, I like the main protagonist with Akiyama. I know there are multiple in this game, but he just speaks to me a bit more than the others. His story and actions are everything I want in a hero.
Anyway, much like Yakuza 3’s remastering, Yakuza 4 is a gorgeous addition to the collection. You instantly see how well things went in the remastering when you run into the rain on the streets for the first time. You get a beautiful rain effect, as the neon street lights are reflecting the crowded city streets as the rain gets harder. I wish the textures on some of the buildings were improved, but I’ll take what I can get. You still have reminders now and then of the PlayStation 3 in the game, which is fine. The upgrade to 1080p and 60FPS are very prevalent, and as I stated above, Yakuza 4 was a bit more of a visual push than Yakuza 3.
Progression!
Yakuza 5
Review
Here’s where things get upgraded a bit more. Yakuza 5 is where Sega’s CS1 team figured it out. The textures of the models were improved, the buildings and environment were improved, and everything seemed to come together, and I’m speaking mainly of the PS3 progression. It was at the end of the system’s life but has been nearly four years removed from Yakuza 4, Sega seemed to have a handle on the capabilities of the PS3 and pushed it with this game. Anyway, some five years later, we get a nice update through the PS4 port and it is slightly better than the rest of the series. That’s not a knock, it just gets back to my point that the series seemed to have a slight upswing progression as each release popped out. You can see it in the first cutscene in the taxi, and you can tell by the characters walking around, and especially in their detail environments. Much like Yakuza 3 and 4, you still get some textures that remind you that Sega didn’t have time to handle everything, but what you do get is still solid for the girth of the game and PlayStation 4 expectations.
Overall
The Yakuza Remastered Collection shows that Sega understands the importance of this series and how much it means to its worldwide fandom. By updating the visuals, framerate, adding characters and content, and just proving that they are invested in the long haul for this series, shows that Sega is starting to get itself back in the game. This collection is worthy of any Yakuza fan’s money.
