Yakuza 3 Remastered Review
Notice: This is a safe for work review of a game intended for mature audiences.
Yakuza 3 is a pretty awkward entry in the series, and since it’s only getting a remaster instead of a remake, this was always going to be the roughest mainline Yakuza game I was going to play.
Yakuza 3 is the last main game in the series to feature Kiryu as the sole playable protagonist up until Yakuza 6. The opening of the game starts in a very disjointed fashion, showing Kiryu running an orphanage whilst a new character called Rikiya turns up with news that someone has been shot. Meanwhile, in Tokyo, the head of the ruling Tojo clan of Yakuza is on a phone call about a deal to acquire the land that Kiryu’s orphanage is built on, which he declines out of respect to Kiryu’s services to the Tojo and society as a whole. When he returns to his office, to find two men who will not take no as an answer and winds up getting shot. Kiryu must return to Tokyo to unravel the conspiracy for the sake of his orphanage.
Or at least, he will eventually. It is at this point that the game flashes back to a couple of months after the previous game where key characters from Yakuza 2 are reminiscing and talking about their plans for the future. This was clearly just an excuse to show those characters off in what at the time was fancy new graphics before they vanish, never to be mentioned again. It takes until Chapter 4 for the game to catch up to the opening and up to near the end of the chapter for him to get to Tokyo. I suspect that the development team felt the flash forward was necessary because these first few chapters are a massive tonal departure from the previous games, and they wanted the player to know that the game was going to get into the usual criminal underworld conspiracy shenanigans the series is known for eventually.
Yakuza 3’s plot can be neatly split in half. When Kiryu is in Okinawa where his orphanage is, you get this heart warming story about this former gangster who is trying to put his past behind him and just trying to do what is best for his kids. The story focuses on him trying to help his kids with their problems, making friends with the local Yakuza outfit and adjusting to life in Okinawa and its culture. What happens in Tokyo feels like more of what came before but incredibly half baked. The main villain has interesting motivations and the plot has ridiculously high stakes, but the whole thing feels too simple compared to what came before.
This creates a dilemma. It is very easy to dismiss the game as completely skippable because the narrative pretty much begins where it ends with only a minor villain making a repeat appearance in the following game. This, however, would dismiss everything this game does for Kiryu’s character development, finally establishing him as the bad ass dad he should be, rather than a stoic guy reacting to events happening to other people.
The character advancement system is generally dull. You have four paths, Body, Heat, Soul and Tech. You level up each of the individually and you get one or two new abilities for each. It is never worth focusing on a single one, so you are ultimately just choosing what order you’re picking a group of four abilities in. There are, however, several other ways of gaining new abilities. Early on you will meet someone who will teach you how to use new weapons by fighting him. Second is recurring trainer Komaki, who will teach Kiryu his skills once more if you defeat his pupils. Third is Mack, who introduces the revelations mechanic that will be used for the next few games. Mack will occasionally email Kiryu telling him where to find an event he can witness to inspire him to invent new combat techniques and write about in a blog. Some of these are a pain, but the revelation sequences are generally funny and worth the effort. Finally there is the Inner Fighter machine that rewards you with new moves and upgrades by beating bosses you have previously fought with new gimmicks. Generally earning new moves through these trainers is a lot more interesting.
Combat is not that much more advanced than the PS2 entries. You only get one move set to play with and a limited amount of heat actions that do a pitiful amount of damage to boss enemies. An opportunity for a special heat action will occur after you have done a certain amount of damage to an enemy that is supposed to be a flashy finishing move, but it almost never does enough damage to finish an enemy off, making the mechanic feel redundant. I also found that enemies constantly guarded, and their guard could never be broken. This may be because I was playing on hard but other games I have played in the series do not have this problem. It does make the fights more challenging and force you to use the whole of Kiryu’s move set, but it also makes every fight a massive slog to get through.
Sub stories are sadly using the same quantity instead of quality approach that later games would move away from. Too many sub stories are still using the setup of Kiryu getting conned, and a lot of them are lacking sufficient narrative build up and payoff. It has the most sub stories out of any game I have played in the series, but considering how low in quality most of them are, that is a bad thing. There are still a few diamonds in the rough to be found, however, that get the development you would expect from later entries. Unique to this game are the hit man missions, where you have to fight a series of hit men in a relatively interesting series of fights while learning about their past, which I found to be generally entertaining.
Yakuza 3 is an interesting game to play after Judgement as it also features minigames for chasing people, running away from people and several sub stories require you to stalk suspects. What is interesting is how these minigames are in some ways handled better here than in Judgement. The stalking sections are better as, while they are incredibly simple, they are also a lot quicker and so do not drag the way that they did in Judgement. Chase sequences are a lot more janky in comparison to Judgement, but they also feel more like an actual chase rather than a series of quick time events.
Other side content is a mixed bag. This is the first game to put a massive amount of focus on side content and it is amazing to see what games have not actually changed that much from the versions in later entries. Billiards, Bowling, darts, karaoke and all of the gambling games are all here for the first time in practically the same state you find them in Yakuza 0. Visiting hostess clubs is a bit repetitive, and the stories of the girls you meet are not quite engaging enough to be worth it, except you need to go through them all in order to get every sub story in order to face Amon. The mini game for running the hostess club is tedious and just terrible.
Graphically, the game is terrible. The original release was criticised for looking like an early PS3 game in spite of appearing half way through the console’s life cycle. It has the usual problem of that period where everyone and everything is incredibly shiny. The actual models are not the best but it is the bad animation that makes the game look ridiculous. It is the sort of thing you just have to get used to. The soundtrack is a lot better. It does not knock it out the park like Yakuza 0’s, but it is solid none the less.
Ultimately, Yakuza 3 sets the foundation for games to come but is sort of a mess. It is a game whose ambitions clearly put too much strain on its budget, and would require future titles to polish. It is missing a lot of the quality of life features I expect from later games in the series. On its own, it is a very difficult game to recommend, but it is worthwhile as part of the Yakuza Remastered Collection.
