Yakuza
It's been a while since we've ever had to go around a town, randomly encountering people to beat the living hell out of for no reason what so ever... In video games, of course. And Yakuza is just the game we need to make us think back to the old school styling of the NES (and now GBA) classic, River City Ransom. The game is basically the same thing, you walk around a town in search for someone, or something in context to the story and then you beat the hell out of the goons which come in your way or bad mouth you. Simple.

Sounds... Odd, yes. However the game is very enjoyable through a level up system which you gain EXP through a complicated system of... Killing people. Doing side quests and bosses can sometimes send your EXP through the roof. Very handy when you need some HP increases or strength increases. Moves are very basic, press the square button to punch and the Triangle button to kick, pick up and throw objects with circle and use objects with square and triangle.

Combos are preformed by mashing the square and triangle buttons in different fashions. Holding R1, you enter a type of "lock on" mode, where you do not turn around and instead you side-step to an enemy, pressing X while holding R1 makes you dodge, a fairly useless action since by the time you've thought to dodge, you've already most likely already been hit and kicked the hell out of your opponent.

Story wise the game is pretty solid. Very predictable, too predictable to be honest. There was only one big twist in the story which no one could have foreseen because this character suddenly becomes the big-bad guy as soon as you learn of him. Outside of battles, you'll spend most your time searching around the city looking for either a red dot or just wonder around looking for someone and you have no idea where to start. Other than this, we find nothing wrong with the game and it is a wonderful game to add to anyone's collection, as it has nice, big maps, nice long gameplay and a sense that the game will go on forever the way you roam around the streets. However, it must be said this game did suffer a lot from random fights from the street too much, it makes Japan look like a very rough place indeed...