So I had never played a Yakuza title before, but I picked this up and I have to say it's one of my favorite games I've played in quite some time. The mixture of bizarre mini-games (Karaoke, fishing, watching video porn), the beat-em style gameplay and the intricate, fascinating story is a really messy and fantastic mix of styles that really won me over. It at times feels like Shenmue and Shenmue II, games I was a very big fan of despite their limitations. The fighting styles that can be learned and developed I think makes it much more successful than Shenmue on a gameplay level and still has the beautifully mundane sense of place those games achieved. I'm also very impressed with the fictionalized re-creation of Shinjuku and Kabukicho... while not 100% exact, the layouts and areas are so similar to the real thing, it was fun going into virtual versions of real convenience stores that I had actually been in on my trip to Japan.
I'm really glad this title made it's way over here, it definitely brought me back to the feelings I had for many Dreamcast games back in 2000 – something that feels very specific to the console market and not afraid to be weird.
