Yakuza

Yakuza: Like A Dragon Localization Breaks The Fourth Wall For A Unique Joke

Video game localization is a balancing act of preserving the original language’s meaning while also making sure it’s understandable for a wider audience. In one unusual example, Sega’s localizers faced a tricky situation trying to localize an NPC who already spoke English for the Western version of Yakuza: Like a Dragon Yakuza is full of…

I Can’t Wait For Yakuza: Like A Dragon‘s Goofy Minigames

With singing, racing karts, playing arcade machines, practicing batting, and vocational tests to perform, it’s amazing down-and-out Yakuza scrapper Ichiban Kasuga gets anything else done in Yakuza: Like A Dragon. The game’s latest trailer demonstrates all the ways I’ll be driven to distraction come November 10. Give me fun side activities over actual game progression…

A Few Alt-Reality Takes On Smash‘s Latest Character Reveal

Last week, Nintendo revealed that Steve Minecraft of Minecraft fame will be the next character added to the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate roster. As is often the case, some folks were excited, some weren’t. More importantly, eagle-eyed Twitter users noticed a particularly memeable moment in the reveal trailer, wherein Steve crashes through a cave wall…

Sega Wants To Make A Yakuza Movie

Sega is in talks to adapt the Yakuza games into a movie, according to a new report by Variety. What could go wrong? Variety writes that Sega is currently working to develop the adaptation with the production firms 1212 Entertainment and Wild Sheep Content, which I’ve never heard of before. The two firms are still…

Yakuza Producer Finally Apologizes For Mocking Puzzle Game Esports Pros

In July, Yakuza executive director and producer Toshihiro Nagoshi used slang to disparage puzzle game pro players during a livestream. Sega soon apologized, and now, nearly a month later, so has Nagoshi. As previously reported, Nagoshi had said that Puyo Puyo esports players seemed like they eat beef bowls with cheese. The term chiizu gyuudon…

Yakuza: Like a Dragon brings its freaky Japanese RPG vibes to the West on November 13. Sega says its spin-off launches on Xbox One, PC, PS4, and Xbox Series X (available when the console launches), with PS5 coming at a later date. They also made this new trailer. Good for them. 

Live-Action Recreation Plays Homage To GTA, Yakuza, And Metal Gear Solid

YouTuber Komazawa Isolation took advantage of empty Shibuya streets to do a live-action open-world recreation that pays tribute to Grand Theft Auto, Yakuza, and Metal Gear Solid Have a look! It’s pretty great.

Yakuza: Like A Dragon Battle Menus Now Spell ‘SEGA’ Thanks To Joking Tweet

Game development is a collaborative effort between designers, programmers, and writers, which on big productions can number in the hundreds. It can take years to get a specific mechanic or cutscene right, and even then, it might still fall flat with players. But in the case of Yakuza: Like a Dragon, some of the best…

Sega Apologies After Producer Uses Slang To Mock Puzzle-Game Esports Pros

On a recent Sega livestream, Yakuza executive director and producer Toshihiro Nagoshi talked about the company’s iconic puzzle game Puyo Puyo. During the discussion, he said that Puyo Puyo esports players were “serious-looking kids.” He then hemmed and hawed, chuckled, and said that these pros seemed like they eat beef bowls with cheese. Beef bowls…

The Next Yakuza Is Coming In November, But The PS5 Has To Wait

Yakuza: Like a Dragon, the next game in the long-running crime/bike-throwing series, and the first of the post-Kiryu era, has been out in Japan since January. We finally got a Western release date today though, with the game due on most systems in November. That’s Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and, best of all, PC (previous…

Drink Up This Video Game Booze

What better way to celebrate 60 years of Sega, 40 years of Pac-Man and the Yakuza games than by drinking sake. Hiroshima brewery Miyake Honten, makers of Sempuku brand sake, has brewed anniversary sake for Sega and Namco’s Pac-Man, with the brews bottled in special anniversary bottles. This certainly isn’t the first video game branded…

The Meaning Of Yakuza‘s Tattoos

In Japan, tattoos and the yakuza often seem inseparable. Not every gangster has a tattoo and not everyone with a full bodysuit is a gangster, but when pop culture depicts the underworld, anti-heroes come fully inked. Case in point: the Yakuza games. Skin deep they are not. But the same goes for Japanese tattoos, which…

Tekken series director Katsuhiro Harada has finally responded to the popular fan request that Yakuza protagonist Kazuma Kiryu join the cast of Tekken 7 Apparently, the Bandai Namco board members believe Harada himself is a better fit for Yakuza. I’ll take either option, to be honest.

Man Visits Japan Because of The Yakuza Games, Gets On Japanese TV

SuzuKube of French-language game site OtakuGame.Fr traveled all the way from Martinique with something very specific in mind: He wanted to experience the world of the Yakuza games firsthand. As pointed on HachimaKikou (via SoraNews), SuzuKube was interviewed after arriving in Japan for a TV show called You wa Nani Shi ni Nippon e? (Why…

The Weird But Memorable Sidequests Of Yakuza 0

I loved Yakuza movies growing up, and the Yakuza series reminds me of the best of them. I actually enjoyed films like Sympathy for the Underdog, Battles Without Honor and Humanity, and Sonatine more than their mafia-themed cousins we have here in the west. So when Luke wrote his great review of Yakuza 0, I…

The Yakuza 7 mobile is on the streets of Seoul, hoping to get PS4 owners excited for its January release in South Korea. In case you missed it, read Kotaku’s impressions of the game from this year’s Tokyo Game Show. [Thanks, Sang for the tip!]

He’s back! Kazuma Kiryu makes an appearance in the latest Yakuza 7 (aka Yakuza: Like a Dragon) trailer. The game, which Kotaku checked out at this year’s Tokyo Game Show, stars new Ichiban Kasuga as the new series protagonist.  

At this year’s Tokyo Game Show, Archipel (makers of the excellent Toco Toco TV series) ran a series of very cool little interviews after bumping into famous Japanese games developers, like Yakuza’s Toshihiro Nagoshi. 

The Five Best Fishing Mini-Games

Sometimes, between fighting monsters or zombies with swords or guns or whatever, you want to kick back and enjoy a different type of challenge in a video game. Fishing mini-games bring bite-sized blasts of outdoorsmanship to our adventures, and while some players hate them, I’ve found there’s fun to be had when fishing’s done right.…

Finally Playing Judgment Again And Who The Heck Are Any Of These People

The end of the year is always busy here at Kotaku. For many of us, it means a string of reviews to write and games to cover. I’ve gone from Monster Hunter to Greedfall and beyond. Getting the time to circle back and play a game that you missed out on is a fun treat.…