Yakuza 3

TGH Writes: Today we managed to get to see Binary Domain behind closed doors at Gamescom 2011. After seeing some impressive footage and some incredible gameplay we got a chance to talk to one of the key members from the Binary Domain team. We were surprised with some answers that we found.

A year ago, SEGA Australia ran a competition promoting their Japanese mafia sandbox title Yakuza 3, with the prize being a full back-piece tattoo matching that of the game's protagonist Kazuma Kiryu, valued at over AUD$9000. Today, with Yakuza 4 about to launch, we learn that the winner actually went through with it. According to SEGA, the winner is 46 year-old Fari Salievski from Liverpool NSW and is actually a full-time martial arts instructor and MMA trainer.

Above: A side story that was cut from localized versions of Yakuza 3, which reveals the shadier side of English conversation schools in Japan

Sega cut lots of content from Yakuza 3 in order to lessen the cost of the localization process. In a post over at the Japan Subculture Research Center, Jake Adelstein takes a look at a particularly interesting deleted scene involving English conversation schools and its relation to real-life Yakuza...

Conflicting Gamers - If you didnt jump at our Mafia 2 deal a few weeks back, or our GTA IV deal we had a few days ago, we got another mafia deal for youit just happens to be the Japanese mafiathe Yakuza. For a limited time, Amazon is selling a copy of Yakuza 3 for only $22.96! I dont know much about the game other than that it got decent reviews across the board with GameSpot giving it an 8.0 and saying about it, Yakuza 3s compelling story, great atmosphere, and abundance of extracurricular activities make it the best game in the franchise so far. Sounds good to me!

According to Yakuza series head honcho, Toshihiro Nagoshi, the newly released (in Japan) Yakuza New Chapter: Black Panther for PSP is targeted squarely at Japanese youth and aims to teach them about honor, love, and various other kinds of virtues. Apparently, temperance isn’t one of those virtues...

Pokémon Black & White held the top spot on the Japanese software chart during the week ended September 26. Fresh from moving over 2.5 million copies to set a new first week sales record in Japan, second week sales came in at 828,580 units.

Sega has discussed why it cut content from Yazuka 3's Western release. Series producer Masayoshi Kikuchi said that removing mini-games and hostess bars were a business decision to make it more appealing to non-Japanese audiences. At the time there was an argument with Sega internally that in order to make the game more compatible and appealing to the Western market, we would do better off removing those mini-games that are hard to understand and heavily rooted in Japanese culture, he said. We did what we thought would be good for the Western market, but after the game was released we received a lot of feedback from users in the complete opposite direction, asking for complete content. Learning from that experience this time, we've tried to include all content in the Japanese version you see in [Yakuza 4]. It was a big surprise for us. I'm definitely pleased that people wanted to see more, but at the same time, I feel sorry for the fans who were let down by the ...

After only being on the market for roughly six months, Amazon has, drastically, cut the price on Segas Yakuza 3, by quite a large margin. If you havent played this phenomenal game (PSLS gave it a 9/10), then now is certainly the time to pick this title up.

Original Gamer: Just like the previous entries in the series, Yakuza 3 was overlooked by many despite its greatness. So I implore you get off your ass and pick up this game right now at Amazon.com. Don't wait for it to get any cheaper because you'll be punching yourself in the balls for missing out! Keep telling Sega that we want more games that feature Karaoke, male host clubs, and other wacky Japanese cultural stuff.

Just how accurate is the depiction of the yakuza organized crime syndicate in Yakuza 3? Pretty damn accurate, according to actual members of the Japanese crime group.  Jake Adelstein spent 12 years as a crime reporter in Japan and was able to infiltrate an actual yakuza hangout. And just out of curiosity, he got three of the members to test out Yakuza 3 and solicit their feedback.