Yakuza 3 - import hands-on

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The Yakuza series goes all retro... but has it improved with age?

Walking. Brooding. Staring. They’re all popular activities in Japanese crime series Yakuza, and this - the third - is the talkiest, broodiest, stariest installment yet. Oh, it’s changed a bit - the sudden shift from the present day to the 1640s is a bit jarring at first - but the important things are still present and correct. You still stamp on men’s faces. You still hang out with giggling ladies. And you still talk a lot.

Yakuza’s traditionally been oven-glove clumsy when it comes to fighting, but in previous games you’d overlook that because smacking people with telephones was a novelty. With everybody swinging katanas, you’re suddenly free to compare Yakuza 3 to hundreds of other swordfighting games, and suddenly it’s only the moderately-pretty girl at the Playboy party. It handles like Onimusha’s thick little brother - the moves are basically the same, but everything’s a bit clunkier and slower, with little in the way of parrying or dodging. You earn new moves by talking to old men - or in one memorable case, by watching a monkey - which means you can hack your way through fights quicker. Later you earn a short sword, Musashi’s trademark twin swords and a single massive claymore.

Joel Snape
Joel Snape
Joel Snape enjoys Street Fighter V, any sandbox game that contains a satisfyingly clacky shotgun and worrying about the rise of accidentally-malevolent super-AI. He's also the founder-editor of livehard.co.uk, where he talks a lot about working out.