Yakuza 5 Review

 The huge Yakuza 5 arrives remastered and closes the trilogy The Yakuza Remastered Collection on PS4, a console that already has all the main saga.


     With Yakuza 5 Remastered , Sega brings the entire main series to PlayStation 4, from the prequel Yakuza 0 to the airs of change that Yakuza brings : Like a Dragon , which we will talk more about this year. Fans, new or veteran, can relive the adventures of Kazuma Kiryu with remakes, remasters and native deliveries of PS4, and Yakuza 5 closes The Yakuza Remastered Collection , the physical edition with the Yakuza of PS3 - Yakuza 3, 4 and 5 - . We only miss the spin-offs , but few apologies remain to discover this saga of brawler action and touches of role.

Yakuza 5 arrived in the final stretch of PlayStation 3, in Japan in 2012. Yakuza had not reaped the popularity it has today, still moderate but enough for Sega to trust his success even in the West. Its original launch was delayed for years, even doubting its distribution , until in 2015 it came only in digital distribution . Then we would see the success of Yakuza 0 , the wave of revisions with the Kiwami , the graphic leap with the generation and, most recently, a relief in the protagonist.

The most ambitious Yakuza

The Yakuza saga, not without lack of reason, has been criticized for recycling its main neighborhood, Kamurocho. Although from Yakuza 2 this scenario was alternated with other locations, we came from Yakuza 4 with several protagonists and a Kamurocho that yes, was enlarged with new corners, but without further urbanizations to accompany it. The public demanded more for Yakuza 5 and Sega did not disappoint, as we told you in his original analysis that we recommend you read to delve deeper into the game.

The playable bases remained almost intact : resolution of missions in the Japanese streets, a 3D beat'em up fight for the fight and great freedom to participate in sports activities, mini-games and video games, which included Virtua Fighter 2 and Taiko No Tatsujin . The usual improvements of each sequel were made, with a higher overall speed, load reduction - made the transition to fighting more comfortable - or new heat actions . Territory known for veteran fans.



The protagonists live their adventures in different cities, three of them unique to the saga.


Something that was respected from Yakuza 4 was the idea of ​​presenting a story with multiple protagonists , and from four it went to five. We have the essential Kiryu, now with an honest job as a taxi driver in Fukuoka, Saejima and Shun Akiyama, the new Tatsuo Shinada and the young Haruka, who was a central pillar in the plot of the saga - especially in the first Yakuza - but that It had never been playable.




Already on sale The Yakuza Remastered Collection in physical, and also the three digital games separately
Today 'The Yakuza Remastered Collection' has been put up for sale in physical format for PS4, a pack containing 'Yakuza 3', 'Yakuza 4' and 'Yakuza 5' remastered, in two discs inside a striking red collector's box adorned with the dragon tattoo of Kiryu, all for 59.99 euros. In addition, the three games are now available individually in digital format through PlayStation Network, for 24.99 euros each.


The most special thing about this Yakuza 5 is that each story also takes place in a different city , and with mini-games that grew into authentic activities. As we told you at the time, they are stories of fighting ghosts of the past, of self-improvement , whether it is the idol race that Haruka wants to undertake with the hard lessons of interpretation and training, or survival in the icy mountains of Saejima. Far from being another entertainment, we can spend tens of hours with the Another Drama that made Yakuza 5 the game with more content in the series, the most varied, and the most ambitious to date.



Haruka's story includes battles of rhythm, although the tone is less dramatic than usual and that can put some fans back.


Yakuza 5 recovered Sotenbori –Osaka-, which we knew of Yakuza 2 and then returned to Yakuza 0 , and added to Kamurocho -Kabukicho of Tokyo- the new Tsukimino -Susukino of Sapporo-, Kin'eicho -Sakae of Nagoya-, Nagusugai- Nakasu de Fukuoka-, maps of respectable size and with a completely different setting from each other, also in a matter of weather. Then, for the theme of the characters, we had evidence of illegal races, the hunting of a bear or the battles of dancing with Haruka - a rhythm minigame - so it was not all about distributing thugs to thugs and members of the yakuza.


At the plot level it is less cohesive than other 'Yakuza', but as an area for entertainment it is very varied.

Is he the best Yakuza then ? Not at all. Each game has strengths and weaknesses, and if it stands out for the amount of content or polishing of its playability with respect to its predecessors, the type of self-conclusion stories denoted some exhaustion in the main plot . It was inevitable: with so many characters and adventures, the quality was a bit more irregular, it felt like several different games - for the dramatic tone and diversity of the Another Drama - united in the same pack. We could say that for the fan who simply wanted a "more of the same", Yakuza 5 fully complied; the player who preferred a narrative load full of plots between rival clans, deceits and deaths, found an adventure too light, which would then be compensated with Yakuza 6 .

A remastering similar to the previous games

Yakuza 5 took the opportunity to update the PS3 engine . The saga had used Magical-V Engine from Yakuza Kenzan! until Yakuza 4 , and although the polishing of Yakuza 5 was not a revolution - it could no longer be squeezed out of the console - changes in new visual effects of lighting or water can be seen. In his analysis we commented that the performance was improved in the situations of more graphic load and that the saw teeth, visible on the large current screens - especially if we compared it with the games of the market in 2015, for PS4-.

Yakuza 5 Remastered corrects these defects of the last generation with the improvements we had already seen in the remastering of Yakuza 3 and Yakuza 4: a rise in resolution and 60 images per second. It looks better than ever and, as it happened in the other two titles of the remastered trilogy, its graphics come to surprise more than some AA productions of the current generation without needing to touch up textures or patterns. It is obviously not Yakuza: Like a Dragon, not even Yakuza 0, but it has aged better than Yakuza 3 in appearance and comfort

'Yakuza 3, 4 and 5' can now be purchased in physical format with 'The Yakuza Remastered Collection', essential to know the evolution of the saga.

Conclusions

Yakuza 5 is one of the episodes that you most want to cover, and that is a double-edged sword. Not all the stories of the game contribute much to the set, let alone the plot of the whole saga, and loses coherence with respect to other more brilliant chapters in the narrative. A toll that was necessary to, in return, solve complaints about the recycling of the city and offer a very wide game -explains the hours of its predecessors-, which will take you tens of hours if you intend to see everything about each character. In this he has no rival.

And if you're one of the rookies in the series that has enjoyed Yakuza 0 and the two Kiwami , The Yakuza Remastered Collection wo n't let you down. Three huge action adventures that delve deeper into Kiryu and expand the Yakuza universe, from Yakuza 3 with the complete content that had not reached the West, the freshness of Yakuza 4 with its new protagonists or the variety of Yakuza 5 , there is no better time To become a fan of the saga.

We have performed this analysis in PS4 Pro with a code provided by Cosmocover.