Nothing is ever as good as Shenmue
Yakuza for the PS2 reminds me quite a bit of my favorite game ever in the whole world, Shenmue, and if I’d known that I might have taken off the shrinkwrap (still bearing a $9.99 CLEARANCE sticker from Circuit City) a little sooner. It’s got a similar structure, alternating between exploring detailed (but very limited) city environments and beating up groups of surly hoodlums who have apparently been waiting all day for a skilled martial artist to wander by so they could fight him and get their asses kicked.
It’s not quite as good, though, and I don’t think there’s any one reason why. The organized crime subject matter isn’t as compelling to me as the slice-of-life-with-revenge-background theme of the original Shenmue, but I’ve seen some great Yakuza movies, so it can’t just be that. This is going to sound crazy, but I think part of it is the controls and camera angles. When you’re walking around, Shenmue puts the camera directly behind the hero, and you can use the analog stick to look around from that perspective:
Yakuza, on the other hand, puts the camera wherever it feels like, often pretty far above the character in outdoor scenes, and not in any specific position relative to the hero:
Who’s the hero in that screenshot? I was only able to figure it out because I remembered that he wears a light gray suit. He’s also basically in the center, but that’s not always the case. It’s not a bad system, and like that screenshot it often provides cool views of simulated bustling Tokyo nightlife, but I think Shenmue’s system has a way of literally and figuratively fixing you with your character.
The other thing is that Yakuza has the floaty, fast-running controls seen in a lot of recent games. You can run or walk depending on how far you move the analog stick, but neither one really feels much like human movement. What it feels like is controlling X & Y coordinates in the game world, which is what it is.
Again, it’s fine, but in Shenmue you walk at a walking pace and you have to hold down a shoulder trigger to run. You can’t turn on a dime while running, and all your movement has a heft to it, like you’re controlling an actual human body that weighs north of a hundred pounds. It takes longer to get where you’re going, but you’re spending that time looking at your environment. I think this is why Shenmue’s neighborhoods have stuck with me for a full decade, and my mental image of Yakuza is just a series of similar streets even though I just played it yesterday.
Also, it’s been a while, but I don’t think Shenmue’s combat so often caused me to execute lengthy combos while facing away from my opponents. I guess Yakuza does this on purpose, since it provides a downside to repeatedly jamming the “punch” button, but it’s ridiculous-looking, and that’s another thing that makes the whole thing harder to get into.
I’ll keep playing Yakuza though. The combat is still fun, and there’s a lot of it. Plus, if I like the story, there’s three sequels (so far!), which is something Shenmue didn’t manage to pull off.
