Sega Nerds

TGS07: Yakuza 3 video-impressions

Posted by Graham. Filed under G, Japan, News, Sony PlayStation 3. Tagged with Exhibition/ Show, TGS.

One of Sega’s biggest hitters at TGS this year was Yakuza 3, but unlike NiGHTS and Valkyrie of the Battlefield, Yakuza 3 was not playable.  Instead everyone had to watch an extended trailer of the game. 

Unfortunately, using cameras in the mini theatre was totally forbidden, and it was kind of hard to secretly film it.  So I won’t be able to show you exactly what I saw.

The Yakuza 3 booth, was closed off, to help show the video better (obviously), but the outside was looking pretty cool.  With large image of the main characters from the game, lit up, and just in front of the image was an over-layer  painted to look like bamboo.

     

Then to one side of this, was the dark entrance, guarded by several ninja types.  No, not Samurais (as you would expect), but the guys were dressed more like ninjas.

Once inside, we were sat upon benches, and looked upon a small stage, with a vale across it.  Lights came on, on the stage, and through the vale we could see a geisha girl.  The geisha said something, no doubt profound, but I couldn’t understand it.  Then the vale lifted, to see her better,  she then spoke some more, and walked off stage.

Then at the back of the stage, there was a screen, on which the extended trailer was played.

I have seen several trailers online, and the one at TGS is nothing like the ones I have seen before.  The TGS trailer had moments that are the same, as others, but really it showed a lot more of what the story was about, and what was going to happen in the game.

The TGS trailer made so much more sense, than ones I had seen previously.  It was almost as though Sega wanted to show us most of the story.

The trailer showed what happens at the start of the game, to get the ball rolling, and shows off some of the events that lead to Kazuma’s (who you play as) fight with Musashi (a real-life legendary Samurai/swordsman).

The cut-scenes they show look absolutely amazing, and the sword fighting and choreography was outstanding.  I’m a pretty big fan of martial arts films and Japanese samurai films, and what I saw was just as good as the movies.  The video also showed a fair amount of in game action.  This is where I feel the game could become faulty….

When running through the town, Kazuma’s movements looked pretty good, but you could see him knock into people, and the characters just slid to one side, and some of the movements looked rather wooden.

We also saw some in game fighting, against multiple enemies.  The fighting here looked kind of …old, and very basic.  Much like (say) Sword of the Beserk, on the Dreamcast, where you would just tap attack and Gutsu would hit out in a set sequence of slashes, at enemies.

This type of play is fine on older games, but Sega have been promising a good combat system with this game, and while the game is no doubt still not finished, what I saw did stray from their idea of “good combat.”

However, my fears could be wrong.  Because they did also show some one on one fights, and those fights looked damn good.  The one on one looked smoother and generally slicker, than when fighting against multiple enemies.

Summary:

From watching the movie, I really cannot wait to see more of this game.  It looks so damn good.  The trailers I have seen before, are not a patch on the TGS one.  So if you are impressed with what you have seen… well, you aint seen nothing yet, baby.

I just hope the combat system is refined a bit more, and some movement, around towns, becomes less wooden.  But overall, including in-game footage, this is one to get excited about.

Display Impression: 8

Graphics: 9

Sound: 9 (Going on the music from the demo tape)

Controls: N/A

Overall (Anticipation): 9

~G~