Yakuza Remastered Collection is a Action-Adventure game for PS4, and it was developed by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio and published by SEGA. It is a fully remastered video game compilation of three titles being originally released for PS3 such as Yakuza 3, 4 and 5.
To tell you the truth, I already covered two of the Yakuza games for the PS3 on my blog back in early 2010s except Yakuza 5 is one of the first PS3 game that never got physical release, unlike Japanese release has physical copy, instead it got end up being released as a digital copy on PS Store which is the reason why I never able to play this until the Yakuza Remastered Collection got released for PS4 this year.
After being able to beat previous entries of the series such as Yakuza 0, Kiwami 1 and 2 which I did also already cover these games on my blog from last 3 years which I have enjoyed these game as being an outstanding entries of the series thanks to excellent storyline, cinematic design, recognisable cast of characters, and fluid combat brawling with tons of action packed moments, as well as being an improvement over the previous entries featuring additional gameplay mechanics, better overall graphics design, and various of new content.
I had the reason to bought this fully remastered collection as a standard edition copy because I got it off from Ebay as a early black Friday sales which is kinda cool to see various of the games getting a decent sale discount, so it is really nice for me to re-visit my past again on these two games such as Yakuza 3 and 4 because it is very first two Yakuza games that I ever played on my PS3 to experience the whole series and then I am glad that I'm lucky being able to play Yakuza 5 on PS4 for very first time since I haven't played the original PS3 version that was released 5 years back.
So far, what do I think about the whole video game compilation of three Yakuza games? my answer is that I am so happy that I've managed to beat the whole game as well as being able to enjoy the rest of the storyline, the characters, and of course being packed with the full content is what made this collection worth picking up for those who can gets a hands on with the fully remastered package.
So without go further do, let's start the review.
Presentation
The collection splits with different events and settings in each games. The Yakuza 3 involves Kazama Kiryu must deal with the three gang bosses who arranged the attempted murder, and returns to the life he thought he left behind, while Shigeru Nakahara, one of the Kiryu's ally, is being encountered by their rivalry known as Tamashiro Family has threaten to against his clan known as the Ryudo Family.
Then you have Yakuza 4 had introduced three new playable characters such as Sky Finance's loan shark named Shun Akiyama had drawn into the story with the mysterious woman named Lily who asks for a loan of 100 million yen without explanation, while you have the ruthless criminal named Taiga Saejima who pleads guilty of murdering 18 mens of Yakuzas had managed to escape from death row and discover the truth behind the 1985 shooting incident, and then young police officer Masayoshi Tanimura went to investigate his father death who was also a cop, then finally Kazuma Kiryu had learned the story of Tojo Clan had faced with the current crisis back in 2005.
Finally Yakuza 5 involves Kazuma Kiryu who now works as a taxi driver in Fukuoka to escape his past once again until he found out the battle between Tojo clan and Omi Alliance appears to be breaking out causing another gangs war, while Taiga Saejima had gone back to square one by escaping from the jail again and finding the answers behind his death of an old friend. It also introduces two new playable characters such as Tatsuo Shinada who is a former baseball player banned from the sport and spent lives as a homeless went into investigating the truth behind fifteen years of his final match, and then finally Haruka Sawamura had moved to Osaka to become a idol singer in the entertainment industry, while you had Shun Akiyama being pulled into conflict when he's informed about the murder of a colleague.
So far, the whole three games is still has a top-notch storyline which I really enjoyed watching all the plot-twisting moments, suspense events, backstory, and war conflict between the gangs-related family is what made these games quite interesting to watch and play. I also liked the dialogue between the characters is somewhat kept the story intact adding a extended plot-wholes is giving the game more elaborate story-writing.
I like how the developer had done re-translating the game scripts which I don't really mind having these script fixed to make it much easier to follow the story during the cutscenes.
Its really hard for me to decide which are any of these three games had better storylines and characters because I already added Yakuza 3 on my top 10 PS3 games back then while I also enjoyed Yakuza 4 for its additional playable characters and game's pacing, but I didn't expect Yakuza 5 is doing lot better than what I'm expected because I wasn't being disappointed with the overall storylines and the choice of characters is what made the game bit too long which I will explain it later at the end, but it adds more in-depths storylines and has interesting character development than the previous game especially having a newcomer of the game is what made the game so great if the story and characters stayed intact and felt fully developed, so don't get me wrong because I still love Yakuza 3 and 4 has a respectable charm for the nostalgic reason, but it felt not as good compared with Yakuza 5 did it quite better for its story and character overall as my personal opinion.
Yakuza Remastered Collection has amazing cast of characters like you have badass brawler hero, adorable little girl, funny loan-shark dude, ruthless criminal, and unlucky former sport player is what made these characters so recognisable in entire Yakuza series.
I got to say I love the setting of the open-world locations where you get to explore around the city like going into places like SEGA arcades, restaurant, clubs, subway, backstreets, parks, underground sewer, karaoke, pubs, convenient stores, and many more places to visits that keeps you busy with the game itself.
Yakuza 3 has the summer style locations such as outside beach of orphanage houses, Yakuza 4 has prison-like cells and rooftops, and Yakuza 5 has big stadiums for live sports and idols that gives us a eye-catching views that fits perfectly on the series presentation.
While I did enjoy the rest of the story on three games, but I felt the length of the cutscenes on Yakuza 5 is ridiculously bit too long on both cinematic and in-game conversation which can be bit tedious to watch and read through, but that doesn't mean it's necessary bad thing which I still liked the story presentation for its plot-written and dialogues that keeps me enjoying the game that really adds my whole Yakuza's experience.
Overall, it has brilliant story-writing, memorable characters, and eye-catching open-world locations.
Gameplay
On these three games depending which characters you're playing as, you will have the list of main missions on pause menu where it focuses entirely on the main story, while you have the list of the sub-stories which is a side missions where you had to complete each tasks will expand the game's lengths becoming more longer to play as well as retrieving with the extra EXPs as a rewards.
You will start off with the open-world area where you can able to explore around the city that allows you to visit the places that I've mentioned before on the presentation section.
You run around with the left stick while holding the L1 to walk naturally, and then you use right stick to move around camera as well as pressing the L2 to centre your camera view. You can press right stick button to use first-person view and then looking around with the right stick.
While exploring around the area, you can talk with random NPCs for hint and tips, navigating items on floor, and entering inside the place by pressing the X button.
While being encountered by groups of gangs that chases you around the city till you are forced to battle with them in beat-em-up play-mode.
The square button uses as weak attack which is basically simple but faster attack, the triangle button uses as strong attack which is slow but deals with powerful damage, the circle button uses as throw and pick ups where you can perform an various of grapple attacks as well as picking up objects as a weapon, and the X button uses as quickstep which allows you to evade the enemy's attack.
You can make the combination of weak and strong attack to perform an combo hits adding more damage attack on enemies and when your heat bar is been filed up on the bar screen which allows you to perform various of special attacks such as headbutting on their heads, stomping their faces on ground, making heavy punch on their faces, slam them onto walls and grounds, and smash them with the weapons giving a instant damages against the enemies.
You can use L1 to block against enemy's projectiles in close range, while holding R1 to stay on target at the enemies making it easier to fight with one enemy and another.
While sharing with the beat-em-up combat, the game also shared with the QTE sequences where you had to press the corresponding button correctly when appears on the screen during the 3 second limit, but if you press the wrong button then it's likely you probably end up failing to evade enemy's projectile and there are a chase sequences where you had to chase down the enemy before they successfully escape, so you will have to knock them down till their enemy is been easily taken down.
Each of the playable characters has their own fighting style such as Kiryu are more of the well-balanced fighter dealing with the basic light and heavy attacks, Akiyama is more of fast-paced that deals with his speed attacks, Saejima uses his powerful charged and grapple attacks, Tanimura has ability to use parrying, and Shinada is very good with the weapon attacks.
After defeating the enemies will reward you with EXPs which levels up your character giving you ability to upgrades four of the variants such as heat, souls, tech, and body from the option menu.
The heat upgrades allows you to add various of heat actions and other heat-related upgrades, the souls upgrades focuses accumulation of heat as well as expanding the heat gauge, tech upgrades adds more combat moves, and body upgrades increases health and damages and throwing and grabs which these four upgrades variants allowing your fighting style and technique becoming more sufficient and perform better during the combat battle.
Even though the combat is still plays decent on both Yakuza 3 and 4, but as a remastered version it's no where near good as the Yakuza 5 because I finding the combat moves set is pretty limited on both heat action and tech moves which could have been done bit better, but still it played pretty decently for the rest of the game which is the reason why I preferred Yakuza 5 did it so better for its additional combat mechanics allowing you to learn more fighting move set and more heat action effectively.
As the combat gameplay plays absolutely well on all three games especially with Yakuza 5 had improved on both combat and open-world design, these three games had shares with action-packed missions that really kept the game ongoing such as battling with over 30 to 40 of yakuza gangs in one buildings, brawling with the bosses that are tough as nails, joining with prison friends for escape plan, finding way to get past through locations without getting caught by police nearby, finding evidence during investigation, chasing down bad guys on rooftops, saving the friends life from the rivalries, and confronting the corrupt leader for their crimes they have committed which is the reason why I had spent playing over 4 hours a day of total impact adventure and the sub-stories is also pretty good that also benefits your experiences which gives a game an additional fun with entirely new different adventures.
Outside of both the mains and sides-mission, you will also had a outside activities where you can spend free time on mostly mini-games and other fun activities such as baseball, golf, bowling, pool, darts, mah-jong, karaoke, dance, and of course Club SEGA where you can able to play some arcade games such as Boxcelios 1 and 2, SEGA's Virtua Fighter 2 and Bandai Namco's Taiko No Tatsujin which is cool, but I find the content on Club SEGA is rather lacking compared with previous game like Yakuza 0 and Kiwami 2 has way better categories of games, so don't get me wrong because I know these three games are originally released for PS3 which is the reason we didn't get classics like Space Harrier, Fantasy Zone, and Outrun at the time.
So far, I am very happy that the whole games had turned out being a faithful to the original PS3 version thanks to stable frame-rate and polished resolution which I am going to explain it on the graphics section and I also wanted to mention an extra content in the remastered collection which I will discuss more on special features section.
Overall, it has fantastic combat, open-world design, and epic single-player objectives.
Graphics
I got to say the whole three games are just the remastered port of the PS3 titles featuring 60 FPS and fully 1080p resolution which made these game looked more polish and up to date as opposed to 720p with less than 60FPS on original PS3 version which is quite bit mucky and dated for nowadays, but still it didn't change the overall graphic design which the whole three games looked just as same as you are expected.
The only difference is that the remastered version just had cleaned up the jaggy textures of environmental design and cleaning up the visual effects of lighting and shades to make it look more natural.
I am glad that the remastered version is looking better on the PS4 with no signs of major slowdowns during the combat gameplay and in-game cutscenes, and with the full resolution that runs higher than the 720p is the reason why it made these games looked more quality and authentic.
You will end up with a decent use of color saturation and crispy pixelated design which gives a game an nice tweaking process running on the PS4 hardware system.
While the tweaking stuff is a nice touch, as I said the graphic design is just like from the original PS3 with same level design and character's model which I don't really mind the design choices for the remaster version, but it's still look pretty solid for the rest of the game that I didn't had an issue at all.
Overall, it has cleaned textures, descent visuals, quality resolution, and less slowdowns.
Music and Sounds
Each of the games still shares with an amazing soundtrack that keeps you more engaging with the Yakuza's action packed battles as well as these game also shares with really cool karaoke songs that you can enjoy sing along with friends and gangs too, so yeah let's not forget "Baka Mitai" which is a song that went viral three years ago as a internet meme...yeah the memes always can be quite classy just like our good old days of the internet.
The sound design is still sounds pretty good on the remastered collection with no signs of audio lags and distorted which they did a great job of tweaking the sounds effects during the in-game open-world area which means there are no issues with the crowd noises and atmospheric streets sounds is sounds pretty good on the optical sound system.
I got to say I still loved the voice performance by the original cast of their roles which really nails it well in the in-game cutscenes giving a magnificent results on their character's development with in-depth personalities.
Overall, it has amazing soundtrack, great sound design, and magnificent voice cast.
Special Features
What I liked about the remastered collection is that the content that was missing on the PS3 version finally got it restored on this package adding more contents such as adding 20 side missions, mini-games, in-game game modes, and stuff that was based on PS3 DLCs are all included on this remastered collection turning into an definitive package.
I also wanted to mention these game has unlockable in-game modes like battle modes, premium modes, and of course new game plus for significant replay values.
Speaking of being an definitive package, the collector's edition comes with really badass game cases and of course an replica PS3 case only of Yakuza 5 which is also a welcome edition for huge video game collectors.
Overall, an awesome features.
Advantages
Brilliant story and characters
Eye-catching presentation
Fantastic combat gameplay and open-world design
Polished graphics with quality resolution and higher FPS
Amazing soundtrack and magnificent voice cast
Awesome additional features
Packaged with three games
Replay Values
Disadvantages
Yakuza 5 is little too long on both cutscenes and in-game conversation.
Yakuza 3 and 4 has limited combat moves compared with 5.
Final Verdict
Presentation 9/10 - brilliant story-writing, memorable characters, and eye-catching open-world locations.
Gameplay 9/10 - fantastic combat, open-world design, and epic single-player objectives.
Graphics 8.5/10 - cleaned textures, descent visuals, quality resolution, and less slowdowns.
Music and Sounds 9/10 - amazing soundtrack, great sound design, and magnificent voice cast.
Special Features 10/10 - new 20 side missions, mini-games, in-game modes, and has cool collector's edition stuff.
Overall 9/10 - I am so glad with this package comes with three amazing titles that is worth picking up for the fans of the series can able to get a hands on with the full remastered of these PS3 classics being bought to the PS4 console.
It's not just with the engaging combat gameplay and top-notch story presentation is surprisingly entertaining to play, but with fully polished resolution, running on higher frame-rate, and being packed with extra content is also stepping forward by SEGA themselves which I am so happy that I've bought it in to my home which is the reason why these collection doesn't totally feel rushed out and rehash the same thing, so that being said this is must buy for those who has or has not previously played threes on original PS3 version should able to give these collection a try on the PS4.
UPDATE 03/01/2021: This remastered collection will also be available on PC (via Steam) and XBONE (via Xbox Game Pass) in late January 2021.
I will look forward to playing Yakuza 6: The Song of Life as a final title to conclude Kiryu's saga and hopefully moving on with the entirely new adventure such as Yakuza: Like a Dragon in sometime future.
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