I’ve been playing a lot of Yakuza Zero recently. Having been a fan of the series since its original PS2 incarnations, but also being very, very behind on it, I figured it was time I started playing through the whole shebang — starting with one of its most well-liked installments.
And while I feel like people have a much better handle on what Yakuza really is these days thanks to it successfully moving into a more “mainstream” space than on its earlier releases, there are still some fundamental misunderstandings that seem to persist to this day.
Yakuza: Like A Dragon, the entry that bridged the gap between the western and eastern names of the series (and which marked the last time the Yakuza title would be used) certainly helped address some of these things through its fundamental changes to the core game formula, but looking back on reviews and other articles about Yakuza Zero, there are definitely some people labouring under some significant misapprehensions. Most notably, the assumption that Yakuza games are “beat ’em ups”.
Yakuza games are not beat ’em ups. And they never have been. Let’s look at why.
For the unfamiliar, a typical Yakuza game — and I’m talking Yakuza Zero-6 here, not Like A Dragon — unfolds like a console-style RPG. By that I mean you take control of one or more predefined characters with established personalities and backstories, and take them through a resolutely linear plot in which you don’t really have much choice in what unfolds — you’re just along to enjoy the tale being told, rather than sculpting it to your own preferences through the decisions you make.
Along the way, you have ample opportunity to become distracted from the main plot with a variety of optional side activities, ranging from quests for the locals to a series of extremely well-realised minigames. To attain 100% completion in a Yakuza game is a badge of honour (or at the very least, endurance), because it takes a significant amount of time, effort and, sometimes, luck to accomplish.
The key thing is that you don’t have to do this; if you just want to power through the main story, you can do so in about 10 hours or so, at which point you will unlock what the game calls “Premium Adventure” mode, where you can indulge in any of the game’s side activities and quests at your leisure without the main character nagging you to get back on track if you leave him idling for a moment or two.
Compare and contrast with the beat ’em up formula, in which you proceed through a linear series of levels in a linear fashion (usually, though not exclusively, from left to right), stopping to defeat set “encounters” of enemies along the way before you are allowed to proceed. There are generally no deviations from the path forward — although there are exceptions to this, particularly in more recent takes on the genre — and the focus is very much on straightforward, arcade-style action in which the depth comes from the implementation of the core mechanics.
Now, bearing these two descriptions in mind, it should already be abundantly clear that a Yakuza game is not a beat ’em up. And yet, take a look at this quote from EGM’s 2017 review of Yakuza Zero on its western release:
Dating back to the PlayStation 2, the Japanese-developed Yakuza series managed to muster a cult following of players worldwide. The series’ popularity began to slip off in the West over the years, but those most passionate about the 3D beat ‘em up fought to keep the games coming to the States. Despite tenuous confidence in how the series would be continually received here, publisher SEGA is taking another crack at American audiences with the prequel installment Yakuza 0, which is pitched as an ideal jumping-in point. As a fan of beat ’em up games but a newcomer to the Yakuza series, this invitation seemed the optimal chance to observe everything the games have learned thus far through a fresh pair of eyes.
Nick Plessas, egmnow.com, January 19, 2017
Plessas is right about a couple of things: Yakuza very much was a cult classic pretty much up until the release of Yakuza Zero, which is commonly cited as the moment the series finally broke through into more mainstream success. While its initial PlayStation 2 installment was well-received, its sequel passed by almost unnoticed, and its three PS3 games were very much titles that you would have only known existed if you were already an established fan.
However, the series is not, and never has been, a “3D beat ’em up”.
Plessas isn’t the only one to have made this mistake with Yakuza Zero specifically. Here’s an excerpt from PC Mag’s clickbaiting “The Best PC Beat ‘Em Ups for 2023” listicle:
Sega’s Yakuza is the rare polygonal series that adheres to the beat ’em up ethos. In Yakuza 0—the prequel story that shows how series protagonist Kazuma Kiryu rose through the ranks to become the big boss of a Japanese crime syndicate— you brawl through small, semi-open world regions with knuckles, guns, swords, and other weapons.
Jeffrey L. Wilson, PCmag.com, November 21, 2022
Almost everything about this is wrong. The game does not “adhere to the beat ’em up ethos” in the slightest, for reasons that should be obvious from the prior descriptions. Yakuza Zero does not chart Kiryu’s “rise through the ranks to become the boss of a Japanese crime syndicate” — indeed, for most of the game, he’s not a member of the yakuza at all. And you do not progress through the game by “brawling through small, semi-open world regions”.
I could find many more examples, such as this news post from PC Gamer that announces “Yakuza 7 is replacing beat ’em up action with turn-based combat”, but I think you probably get the idea by this point. And that’s not even getting into the message board posts and Steam reviews that also describe it as a “beat ’em up” or, worse, a “fighting game”.
So where has this misconception come from? Simple: combat in Yakuza games prior to Like a Dragon definitely drew inspiration from the conventions of beat ’em ups. Indeed, a lot of the skills that are important to success in beat ’em ups apply in Yakuza’s combat — most notably controlling space, understanding the reach of all your attacks and taking advantage of hitstun to dish out as much damage as possible while accruing as little of your own as you can.
In these Yakuza games, there is a distinct transition between “adventure mode”, where you’re wandering the streets and interacting with people, places and things, and “combat mode”, where you’re fighting. The most notable distinction is that when you’re in “combat mode”, you’re constrained to a specific arena — usually, rather charmingly, by bystanders gathering around the confrontation and cheering you on. Indeed, this distinction exists in Yakuza: Like A Dragon also, only in that instance the “combat mode” is turn-based.
In other words, Yakuza isn’t a game like Grand Theft Auto where your attack buttons are always active, and you can just punch anyone in the street in the face. You can bump into people — and even knock them over in some cases — but your average Yakuza protagonist, be it Kiryu, Majima or any of the other characters who have temporarily stepped into a leading role in various installments, is not the sort of person to inflict violence indiscriminately. In fact, it’s extremely rare for a Yakuza protagonist to be the one to initiate a combat encounter — more often than not, they are defending themselves.
Does this sound familiar? That’s right, it’s because it’s the typical structure of a console-based RPG, in which random combat encounters often play a significant role, but where they are not the primary focus of the experience. Random combat encounters are obstacles on the way to doing more interesting things such as revealing more plot, getting to know characters or engaging in activities that help to build the context of the world. Indeed, in Yakuza Zero specifically, you get an ability partway through the game where you can actually distract potential random combat encounters from attacking you by flinging a wad of cash up in the air, leaving them to greedily pick up your discarded notes while you pass by unmolested.
Now yes, let’s not deny that the major story beats of Yakuza games are often accompanied by combat sequences. These are stories that, to varying degrees, explore the violent, criminal underbelly of Japanese society, after all, and as such it’s natural that the protagonists be caught up in numerous violent confrontations over the course of those narratives. But the key point here is that those violent confrontations aren’t the only thing you are doing in a Yakuza game. Indeed, it’s possible to go for long periods without getting into any combat in a Yakuza game — particularly Zero, with the aforementioned “cash confetti” ability making it second nature to avoid encounters you don’t want to deal with.
If Yakuza games really were beat ’em ups, then they would ditch all the side activities and focus entirely on the main story, moving from violent story beat to violent story beat, placing the player in a cycle of cutscenes and combat sequences. They’d still be very solid games if they did that — and, indeed, if you so choose, you can pretty much play them in that way if you see fit — but that would also be fairly critically missing the point of the Yakuza series as a whole.
Why does this matter? Why have I written so many words about something the Yakuza series is not, and why do I care? Well, it’s simple, really: the series deserves better, and always has done. To refer to the games in the Yakuza series as “beat ’em ups” is to do them a disservice — not because the beat ’em up genre is in any way objectionable (it’s one of my personal favourites, in fact), but because it’s a complete misrepresentation of what a Yakuza game really is.
A Yakuza game is a narrative-centric, console-style RPG set in the modern world. More than that, though, it’s an interactive representation of modern-day Japan at various points in recent history, allowing you to fully immerse yourself in both relatively mainstream Japanese culture and the somewhat seedier underbelly of the nightlife scene.
Aside: this site used to have a regular troll who always used to whinge about anime-style games (which he referred to as “panty quests”) preventing Yakuza games from being localised. Besides this being a stupid argument, since we now have pretty much every game in the series over here, I find this doubly hilarious because of Yakuza Zero’s collectible telephone cards featuring JAV stars in varying degrees of undress, and your in-game relationship with one character being dependent on how many gravure bikini videos of said JAV stars you’ve watched. Oddly enough, said troll hasn’t been around for quite some time. But I digress.
Anyway, as I was saying, the series has always succeeded amazingly with its immersive recreation of Japanese society and nightlife, providing wonderful opportunities to step into someone else’s shoes and just enjoy a variety of experiences that may well be completely new to you, particularly if you live outside of Japan. It’s been successfully accomplishing this since the original PS2 game — and it’s only gotten better over time as technology has improved, allowing more and more detail to be packed into each subsequent title.
To diminish the series’ achievements in that regard by describing it as a “beat ’em up” is to do it a great disservice. And so consider this me setting the record straight. Or at least attempting to, anyway.
Want more Pete? Check my personal blog I’m Not Doctor Who, and my YouTube channel ThisIsPete. If you enjoy what you read here, please consider buying me a coffee.
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sick article as always