Knuckle Up

Sega and Team Yakuza have released the remastered edition of Yakuza 4. The sequel arrives as part of the Yakuza Remastered Collection, which is available now on PS4.

Originally released in 2010, Yakuza 4 shook up the format by offering a story which featured four different protagonists - including series regular Kazuma Kiryu - whose lives all converge against a common foe. Of course, Yakuza 4 is also packed ful??l of collectibles, goofy mini-games, high-drama cutscenes, and plenty of good old fashioned ultraviolence.

Yakuza 4 Remastered is now unlocked as part of the Yakuza Remastered Collection for PS4. It will be joined by Yakuza 5 in February.

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KAMPAI!

[Update: With the fervor from the announcement quelled a bit, we now have concrete details about these remasters. According to Yakuza localization lead Jon Riesenbach, the games will be available under the "Yakuza Remastered Collection" banner on the PSN. For $60, you'll get all three titles with 3 available today, 4 coming October 29, and 5 releasing on February 11, 2020.

If you'd rather wait for a physical collection (!), a disc will be releasing alongside Yakuza 5 in February for $60. To sweeten the deal a bit, the physical bundle will include a PS3 case of Yakuza 5 to put on your shelf and complete your collection. As for the remasters themselves, they will run at 1080p, 60 F?PS, have all cut content restored, and include substory markers ?on the in-game radar.]

During Sega's Gamescom stream this morning, it was confirmed that the Yakuza PS4 remasters will be heading west after all. The trio of titles, which contains Yakuza 3, 4, and 5, will be making their way to western PS4s and allow everyone to play the entire series on a single console. In an even better move, Yakuza 3 is available immediately on the PSN.

As the details are currently breaking, I'm not sure if any release windows have been confirmed for 4 or 5. In fact, the Sony website hasn't even updated Yakuza 3 yet, so I can't confirm a price. The PSN servers likely need to?? update, so if you can't spot it just yet, check back in a few hour??s.

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Judgment on PC being considered

Last year, Sega announced that it would be remastering the PS3 Yakuza entries for release on PS4. The idea was to have each game playable on a single console and series producer Toshihiro Nagoshi even commented they were being done for "new overseas fans."

At E3 this year, I had a chance to speak with Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio's Kazuki Hosokawa -- director of Yakuza 5 and 0 -- and I asked whether or not the west would receive the recent PS4 ports of Yakuza 3, 4 and 5. While there wasn't much he could say, he did tell me, "It's better not to say anything at this time." That's a bit of a bummer, but ?it doesn't deny that Sega is thinking about the?? possibility.

Another question I brought up is if a PC port of Judgment was on the table. Some recent comments have made it seem likely and with Yakuza now having a home on Steam, one could assume that Judgment will soon follow. Hosokawa told me, "There are no ??concrete plans as of yet, but we're always looking into different platforms and considering, so it's on our minds for sure." Again, that doesn't deny the possibility, but th??ere's likely nothing Hosokawa can say on the matter. I wouldn't give up hope for these titles, but Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios is more focused on getting Judgment out in the west and finishing development on Shin Ryu Ga Gotoku.

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Tanimura is definitely odd looking

Sega has uploaded some footage of Yakuza 4's PS4 remaster to YouTube. Along with showing off a much higher resolution and a rock-solid framerate, this is also the first look we're getting of protagonist Masayoshi Tanimura's new actor. Famtisu had revealed screenshots, a release date and details about the remaster days ago and some fans were left scratching their heads at the recasting of a ?main character.

Why don't you take a look a judge for yourself?

In all honesty, I had a hard time distinguishing him in the first shot of the trailer. From his side profile, new actor Toshiki Masuda bears resemblance ?to original actor Hiroki Narimiya. It's ever?ywhere else that comes off odd to me. I'm too used to Narimiya's voice and I just cannot get on with that weird face in close-up shots.

Those nitpicks aside, everything else looks just as I remember it in Yakuza 4. The game has some excellent ambiance and that is being completely retained. Seeing as how this isn't a Kiwami style redo, that makes p???erfect sense. It still sucks about Tanimura's complete change, though.

PS4専用ソフト『龍が如く４ 伝説を継ぐもの』プロモーション映像 [YouTube Japan]

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We hardly knew you, Tanimura

Yakuza 4's PS4 remaster will be hitting Japanese stores on January 17, 2019. The news came from the latest Famitsu magazine [Thanks, Gematsu] and also revealed a few details about changes to the game. The biggest shock is that protagonist Masayoshi Tanimura has been completely recast and will b?e sporting a new character model. Toshiki ??Masuda will now assume the role in lieu of the original actor, Hiroki Narimiya.

There is actually a l??ot of baggage associated with Tanimura's original actor. Allegations of drug use essentially ruined his career in acting and even led him t??o retire altogether. He was cleared in 2016, but the damage had been done and most companies ceased associating with him. Recasting him for this remaster is likely being done to avoid royalties owed for his performance.

It's the same thing that happened with Yakuza 3's remaster on PS4. The hostesses in the game had used the likeness of real-life actresses, so they were recast to avoid any conflicts. The bigger issue is that a lot of content went missing from Yakuza 3 on PS4, which could be the case with this upcoming port as well. The cut stuff isn't th?at big of a deal, but it makes previous claims of no content being edited fals?e.

That being said, there is still no confirmati??on of a Western release for these remasters. I would assume they are coming over, but probably as a single package instead of three releases. With these being a little more involved than simple ports, that is likely why Sega hasn't announced anything yet.

Yakuza 4 for PS4? launches January 17, 2019 in Japan, Masayoshi Tanimura actor recast [Gematsu]

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Now we just need confirmation

During a live stream this morning, Yakuza series producer Toshihiro Nagoshi dropped a nugget of info that is sure to get fans' attention. According to him, the main reason for the existence of the Yakuza 3, 4 and 5 remasters on PS4  is for "new overseas fans." This is likely in relation to the massive popularity boost the series saw in the US with the release of Yakuza 0 last year, though?? it could just be the generally ?good reception each new game has been receiving.

Nagoshi also confirmed that no content will be edited from the games, barring a couple of hostess girls that have to be removed for licensing reasons (the women in each game are based on real-life hostesses). If these games do come West (which seems incredibly likely), then we'll finally have the complete version of Yakuza 3 that fans have wanted since launch.

Along with all of that great news, Nagoshi took a guess that Yakuza 6 global sales have reached 800,000 copies. That may not seem like a lot, but the? series has never been a m??assive blockbuster (even in Japan). Each game in the series has broken a million units, so it looks like Kiryu's final chapter will eventually cross that threshold.

You can catch the live stream?? below, though it is entirely in Japanese.

Nagoshi says Yakuza 3, 4 and 5 remasters are for ne??w oversea?s fans, confirms no cut content [Segabits]

Yakuza Community |OT| No Yakuza Here, Officer [ResetEra]

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IKUZO!

For years now, I’ve been a huge fan of the Yakuza series. The first title I played was Yakuza 3 back in 2011 and it took me by complete surprise. It was basically everything I had ever wanted out of a video game, right down to kooky characters and gut-wrenching actio??n moments. It also had an extreme attention to detail in recreating a small slice of Tokyo, a city I’ve always fantasized about visiting.

When the chance arose to speak with the localization team behind the series, I couldn’t pass that up. I had always wondered about how one gets started doing localization or what the process might be for selecting which features get cut. With Yakuza 6 releasing soon, it felt like the best opportunity to have a chat wit??h Scott Strichart and Sam Mullen (producers over at Atlus that handle Sega’s Japanese?? content). While I wasn’t able to directly talk to them, I did put together a couple of questions that hopefully answers how the localization process isn’t as straightforward as you might think.

_{[Art gallery image courtesy of Sarah Wellock]}

To start off, I asked Sam and Scott how the two of them even ended up working on localization for the Yakuza series. The cliff notes version is that they happened into it, but the longer story is a bit more detailed. For Sam, he started his career working on deployment and project management on Japanese cell phone games in a pre-smartphone era. This soon led to him becoming a project man??ager on deploying Japanese games into Western markets, which he describes as being, “effecti?vely localization.”

For Scott, his story is more of an underdog tale. After receiving his English teaching degree, Scott found himself broke, unemployed, and disillusioned with his life. He took a long shot and applied as an editor and tester at a local company to keep himself afloat. That company turned out to be Atlus and after a single project in QA, Scott was brought on as an editor for the Nintendo DS game Drone Tactics. As he states, “?I still have that game, sealed, on my d??esk. Never forget your roots…But don’t play them, either.”

Both men have worked on a tremendous amount of titles. When asking about their personal favorites, both agreed that it was too difficult to pick one game. “Games are like children,” Sam says. “There are no favorites. Each is special in its own way.” Still, some of the more notable titles each has worked on include the SEGA Vintage Collection, Persona 4, 3D Dot Game Heroes, Project DIVA, Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call, and Class of Heroes (the first game the two worked on together).

With such a broad range of genres and styles, I obviously wanted to know how long a typical game would take to localize. I stuck more to the Yakuza series when asking this, but Sam’s answer can apply to almost any text-heavy Japanese game. In his words, “[The length] depends on a lot of factors, including the number of Japanese characters in a game…and the number of people we can allocate to the project. The Yakuza series?? has become easier to localize over time and with the move to the Japanese version needing to support both Traditional Chinese and Korean at launch…there’s been a lot of improvement in our ability to engage earlier and more effectively on the series.”

Scott then followed that up by stating, “To give you some context, Yakuza 0…the largest Yakuza game my team has actually worked on, started pre-production in December 2015 and didn’t go gold until November 2016. By comparison, Yakuza 6: The Song of Life, which despite being a more focused game with a large??r team, still look 10-11 months from pre-production&hellip??;to QA and final submission.”

That seems like an awful lot of time just for translation, doesn’t it? But localization doesn’t just mean taking text and dumpi?ng it into Google translate. There are a lot more factors that?? a team must account for when trying to convey a message that the game director wanted.

“We do a lot more than translation,” Sam pointed out. “There is a common misconception that a localization team just translates, but that is just a small sliver of what our job entails.” He then mentioned how a direct 1:1 translation of text would lose the cultural nuance of the text, so the teams often adapt the re??levance of sentences for the Western audience. The game also needs to be readied for localization, meaning a team cannot work on a project without the go-ahead from Atlus or Sega.

As for which Yakuza title took them the longest, both Sam and Scott agree that Yakuza 5 was a massive project. As Sam stated, “Yakuza 5 wasn’t built to be easily localized in the first place.” This can b??e seen in the many cultural standards that aren’t brought up in Western games (such as playable c??haracter Shinada being a reviewer of sexy massage parlors).

So with localization demanding a careful eye on cultural relevance, does the localization team have any say on what content gets retained during the games? I mainly questioned about the side stories that are prevalent in the Yakuza series, since a lot of them use Western lingo to convey comedy or drama depending on the situ??ation.

“We just need to make sure the emotional beats in the substories that we do get land like they’re supposed,” states Scott. “If the story is meant to tug on your heart strings, we make it do that. If it’s meant to make you laugh, we make sure it’s funny??.” Sam then followed up with, “We don’t censor anything if we can help it.”

As diehard fans may already know, Yakuza 3 was a victim of content being cut in order to ensure its release. This resulted in the removal of content that was deemed “heavily rooted” in Japanese culture. Sega did eventually relent with Yakuza 4, but the?? damage was done and people were a bit angry. While I mistakenly inferred the translation was broken, Sam did say that the game was, “a product of i?ts time.”

Scott elaborated: “I’d love the chance to [restore cut content]…It’s less about ‘fixing’ and more about bringing your own strengths to the table on restoring older games.” He then continued by explaining how he takes more notice of the Kansai accent and how his personal styling of Kiryu’s dialog in Yakuza 0 and 6, which demanded the character be more impassioned than other games, is something he has brought into the Kiwami remakes. He did end by saying, “Having done four games now, getting the opportunity to bring that consistency back to Yakuza 3 would be really cool.”

As with any Yakuza interview, I had to ask what the chances of Sega localizing Kenzan and Ishin might be. Both games have remained Japanese exclusives and for good reason; they feature periods of Japan’s history that Western audiences know next to nothing about. While the answer wasn’t a definite “no,” as Sam puts it, “We’re releasing four Yakuza games within the span of two years and are doing all we can to meet the demand of the fans. Just keep buying our games if you like them.” Scott followed up with, “Short of dedicating this entire office to Yakuza localizations, we’re going as ?fast as we can!”

Something else that wasn’t a definite “no” was the chance of the West eventually seeing the PS3/Wii U Yakuza HD Collection. The final answer: greater than zero perce?nt and less than 100 percent! That may no?t be the confirmation everyone was looking for, but it does at least keep the dream alive.

The best way to wrap up was to ask both men how much they enjoyed havin??g the chance to localize games. Both had some ?very inspirational things to say about their work.

Sam: “Sin??ce we work with parties around the world, there’s never any downtime. There’s alw?ays something that needs attention…But at the end of the day, you get a game that people can enjoy and the fans are so wonderful and encouraging. It really does get you up out of bed and out the door; because you know you can get out there and make something amazing.”

Scott: “Sometimes, when our games are erupting into dumpster fires because of this and that…we’ll [Scott and Sam] look at each other say ‘LIVIN’ THE DREAM, RIGHT?’ because it’s true. As much as things challenge us, as hard as they can be, we’re getting paid to make video games happen. Standing in that room when we announced Yakuza Kiwami 2&hellip?;hearing the e?ntire room literally erupt because they saw a subtitle over Kiryu’s face; I live for it.”

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Haruka, no!!!!

During the inaugural PlayStation experience in 2014, viewers were graced the amazing gift of the announcement that Yakuza 5 would be localized for the west. The following year, Sony confirmed that Yakuza 0 would grace western consoles and in 2016, we were given confirmation that Kiwami and 6 would be coming. Whether intentional or not, the PlayStation Experience has become synonymous with Yakuza.

So imagine my pain when I found out that 2017's PSX won't feature anything Yakuza related. Announced during an official livestream of Yakuza 0, Sam Mullen and Scott Strichart (Sega of America localization producers) confirmed the terrible news for all Yakuza fan??s. While I'm saddened, I can definitely und?erstand why.

The two most recent Ryu Ga Gotoku studio games are Kiwami 2 and Fist of the North Star, both of which have not released in Japan yet. While Kiwami 2 isn't far off (it releases December 7), Sega wouldn't really be in a position to show anything from a localization. They could announce a plan to translate these games, but we'd still be waiting at least 12 months before being able to pla?y anything. It makes more sense to save that for next year.

Mullen and Strichart did at least reassure fans that 2018 will be a "great year" for Yakuza, so I'm sure we'll be getting some kind of surprise after Yakuza 6 launches. I can't imagine Sega would just stop after bringing 6 to the west, so I'm still hopeful for Kiwami 2.

No Yakuza announce??ment at PSX 2017, 2018 w??ill be a "great year" for Yakuza [Reset Era]

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YATTA!

Sega has made a lot of strides with porting over Japanese made games to PC. Just this year we've seen ports of Bayonetta and Vanquish, so it looks like the sky is the limit when it comes to series. In an interview with PC Gamer, John Clark (Sega's senior VP of commercial publishing) said, "If I asked you to write me a list of ten games you want Sega to bring out on PC, it probably isn't any different from the?? list [we have]."

In regards to Yakuza, Clark started, "It's on that list. Of course something we're talking about it… that would just be incredible to bring that to the PC audience." As for Persona? "Of course, of course...?We don't feel that?? anything is off the table in terms of these conversations."

So will we see these games by the end of the year? Only time will tell, but its looking more likely that Sega's niche titles will be arriving to PC at some point. If Bandai Namco can make a success out of Dark Souls on PC, then I'm sure any off-kilter? game has a fighting chance.

Yakuza and Persona are 'on t?hat list' of games Sega wants to bring to PC [PC Gamer]

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If only police were so honorable in the States

The Yakuza series is full of oddball missions but the suicide negotiator in Yakuza 4 takes the cake for being?? the most obscene. The protagonist is asked to ?talk a suicide jumper down from a highrise, only to end up in a fist fight with the distressed civilian.

YouTube user DavidtheBarbarian1 takes the mission to an extreme by appl??ying the most brutal combat tactics against the civilian. Oh, how I love to laugh at the misfortune of others.

[via DavidtheBarbarian1]

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