LONDON & SAN FRANCISCO (9th December, 2009) - SEGA Europe Ltd. and SEGA® of America, Inc. today announced that the Japanese smash hit Ryu ga Gotoku™ 3 will be officially localised for the west under the title Yakuza™ 3. Selling over half-a-million copies in Japan, the game has established an ardent fan base in its native land whilst achieving cult status with videogame connoisseurs in the west. SEGA's decision to bring the game to its western territories was heavily influenced by the recognition of Yakuza's enthusiastic fan base throughout Europe, Australia and the U.S. Yakuza 3 will be available exclusively on the PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system in March 2010.

The Yakuza series is the brainchild of Toshihiro Nagoshi, one of SEGA's most prolific and successful internal developers. Along with the Yakuza saga, Nagoshi is the father of the beloved Super Monkey Ball series and has worked on other popular SEGA games such as Daytona USA, F-Zero GX and Spikeout. In his current role as Head of Research and Development, Nagoshi oversees SEGA's internal development teams and imbues his creative flair across their portfolio of titles.

“Yakuza 3 was one of the most requested titles for localisation by our European SEGA community, so we are delighted to be able to fulfil their wishes with this announcement.” said Gary Knight, European Marketing Director, SEGA Europe Ltd. “As well as delving even further into the rich narrative of the Yakuza universe, the development team have pushed the PlayStation 3 hardware to the limits to produce a beautiful and startlingly realistic depiction of the Japanese underworld.”
Yakuza 3 will feature full English subtitling, whilst retaining the outstanding voice acting from the original Japanese version of the game to create an authentic and immersive experience. The transition to the PlayStation 3 has allowed SEGA of Japan's CS1 team to add an unprecedented level of environmental detail and realism to the game - a hallmark of the series that fans have come to expect. In this action-adventure sequel, players will take on the role of Kiryu Kazuma to explore rich and realistic environments, take part in a multitude of unique mini-games and experience the deepest combat experience yet. In addition to the familiar Tokyo haunts from the first two games, fans will also discover a completely new setting in the tropical island of Okinawa where, accompanied by his adoptive daughter Haruka, Kazuma is running an orphanage. However, he is allowed no respite in this idyllic retreat and before long he is once again forced to deal with his sordid past.

For more information on Yakuza 3 please visit (www.sega.com/yakuza3/)

Yakuza
A truly under-appreciated gem. A highly cinematic adventure game, with an engaging plot, that paints an accurate portrayal of the Japanese underworld.

The game very much follows in the tradition of Shenmue, where you have a semi-sandbox adventure game with linear story progression. You can wander around the streets of Tokyo doing side-quests; discovering lost locker keys that unlock items for use in combat or winning the affection over girls at the hostess bars. People (eg underling Yakuza, street toughs, etc) randomly walk over to you pick fights with you, after you've kicked their arses you'll get some cash or an item.

Combat has a simple button masher friendly system, you can still string together combos and the like though. I was never reallly a huge fan of Shenmue's combat model, which was the very same highly-technical one imported from Virtua Fighter 3 (The VF series has a reputation for having the most accurate/realistic models of real world martial arts styles.). The simplified combat model was a very welcome change for me, as I'm not into fighting games. You can pick up objects (tables, chairs... even bikes and signposts) and use them to bash in enemies. You can even drag enemies over to wall and where Kazuma will unleash some sweet animations. I.e. bashing their skull repetitively against a wall; pinning them against a wall and repetitively kneeing them in the chest.