Sega published a new gameplay trailer, details, and screenshots for Yakuza: Like a Dragon, most notably revealing both Kazuma Kiryu and Majima Goro can be unlocked as Delivery Help, the game’s Final Fantasy-like summon system titled after Delivery Health. The details include information on the game’s new and returning characters, the battle arena, the DLC only Jobs, some sidequests and dungeons. Lastly, we also learned Yakuza: Like a Dragon includes a Pokemon parody sidequest with how you need to beat up 252 different types of bad guys called Sujimon to complete your Sujidex.
The trailer starts by introducing each of the seven party members in the game, Ichiban Kasuga, Kouchi Adachi, Namba, Saeko Mukouda, Joon-gi Han, Tianyou Zhao, and Eri Kamataki, along with the classic RPG roles they can fulfill depending on their various Jobs. Protagonist Ichiban Kasuga is the center of the party, and if he dies, you’ll immediately lose the battle and half of your money, as if mixing Persona and Dragon Quest together. New Jobs can be unlocked by studying and passing exams. The exams each have various themes, from sports trivia to questions related to other Sega franchises. You can also unlock certain jobs via sidequests.
It’s important to note two jobs have been confirmed to be paid DLC only. We have the male-character only Akuma job, which uses a guitar to fight and is dressed like a visual metal band member. And we have the female-only job Anego, which uses a naginata and machine guns, focusing on long-range and AOE attacks.
As we already know, the story starts in Isezaki Ijinchou in Yokohama, and Kamurocho in Tokyo will be accessible at some point. The trailer also reveals Sotenbori in Osaka will also be one of the maps in the game, for a total of three huge cities to explore.
Another element the trailer touches upon we haven’t seen much until now is how you can upgrade weapons and equipment with materials you’ll find around the cities, through sidequests or mini-games.
The last part of the trailer shows the various mini-games like darts, karaoke, girls bars, the Dragon Kart, the can-gathering minigame, and the Management Mode. The latter requires Ichiban to recruit employees, complete various deals and lead the company to become the biggest corporation in Yokohama. This mode is available pretty early in the game, and you’ll need to progress through it to unlock Eri as a party member.
Toshihiro Nagoshi mentioned a few days how besides Kazuma Kiryu and Goro Majima, Taiga Saejima and Daigo Dojima are also among the returning characters. The trailer and screenshots show part of their summon animation, confirming all four will be among the Delivery Help characters.
New screenshots published by Famitsu also detail the boss fight against Kiryu, Majima and Saejima. Kiryu actually uses his different fighting styles from past games. Majima and Saejima will be fought at the same time. While it wasn’t confirmed yet, it’s highly implied that managing to defeat them in battle is how you’ll unlock them as summons.
Next, Sega published official profiles and screenshots for certain important characters of the game. We first have Ryo Aoki, who was heavily implied in the previous trailer to be the true villain of the game. Ryo Aoki is the current governor of Tokyo, in the past, he was called Masato Arakawa and was like a brother to Ichiban, but he was supposed to be dead. After being elected as governor, becoming the youngest governor of Tokyo in history, he enacted the “Kamurocho 3K plan” which led to the destruction of the Tojo Clan. He’s also the founder of political party Bleach Japan and is the big favorite to be the next Prime Minister. He’s acted by Kōsuke Toriumi.
Next, we have Ogasawara Hajime, the current boss of Bleach Japan and the second founder of the party with Ryo Aoki. He’s acted by Tarusuke Shingaki.
Up next is Kume Sota, the director of the Yokohama branch of Bleach Japan. He’s a dangerous individual who’d do anything for the party and strongly supports its ideal of “bleaching the gray zone of entertainment shops”. He’s acted by Daisuke Hirakawa.
As a reminder, Bleach Japan claims many entertainment businesses in Japan are in a gray area and violate the Fueiho, the “Businesses Affecting Public Morals Regulation Act” law. This law exists in real life and regulates businesses like cabarets, host and hostess clubs, and sex industry-related businesses like soaplands.
We also have new info on the dungeons of the game, which are areas filled with dangerous people like certain homeless or sick people. These have treasure chests and a boss in their innermost part. Certain dungeons will also be unlocked with sidequests. Three more sidequests in the game were revealed, one involving an animal circus, one about searching for a black market weapons dealer, and one about a professor developing a giant automated city-cleaning robot.
Yakuza: Like a Dragon also includes a battle Arena made of 30 floors, with each floor having different rules and restrictions. No screenshots showing the Battle Arena were published yet, however.
We also learned Yakuza: Like a Dragon has a Pokemon-parodying sidequest, called Sujimon. Early in the game, Ichiban and friends will meet Doctor Sujimon, who is developing a mobile app encyclopedia to gather info on various dangerous people, the Sujimon. There are 252 different Sujimon in the game, and Kasuga gotta fight them all to complete his Sujidex. The first time we meet with Doctor Sujimon, we’ll also be asked to fight a green Sujimon, a red Sujimon, and a blue Sujimon, to test out the Sujimon app.
Sega also published a video interview with Nobuhiko Okamoto, the seiyuu of party member Tianyou Zhao. When Nobuhiko Okamoto was contacted for the role, he was pretty shocked to see he’s voicing a Chinese mafia boss, as it’s pretty different than all roles he did in the past. Tianyou is the kind of character who’s pretty calm but can suddenly start going really crazy. He’s also using various Chinese martial arts so Okamoto was pretty happy to voice a character who’s pretty much a Kungfu movie protagonist.
A video interview with Eri Kamataki was also published. Eri Kamataki won the actress audition for Yakuza: Like a Dragon, she acts herself in the game and also handled the motion capture for Saeko. In the interview, she mentions she was quite nervous during the audition and was really surprised when she ended up winning. She mentioned her version in the game has a slightly cuter personality than how she is in real life. In-game, she’s the boss of a company, but she’s too nice for the role and ends up getting deceived by bad guys. That’s when Kasuga helps her and they try to save the company together, triggering the game’s Management Mode. Yakuza: Like a Dragon was also Eri Kamataki’s first time voicing battle scenes, and she ended up redoing certain lines many times, but she had a lot of fun recording and acting for the game.
It’s important to note the finalists of the actress audition, Iroha Yanagi, Sumire Sawa, Manae Miyakoshi, and Ririka, will also appear in-game as NPC characters in sidequests.
Lastly, Sega published two gameplay videos. The videos feature Game Director Horii and Producer Masayoshi Yokoyama playing the game, with comments from some of the game’s cast: Kazuhiro Nakaya/Ichiban, Yuichi Nakamura/Joon-gi, Eri Kamataki, and Iroha Yanagi. At the end of the second video, Kazuhiro Nakaya/Ichiban and Yuichi Nakamura/Joon-gi also try out the in-game quiz. Nakamura does the Sega related quiz and it includes questions such as “In Sakura Taisen, what is the name of the squad Sakura Shinguji is part of?”. It’s pretty fun to watch if you’re a seiyuu fan. You can find both videos below.
You can catch the latest live gameplay here. You can also check out our playthrough of the demo and how I explained rather than the RPG change, the overall wacky feel of the battles is what might alienate old fans of the franchise.
PS4 exclusive Yakuza: Like a Dragon is titled Ryu Ga Gotoku 7 Hikari to Yami no Yukue in Japan and will launch there on January 16. The game will come west later in 2020.
The post Yakuza: Like a Dragon Includes Kazuma Kiryu and Goro Majima as Final Fantasy Summons, a Pokemon Parody Sidequest, And More by Iyane Agossah appeared first on DualShockers.