Developer : Sega
Release date : 2006
Synopsis :
Yakuza[b] is an action-adventure video game developed and published by Sega for the PlayStation 2. It was released in 2005 in Japan and in September 2006 internationally. The story follows Kazuma Kiryu, a yakuza member who spent ten years in prison for a crime he did not commit. After being released, he learns that the criminal underworld is searching for 10 billion yen that has been stolen from the Tojo clan. He comes across an orphan named Haruka who is being targeted by the clan. She is believed to have the key to their lost money and Kiryu resolves to protect her. The game takes place in Kamurocho, a realistic recreation of Tokyo’s Kabukicho district.
Yakuza takes place in an open world and makes use of role-playing elements. The player gains experience from combat which is used to improve Kiryu’s fighting capabilities. In order to finance the game’s expensive production, Sega contracted a tie-in campaign with famous Japanese companies. A sequel, Yakuza 2 was released in Japan in 2006. A remake of the first game, Yakuza Kiwami, was released for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 in 2016.
The critical reception was mostly positive. Although some criticized its clunky mechanics, the game was received well for its presentation and story. Yakuza was a commercial success, having sold over 1 million units on PS2. It went on to spawn an entire franchise of games.
The game follows the story of Kazuma Kiryu (Darryl Kurylo/Takaya Kuroda), a yakuza whose life changes when his boss, Sohei Dojima, attempts to rape Kiryu’s childhood friend, Yumi Sawamura (Eliza Dushku/Miyako Uesaka). When Dojima is murdered by Kiryu’s best friend and fellow yakuza, Akira Nishikiyama (Michael Rosenbaum/Kazuhiro Nakaya), Kiryu accepts blame for the murder, and is imprisoned for ten years. During his incarceration, Kiryu is expelled from his organization, the Tojo Clan, and Yumi goes missing. After his release, he learns that ten billion yen has been stolen from the Tojo Clan’s private bank, and that the entire Japanese underworld is now searching for the lost wealth.
Kiryu asks his former captain and adopted father, Shintaro Kazama (Roger L. Jackson/Tetsuya Watari), about Yumi’s disappearance, but Nishikiyama, who now controls his own gang, shoots Kazama after he reveals that Yumi was connected to the lost money. Kiryu manages to escape from the Tojo, who now regard him as an enemy and put a contract out on his life. His escape is aided by a detective named Makoto Date (Bill Farmer/Kazuhiro Yamaji), who had been investigating Kiryu ever since the death of Dojima, and is now investigating the murder of Third Chairman Masaru Sera (Alan Dale/Ryuji Mizuki), the former Tojo Clan leader whose death has triggered a war between Kazama, Nishikiyama, and an ambitious yakuza boss, Futoshi Shimano (Michael Madsen/Naomi Kusumi).
In his search for Yumi, Kiryu finds an orphan named Haruka Sawamura (Debi Derryberry/Rie Kugimiya) who is searching for her mother, Mizuki, who Date identifies as Yumi’s younger sister. Haruka is also targeted by the yakuza, who believe that her pendant, which Yumi gave to her for safekeeping, is the key to the missing ten billion. Kazuma is forced to protect her from not just Shimano and Nishikiyama, but also Goro Majima (Mark Hamill/Hidenari Ugaki), Shimano’s sadomasochistic lieutenant, as well as the Omi Alliance, a rival yakuza organization, the Snake Flower Triad, led by Kiryu’s old enemy Lau Ka Long (James Horan/Shinichi Takizawa), and the MIA, a mysterious group with ties to the Japanese government.
Eventually, Kiryu learns from Kazama that Haruka is actually Yumi’s daughter, and that “Mizuki” is Yumi under an assumed identity. Yumi suffered amnesia after she was attacked by Dojima, but recovered and married Kyohei Jingu (Robin Atkin Downes/Hiroaki Yoshida), an ambitious politician who allied himself with Sera. After accidentally killing a journalist who had tried to blackmail him with evidence that he committed adultery, Jingu asked Sera to have Yumi and Haruka murdered. Kazama saved the pair and persuaded Sera to turn on Jingu, having learned that the latter was using the clan to launder ten billion yen for his own purposes. It is then revealed that Kazama, Yumi and Sera robbed the ten billion yen so that Jingu wouldn’t use it to bribe the clan. Shimano ambushes them but Kiryu defeats him; however, Shimano mortally wounds Kazama with a grenade and his ally, Omi Alliance lieutenant Yukio Terada (Gregg Berger/Kenji Nomura), then shoots him dead in revenge. Before dying, Kazama confesses to Kiryu that he killed his parents when he was young and that he in fact operated the Sunflower Orphanage Kiryu grew up in.
Armed with the knowledge of the money’s location, Kiryu and Haruka head to Millennium Tower, where they meet Yumi, who has recovered her memories and now intends to destroy the money with a bomb. Jingu arrives with the MIA and the Omi Alliance, revealing that he intends to destroy the Tojo Clan and ally himself with the Alliance to control Japan. Kiryu subdues him and his men, but Nishikiyama, revealed to be cooperating with Jingu after the latter bribed him, arrives to challenge Kiryu and take the money for himself. Kiryu defeats him. Jingu appears and shoots Yumi before a remorseful Nishikiyama stabs him and detonates the bomb by shooting at it, killing them both and destroying the entire floor in the process. Yumi then dies in Kiryu’s arms, and with her, Nishiki and Kazama now dead, Kiryu decides to return to prison, but Date talks him out of it by reminding him that he is the only one who can take care of Haruka now. The Tojo Clan asks Kiryu to assume the role of Fourth Chairman in accordance with Sera’s will, to which Kiryu complies but he retires instead mere hours later and names Terada as the new Chairman to rebuild the clan. The story ends with Kiryu beginning a new life as a civilian with Haruka as his newly-adopted daughter.
Source : Wikipedia
