Yakuza 6: The Song of Life

Yakuza 6: The Song of Life[lower-alpha 1][1] is an action-adventure video game developed and published by Sega for PlayStation 4. The game is the seventh main entry in the Yakuza series,[2][3][4][5] and was released in Japan in December 2016. The English version was released in Southeast Asia in March 2018,[6][7][8] and worldwide the following month.[9][10]

Yakuza 6: The Song of Life
North American cover art
Developer(s)Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio
Publisher(s)Sega
Director(s)Hiroyuki Sakamoto
Producer(s)Masayoshi Yokoyama
Designer(s)Ryosuke Horii
Programmer(s)
  • Koji Tokieda
  • Yutaka Ito
Artist(s)Nobuaki Mitake
Writer(s)
  • Tsuyoshi Furuta
  • Masayoshi Yokoyama
SeriesYakuza
Platform(s)PlayStation 4
Release
  • JP: December 8, 2016
  • WW: April 17, 2018
Genre(s)Action-adventure
Mode(s)Single-player

Gameplay

Yakuza 6 is an action-adventure game set in an open world environment and played from a third-person perspective. It is similar to that of other Yakuza titles with exploration mixed with arcade style over the top combat with ragdoll physics. A more advanced variant of Yakuza 5's Dragon Spirit Mode, called Extreme Heat Mode, is introduced, where Kiryu becomes temporarily invulnerable as long as his Heat remains, and his combo finishers can turn into Heat actions that take out immense amounts of health. Kazuma Kiryu returns as the main and only playable character and the game features locations of Kamurocho, Tokyo and Onomichi, Hiroshima Prefecture, with just one fighting style returning this time like all titles before Yakuza 0 and Yakuza Kiwami.

Characters

Several renowned actors voice the characters in Yakuza 6. Among them: Takeshi Kitano as Toru Hirose, Shun Oguri as Takumi Someya, Hiroyuki Miyasako as Tsuyoshi Nagumo, Tatsuya Fujiwara as Yuta Usami, and Yoko Maki as Kiyomi Kasahara, as well as other artists that have participated in the Yakuza series.[11][12][13]

Plot

While recovering from his injuries from the previous game, a hospitalized Kazuma Kiryu is approached by the police, who plan to arrest him for his past crimes. Kiryu chooses not to resist the arrest and willingly spends three years in prison in order to live peacefully with the children he had fostered. Upon being released in 2016, Kiryu discovers that Haruka has disappeared to avoid public scrutiny, and that Daigo Dojima and Goro Majima were wrongly arrested for the burning down of Little Asia six months prior to his release. Kiryu returns to Kamurocho to search for Haruka, only to find out that she has been left in a coma after a hit and run incident, and that she has an infant son, Haruto. Unsure whether Haruka will recover from her injuries, Kiryu travels with the baby to Onomichi Jingaicho in Hiroshima to uncover the mystery of what happened to Haruka during his three-year absence.

Upon his arrival in Onomichi, Kiryu initially enters into a rocky, but growing friendship with the local Yomei Alliance's Hirose family, led by its namesake patriarch Toru Hirose, and its members Tsuyoshi Nagumo, Naoto Tagashira, Takaaki Matsunaga and Yuta Usami. During Kiryu's investigation, he learns that elements of the Tojo and Yomei Alliance have been secretly manipulating events behind the scenes in order to maintain "The Secret of Onimichi". Haruka's hit-and-run incident is later to be revealed as part of a retaliatory attack against the Yomei Alliance by the Kamurocho-based Saio Triad, led by Yuta's father Big Lo. The reason for this attempt on Haruka's life is that Yuta entered a relationship with her and is the biological father of Haruto. Due to the negative connotations of an interracial relationship, and the fact that Yuta is unknowingly the biological second successor to the Saio Triad's leadership separated from his family back in China due to the country's one-child policy, the Saio Triad had deemed Haruto a threat to the Triad's bloodline, combined with the fact that they wanted to avoid all forms of rivalry breaking out into civil war. The Jingweon Mafia, a Korean crime syndicate that has resurfaced following their downfall ten years ago, also becomes involved, including its leader Joon-gi Han, though after being defeated by Kiryu he is seemingly shot dead alongside Koji Masuzoe, another heihaizi member of the Saio Triad, before they can reveal the secret.

An enraged Yuta later burns down Little Asia and attempts to kill himself and his father to protect Haruto and Haruka from further harm, though Kiryu defeats Yuta and saves them both, eventually threatening Big Lo to call off the hit permanently. Kiryu then returns to Onomichi to confront Hirose about the secret and defeats him; the secret is revealed to be the hidden construction of an abandoned naval Yamato-class battleship at the end of World War II built by Iwami Shipbuilding and funded by Minoru Daidoji, a naval officer and politician with ties to the Alliance. Takeru Kurusu, the Yomei Alliance chairman and whose real name is Heizo Iwami, the chairman of Iwami Shipbuilding, appears and reveals that the Yomei Alliance was created in order to further keep the battleship a secret and orders Hirose to murder Kiryu, Nagumo, Tagashira and Matsunaga for exposing it, Hirose is hesitant and finally refuses which Heizo responds by fatally shooting Hirose. A dying Hirose reveals that he was the one responsible for killing the fathers of Nagumo, Matsunaga and Tagashira to keep the secret hidden despite Heizo never having been advised to do so. Heizo leaves afterwards knowing that Daidoji would be coming after him soon and Nagumo takes over the Hirose family. Heizo's son Tsuneo later has him killed by Yomei Alliance captain Kanji Koshimizu to takes over both Iwami Shipbuilding and, eventually, the Yomei Alliance, and visits Daidoji on his deathbed, who gives his final wish to him to kill Kiryu.

During the height of the conflict, Kiryu, Shun Akiyama, Yuta, Matsunaga, Tagashira and Nagumo invade the Millenium Tower to confront Takumi Someya, patriarch of the Tojo Clan's Someya family, with Kiryu defeating the latter, only to watch Someya kill himself via seppuku to save his ex-wife Kiyomi in vain as Koshimizu shoots her. They then mourn Someya's death back in Hiroshima, and mount a full-scale invasion on the entire Yomei Alliance and defeat Koshimizu. Soon afterwards, Tojo Clan advisor Katsumi Sugai and Yomei Alliance leader Tsuneo Iwami reveal themselves to be the masterminds behind the conflict, and in an attempt to halt Kiryu's interference, kidnap Haruka and Haruto. With the aid of the Hirose family, a heavily wounded Kiryu successfully defeats Iwami, though is shot by Sugai. Confronted by the entire Hirose Family for the shooting, Sugai commits suicide. Daidoji dies in his sleep, while Kiryu collapses from his wounds in a tearful Haruka's arms.

In the climax, set in January 2017, an unknown politician who serves as the Yomei Alliance's fixer attempts to bribe Kiryu to keep quiet about the battleship's exposure and Daidoji's apparent involvement in the entire ordeal as this would put several high-profile politicians of Japan tutored under him at jeopardy, but Kiryu makes a counter-offer instead. Kiryu demands that Dojima become released from imprisonment in order to end a potential war between the Tojo Clan and the Yomei Alliance. Kiryu also insists that the politician helps him fake his death in order to honor the latter's end of the deal and to let Haruka and her family from the Morning Glory Orphanage live in peace, or that they would all have to deal with Kiryu's wrath instead. The deal is upheld, and in the epilogue, Daigo, Majima and Saejima later decide to make an alliance with the Yomei in honor of Kiryu, Kiyomi is shown to be alive and reunited with her daughter Hiromi; it is revealed that the bullets Koshimizu used were blanks and that he was planning to betray Tsuneo from the start, while Haruto, Haruka and Yuta move back to Okinawa to manage the orphanage as ordinary citizens. Kiryu hides and watches Haruto take his first steps, after which, he walks into the distance, finally satisfied that his life's goal is complete and that he is finally free from his life of crime.

Development

Yakuza 6 was announced on September 15, 2015 at the Tokyo Game Show during the Sony conference, exclusively for PlayStation 4 and with a release date of "Autumn 2016".[5] Toshihiro Nagoshi of Sega confirmed that more details would be revealed during the rest of the event.[5] A traditional Chinese localisation has been announced for the Asia region.[14] Beat Takeshi was also announced to be playing a character within the game.[15] The game also features New Japan Pro Wrestling wrestlers Hiroshi Tanahashi, Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Kazuchika Okada, Satoshi Kojima, Tetsuya Naito and Toru Yano, who play fictionalized versions of themselves in the game.[16]

This is the first game to be developed exclusively for the PlayStation 4, featuring the all new "Dragon Engine.".[17]

Yakuza 6 also includes Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown, Puyo Puyo, Out Run, Super Hang-On, Space Harrier, and Fantasy Zone as playable games in the form of basic play spots. Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown and Puyo Puyo include two-player modes as well.[18] Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown is based on Version B of the game and Yakuza 6 is the only official release of this version outside Japan.

For Yakuza 6, Kiryu's orphanage, named "Sunshine Orphanage" in previous western releases, was renamed to "Morning Glory" (the literal translation of its Japanese name Asagao (アサガオ)). Yakuza series localization director Scott Strichart explained that as Goro Majima had managed a cabaret club called Sunshine in Yakuza 0, it felt too much of a coincidence that both Majima and Kiryu would both come to have a place called "Sunshine" play a big part in their lives. He then said that as such, it would likely lead to the impression that Kiryu had decided to name his orphanage after the cabaret club, which seemed highly inappropriate for his character. This change was retained in later re-releases of prior games.[19]

Demo glitch

The demo for Yakuza 6 was released on February 27, 2018 for North America, Europe, and Australia. The US version was pulled from the PlayStation Store after Sega discovered that they accidentally released the full game in that region.[20] The Australian and European demos were pulled from the PlayStation Store the next day, and all the free copies of the game in the US had their digital license revoked.[21] On March 19, 2018, the demo was re-released on the PlayStation Store.[22]

Reception

Critical response
Reception
Aggregate score
AggregatorScore
Metacritic83/100[23]
Review scores
PublicationScore
Destructoid7/10[24]
Edge8/10[25]
EGM9.0/10[26]
Famitsu39/40[27]
Game Informer9.25/10[28]
GameRevolution[29]
GameSpot8/10[30]
GamesRadar+[31]
IGN7.5/10[32]
Polygon8.5/10[33]

Yakuza 6: The Song of Life received "generally favorable" reviews from critics, according to review aggregator Metacritic.[23]

The game received a score of 39/40 from the video game magazine Famitsu.[27] The German magazine 4Players gave it 85 out of 100 points.[34]

Sales

In its first week of release in Japan, it sold 218,168 copies.[35] As of December 23, it has sold 262,760 copies in the region.[36] Combined with the rest of Asia, the game shipped over 500,000 units by December 2016.[37] It was the third best selling video game in the United Kingdom during its European debut week,[38][39] making it the biggest launch for the series in the UK.[40] As of June 2018, the game has sold nearly 1 million units worldwide, with overseas markets accounting for approximately half of the game's sales.[41]

Accolades

The game was nominated for "Best Storytelling" and "PlayStation Game of the Year" at the 2018 Golden Joystick Awards,[42][43] and for the Tin Pan Alley Award for Best Music in a Game at the New York Game Awards.[44]

Notes
  1. Ryū ga Gotoku 6: Inochi no Uta (Japanese: 龍が如く6 命の詩。, Like a Dragon 6: Poem of Life)

References
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