Yakuza: Dead Souls Heading to the US

I can’t give any thoughts on the possibility of Yakuza 1 or 2 coming back (either in a bundle, as HD, etc) – sorry!

I can say thank you, though, for being a strong supporter of the series by owning every game so far, and in doing so helping Yakuza continue here in the west!

Hope you enjoy it, Box – thanks for commenting, and glad you like the series.

Glad you’re excited! And don’t be too bummed at all – the content not coming is quite minor, and a massive chunk of the Japanese version is arriving here in the west.

P.S. – I love Valkyria, too. Tell your friends to go buy a copy for the PS3!

You’re very welcome!

You’ll have a blast. Thanks for supporting Yakuza! (Sounds almost like I’m endorsing organized crime when I say it that way..)

Always lot of cool ideas – the better Yakuza as a franchise does in the west, the more likely ideas like this could someday come to fruition.

Did you play Yakuza 1 with English voices? Surprisingly, there are a number of people I’ve heard from who thought it was pretty good. The English cast back then was pretty impressive, especially for a video game. But it’s all a matter of opinion I think. : )

Hi there – thanks for the comment Smoke! I can’t make any comments on a Collector’s Edition right now, but we are aware people would like to see one. Stay tuned!

Nice, awesome to hear you played the Japanese version for 100+ hours. To answer some of your questions:

– No exact dates yet on when you can expect the full content list, but we’ll get it up as soon as we can. The list of content going in is huge, and the list of things being removed is tiny. (And mostly minor things – we’re not talking Hostess clubs.)

– Too soon for me to comment on controls – stay tuned.

– For the DLC – another stay tuned, but with a side of “we know you really want it, and have considered that”!

Someone who does their research… props for that! That’s part of the list I use whenever some ill-informed gamer asks if SEGA still makes good games. And with Sonic Generations coming up soon too on PS3, we’re about to be solid on just about every key SEGA franchise. It’s a nice time to be a fan.

Hatsune Miku… not one I can offer any thoughts on, but another franchise we know there’s a lot of love for. It’s amazing how popular she is here in the US / Europe already. Did you get a chance to see the concert they had in L.A. a few months back?

As you get better guns, and as you raise your accuracy for headshots (or just improve your skill manually), they’ll drop much faster. The gatling gun is especially fun for mowing down waves of them at a time.

Glad you enjoyed the demo!

For the sake of continuing a comment on every response – thanks for spreading the word!

We love you too. Thanks for supporting Yakuza! : )

Saga? Who is this Saga? ; )

No news right now on any PS2 titles from Sega, but never say never, right?

I’ve actually got that right in my pocket.

You can have it when you deliver two cheesecakes and five-hundred chili dogs to SEGA of America HQ, San Francisco, CA. We like our cheesecakes.

(Honest answer: I don’t work at Sony, so I couldn’t tell you – sorry!)

Haha, no problem! You’re not the first, believe me.

It’s unrelated to Yakuza, but…

There’s a lot that goes into making a video game. Often we get comments that might be great ideas on paper, but aren’t quite so pragmatic when you look at it on a time line. I do wish we a had a big, red, “UP-RES” button, though. (Sadly, they don’t exist.)

I played my Dreamcast so much the motor died. (During a game of Phantasy Star Online, no less!)

Thanks for the SEGA love. : ) And thanks for supporting Yakuza!

Would be interesting! I can’t give any comments about how likely it could be, but it’s a cool idea.

Chili Dogs and Cheesecakes for swag?

You’ve got a deal, sir.

I think one could make the argument than any game with ‘Zombies’ in it copied another game somewhere along the line. (And every movie, and every book, etc…) But I can definitely dispel any rumor that we’re copying Black Ops – Yakuza and Call of Duty are very different beasts!

We’re not trying to be another Black Ops in terms of gameplay, and I think that’s important – it’s good to be something unique, especially when you’re mixing an RPG, shooters, and Zombies together.

Thanks for supporting the series, Egg! Hope you’ll love this one when you pick it up. : )

The original Japanese title was “Ryu Ga Gotoku: Of The End”.

As much as I love me some Engrish (I have an Engrish T-shirt from Japan that I wear in the office), we wanted to make sure the western name for the game made it easy to understand what it was about, both for fans and for people who might not have played Yakuza before. Hopefully it accomplishes this!

All that said, I still appreciate the certain charm that ‘Of The End’ has, too.

Welcome!

You’ll really love Yakuza 4 if you enjoyed 3.

As to Karaoke… I can find out the total number of songs a bit later, but there’s some pretty awesome stuff in there. Depending on which of the 4 characters you play as, you get different songs or takes on the same – which make for hilarious scenes. (Like the Majima link I posted on page 1 of the comments!)

Ryuji’s karaoke is also pretty funny – he’s the manly man whose arm turns into a gatling gun. Fans will also recognize him as the villain of Yakuza 2.

Ah yeah, I see what you’re saying. : ) We didn’t just throw zombies in to jump aboard the hype train though – when the Japanese dev team decides to roll with a concept, they go all-out.

Time to catch up on the comments I missed!

Not something I can comment on in this blog. We do know there’s a huge following for Valkyria out there, though – please continue to spread the word on the series and tell your friends!

It’s possible, but when we make an English version of the game, there’s also a fairly large amount of coding involved. Every single line of text, when translated, has to then be updated within the code – it probably sounds fairly easy, but as with most code, even the little things can sometimes make something else go all sorts of crazy. That work would likely be done by the same team working on the main game, so it has the potential to cut into the resources they’d normally spend making the final product even better. Hope that makes sense!

I think it’s always important to remember that readers are people – and the most respect you can give to someone is acknowledging that they’re more than just a number, even if your response can’t answer their question directly. I know I’d appreciate it if I was on the other end, so I hope and am glad you guys do, too. : )

Ah, you just had to bring up Skies of Arcadia, eh? I love that game so much – a friend of mine is currently replaying it, and I’ve been watching their progress with all sorts of nostalgia. No word on a next-gen port, but I’ve made our digital team aware that there’s a lot of demand for the game. You get +1 respect from me for enjoying Skies!

I’m not sure how to reply to this one… but I’ll go with: Yes, and thank you!

There’s a dramatic, slightly tongue-in-cheek storyline with CG cut-scenes throughout the game. The Yakuza franchise has always delved heavily into the use of detailed movies to progress its story. There are a number of mysteries that will be revealed as you play through, from: “Why are their Zombies in Tokyo?” to the slightly more awesome: “Why does that dude’s arm turn into a Gatling gun?!”

Each character has their own unique backstory – and they all react a little differently to the Zombies. (Majima, who loves all things Zombies and is actually quite excited by their appearance, is probably my favorite.)

If you want to get to know the characters before Dead Souls arrives, here are the games they first appear in:

Shun Akiyama – Yakuza 4 (PS3)
Ruji Goda – Yakuza 2 (PS2)
Majima Goro – Almost any Yakuza game
Kazuma Kiryu – Almost any Yakuza game

Thanks! I’m just one of many – there are full teams here at SEGA who do the hard work to get these games translated and onto store shelves. The real appreciation goes to them!

Glad you enjoyed the demo! I think you’ll really enjoy the full game. : )

As noted above… no word on that right now, as I’m here to talk Yakuza! But we do know there are lots of VC fans out there.

One of the best things you can do to support the series right now is to continue spreading the word and telling your friends about the first two games – it can make a difference!

Enjoy! Thanks for supporting Yakuza thus far – you keep up the support, and we’ll keep that Japanese goodness headed your way!

I sometimes call it “Yakuzombies”, so no problem there. ; )

Glad you like the series! : )

There were a few reasons – one of them: ‘Of The End’ is (potentially) bit confusing to anyone not familiar with Yakuza, and we wanted something that really messaged what the game was about. “Dead Souls” references more than just the zombies, but as mentioned in the blog, I won’t spoil the other ways it ties to the game too. But it’s a very obvious reference, when you see the Zombies on the front of the game cover, that this game is all about the Yakuza, guns, and Zombies.

Thanks also for pre-ordering – I know Gamestop may not have it in their system just yet, but should very soon.

This is actually the fastest release window for any game in the Yakuza franchise to go from Japan to the west. (Less than a year; the game just came out in Japan over the summer.) The game is pretty huge, and there’s a lot to localize and code in, so that’s where most of the work goes. The amount of dialogue in any Yakuza game… as you probably know with 4, is massive, and Dead Souls is no different!

But we love it for that – it’s huge, the amount of stuff to do is almost endless, and you can easily sink in hundreds of hours in before you get a 100% completion.

Guns showed up in both 3 and 4, but the mechanic is very different in Dead Souls, since the entire combat mechanic is focused on them. That said, there are still some nice melee moments you can take advantage of, too. : )

Awesome to hear. You’re going to spot a whole lot of awesome side content, like Club SEGA, etc, and some if it may even have a new, zombie-themed twist… more on this in the future!

Yes indeed! If you have a chance, check out the demos for the previous games – Yakuza is a really impressive, PS3 exclusive series, and the love you see in these comments for it is not undeserved. : )

Really stoked to hear it. Thanks for supporting the series!

This is a full release, packaged game – you’ll be able to find it at Gamestop and other retailers. I can’t confirm price just yet, but it’ll be in that general range.

If you play Yakuza 4, you will get to know a lot about one of the main characters in Dead Souls – Akiyama. You’ll also get to see more of characters like Majima and Kiryu in both Yakuza 3 and 4.

In short… play them both! You’ll appreciate some of the side comments and humor of Dead Souls when it references the earlier games. (Also, they’re just really awesome games on their own.)

Happy early Birthday! ; )

Glad they were useful! And no prob answering all the questions.

Thank you, likewise, for always being a support of Yakuza here in the west! : )

Glad you love the series! No word on Kenzan right now, but I have it and really enjoy it. (Import if you want – it should play on your PS3, and it’s not *too* difficult to figure out what to do if you’ve played the other games in the series.)