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Developer : CS1 Team
Publisher : Sega
Designer : Toshihiro Nagoshi (producer)
Composer : See Soundtrack
Series : Yakuza
Platform : PlayStation 3
Release date(s)
JP March 18, 2010
NA March 15, 2011
EU Q1 2011
Genre : Action-adventure
Mode : Single-player
Rating :
CERO: D
Media : Blu-ray Disc

Yakuza 4 (龍が如く4 伝説を継ぐもの “Ryū ga Gotoku 4: Densetsu o Tsugumono”?, lit. “Like a Dragon 4: Successor of the Legend”), is a video game developed and published by Sega exclusively for the PlayStation 3. The game was announced on July 24, 2009. A promotion video was presented at the 2009 Tokyo Game Show and a preview presenting the main story was released on January 13, 2010.

The game is the sequel to Yakuza 3 and was released on March 18, 2010 in Japan. A playable demo was released to the Japanese PlayStation Store on March 5, 2010. The game has been confirmed for a North American on March 15, 2011 and European in Q1 2011 release by Sega.The game received an Award for Excellence from the Japan Game Awards 2010.

Setting
As with the original game, most of the action takes place in Kamurocho (a.k.a. Kamuro City), a fictionalized yet realistic recreation of Shinjuku’s red-light district, Kabukichō.
Three new locations have been added since Yakuza 3 – a rooftop area, which stretches across a large area of the town; the back streets of Kamurocho, known as “Rojiura” (路地裏?); and a third area called the underground (or “chika” (地下?)), which includes the city’s sewers, parking lot and shopping arcades. The underground area is also known as “Kamuchika” (カムチカ?), short for “Kamuro Chika” or “Kamuro Underground”.

Characters

Main article: Characters of the Yakuza series
There are three new main protagonists alongside Kazuma Kiryu, the main character since the original Yakuza game. These are Masayoshi Tanimura (Hiroki Narimiya), Shun Akiyama (Kōichi Yamadera) and Taiga Saejima (Rikiya Koyama). These four men all become connected during the game’s plot.
Other new characters include a Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department detective called Junji Sugiuchi (Kenichi Endou), a Tojo Clan yakuza called Hiroaki Arai (Ikki Sawamura), a high-ranking police officer called Seishirō Munakata (Kinya Kitaoji) and a woman called Lili (Maju Ozawa).
Returning characters are Haruka Sawamura, Goro Majima, Daigo Dojima and Goh Hamazaki.

http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff139/wawan5555/yakuza-4ss3.jpg

Story

As always, involves a lot of sinister suited gangsters in boardrooms and dead bodies and enormous piles of money and topless men fighting. But each of the four characters has his own story, too, and these are actually far more interesting. The game’s divided into five parts, one for each character, and a final chapter where they all come together, letting you switch between them. It feels like four smaller Yakuza games in one.
Kiryu Kazuma makes his return after Yakuza 3′s cliffhanger ending, but only after about fifteen hours. First you’re introduced to Shun Akiyama, a homeless dude turned millionaire with a maroon suit and an excellent sense of humour. (All loan companies in Japan are essentially run by the mafia, by the way, in case you’re wondering why a charming finance man spends so much of his time kerb-stomping gangsters.) Taiga Saejima is an enormous mafia man who’s just escaped from prison, having supposedly killed 18 people in a ramen bar in the eighties, and is the star of the game’s best and most shocking cut-scene. Masayoshi Tanimura is a young ex-cop.

All of them have their ties to the yakuza, and to the main plot thread, but it’s their individual back-stories that you find yourself caring about. Ryu ga Gotoku, as the series is known in Japan, involves an awful lot of watching – hours and hours of it – and previously it was possible to get weary of the story’s complicated mafia families and hostess-bar fights and incessant smoking, however well-shot and acted the cut-scenes were. Having four different plot threads caters far more effectively to people with normal attention spans, and Akiyama and Tanimura particularly are much less boring personalities than staid, responsible Kiryu.

Gameplay

Adventure Mode
Main article: Minigames of the Yakuza series
The available mini-games are pachinko, fishing, onsen bath, table tennis, hanafuda and karaoke (now including duets with certain NPCs). “Haruka’s Wish” also appears in the game, in which the player must perform actions to raise Haruka’s trust level.
Each main character also has his own “side-game” or goal that must be completed to earn 100% completion, most of which are related to a trophy.
Akiyama may create a “Friendship” (馴染み Najimi?) with certain NPC characters by buying them items, or certain shop owners by being a regular customer. These characters will then help out at the start of battles that start nearby, by throwing an item to use as a weapon. Befriending the man at Asia enables the player to pick the kind of girl they want to see dance.
Akiyama’s other mission, “Create a No. 1 Hostess!” (No.1キャバ嬢をつくろう！ No.1 Kyabajō o Tsukurō!?), is to scout girls for the cabaret club he owns – Elise, opposite the Millennium Tower – and, through dressing them up and training them, turn them into the No. 1 girl at the club. There are three girls to train, and after they become number one the player can choose a final outfit before them, after which they appear as a regular cabaret girl at Elise. A similar challenge was in the Japanese version of Yakuza 3, but was cut from the subsequent overseas releases.
Saejima’s mission, “Create a Fighter!” (格闘家をつくろう！ Kakutōka o Tsukurō!?) is to train fighters to compete in, and win, tournaments, within 50 rounds of training. Training involves building up training move-sets, with different actions having different effects. This game can be found at the dojo next to the Children’s Park.

Tanimura’s mission, “Resolving Police Radio Disputes” (警察無線トラブル解決バトル Keisatsu Musen Toraburu Kaiketsu Batoru?), is to keep the peace on the streets of Kamurocho; occasionally a report will come through on his radio telling him where to find the incident. The player must then defeat the perpetrator. Each unique case must be completed to “clear” the task.
In Kiryu’s mission, “Team Encounter Battle” (チームエンカウントバトル?), various gangs from around town will attack Kiryu, who will have to fight members of the team in order to get to their leader. There are seven teams to defeat.

Battle Mode
Each new character has his own style of fighting and special moves. The game engine features an enhanced Chase Battle and it is now possible to use items as weapons during the chase sequence. The player no longer needs to hold down the R2 button to sprint as the character will now automatically run at full speed.

Audio

Cast
The games’s main characters have their face modeled in 3D, through Cyberware’s head & face color 3D scanner (model PS), after their seiyu actors who are Japanese celebrities.

Soundtrack

Music Sample:
“Butterfly City (live version)”

Opening theme featuring Zeebra.
Problems listening to this file? See media help.
The theme song, played during the introductory video upon starting the game, is called Butterfly City and is sung by Japanese hip hop music artist Zeebra featuring Ryo the Skywalker and Mummy D. (Rhymester) with music by DJ Hasebe (a.k.a. Old Nick) The music video was posted on Ariola Japan’s official Youtube channel which revealed that R&B singer Double had contributed vocals to the song. The CD was released by Ariola Japan (SME) on March 17, 2010 as a regular edition (BVCL-89) and a first press limited edition including a bonus video DVD (BVCL-87) and an alternate cover featuring Kiryu. Zeebra first contributed to the series with Ryū ga Gotoku Kenzan!’s opening theme Bushido.