Yakuza

ICO & Shadows of the Colossus creator tweets about being a SEGA fan

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Fumito Ueda is one of my favorite people in the industry and runs one of the best teams at Sony, Team ICO. They are working on the upcoming (and excellent looking) title, The Last Guardian.

Fumito Ueda talked on twitter about how he has been a massive SEGA fan since they released the Mark III in Japan. I have actually heard about him being a big SEGA fan and actually being friends with Ryuta Ueda (who worked on Jet Set Radio, Panzer Dragoon series and Yakuza series). They even have the same last name… weird?

Something about Team ICO’s games always reminded me of Panzer Dragoon… I could never put my finger on it.

[Source: AndriaSang]

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Yakuza Week at SegaBits!

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Today is the first day of a very special week, (My week starts on a Thursday, deal with it!) The next 7 days will from this point on, officially be known as Yakuza Week! I’ve informed the Queen of England, the President of America and Colonel Gaddafi.

Each day this week I’ll write an article about my favorite things Yakuza 4 has to offer and why (if you haven’t already) you should go out and pick this game up right away!

Why? Well, because the Yakuza series is one of my favorite videogame series of all time, is criminally underrated (lol pun) and it should be one of yours too.

Not to mention Sega have generously donated us all these awesome prizes to give away! To win all you have to do is follow SEGAbits on twitter and we’ll pick winners at random! (Prize details coming up shortly!)

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Toshihiro Nagoshi Talks Binary Domain

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Binary Domain, Nagoshi’s new shooter, was revealed back in January. We saw a trailer that didn’t give much away about the game and we haven’t heard much about it since. Talking to Famitsu, Nagoshi didn’t give much away! Why? Because as much as he would like to tell you more about Binary Domain, he isn’t allowed to!

”To be honest, there’s very little that we can actually reveal at this precise time,” he admitted to Famitsu.
“There’s a lot I want to talk about; it’s practically all about to burst out of my mouth, but I just have to keep it all bottled up for now. All I can really say is that it’s getting better by the day.”

Hit the jump to find out more!

Continue Reading ➜

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First piece of Yakuza 4 DLC up for grabs today

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Well, this is an improvement over Yakuza 3’s DLC. You get this pack for free. It raises the limits of your character’s strength and stamina, and also picks up your relationship with Haruka to a higher point. Oh, and two new karaoke songs.

There are also four new themes (not so free, except to PS+ users), each highlighting a different character of the game. They include Kazuma, Akiyama, Tanimura and Saejima. For normal PSN members, these will run you $2.99 each (£1.99, €2.49).

Pictured below is Akiyama’s theme. The rest of them are pictured at the SEGA Europe’s Blog, linked below.

[Source: SEGA]

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This is Yakuza director Toshihiro Nagoshi’s cat…

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I guess someone emailed Nagoshi to post picture of his cat and guess what? Here he is. He didn’t post the cat’s name sadly, so we will call him Moko. Yes, that sounds like a Nagoshi type name.

Below is a few more pictures, if you are into looking at other people’s cats. Here I thought the cat would have been more brown…

[Source: AndriaSang]

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Yakuza keeping looters at bay in Japan?

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Here in America, if someone farts too loud everyone begins to loot their local Wal-Mart. In Japan, after a huge Earthquake and Tsunami, it seems that crime and looting is rather low. Why is that?

“In times of crisis, there are not Yakuza and civilians or foreigners. There are only human beings and we should help each other.”- Yakuza Boss

It seems major yakuza familes have squads that are patrolling the streets, just like police would do says Slate. Good to know that even people that are considered criminals can realize that you should help your neighbors when they are in need. Kazuma Kiryu would be proud!

[Source: Slate Via: Japanator]

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Sega – The Earthquake Affects News Round Up

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We’ve all seen the devastation in Japan caused by the earthquake, tsunami and the ongoing nuclear worries. Many companies have felt the effects, not least Sega, who have donated a considerable amout of money to the recovery efforts. In this article I will cover all of the Sega related infomation we have linked to the earthquake.

Donations:
Sega have been extremely generous when it comes to donations from both sides of the pond.

-Sega Japan is donating 200 million yen to support recovery efforts. That is approximately £1,542,827 GBP or $2,481,722 USD.

-Sega Europe and Sports Interactive have donated all of their revenue from the Football Manager app starting from last Friday for the next 7 days to the disaster relief funds in Japan.

-Sega America will donate all proceeds from Sonic iOS titles to the Red Cross disaster relief funds in Japan.

As an added incentive Sega have even lowered the price of the Sonic iOS games for this week, there is simply no excuse not to go get them right now!

Find out more after the jump:

Continue Reading ➜

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Two new Yakuza: Of the End Trailers – Amazing!

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With every new trailer and every new bit of information we come across the crazy Yakuza spin off title ‘Ryu Ga Gotoku: Of the End’ AKA ‘Yakuza: Of the End’ just looks better and better.

I hope with this title the series starts to get the recognition it deserves in the West because Sega pulled off a pretty amazing feet putting out a Yakuza game the size of any good RPG pretty much year on year and each time it has got better and better with the exception of Yakuza 3 which didn’t quite live up to the events of Yakuza 2, story wise in my opinion. With this and the English release of Yakuza 4 I’m going to be deep in the Japanese underworld all year in 2011!

Hit the Jump for trailer two!

Continue Reading ➜

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Yakuza, Producer & Director Interview

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Here is an interview conducted by Game Trailers at Tokyo Game Show with Yakuza producer Masayoshi Kikuchi and director Jun Orihara.

The two discuss the story and characters of Yakuza 4 and go onto talk about the direction of the series as a whole. They also confirm that like Yakuza: Kenzan, Yakuza: Of the End is indeed a spin off and not cannon. They mention wanting to continue both the main ‘numbered’ series and the spin-offs.

Yakuza Sci-fi anyone? Punch Aliens in the face? Or a Yakuza Fantasy with Japanese mythology maybe? Punch real dragons in the face?!

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Yakuza Black Panther footage

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Somewhere deep in this Japanese madness is ingame footage of Yakuza Black Panther for the PSP.

One clip shows off a two player battle mode that looks a lot like a fighting game and another shows off one of the hostesses doing her thing. The graphics look really good for a PSP game, check it out!

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Shun Akiyama revealed for ‘Yakuza 5′

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Sega today announced a 3rd playable character for their upcoming but unnamed 5th game in the Yakuza series. (Not including spin-offs)

Yakuza 4’s Shun Akiyama will return with a pair of nifty handguns to join existing cast of badass Goro Majima and tiger puncher Kazuma Kiryu.

Each character so far has had a gun or guns in hand, what does this mean for the series that has always been a brawler… Well I hope that they have incorporated shooting levels and areas into the existing game play as they did chasing people down in Yakuza 3 and not all out changed the game into some kind of 3rd person shooter.

We’ll just have to wait and see but I will say one thing… I think this game will have the best playable cast yet.

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Vote for the next Yakuza hostess models

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So I hear you like walking the streets punching wayward youth in the face and looking at boobs? Who doesn’t? Well good news for all of us! There’s more Yakuza on the way in the form of Yakuza 5 aka ‘That one with Goro playable‘ and with Yakuza comes hostesses to harass. (Apart from in Yakuza 3 lol.)

It’s that time again, Voting time! Sega have picked 16 of the most creepy beautiful looking girls Japan has to offer. It’s up to us mouth breathing, neck bearded internet nerds to pick which one we’re least likely to sleep with.

Check them out and vote HERE!
Alternatively you can see full body shots and info in English HERE!

[Thanks Suzuki Yu]

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Kazuma to star alongside Majima in Yakuza game

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SEGA have recently revealed that Kazuma Kiryu will indeed be starring alongside Goro Majima for the new Yakuza title and carrying on the theme with weapons, Kazuma comes equipped with a large new gun. Not much has been revealed about the game from Nagoshi in the latest Famitsu magazine. On the announcement of Kazuma Kiryu, Toshihiro Nagoshi said;

It’s said that if Kiryu doesn’t appear, Yakuza cannot begin. However, when we revealed Majima as the first main character, in addition to the reaction of ‘You can use Majima this time!’ it was widely said that ‘Kiryu is gone!’ and ‘It’s a game exclusively with Majima,’ so we wanted to quickly get out information about Kiryu’s appearance as well. Please wait just a bit more for the next update.

No doubt that guns will now be playing a bigger part in the series than ever before but in what capacity remains to be seen, before weapons have been largely ineffective in brawls in the game so a massive overhaul on the typical gameplay seems to be on the cards as Nagoshi hinted in an earlier interview. Tokyo Game Show should present fans of the series with a better idea of what to look forward to in this latest installment.

[Source: Andriasang]

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Yakuza 4 announced for the West!

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Typically, companies love money. Apparently, SEGA loves the handful of people who buy the Yakuza series in the west just a little bit more! Yes, that’s right, it seems Kazuma Kiryuu’s final adventure is now heading westward, with an expected release of Spring 2011.

That’s all that’s really known at this time, though we should find out more come E3. For those wanting to ask Yakuza creator Toshihiro Nagoshi questions regarding the series, the good people at SEGA Europe have offered you a chance to post them in their blog. The questions that are chosen will be answered after E3.

Rejoice everyone, we’re getting yet another stellar beat ’em up adventure from SEGA!

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