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Yakuza: Dead Souls review: What a twist!
I've got to hand it to Yakuza: Dead Souls. It resurrects an old antagonist with a prosthetic gun-arm, unleashes a zombie apocalypse on Tokyo and still manages to take itself seriously. The only real difference between Dead Souls and Yakuza 4 is some thoroughly mediocre gunplay and, well, the living dead.It's not a terrible idea when it comes down to it. Half the fun is seeing how Yakuza's eclectic cast deals with being recast in what amounts to a Resident Evil game. It has resident psychopath Goro Majima waging a one-man war against the undead horde. It has Kazuma Kiryu punching out a zombie for heaven's sake. It's all good fun, particularly for existing fans of the series.%Gallery-135830%
Yakuza: Dead Souls livened up with minigames
Even a spreading zombie epidemic isn't enough to keep Sega from loading Yakuza: Dead Souls full of inconsequential, goofy minigames. There are a few ... subtle changes to the minigames we've grown to love, however. For example, the fishing minigame has you catching a different kind of sea creature.
Barricading 'Dead Souls' within Yakuza's red-light district
In the first hours of Yakuza: Dead Souls, I witnessed the fictional Kamurocho neighborhood of Tokyo's red-light district becoming ravaged by a zombie nightmare, with wrecked buildings, flaming cars, and thousands of hungry undead taking to the streets.With the help of a DVD store's secret weapons cache, altruistic loan shark Shun Akiyama becomes a dual-pistol-wielding killing machine, cutting a path through the horde of former businessmen, students, and gangsters to get help for his sick assistant Hana.Though the premise seems (and is) absurd, and there's little sense to making a zombie shooter out of a series best known for its uncanny representation of a realistic Tokyo, I couldn't help but appreciate the care Sega put into setting up the adaptation. Every change to gameplay, environments, or story required to adapt the game into a shooter shows evidence of deliberation and forethought. It's not just a matter of adding zombies and guns. Sega took its assignment very seriously, even though Yakuza: Dead Souls delivers its entertainment in a campy, b-movie way.%Gallery-135830%
Yakuza: Dead Souls emerging Mar. 16 in EU, Mar. 13 in NA
In mid-January, Sega locked down a North American release date for Yakuza: Dead Souls, and now Europe's date with Tokyo-based zombies has finally been scheduled.Yakuza: Dead Souls will arrive in Europe on March 16, according to Eurogamer. The PlayStation 3-exclusive is coming to North America on March 13, which is plenty of time for seasoned zombie killers to prepare for the impending attack. Already released in Japan under the name Yakuza: Of the End, the sixth game in the cult-hit series throws players into the "infamous red light district of Tokyo" during a zombie outbreak.Don't fret, Yakuza fans, because zombies aren't the only enemy you'll be facing. Yakuza: Dead Souls will also throw hordes of "merciless" mutants in your path, along with all of those seedy characters from the Japanese underworld. As for possible zombie-infected Hostesses? We're keen on letting the brain-chomping ladies sit this one out.%Gallery-135830%
Introducing the Yakuza keeping Tokyo safe from Dead Souls
So who are these loudly-dressed gentlemen firing guns at zombies? You'd learn a lot more playing any other Yakuza game, of course, but this Yakuza: Dead Souls trailer will start you off with some factoids.
Yakuza: Dead Souls coming to North America and Europe in March
As suggested by trademarks and semi-cryptic statements from a producer, Sega has revealed plans to bring Yakuza: Of the End to the west as Yakuza: Dead Souls. Now that we know for sure that the plans are real, we can safely say that, as producer Daisuke Sato informed us, the controls will be updated to be familiar with western tastes. Coming in Sega's traditional March release window, Dead Souls swaps out Yakuza's hand-to-hand-to-bicycle-wheel mob violence for gunplay against the zombies, who now populate the closed-off Kamurocho area of Tokyo. The announcement suggests that the Japanese DLC will be bundled with this western release, so look forward to blasting zombies in modern-day Japan while dressed as a pirate.%Gallery-135830%
European trademark suggests Yakuza: Of the End coming to the west as 'Yakuza: Dead Souls'
Sega's Daisuke Sato hinted to us during TGS that Sega might be thinking about localizing Yakuza: Of the End. We now have another hint in the form of a European trademark. Just yesterday, Sega filed "Yakuza: Dead Souls," a better, more natural-sounding potential subtitle than "Of the End." There are a few other unlocalized Yakuza projects -- Yakuza Kenzan, the PSP Black Panther and its sequel, and a mobile game for GREE -- but "Dead Souls" is a more fitting name for the zombie shooter Of the End than for any of those, and thus the most likely use of the "Dead Souls" name. We're checking with Sega, in the hope that it'll confirm the transplant of a zombie-filled Tokyo to America and Europe. [Thanks, George.]
