Yakuza 4 producer gives us a new view of Kamurocho
The Yakuza series may be exploring left field with the fanciful zombie-attack game Yakuza: Of the End, but American audiences still have one good old jaunt around Kamurocho to look forward to: this spring's Yakuza 4, whose major innovation of four playable characters seems comfy in comparison.
We spoke to producer Masayoshi Kikuchi, mostly about how Yakuza 4 has changed and improved on previous games in the series. Of course, we couldn't resist asking about Of the End, because seriously, what?
Joystiq: Yakuza 3 got a lot of complaints from American gamers for the content that was removed. Will Yakuza 4 have a more complete localization?
Masayoshi Kikuchi, Sega: One of the things that happened on Yakuza 3 was that the Yakuza team worked with the folks at Sega West to see how we can improve the product in terms of being able to be understood by users and broaden the user base, and one of the things that is part of the Yakuza franchise -- you have very Japanese parts of the game. They wanted to make the game easier to play. One of the decisions that was the result of that was that we decided to simplify the game by cutting sections of the game. Of course, based on the reaction that we received -- we heard the voices of our fans loud and clear -- and we will be doing as much as possible to bring the whole experience of Yakuza to the West in terms of the content, in terms of its Japaneseness.
We spoke to producer Masayoshi Kikuchi, mostly about how Yakuza 4 has changed and improved on previous games in the series. Of course, we couldn't resist asking about Of the End, because seriously, what?
Joystiq: Yakuza 3 got a lot of complaints from American gamers for the content that was removed. Will Yakuza 4 have a more complete localization?
Masayoshi Kikuchi, Sega: One of the things that happened on Yakuza 3 was that the Yakuza team worked with the folks at Sega West to see how we can improve the product in terms of being able to be understood by users and broaden the user base, and one of the things that is part of the Yakuza franchise -- you have very Japanese parts of the game. They wanted to make the game easier to play. One of the decisions that was the result of that was that we decided to simplify the game by cutting sections of the game. Of course, based on the reaction that we received -- we heard the voices of our fans loud and clear -- and we will be doing as much as possible to bring the whole experience of Yakuza to the West in terms of the content, in terms of its Japaneseness.
