Yakuza Of The End Message Board

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.]

Daisuke Sato, director of Binary Domain and Yakuza 3, wouldn't say whether or not Sega had any plans to release the team's previous shooter, the very weird Yakuza: Of the End, in America and Europe. But he offered a hypothetical that suggested that, at least, the thought has come up.

When asked about how Binary Domain compares to Yakuza: Of the End (and indirectly to other shooters), Sato said "For the western version of Yakuza: Of the End -- if that's going to happen, then we will tweak the controls, to be closer to other western shooting franchises." Not when, if. Sato wouldn't elaborate on whether or not there were actual plans.

The odds are in favor of it: every Yakuza game has been localized, with the exception of the samurai spinoff Yakuza Kenzan.

Now that Yakuza: Of the End has moved 400,000 copies, Sega has shipped over 5 million copies of the Yakuza games worldwide since it debuted on the PS2 in 2005. [ファミ通] More »

After an earthquake-prompted delay, Yakuza: Of the End has been officially released in Japan, to ... pretty good sales. Not the best sales of the series, but the best sales of the very slow week. According to 4Gamer's report of Media Create sales, the gangsters vs. zombies shooter sold 298,717 copies in its first week, fewer than Yakuza 4 moved last year (384,000) or Yakuza 3 before (372,000). It wasn't enough to boost hardware sales appreciably, as PS3 sales only increased 594 units over the previous week, to 17,104.

Fans of low numbers will enjoy the rest of the sales chart -- the number two game behind Yakuza was Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, which earned its position by selling 15,551 copies. See the rest of the "top" ten after the break, and start formulating your plan to revitalize the Japanese game industry. Nintendo's thinking "release the 3DS again in a new color." Sega's plan is, of course, Of the End costume DLC (as seen above!)

#lookatthis Toshihiro Nagoshi, who picked making video games over making porn, took a whiff of "Black Dragon" cologne, which is doing an in-game collaboration with the upcoming Yakuza: Of the End. More »

#drinkup It's not every day that you see a bottle of booze stamped with "licensed by Sega". But this isn't everyday. It's Tuesday, May 31. More »

#niceyakuza Yakuza: of the End is Sega's zombie parody game that was originally slated for a March release. Then the earthquake hit, and the game was delayed to June. More »

#aftershock Zombie parody game Yakuza: of the End was slated for release on March 17. Then, the unthinkable happened; on March 11, an earthquake and an ensuing tsunami laid waste to Japan's northeast. The game, which depicted a city in ruins (pictured), was one of many delayed out of respect to the victims. More »

After the Tohoku Earthquake struck, Sega decided it would be inappropriate to release Yakuza: Of The End and delayed it. The game is a zombie parody, setting in a ravaged urban center. The game finally has a new release date in Japan: June 9. [via RYUGAGOTOKU BLOG] More »

A victim of really unfortunate timing, Sega's Yakuza: Of the End was to be released in Japan on March 17 -- a week after the Tohoku earthquake. Sega delayed it right after the earthquake, with no definite release date.

Sega just announced the new date for the Yakuza spinoff, which has Kazuma Kiryu and other tough guys shooting up zombies in a wrecked Kamurocho. It'll be out in Japan on June 9. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of the game will go to the Red Cross, and a "Let's Go, Japan" sticker will be bundled with the game.

Sega has yet to make any announcements regarding a Western release.

A victim of really unfortunate timing, Sega's Yakuza: Of the End was to be released in Japan on March 17 -- a week after the Tohoku earthquake. Sega delayed it right after the earthquake, with no definite release date.

Sega just announced the new date for the Yakuza spinoff, which has Kazuma Kiryu and other tough guys shooting up zombies in a wrecked Kamurocho. It'll be out in Japan on June 9. Sega has yet to make any announcements regarding a Western release.

Citing "various circumstances," both Sega and Sony have announced delays of major game releases, reports Andriasang, while Irem has outright canceled Disaster Report 4. Sega announced that Yakuza: Of the End has been pushed back to a "TBA" release date in Japan, while Sony has altered the MotorStorm: Apocalypse launch to "TBA," as well. both titles were scheduled to be released in Japan this Thursday, March 17.

While neither company directly cited the massive earthquake and devastating tsunami that struck Japan on March 11 as the cause of the delays, it's evident that the disaster prompted the moves. Andriasang also reports that Sony has temporarily closed its PlayStation repair and information center, located in one of the worst hit areas of Japan, the Miyagi Prefecture. Just yesterday, Square Enix temporarily shut down the Final Fantasy XI and XIV servers to conserve power in the country.

Meanwhile, Irem has canceled Disaster Report 4 without citing a specific reason, according to Andriasang. As the title suggests, DR4 centers around players escaping a city that has just suffered a devastating earthquake. Both DR4 and Yakuza: Of the End were only announced for release in Japan.

It's unclear at this point whether MotorStorm: Apocalypse is still on track to launch across Europe this week, as SCEE told GameSpot UK, "[The game's release is] under discussion at the moment. We'll get back to you when we know more." (The game's release in New Zealand was previously delayed following the severe earthquake that struck Christchurch last month.) The North American launch was set for April 12 two months ago.

To find out more about how you can help those affected in Japan by the past week's events, head over to RedCross.org.

We already reported on some of the game cancellations and delays that popped today as game publishers returned to work following Friday's Tohoku region earthquake and tsunami. New delay announcements have continued through the evening, and they include some major releases...

#japan The impact of last Friday's earthquake and ensuing tsunami are still being felt. Those hit hardest are certainly not thinking of video games. But in an effort to be respectful, game companies are either holding back or completely canceling titles that could remind people of the recent destruction in Japan. More »

Yakuza 4 followup Yakuza Of the End differs in one key area from its predecessors: it's a zombie game...

#blips Ping pong with zombies? Fishing for zombies? S&M with zombies?! Parody Yakuza: Of The End brings its familiar zombies and dignified deaths to survival horror. More »

#yakuza Sega's Yakuza crime games are infected with zombies (and zombies from other games). In the game's fictional Kamurocho, schoolgirls and business ladies are turning into the walking dead. But when you finally kill them, they don't exactly end up lady-like. More »

#yakuza Survival shooter Left 4 Dead features a whole cast of memorable zombies. So does upcoming zombie game Yakuza: Of The End. Thing is, I remember them being in Left 4 Dead first. More »

Get in on the action of a Japanese gangster's life.

Get a glimpse of the future with this Japanese TV spot.

The zombie tie-in fever has reached Japan as the Yakuza prepare to face a threat of undead proportions.

Bear witness to the madness of Yakuza's zombie apocalypse and the many weapons and minigames at your disposal in this trailer from Japan.

#yakuza Esper Ito, above, is actually less creepy-looking as a video game zombie. No, really. But that still doesn't take away his position as Japan's bravest (and craziest?) comedian. More »

#yakuza Jun Komori started out as a fashion model, appearing in magazines like Popteen. There are tons of magazine models. So Jun started to be different by making stupid faces. More »