When is a game not a game?

This is the question I had running through my mind while playing Yakuza 3, from the second I started watching the hour-long recap videos (to tell the story of Yakuza and Yakuza 2), to the minute I began watching the first introductory video of Yakuza 3 proper, to the first time I got to control protagonist Kazuma Kiryu… and was greeted with in-game text to button my way through, and more intricate backstory to absorb.

While the story is very interesting and expertly delivered in cinematic form, and the open world (as well as instanced and closed) environments are extraordinarily realistic in appearance, I had a hard time enjoying the ‘game’ part of Yakuza 3, as it’s delivered in such a segmented, compartmentalised fashion that, in the end, it feels as though the story is the ‘real’ Yakuza 3, while the interactive sections are merely mini-games, put in place to keep you interested long enough to link up with the next cinematic – something that may be true of most games, but is painfully apparent in this one.

But let’s start at the very beginning… again. Yakuza 3 follows the story of one Kazuma Kiryu, an ex-Yakuza (Japanese mobster) who has recently (and repeatedly) retired from a family within the organisation after attaining the top rank, and has tried to settle down in Okinawa by running an orphanage with his adopted daughter, Haruka.

As expected (the game is called Yakuza 3, after all), Kazuma is pulled back into the politics of the organisation after a series of events unsettle the balance of power within the families, which calls for a man of Kazuma’s stature to return, at least temporarily, to tend to matters and see the families through this rough period.

All told, my first Yakuza 3 play session probably totalled around five to six hours, very little of which was spent in control of my character – most of the time I was watching (admittedly excellent) videos playing out, and reading additional dialogue.

As mentioned, the cinematics are delivered very well, with voice acting to match, and the story, while quite complicated and intricate, is intriguing to say the least. It’s probably one of a handful of stories in a game that I’ve witnessed that would make for a good movie on its own, but that’s my first problem with Yakuza 3 – I’m not watching a movie, I’m playing a game, a medium of entertainment that can boast the feature of interactivity over any other medium you may care to mention… more on this later…

The rest of my first play session with Yakuza 3 was spent moving from one set location to another in a small open-world setting (a mere slice of anything you would find in Grand Theft Auto, Saint’s Row or inFamous), and throughout the game, there’s a huge array of activities to partake in, from visiting stores, going bowling, singing at a karaoke bar, fishing by the sea, playing arcade games, and taking in a few rounds of golf (in a fully implemented golf game, no less!).

All of these activities don’t even go into mentioning the dozens and dozens of side-missions that you may encounter along your way from A to B while progressing the main story, ranging from finding objects for strangers to helping strangers out of even stranger situations. But all of this ‘stuff’ to do in Yakuza 3 is on the periphery. If a player never came across these optional quests (and you’ll have to hunt for them, in some cases), their only experience of the game would be a pretty linear, stop-start affair.

Hunting for these activities is made all the more difficult with the frankly archaic map system provided in Yakuza 3 for navigation. In addition to the mini-map in the corner of the screen that shows you where your next story-related mission marker may be, you can look for specific locations on your larger map, but you’ll have to go two to three menus items deep to get there. Once you’re there in the map menu, you can’t place a manual mission marker (if it’s in there, I definitely apologise, but I tried every button press I could) for a specific location.

Say I wanted to go to the bowling alley in Yakuza 3. In the map menu (three items deep, remember), I find the location after looking at the strangely categorised list of locations available. Then, instead of placing a marker on the map (which in other games would appear in my mini-map for easy navigation to said location), I have to remember where my current location is in relation to where I want to go (in maps that, for their size, can be quite intricate).

Exit out of those menus and try to get to the bowling alley. Get lost. Open up the menus again, locate the bowling alley, work out my current location against that, close those menus, try to get to the bowling alley… get lost again… repeat.

That’s no good, and that’s my second (smaller, but still significant) problem with Yakuza 3 – with all of these things to do and sights to see, I need a good way of navigating my way around, and this game doesn’t provide that, essentially negating (for me) a lot of that content.

So then, during that first five to six hour play session, I ran into (literally) what would become my third problem with Yakuza 3 – the constant interruptions by wannabe gangsters in the streets of the in-game cities as I’m trying to go about my business, who force me into an instanced brawling mini-game. This in itself is annoying, seeing as how these aren’t quick fights that happen right away. These fights are more akin to a classic JRPG, where you’re zoned off in an enclosed space (surrounding by cheering bystanders) and are then forced to beat up a few goons to finish the encounter, followed by a load screen and an outro sequence where you get money or an item from your defeated foes.

That gets old quickly.

The second part of this brawling equation that doesn’t quite work out is that the fighting system is generally weak, despite being infused with RPG elements. You gain experience points by completing missions and activities (main mission or side quests) and by fighting, and then spend these points on new fighting abilities or increasing your capacity for fighting.

Brawling is itself very ‘axial,’ in that it feels like you’re fighting in eight different directions, and the inability to cancel inputted attack commands is a serious oversight, making this ‘axial’ feeling all the more constricting. Button mashing can, to a certain extent, get you where you need to go as far as smashing a few faces is concerned, but you’ll need to learn a few of the intricacies of the fighting system in order to survive the boss battles, and make use of the special object- and environment-specific attacks available after building up your HEAT fighting gauge, as well as weapons.

After my first Yakuza 3 play session, totalling five to six hours, I went on to spend an additional twelve to thirteen hours on the game to complete the singleplayer story, stopping along the way to take part in a few mini-games and side-missions, battle against inordinately strong human beings, chase people through city streets to try and catch them, brawl my way through waves of enemies, and navigate my way around a beachside orphanage (many, many times) to solve the children’s problems and domestic disputes.

While that may sound like a lot of ‘game,’ when I think back to my time with Yakuza 3, these gameplay sections were pretty minimal when constantly bookended by cinematics and in-game story sequences. As I keep mentioning, the story is terrific and very well presented, but the game as a whole left me cold. I’ve tried to think why this may be when compared to other games with famously copious amounts of non-interactive video (such as Metal Gear Solid 4), and the closest theory I can come up with is Yakuza 3’s combination of free-form open-world exploration with the use of a heavily structured and heavy-handed narrative doesn’t quite work out.

It feels unnatural to navigate through fairly empty playscapes (the open-world city) with spots of skill-based interaction (the brawling sections) stuck together with lengthy sections of storytelling. The game’s world and interaction, as much as there is to do, feels empty and weak, while the story feels isolated from the gameplay. All of the elements feel disparate.

Personally, I feel videogames are at their best when developers are able to carve their narrative into the very world that you inhabit while simultaneously providing you with a sandbox environment and satisfying gameplay tools - without sitting you down for ten minutes of story exposition or telling you exactly which buttons to press for ten seconds. I cheer the successes of game development studios like Irrational (Bioshock), where telling a good story is vitally important, but active gameplay is too.

Yakuza 3 doesn’t offer this to me. In my mind, it doesn’t fully play to the strengths of videogames as a medium, and while I appreciate the fact (and am very glad) that games like this exist and are able to find an audience, when I’m engaged in a good gameplay session, it’s not a good sign when I can actually notice how long it’s been since I’ve pressed any buttons, and am able to put that controller down for extended periods of time because a cinematic has been playing for way too long.

Fans of Yakuza and those looking for a deep, intricate story won’t be disappointed by Yakuza 3. Gamers looking for solid doses of action (and interaction) will be. In the strictest sense, Yakuza 3 is a game, but lacks elements of continuity that make it recognisably so.

(PS All spoken dialogue in Yakuza 3 is in Japanese with bounteous lines of English text to read… which may or may not affect your enjoyment of the story.)

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