Now, there isn't ACTUALLY a game with this title, but it's the best way to describe the first game that got a Japanese-only rerelease (Ryuu Ga Gokuto 1 & 2 HD Edition) bundled with the second game on an HD collection (it's on Wii U too for some reason O.o ). This remake looks and plays great, and it really shows (mostly because the cutscenes are recorded from the PS2 version and look dramatically muddier than the in-game stuff :P ). I'd never played a Yakuza game before, but BOY should I have. I LOVE crazy 3D brawlers, and if I'd have known a Streets of Rage-ish RPG like this had existed for so long, I totally would've been all over it years ago. I played through on normal, beat 51 sidequests, got all but 2 locker keys, and got max level all in 23.5 hours (and very little guide usage).

The presentation is excellent. I don't know if the American releases have English voice acting, but god I hope they don't. The Japanese voice acting is excellent, and really gets across the emotion so well. The story isn't plotted quite as tightly as I'd like, with some characters really coming out of nowhere to have very profound impacts on the story, but the impact is always there. I even teared up a bit at the deaths near the end. The side quests range from equally serious to just silly and funny, and really break up the heat of the main story well if you choose to do so. Given how this game ended, I'm quite interested on how the second game tells its story, given as how this story wraps up nicely but very open for a sequel.

The gameplay is such fun crazy brawling. It reminds me a lot of UPPERS, but with only one character. Slowly learning moves over time, especially the ones from the martial arts master, really gives the combat a great learning and difficulty curve outside of just the normal enemies becoming smarter. Stomping the crap out of people really never became boring, although it usually doesn't for me :P

Verdict: Highly recommended. If you like mafia dramas and/or beat-'em-ups at all, you will likely love Yakuza to death. It's beautiful presentation, good story, and very satisfying combat make for a fantastic RPG that really doesn't play like any other game I can think of. I can't wait to start more of them :D . My only hesitation in recommending this remake or the original is there's a BETTER remake already out in Japan that has more content and story stuff. I'd say waiting until that is out is probably a better choice :)

I really hate this mindset that preferring the original Yakuza 1 and 2 over the Kiwami remakes is nothing but elitism.

I started playing this franchise when 0 came to PC in 2018. Even with that, I still prefer these versions of the games. These games have a unique grit to them that the Kiwami games do not capture well at all. For Kiwami 1 in particular, it feels more like 0 but worse and with less content more than a remake of this game. Worst part is that Sega is actively treating the Kiwami games as replacements instead of alternatives.

In terms of the game itself I think it mostly holds up well. Even without the ability to change the directions of combos it does not take long to get used to. Story is still entertaining with my only issue being Nishiki's sudden betrayal (the one thing Kiwami objectively did better).

If you can I do recommend starting with this game and the OG Yakuza 2 and go from release order from there, and playing 0 in between 5 and 6. You'll appreciate how the series naturally grows instead of starting with 0 (which is the best game in the series) then following up with the Kiwami games.

Joguei com o Patch Restored no emulador, restaurando a dublagem original e corrigindo algumas questões de tradução.

Como joguei o remake primeiro, vou tá levando muito em consideração a comparação aqui. Acho que o Kiwami consegue fazer um ótimo trabalho de atualizar a gameplay e a narrativa pra algo que conhecemos nos jogos mais recentes, e ainda tenho uma preferência pelo remake, considerando o combate do original, que da metade pra frente(treinando com o Komaki) consegue se segurar bem, mas ainda tem seus problemas, e a exploração por Kamurocho, que aqui é o que mais peca, pela lerdeza e os encontros com inimigos apresentando loadings chatos e demorados. De resto, acredito que o jogo original é artisticamente melhor em alguns quesitos, considerando toda a ambientação de Kamurocho, pasmem, os personagens possuem expressões faciais melhores num jogo de PS2!😱 e a trilha sonora é MUITO melhor. Então assim, claro, a lerdeza, os loadings, o Kiryu socando o nada, são pontos que não envelheceram bem, acho que tanto esse quanto o remake são ótimos jogos, e mesmo cada um com seus problemas, ambos são experiências que não se excluem, vale muito a pena dar uma chance pra Yakuza de PS2.

After playing and somewhat enjoying Yakuza Kiwami, I wasn't feeling very motivated to go into Kiwami 2, a few years later I decided to give the original Yakuza another shot and I was surprised at how well this game holds up, in fact, I believe the original is the better game when compared to it's remake, not that Kiwami is bad, mind you, it's just way too bloated with content, and that bloat muscles it's way into areas of the game that needed more room to breath to keeps it's sense of momentum and flow going, if I were to draw a chart, Yakuza 1 would be a line continually going up till the credits roll, whereas Kiwami would be full of peaks and valleys, it has good ideas, but it's good ideas robs the original game's good ideas time in the spotlight, I still maintain that it's a good game, but it shouldn't be seen as a a new starting line, but as a pit stop for long time fans.
With all that out of the way, what did I think of Yakuza 1? Well, it's good innit? Combat is a bit basic but that's easy to forgive considering it's the first title in the series, and it's already doing so much, specially for a PS2 game from 2005, what's important is that hitting enemies and landing HEAT moves feels good, and it does, but I'll admit that I was growing tired of the lack of variety in the combat by the end of game, made worse by the fact that moves that can bring variety like the Tiger Drop being very difficult to land, and to add insult to injury, Kazuma feels very stiffy in this game, something that can and will happen frequently is missing an enemy and spends a couple seconds punching the air, with no way to reposition.
The combat itself is my only complaint really, graphics wise this game looks absurdly beautiful to what it's accomplishing, characters are very detailed and expressive, and using a emulator or the HD Collection you'll see all of the work that dev team put in that was hidden by the original's rather low resolution (but if you already know japanese, I recommend either the HD Collection version, even emulated, it has less bugs and looks better than PCSX2).

While this game is technically worse that Yakuza Kiwami this is definitely my favourite version of this game. Mainly because it doesn't have the amount of filler that Kiwami adds and it also doesn't have the Majima Everywhere feature. Some parts of this game also baffles me, like how the hell the Dub even exists. It's also strange to see Majima like 3 times in the course of the entire game considering how much he is used later on in the series. The combat in this game also feels like a bunch of action figures fighting each other (Very stiff and clunky). But overall this is a solid foundation for the series.

A bit jank in regards to some of its combat mechanics and it's hard to fully get into its story due to its piss poor dub, but the vibe of it is still really strong. Really intelligently made PS2 game. The writing itself is stellar with great characters everywhere and the feeling of traveling thru Kamurocho really hits, its no wonder they set it as a blueprint to use in the rest of the series when it consistently just works. I prefer Kiwami personally but my personal gripes aside this is probably objectively the better game

BRING THAT SHIT, KAZUMA

This shit a visual novel broken up by stim toy combat sections, very cool. I like the models a lot, particularly Kiriyu and Haruka are super cute. I think putting them together made for really great character moments.
The atmosphere is perfect, it's somehow always dark outside and the fixed camera angels give off kind of a boxed in feel.
Majima shows up 3 times to be weird and have nothing to do with the plot and I think that's extremely funny. It's like hes getting popular character cameos but its literally the first entry in the franchise.
I played this with jp voice acting (my mistake tbh) but watched some cutscenes on youtube and that shit is crazy!!!! Are you **** or just deaf???

Who knew this stupid game would start a franchise with more than 10 mainline games...

Yakuza is the rough start of this franchise we all know and love featuring Kiryu and his iconic American-looking face in this wonderful world of jaggy polygons... Yeah, I'm not a big fan of Yakuza 1, like most sane people I started my Yakuza journey with 0 a few years ago, and then obviously Kiwami. I finally thought it was time to revisit the franchise and play the original version of Yakuza for the first time because I kept hearing people saying "Oh, I can't stand Kiwami, Yakuza 1 on PS2 is soooo much better!" So I thought that maybe they were right even though I obviously had my doubts and oh boy was I right...

Yakuza 1 has pretty rough gameplay, it's pretty much a very slow version of the Brawler style in Kiwami, and the combat gets really really repetitive since it's the same press SQUARE SQUARE TRIANGLY combo over and over plus the fact that this game is extremely easy compared to Kiwami just turns every encounter into a chore, you know what else turns encounters into a chore? the fact that most of the time you can't see most enemies on the map since they just blend with the rest of the weird-looking polygon NPCs, the fact that you can't run at all, and how it takes 20 seconds to start a combat due to never-ending loading screens.
Yeah, that's a lot to take in, this game is rough and yeah you can say that it's a pretty old game so it excuses its shortcomings but c'mon it's from 2005, there already have been a lot of wonderful action games that just run and play better than this, it feels closer to a PS1 game than PS2 at times...

Visually this game looks gross, in a charming way. It's what most people call soul nowadays and yeah it looks pretty soulful, but as a cinematical experience the game looks gross and outdated, I am not a fan of Kiryu's old model, he looks like some sort of American coming from Shin Megami Tensei it's really odd and I'm glad he grew to be the big boy we know and love today.

Now story-wise, it's ok. It's pretty much the same old in Kiwami as well, it's a fine story but there's one thing that bugs me in the OG, why doesn't it have the Nishki backstory at the end of each chapter?! He turns from an awesome boss fight in Kiwami to some random you only vaguely saw a few times in the OG, especially now that we have 0 it's just a whole lot better for our boy Nishki...
But outside of that, it's a fine and serviceable Yakuza story with bad guys, manipulations, and awesome clan shenanigans.

Overall I can't really find many reasons to go back to this entry compared to its Kiwami counterparts, Kiwami looks better, plays better, has an updated story, has more content, and fits perfectly in the Yakuza continuity without feeling like playing a Yakuza game from a different dimension. I'm sorry Yakuza 1 fans, it's just ok.

Real, se vc joga persona ou vc escolhe Yakuza ou dangaronpa, e acho q foi uma boa decisão acompanhar a história de um pai de menina.

Provável mais fraco até onde eu joguei, isso não digo querendo diminuir o jogo, ele é um ótimo jogo, mas por ser a primeira entrada, ele parece ter uma história um pouco mais "séria". Além de q não tem tanta coisa pra fazer quanto outras redes fazem parecer. Talvez o kiwami (uma espécie de ramake dos dois primeiros) tenha mais conteúdo e uma melhora nos controles, ainda mais no combate. Esse q foi o ponto mais triste pra mim. Ele é legal, tem uma boa desenvoltura, mas claramente ele foi evoluindo e aqui eu sinto muito o Kiryu travado e duro por mais q vc possa evoluir as skills dele, ainda parece meio cansado.

De resto tem uma boa história, personagens bastante carismáticos e é um ótimo início de uma das melhores apostas da sega.

the combat is unnuanced, the story kinda becomes swiss cheese in the last act, and the load times get a bit annoying, but this is still a short and sweet little game. i don't really understand a lot of the complaints with the combat, to me it mostly felt boring because you're rarely if ever required to switch up what you're doing. the game just never really got difficult. most of the things that i assume are well-liked about the yakuza series have a strong foundation here, from the lifelike atmosphere of kamurocho to the pretty heartfelt and virtuous portrayal of kiryu. when you remember that this game came out partially in response to games like GTA san andreas, it makes the willingness to tell this big operatic crime drama pretty impressive. i think the story does a good job of blurring the lines between kiryu's "family" (the tojo clan) and kiryu's family (haruka, yumi, etc). there's a lot of emphasis put here on familial bonds, both literal and figurative, and i think the game executes that stuff quite well. i do wish that yakuza did a better job when it came to the nishiki relationship, though; for how important the game tells you he is to kiryu, you don't really feel it. the final boss fight with him feels like a forced formality rather than a natural conclusion, imo. perhaps i'll feel differently once i (eventually) get to 0.