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people call soul nowadays and yeah it looks pretty soulful, but as a cinematical experience the game looks gross and outdated, I am not a fan of Kiryu's old model, he looks like some sort of American coming from Shin Megami Tensei it's really odd and I'm glad he grew to be the big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