Yakuza 0 lets you live the criminal high life in the 80’s

As part of our behind closed doors time with Atlus/SEGA at E3, Azario and I got to sit down and try out some of Yakuza 0, the upcoming Yakuza prequel which chronicles the origins of Kazuma Kiryu and Goro Majima during the late 80’s, as well as their first encounters with the dark organizations behind the scenes of the fictional Kamurocho district. We got a taste of the fighting, which is just as brutal as it was in Yakuza 5, and you can now literally beat the money out of your enemies, watching it shower everywhere after delivering each blow. Kiryu and Majima can now fight in different stances. For instance, you can go with a speedy stance for rapid fire attacks at the cost of strength, or a slower, heavier hitting stance, and make use of nearby objects as weapons.

We also ended up hitting up a dance club to play a dancing mini-game, which I struggled with (my own fault for picking the hardest difficulty) but once you get the timing and rhythm down, it’s a lot of fun. The song playing reminded me of Rick Astley’s music, actually.

Yakuza 0 looks great, and if the rest of the game is as fun as this demo was, it’ll be one of the must-own games to play on your PlayStation 4 when it comes out in 2017.