Yakuza series

[Calshot]

Is there any hope of that PS3 Yakuza 1/2 HD edition coming to the west? Or am I just going to have to get the PS2 copies (or obtain a Wii U)?

[Bluecast]

^ PS2 most likely. Wii U pfft HAHAHA! Region locked and the game sold so crap I think Stadium Events sold better on NES and that was out for 6 minutes

[AnimeGamer183]

That would be just our luck, if the only way we got the HD reamasters of Yakuza 1 and 2 was on Wii-U. Just as long as they make an american version of that creepy japanese commercial they made for it

but yeah, PS3 please. more importantly, Y fucking 5 please.

[Crimson Ryan]

Is there any hope of that PS3 Yakuza 1/2 HD edition coming to the west? Or am I just going to have to get the PS2 copies (or obtain a Wii U)?

What I was planning to do was play them both on PS2 with a component cable since they support 16:9 widescreen. Closest you'll get to HD, I suppose. Isn't that right, Sega?

[Crimson Ryan]

The latest Famitsu is out and with it came a lot of details on the latest in the series, Yakuza: Ishin!

"It’s not that the era itself was attractive to us so much as the people involved with it trigger stories in our minds," commented Ishin producer and writer Masayoshi Yokoyama. "I wanted to build a story this time around Sakamoto Ryoma, who’s this really attention-grabbing character in history, but really there’s such a vast amount of people involved with this era. You have hardline traditional samurai, you have people trying to create a whole new era for themselves, and you have others turning their eyes toward other countries. Trying to build a coherent story that brought all of these people together is a real challenge."

"To be honest, this was a lot more response than I thought we would get," Yokoyama said. "I figured we would see a spike on the first day and then it’d taper off later, but the number of votes just kept on rising. The way that the top-ranked characters kept changing positions probably contributed as well. A lot of the most popular characters from the election will appear in Ishin, so it’ll be nice to see people try to guess which characters will play which historical roles in the story. We’ll be providing answers to some of those guesses shortly.”

"We won’t have all of them," Nagoshi added, "but there will be a lot of characters making appearances, including the ones that ranked the highest. It’ll be kind of a festival atmosphere for fans of the series, and it’s something I felt was important to do because it makes us feel more connected to gamers and the project we’re working on."

"We may have deployed everything we could with Yakuza 5," Nagoshi said, "but that doesn’t mean we’re on cruise control with the quality and volume of this title. We are challenging ourselves with new things here, from the graphical presentation to the way we’re bringing back the full cast. It’ll be a huge step forward."

KHHSubs! also stepped in providing a translation of the game's official prologue from the newly opened official website.

[1] Ryouma, Returning to Tosa

The great ocean spreads out before his eyes…

Whilst returning to Tosa after finishing his fencing training in Edo,

Sakamoto Ryouma stood alone at the bow of the ship, deep in thought.

On his quest to try to change the times - A time in which there is talk of “expelling the forgeigners” and “adherence to the Shogunate” - he wondered “What should I do?”

Yet he could not find the answer…

The largest domain of Shikoku - Tosa.

This old-fashioned land, in which exists a barrier known as “rank”, continued to make life miserable for

"Goushi" such as Ryouma, who live as low ranking samurai.

This is a world in which the absurd reasoning of “rank being more important than a person’s life” goes unchallenged.

As soon as he returns home, Ryouma sees the still unchanged state of Tosa and turns on the higher ranking samurai, ending up with him being sent to prison…

"Can live my whole life like this…?"

When he psyches himself up with this thought, a man appears before him.

It was Yamada Touyou, who is said to be the most strict in discipline in Tosa….

He was Ryouma’s beloved, teacher.

While he holds an important office within the domain, at the same time, in absolute secrecy, he looks after those who have fallen victim to the domain and have lost their families.

During this reunion with Touyou, he is instructed to meet with Takechi Hanpeita - another who is in the same situation as himself

"The time has come"

Touyou explains their true objective.

The plan is for a great coup d’état, to collapse the severe hierarchical society in which they live…

————————————————————

[2] The night of the coup d’état

The Tosa Loyalist Party. A great force formed by young low ranking samurai advocating loyalty to the Emperor and the expulsion of foreigners and who are concerned about the current times.

The man standing a the top is Takechi Hanpeita.

He lost his family when he was young due to the way things work in Tosa.

The young man raised by Yoshida Touyou, gifted with intellect and courage, became just the man the young people of Tosa have been longing for.

He is the man behind the formation of the party.

That was the public guise of the Tosa Loyalist Party…

The Loyalist Party Headquarters is full of energy and resounds with the sound of training pistols.

Takechi rejoices over his reunion with Ryouma and declares he shall be welcomed as a head of the Loyalist Party.

Takechi, under Yoshida Touyou together with Ryouma - whose ability Takechi has more confidence in than anyone else, awaited the trip back home.

However, Ryouma seems gloomy. He felt a sense of guilt for not having high aspirations like Takechi.

But that wasn’t the only reason he feels guilty.

Takechi still has a large burn mark on his back…

He got that burn when saving Ryouma from his burning house when he was young.

Every time Ryouma looks at the wound, he is reminded of his past and loses confidence in himself.

Takechi has a serious talk with the hesitant Ryouma about the future of Tosa.

He explains that they must fight so that there can never be people like themselves ever again.

Trusting in the words of Touyou and Takechi, he agrees to participate in the plan to bring down Tosa…

————————————————————

[3] The Man called “Saitou Hajime”

It is one year after the coup d’état of Tosa…

In a room of the Terada Inn in Fushimi, Kyoto, lies a lazy man who, even though it is already noon, has yet to arise.

He is the samurai, Saitou Hajime.

On that day, after he is forced out of bed by the mistress of Terada Inn, “O-tose”, and a servant named “O-ryou”, he goes out to gamble…

Several winnings later, a man approaches Saitou. He whispers into his ear:

"Are you pretending to be here to gamble again today, while you’re actually looking for the culprit?"

There is a complete change of expression on the face of Saitou.

When he shot around to look at the man, he mumbled:

"Where is the man who killed the father… the man who uses that sword…"

Saitou Hajime’s true name is “Sakamoto Ryouma”.

A man who changed his name and is living in Kyoto. The man he is after is a mysterious swordsman who one year ago, on the night of the coup d’état that occurred in Tosa, murdered his father and old teacher right before his eyes.

Sakakmoto Ryouma loved Tosa, was betrayed by Tosa and then abandoned Tosa. He is now in a fight for revenge and is prepared to put his life on the line.

It is said that the greatest swordsmen gather in Kyoto. It’s an extremely dangerous place to plunge yourself into…

A place where the group of killers called the “Shinsengumi” make the streets rain with blood.

He abandoned the name of Sakamoto Ryouma and has tried to begin a new life living as Saitou Hajime.

The following are from a research trip from producer Masoyoshi Yokoyama's twitter.

[AnimeGamer183]

so its kenzan 2 basically, but a little different. And probably takes place someplace else?

[Riku Rose]

Well I look forward to being disappointed that we never get that game.

[Crimson Ryan]

Yakuza 5 now 3rd slowest game in main Yakuza series to be localised.

Excluding the spin-offs such as Kenzan and the Black Panther series on PSP, Yakuza 5 is currently the third slowest title to have a western localisation announcement since the original game was released in Japan.

Yakuza 2 - 587 days taken to announce.
Yakuza 3 - 285 days taken to announce.
Yakuza 5 - 264 Days (So far as of August 25/2013)

[south carmain]

Yakuza 5 now 3rd slowest game in main Yakuza series to be localised.

Excluding the spin-offs such as Kenzan and the Black Panther series on PSP, Yakuza 5 is currently the third slowest title to have a western localisation announcement since the original game was released in Japan.

Yakuza 2 - 587 days taken to announce.
Yakuza 3 - 285 days taken to announce.
Yakuza 5 - 264 Days (So far as of August 25/2013)

I didn't know the older games took so long to be announced, I guess there still is hope after all

[Crimson Ryan]

As we announced on June 5th, 2013, we have entered a partnership with Language Automation, Inc., (LAI), a company that specializes in game localization. LAI will be offering companies a discount on their localization fee if the companies choose to localize the games the oprainfall community votes on and promotes. There may even be ways that certain individuals within the community could be elected to help with the localization process!

It is fair to note that even if a game wins a poll or has many votes, there is no guarantee that it will be localized. The poll’s purpose is to allow LAI to go to the publishers with some extra ammunition to help convince them to localize the game. If you ever wanted to see any of these games localized, this could be the game’s best chance! So if you see a favorite game on the list, be sure to vote for it and send it to everyone you know to vote for it, as well.

Today, we bring you the first of hopefully many articles based on this partnership. As you will see below, we have two polls—one for SEGA games, and one for Konami games. These companies were chosen because LAI has worked on localization projects with them in the past. In case you are not familiar with any of the games listed, we have also provided descriptions so you’ll know what they’re about. Be sure to use the comments section to let us know why you voted for the game or games you would like to see localized!

For more information about Language Automation, Inc., and what they do, check out their official website at http://www.lai.com.

The poll closes on September 27th and Yakuza 5 currently has 47% of the total vote. I wonder if LAI have approached Sega about this already as it's the clear winner by a big margin. Over 8000 votes!

[Cave Johnson]

We can try convincing Playstation Third Party Relations for localization but I doubt it's going to help.

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2013/08/30/more-great-games-coming-to-playstation-via-third-party-production-team/

So what is Sega's upcoming games now that Project Miku probably sold like shit. More iOS and android games?

[Segata Sanshiro Jr.]

that seems like everybody's baby right now.

[Henry Spencer]

Sega Rep at PAX says Yakuza 5 won't be localized due to small fanbase

While I was at PAX this past weekend I decided I would try my luck asking an official SEGA rep (who were currently promoting/demoing both a Sonic game and Project Diva) whether he knew about Yakuza 5, a game which was released in Japan in December 2012, and if it was ever coming to the US.

He said, “I know a lot” in a somewhat strained manner. After pressing him a bit more and prompting with questions about possible roadblocks, he essentially said that there were currently no plans to take it on.

Unfortunately he said that there weren’t very many fans like me, and if they did decide to localize it would be a long time before we would see the game released here in America. In addition he specifically admitted that the lengthy localization process would not help. However, the way our conversation happened and the way the rep carefully chose his words, it seems like there are bigger issues.

Considering how much I enjoyed Yakuza 3, 4, and Dead Souls (all available for PS3), this does seem like a big blow. I hope they are just hedging their bets and perhaps will revive this series soon.

http://yakuzafan.com/post/60266209467/j ... -weekend-i

Can I just say that SEGA nowadays are the worst they have ever been. Release a game for pedos (Project Diva) in the West, but not a real game like this? Seriously? Such bollocks.

[Crimson Ryan]

Dear Sega,



An ex-fan..

[AnimeGamer183]

what the fuck. dick move sega. I hope they arent coming to this conclusion based on sales of Dead Souls, cause honestly, when it comes to the main series I would have much preffered they skipped dead souls so we could get 1-5+. This is really gonna irk me. Imagine if they announced Shenmue 3 then told us it wasnt coming west? Similar feelings right now...