Yakuza 4

What made last year's Yakuza 3 great was its story. I started out as a reformed Japanese mobster (see: yakuza) who didn't want trouble, but people messed with my orphanage so I got back into the life of beating people's asses. It was a fun ride that allowed me to look past the game's flaws. Yakuza 4's story is split between four different characters who each have a part in the major plot but don't come together until the very end. Each tale is constrained with little room to grow and the overall plot is longwinded and a bit hard to follow.

In short, the lackluster narrative totally knocks the wind out of the best thing this series had going for it.

Yakuza 4 is a mafia movie in a JRPG/brawler hybrid. Through four acts and a short finale, I played as a loan shark, an escaped convict, a jaded cop and that reformed yakuza I mentioned a while ago. Each time I'd start as one of these guys, I'd begin leveling him up, learning new moves, and figuring out his personal history.

The majority of their habits boil down to punching and kicking dudes in the face. As I'd walk down the street in Tokyo's fictional red light district (the spot where nearly the entire game plays out), random people would run up and challenge me to brawls. This is that JPRG element at work. I get in the random battle, smear my opponent's blood on my knuckles, and bank experience points to make my character better than ever. As I wail on guys, I'm filling a Heat meter that allows me to execute devastating finishers like bashing a guy's head with a baseball bat.

It's fun and brutal. There's a sick satisfaction to the final blow I'd land and the slow motion tumble my victim would take while spewing out blood. I dig the fighting, but boss fights are cheap. The AI could pull off moves I couldn't and never missed a move due to the lackluster targeting like I did.

If you're keeping track, all that fighting is largely untouched from Yakuza 3. Nearly all the Heat finishers I've seen are recycled from the last game. The new characters come with unique abilities -- the policeman can parry and the con man can bulldoze people -- but outside of a few person-specific moves, it's well-worn territory. Not to mention that I spent all this time leveling-up a character just to switch to another and do it all over again to unlock very similar moves.

I had similar complaints about the last Yakuza -- you're just doing the same thing over and over again -- but back then, the story carried the game. Here, that doesn't happen.