Yakuza 0 out now, finally bringing the series to PC
At last!
Sega's fab brawl-o-RPG series Yakuza today finally makes its official debut on PC, after over a decade exclusive to PlayStations, with the launch of Yakuza 0. It's the story of two soon-to-be-legendary gangsters in 1988's Tokyo and Osaka, who talk in serious tones and have mastered the art of whipping off their shirt and jacket in one movement when it's time to rumble. Also they're huge goofballs who sing karaoke, bodyslam bicycles onto punks, have dance-offs, win toys for children, race Scalextric, and get real into telephone dating. Good times. Edwin Evans-Thirlwell give it a big thumbs-up in our Yakuza 0 review last week, and now the game's actually out. Watch the launch trailer below.
Back over to Edwin and wot he thought:
"Yakuza 0 is an ornate and bustling epic that deftly transforms a landscape of glittering loose ends into something like a tangible society – the crucial connective tissue being missions that tell you things about the world, rather than just giving you something to do within it. It's a game about rolling up property, making fat stacks, perving over damsels and wrecking faces as you wage war on a criminal empire. But it's also about finding the humanity beneath the filth and lucre, about the little tragedies and comedies in the corners that are the real lifeblood of these cities. Yakuza's debut on PC is long overdue, but you couldn’t have asked for a stronger start."
Our Nöa recently gave a quick video tour of some of the strange things to do and stranger people to meet, from fighting a bully to making zombies beat it alongside a fella who most certainly is not Michael Jackson.
I fell instantly in love with Yakuza through the recent Yakuza 6 on PS4 (we're talking full-on controller-frenching love, right in the USB port) and am so glad to see the series open to PCnauts. The balance they strike between serious crime drama and wacky nonsense is delightful, built around a compassionate heart and such colourful and busy places to explore.
Yakuza 0 is out now on Steam, priced at £15/€20/$20. Fifteen quid! Bargain.
Sega are getting a lot better with PC releases of their console bangers: the old, the new, and the remastered. Platinum's ace Bayonetta and Vanquish came over in 2017, ye olde not-as-good-as-remembered Shenmue I & II are out remastered on PC later this month, Valkyria Chronicles 4 is coming in September, and... more Yakuza is coming.
Yakuza Kiwami, 2016's remake of the 2005 first game, is confirmed to come next. Sega haven't announced PC releases for any other Yakuza games yet but fingers crossed. Yakuza 6 came out on PS4 in April and Yakuza Kiwami 2, a PS4 remake of the second, has its global launch later this month. These seem good candidates to follow. Assuming enough of youse buy these. Please buy these.