Ryu ga Gotoku Kenzan!

I do not speak Japanese but, yep, I'm even playing this one.

I played this in Japanese on my PS3. I'll explain how below.

Sure, I could have skipped this, but I was just so curious about it I knew I had to give it a shot. How, you might ask, given I don't know any Japanese? Well, the Internet is a fantastic resource. Specifically, this GameFAQs post and this Let's Play, alongside the Google Translate app on my phone, allowed me to mostly make sense of what was going on and how to progress. Honestly, a big part of the reason I decided to play this game was because I wanted to see if I could. I needed to find out if an ignorant American like me could make their way through an imported game in another language.

While the GameFAQs page and Let's Play were both great for giving me additional context (and for some help following the plot), the power of modern Google Translate really can't be overstated. Real-time machine translation has come a long way and while, yes, it's far from perfect, it was frequently fast enough to give me the basics of what was being said (via the subtitles displayed onscreen) at any given time. No one's going to mistake these translations for a proper localization, but I was generally able to keep up with conversations while they were happening. There are inconsistencies and it makes a lot of mistakes (specifically around proper nouns) but the fact it kind of does exactly what you want it to (as far as I can tell) is miraculous to me. It was awkward to play this game with my phone in my hand for so much of it, but, hey, it worked!

If you'll forgive my awkward photo, here's an example.

I suppose I should talk about the game itself at some point, right? While I admit a large part of my interest in this game was in the nitty-gritty "can I reasonably do this", the game itself is strong, which probably shouldn't come as a surprise at this point. This was, effectively, the third Yakuza (or Like a Dragon) game, and as such it feels like both a continuation and an evolution of what those games set out to do.

Combat is now largely focused on weapons, though there is still an unarmed combat style that allows you to grab objects and enemies like you could in prior Yakuza games. The weapons each have their own animations and combos with blocking being much more necessary than it was in prior games. There are still heat actions to pull off and random street fights to encounter however, so it should be familiar to you if you've played the other games. All in all, I found the new combat pretty enjoyable.

I got a lot of mileage out of this heat action.

There are a number of smaller quality-of-life improvements, too. You can access your storage box from any save point on the map, so you don't need to constantly run to-and-from your safehouse. There's also a rudimentary upgrade and crafting system where enemies will sometimes drop random materials you can use to upgrade your weapons. You can now learn heat actions by witnessing animals or events in the world, and based on what I know I think this mechanic will return in future entries, so it's worth noting here.  There's also a post-game exploration mode, though to be honest I haven't engaged with that yet and I'm not sure I will. Still, it's good that it's there (and I think that's something the series keeps as it moves forward).

Generally speaking, this game feels bigger than the two Yakuza games I played. There are more unique environments and some of the combat arenas are considerably larger than any from those games. There are also (still) countless minigames to play. Hostess clubs have been replaced by brothels, though I barely engaged with these because I found the hostess clubs in the other games to be pretty dull. I also didn't play much shogi or mahjong because I've got no idea how to play those (well) and it was pretty easy to ignore.

The waterfall minigame was... something.

There are also a great deal of side stories, though I'll admit I wasn't as thorough with these as I would have liked. The language barrier makes certain things more difficult, and tracking down objectives without a flashing "go here" icon on a map can be difficult when you don't know even the basics of the language. Still, I did quite a few and had a good time. These range from short, breezy things like "deal with this dog that's sitting on my stuff" to longer, more elaborate sequences. Much like Yakuza 2 before it, these substories are where most of the "wacky" stuff happens, given the main plot is a relatively serious thing.

Some of the sub-stories are pretty goofy.

That main plot is an enjoyable tale of a swordsman in hiding trying to plot his revenge, and the cameos from actors from the series are a nice touch. The protagonist is Miyamoto Musashi, though he uses the name "Kazumanosuke Kiryu" for most of the story, while other familiar faces serve as stand-ins for their respective characters. 

Unfortunately, I can kind of understand why this was never localized. The story and setting revolve heavily around a red-light district where the main business is a brothel, and over the course of the narrative you'll see very young girls working at that brothel (where their role there is somewhat ambiguous). It's treated with respect, but it's a very touchy subject that would require some nuance to properly localize and I ultimately don't blame SEGA for sidestepping things (especially given how different things were back in 2008). 

This game's take on Haruka is... complicated.

I'll be honest, I don't know a whole lot about Japanese history so I was thankful for the aforementioned GameFAQs post and Let's Play because those both gave some additional context and information about the historical period in which the game is set. I was able to follow what was going on and had a decent understanding of the powers at play as a result.

As I've done with the other games, I've included my Results screen. While there was a ton of side-content I skipped or didn't engage with, I did do pretty much every substory I came across so I feel like that, along with the fact I had the language barrier to deal with, is why my time is so inflated compared to the 30-or-so that HowLongToBeat says this game takes.

Feel free to translate this yourself if you want.

I really enjoyed this game. It's a side-story and a diversion from the main Yakuza series, yes, but it's a good time and getting to see some of these people in a new setting was fun. You could either do what I did: play it with the help of modern technology and ancient GameFAQs posts, or you could wait for the currently in-development fan patch to come out. I can't speak for the quality of that yet as it hasn't been finished, but it'll surely be more convenient (and a better translation) than what you could get from Google Translate. 

Either way, this was a good game and I'm glad I sought it out. Due to how much time has passed I have to assume there'll never be an official localization of this, but I'd still recommend giving this a shot (either by doing what I did, waiting for that patch, or just checking out the aforementioned Let's Play) if you need more Yakuza in your life. It was a bit of a hassle to play, yes, but I think it was worth it.