Ryu ga Gotoku

Sega’s failure to properly market this game will likely haunt them forever. What we can do as grateful fans who were invited into this wonderful experience is to spread the word and hope to invite others to share in this same experience. It will truly be unfortunate if no publisher decides to localize this for the US market, because this is one of those games that everyone deserves to have a chance to play.

Ryu ga Gotoku is, in the simplest sense, a Japanese Yakuza RPG. Whatever preconceptions that idea brings to mind don’t really matter here, because there’s never really been a game quite like it. It’s been compared to Shenmue (a big reason why I was wary of the game) and it has also been likened to a Japanese Grand Theft Auto. Both of these descriptions are criminally inaccurate and only serve to box the game into known genres based on a visual first impression.

Sega’s vision for Ryu ga Gotoku was to make a yakuza action RPG. Instead of menu-driven random encounters, people run up to you while you’re navigating the streets and challenge you or confront you with accusations you’re innocent of, and the resulting battle is a beat-em-up session. You gain experience and money just like in any other RPG. But instead of using your experience to increase stats, you get to level up 3 aspects of your character (mind, body, skill) which will net the player better execution of defense skills (blocking, dodging, etc) as well brand new attacks and moves. The rest of the game behaves much like any other action RPG, with the player going to various places located around the city, watching long fully voiced cutscenes, doing sidequests, fighting through stages, beating bosses, and so on. The only things that separate Ryu from the average action RPG are that it has a dark, edgy, “yakuza” feel and that it plays more like River City Ransom than say, Kingdom Hearts.

There are so many unique things about Ryu that have never been done properly in a game before. For example, the game has a batting center. Yes, a real one, where you can put 300 yen in, receive 20 balls and attempt to hit home runs. The batting center has a whole slew of difficulty settings, ranging from “Beginner” to “Alien”. The game also has a bunch of host clubs located around the city, each with a different set of hostesses. The first time you visit one of these, they’ll set you up with a default girl (each club has one default), and after getting to know her you can ask for her by name the next time you’re in. While cruising the streets you can also pick up tips on what different girls like or dislike, as well as hear news about other girls that work in the different clubs. Knowing a girl’s name will let you ask for her specifically the next time you’re in the club.

While there are unique minigames and sidequests such as these in the game, there are also all the required staples of a gangland RPG. There are several casino/gambling dens in the city, a Pachinko palor, a UFO Catcher machine in each Club Sega (too bad you can’t play the arcade games), and lots of food outlets all over the city, including fast food, ice cream parlors, ramen stores, gyuudon stores, and so on. Like in River City Ransom, eating food in the game will restore your health, but another unique feature of the game is that each time you eat something, you get a little experience, while each time you eat something you’ve eaten before, you get a little less experience. This encourages the player to try different food as much as possible and just for the fun of it, with experience as an added incentive.

As far as the actual gameplay goes, the action is definitely top class. You can grab pretty much anything you see in sight as a weapon, including bikes, electric signs, golf clubs, pipes, chairs, tables, and more. With your fists alone, you can throw punches, kicks, throws, or even grab an opponent and slam his face into a wall. As you increase your skills you will learn more and more new moves, turning the battles into quite a riot. While the majority of the game’s battles will be many-on-one or one-on-one brawls in a limited setting, there are several large “levels” in the game where the battle engine really shines. While far and few inbetween, these stages feel like how a true 3D Streets of Rage should play if Sega ever decides to make one, and the various weapons scattered all around it’s really an insane joy to play.

The storyline of the game is also top class, with really good voice acting, but even better writing. Good writing is something I really don’t see much of in RPGs. Most times JRPGs feature interesting storylines, and sometimes really good characters and development. But just about every time, the writing is mediocre and yet is forgiven easily because it’s “just a game.” In Ryu the writing really shines because it feels right out of a novel or a quality movie. The characters don’t feel forced. Usually they’ll say less than they have to, though sometimes they’ll say a little more than they should have. It’s a really refreshing experience, because instead of aiming for “drama” they went straight for realism, and the drama comes naturally.

The actual story development is also very well-executed, with a nice, leisurely-paced introductory section that turns into serious tension later on, and after a certain point you just won’t be able to stop playing all the way to the end. The ending doesn’t disappoint one bit, with an awesome climax the likes of which few games can make a claim to. I liked how the story dealt with very real themes in Japanese society in a very mature way. None of it felt as if it was saying “Oh look at this, this is a PROBLEM in our society!”, but instead it just presented a wide, varied scope of very real scenarios and situations that the underworld deals with in Japan. Based on the player’s connections to the characters involved, the player is allowed to make up his or her own mind about how these things might be affecting our real world. The writing is much more mature than something like GTA, which is more focused on arcade style action with tongue-in-cheek “mature” references.

Overall I really enjoyed the experience the Ryu ga Gotoku provided, and I’m really thankful that Sega made the effort to put out this game at such a high cost (reportedly over $20 million USD). In a way I feel that I don’t deserve the experience because I’ve been bashing Sega for years now, even if I still feel that a lot of it has been justified. If it was all the negative feedback that made Sega create Ryu ga Gotoku, then maybe it wasn’t all for naught. I encourage anyone with a good command of Japanese and any passing interest at all in Yakuza stories (or just plain good action-packed gaming) to pick up this game immediately. The game isn’t selling all that well in Japan, but it seems to have some good legs because of excellent word of mouth. By writing this, I’m hoping to add to that in any way I can because every sale for this game is a sale that tells Sega this – and not Shadow the Hedgehog – is what we want from them.