Yakuza 3 is somewhat of a controversial title in the community, I’ve found. Very few argue it’s a truly bad game, but I’ve seen plenty of fans rank it at the bottom of their series rankings. I was aware of this bias as I got into the game, but I didn’t let it cloud my judgment.
Now, Yakuza 3 Remastered, is, rather obviously, a remaster, not a remake in the same vein as the Kiwami titles. As such, I’ll try not to compare it to those titles in this review, as they’re several years older — I figure the harsh jump from Kiwami 2’s smooth combat and HD graphics into a PS3-era game is part of why this is the game looked least-favorably upon in the franchise by a good chunk of the fanbase.
(Forewarning: I’ll not be reviewing the side content. Yakuza 3 Remastered is admittedly the game I spent the least amount of time on in this franchise.)
With that out of the way, I’ll start with by far my favorite part of this game: the story and its themes. People often complain about Y3’s start being really slow for a Yakuza game, but I’ll get to that in a second.
The important part is; Kiryu has an orphanage now! He moved away from the busy life of Kamurocho into the calm, breezy relaxation of Okinawa, where he leads the Morning Glory Orphanage with Haruka, taking care of 8 kids.
The game opens up with Kiryu taking care of the orphanage, helping the kids do their chores and making sure everything’s okay with them. It’s a very slow start, especially compared to the rest of the franchise, but honestly? I don’t mind it. Kiryu is legitimately happy, and it felt earned — after 0, K1, and K2, he deserves this. It’s heartwarming!
Anyways, I won’t summarize the rest of the story here, but I’ll just say that most of the characters are fun and enjoyable to follow as always (shoutouts to Rikiya and Shigeru in particular), although I’m still very annoyed at Sayama being written out at the start. She could’ve been such a cool character to have by Kiryu’s side, but I suppose virginity wins in this franchise.
Instead, I’d like to talk about this series’ main theming/message, which is expressed through the game’s main antagonist, Yoshitaka Mine. Mine had a very similar childhood to Kiryu, with one exception: unlike Kiryu, he did not have anyone to rely on, whereas our protagonist had the orphanage and Kazama.
Mine appears polite, yet cold at the start, seeking to repair the Tojo Clan alongside the chairman after the events of Yakuza 2. Later on, it’s revealed he’s desperately attempting to fill the hole in his heart growing alone created, and the fact he had a similar background to Kiryu made something very clear - Mine is what Kiryu could’ve become, and I love when antagonists are related to a protagonist in that sort of way.
Mine chased after wealth, but it was the underworld’s reliance on human trust that caused him to turn to it, and it finally gave him a taste of what it meant to be truly trusted. Before that, people only began to come close to him after he was already rich, and he saw through them. They were never real connections.
People make fun of Mine for what his plan ultimately becomes - passionately killing the comatose chairman (Daigo, the one person who immediately trusted without doing so for money) and taking over the clan. Many see it as nonsensical, and I think that’s a fair initial assumption, as Kiryu cuts him off before he can explain what he believes it’d achieve.
However, I think it makes perfect sense for Mine. The only person who trusted him without an ulterior motive was suddenly at the verge of death. He truly believes passionately killing the one man he loved and carrying his mission on will fill the hole in his soul. Is it irrational? Perhaps, but Mine is irrational, despite his calculating exterior.
In short - yeah, I like Mine. A lot. He’s easily my favorite villain in this franchise, because of how he serves as an other side of the coin to Kiryu. While Ryuji sort of attempted that, this feels more personal, and my only complaint with it is that Mine just sort of explains everything in the climax while he has a gun pointed to Kiryu’s head, but hey, he’s a good character.
Onto combat. This is where the game gets a bit rough. Before I get into the nitty-gritty of it though, I have to point out the remaster runs at 60 FPS, whereas the original game runs at 30. This wouldn’t be a huge deal, except for the fact the higher framerate halved the quickstep distance (except on the PS4 version, where it’s doubled). I installed a mod to restore the quickstep, but I find it weird that’s even in the game to begin with.
Anyways, Yakuza 3 Remastered’s combat is considerably clunkier than YK1 and YK2, but it doesn’t mean it’s bad. It’s very crunchy and pretty satisfying, but it does have its fair share of issues:
- The most common complaint with Yakuza 3 in general is the amount of times enemies block. I didn’t really have much trouble with blocking enemies (really, it was some bosses that gave me trouble more than anything), but I can see how it can become infurating fast.
- Bosses take way less damage than enemies, including from heat actions. This means that some slower boss fights (looking at Lau Ka Long in particular) can easily overstay their welcome, especially as heat actions do not do much damage to them either.
- Heat drains fast, and it’s hard to get much of it aside from double finishers. Unless you’re chaining long strings of wallbounces and quickstep attacks together (which is the primary strategy used by more veteran players), you’re not getting much of any heat from bosses.
- Yakuza 3 Remastered has the Feel the Heat! sequences introduced earlier in the franchise. However, instead of mashing square, you have to mash R2 - quite possibly the worst button in the entire controller they could’ve chosen to assign it to. In addition, none of the finishers are even guaranteed to properly finish a fight (aside from maybe Hell’s Gauntlet), so they come across as a waste of time more than anything else.
That’s not to say the combat isn’t fun, though. When this game rocks, it rocks. For instance, Touto Hospital long battle is my favorite long battle in the series currently — it has the right amount of length and three great bossfights back to back to back. The Richardson and Mine fights are incredibly fun, and the standouts when it comes to this game’s bosses, alongside the Joji fight.
But there are a few… unsufferable spots. In particular, the Lau Ka Long fight, which is easily one of the the least fun fights in the series, solely because of how slow it is and how punishing he can be if he decides to do so.
Overall though? Combat’s alright. It’s clunky but still fun, and most of the issues I have with it have been polished in Yakuza 4. If anything, it’s a peak example of “new engine syndrome.”
I don’t have much to talk about on the music front, but it’s cool as always. It’s one of the shorter soundtracks in the series, and it’s aggressively PS3.
Before I wrap this up, I’d like to commend Yakuza 3’s very positive depiction of a transgender woman, Ayaka, especially for a mid 2000s game. Her identity is not treated as a joke, and she’s even voiced by a trans celebrity the series’ creator is friends with. It’s incredibly heartwarming to see Kiryu learn about Ayaka’s insecurities and reassure her she just has bigger obstacles in life, and that she’s not at fault for being herself.
Overall, Yakuza 3 is a very fun game, even if it has its faults. Sandwiched between clunky-but-satisfying combat and some particularly unfun segments lies an excellent story about trust, with one of the best antagonists Sega has ever created. It’s definitely worth checking out, and honestly? I think Y4 is the worse game, but I’ll get to that one later.
Now, Yakuza 3 Remastered, is, rather obviously, a remaster, not a remake in the same vein as the Kiwami titles. As such, I’ll try not to compare it to those titles in this review, as they’re several years older — I figure the harsh jump from Kiwami 2’s smooth combat and HD graphics into a PS3-era game is part of why this is the game looked least-favorably upon in the franchise by a good chunk of the fanbase.
(Forewarning: I’ll not be reviewing the side content. Yakuza 3 Remastered is admittedly the game I spent the least amount of time on in this franchise.)
With that out of the way, I’ll start with by far my favorite part of this game: the story and its themes. People often complain about Y3’s start being really slow for a Yakuza game, but I’ll get to that in a second.
The important part is; Kiryu has an orphanage now! He moved away from the busy life of Kamurocho into the calm, breezy relaxation of Okinawa, where he leads the Morning Glory Orphanage with Haruka, taking care of 8 kids.
The game opens up with Kiryu taking care of the orphanage, helping the kids do their chores and making sure everything’s okay with them. It’s a very slow start, especially compared to the rest of the franchise, but honestly? I don’t mind it. Kiryu is legitimately happy, and it felt earned — after 0, K1, and K2, he deserves this. It’s heartwarming!
Anyways, I won’t summarize the rest of the story here, but I’ll just say that most of the characters are fun and enjoyable to follow as always (shoutouts to Rikiya and Shigeru in particular), although I’m still very annoyed at Sayama being written out at the start. She could’ve been such a cool character to have by Kiryu’s side, but I suppose virginity wins in this franchise.
Instead, I’d like to talk about this series’ main theming/message, which is expressed through the game’s main antagonist, Yoshitaka Mine. Mine had a very similar childhood to Kiryu, with one exception: unlike Kiryu, he did not have anyone to rely on, whereas our protagonist had the orphanage and Kazama.
Mine appears polite, yet cold at the start, seeking to repair the Tojo Clan alongside the chairman after the events of Yakuza 2. Later on, it’s revealed he’s desperately attempting to fill the hole in his heart growing alone created, and the fact he had a similar background to Kiryu made something very clear - Mine is what Kiryu could’ve become, and I love when antagonists are related to a protagonist in that sort of way.
Mine chased after wealth, but it was the underworld’s reliance on human trust that caused him to turn to it, and it finally gave him a taste of what it meant to be truly trusted. Before that, people only began to come close to him after he was already rich, and he saw through them. They were never real connections.
People make fun of Mine for what his plan ultimately becomes - passionately killing the comatose chairman (Daigo, the one person who immediately trusted without doing so for money) and taking over the clan. Many see it as nonsensical, and I think that’s a fair initial assumption, as Kiryu cuts him off before he can explain what he believes it’d achieve.
However, I think it makes perfect sense for Mine. The only person who trusted him without an ulterior motive was suddenly at the verge of death. He truly believes passionately killing the one man he loved and carrying his mission on will fill the hole in his soul. Is it irrational? Perhaps, but Mine is irrational, despite his calculating exterior.
In short - yeah, I like Mine. A lot. He’s easily my favorite villain in this franchise, because of how he serves as an other side of the coin to Kiryu. While Ryuji sort of attempted that, this feels more personal, and my only complaint with it is that Mine just sort of explains everything in the climax while he has a gun pointed to Kiryu’s head, but hey, he’s a good character.
Onto combat. This is where the game gets a bit rough. Before I get into the nitty-gritty of it though, I have to point out the remaster runs at 60 FPS, whereas the original game runs at 30. This wouldn’t be a huge deal, except for the fact the higher framerate halved the quickstep distance (except on the PS4 version, where it’s doubled). I installed a mod to restore the quickstep, but I find it weird that’s even in the game to begin with.
Anyways, Yakuza 3 Remastered’s combat is considerably clunkier than YK1 and YK2, but it doesn’t mean it’s bad. It’s very crunchy and pretty satisfying, but it does have its fair share of issues:
- The most common complaint with Yakuza 3 in general is the amount of times enemies block. I didn’t really have much trouble with blocking enemies (really, it was some bosses that gave me trouble more than anything), but I can see how it can become infurating fast.
- Bosses take way less damage than enemies, including from heat actions. This means that some slower boss fights (looking at Lau Ka Long in particular) can easily overstay their welcome, especially as heat actions do not do much damage to them either.
- Heat drains fast, and it’s hard to get much of it aside from double finishers. Unless you’re chaining long strings of wallbounces and quickstep attacks together (which is the primary strategy used by more veteran players), you’re not getting much of any heat from bosses.
- Yakuza 3 Remastered has the Feel the Heat! sequences introduced earlier in the franchise. However, instead of mashing square, you have to mash R2 - quite possibly the worst button in the entire controller they could’ve chosen to assign it to. In addition, none of the finishers are even guaranteed to properly finish a fight (aside from maybe Hell’s Gauntlet), so they come across as a waste of time more than anything else.
That’s not to say the combat isn’t fun, though. When this game rocks, it rocks. For instance, Touto Hospital long battle is my favorite long battle in the series currently — it has the right amount of length and three great bossfights back to back to back. The Richardson and Mine fights are incredibly fun, and the standouts when it comes to this game’s bosses, alongside the Joji fight.
But there are a few… unsufferable spots. In particular, the Lau Ka Long fight, which is easily one of the the least fun fights in the series, solely because of how slow it is and how punishing he can be if he decides to do so.
Overall though? Combat’s alright. It’s clunky but still fun, and most of the issues I have with it have been polished in Yakuza 4. If anything, it’s a peak example of “new engine syndrome.”
I don’t have much to talk about on the music front, but it’s cool as always. It’s one of the shorter soundtracks in the series, and it’s aggressively PS3.
Before I wrap this up, I’d like to commend Yakuza 3’s very positive depiction of a transgender woman, Ayaka, especially for a mid 2000s game. Her identity is not treated as a joke, and she’s even voiced by a trans celebrity the series’ creator is friends with. It’s incredibly heartwarming to see Kiryu learn about Ayaka’s insecurities and reassure her she just has bigger obstacles in life, and that she’s not at fault for being herself.
Overall, Yakuza 3 is a very fun game, even if it has its faults. Sandwiched between clunky-but-satisfying combat and some particularly unfun segments lies an excellent story about trust, with one of the best antagonists Sega has ever created. It’s definitely worth checking out, and honestly? I think Y4 is the worse game, but I’ll get to that one later.