Another major series has been claimed by Japan's apparent love for portable gaming. After five console outings on PS2 and then PS3, the next platform for Sega's Yakuza series will be the PSP.
The title in question was announced last month under the placeholder name of "Project K." Famitsu reveals the game to be a PSP title.
In Project K, you take control not of Kazuma Kiryu, but of new hero Tatsuya Ukyou. At just 18, Ukyou isn't entrenched in the mob life like Kiryu. He's just a delinquent who roams the streets of Kamurocho.
The magazine got first screens of the game, showing environmental shots, battle sequences and event scenes. The combat and environments look similar to past Yakuza games. Kamurocho has some familiar sights, including the corner Don Quixoti retailer. Ukyou seems to have access to heat action movies -- one of the fundamental elements of past Yakuza combat systems.
The event scenes look a different, though. While still fully voiced, Sega is using a different technique to animate these scenes. Tokyo animation studio Spookey Graphics is working with Sega for this area of the game.
Yakuza series creator Toshihiro Nagoshi shared a few comments with the magazine. The game is being brought to the PSP, he said, both because they want to reach younger audiences and because they hope to make use of some gameplay elements that one might expect from a portable system. Regarding the younger target audience, he's putting in a message about living life strongly and being more aggressive.
Nagoshi appears to be putting in that message all on his own. He revealed to the magazine that he's writing the game's script. Past Yakuza titles were written by Masayoshi Yokoyama.
Yokoyama may not be out of a job, though. Nagoshi also revealed that Project K is being developed by a separate team from the main Yakuza series team. He also provided some hints that the Yakuza team is still working away on a new Yakuza game to follow their work on Yakuza 4.
First Looks:
QUOTEAs detailed earlier in the week, the tentatively titled Project K takes the series to PSP for the first time. Yakuza series director Toshihiro Nagoshi is producing the game and also writing its script.
The young tough you see in the screens is Tatsuya Ukyou, an 18-year-old who was expelled from high school for knocking the lights out of a student from another school. Ukyou now wanders the streets of Kamurocho, the same setting as past Yakuza games, and has earned the reputation of being "Kamurocho's Strongest Street Fighter."
The game kicks off with Ukyou plotting to rob a city loan shark, a plan so dangerous that his partners back off. Ukyou continues with the plot on his own, only to find that the person he's robbing is Naoki Toda, a high ranking member in Tokyo's largest yakuza organization, Tojo Clan (also from the other Yakuza games).
The two fight and, from what we gather from Sega's story information, it seems that Ukyou ends up killing Toda.
Sega hasn't shared any specifics aside from the story. The usual Yakuza elements seem to be in place, though. You'll be able to explore Kamurocho at day and night, visiting shops, some of which are based off real world tie-ins (you can see Don Qijoti and Watami in the above shots). Ukyou will get into battle, making use of what appears to be heat action moves, one of the fundamental elements of the battle systems in the other Yakuza games.
In an interview with Weekly Famitsu magazine, Nagoshi hinted at some features one might expect of the PSP without saying what those features are. He also said that the game would tackle some new themes, including "violence" and "youth."
More details, and hopefully a final name, should be forthcoming, as Sega is readying Project K for Japanese release this Fall.
