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Yakuza New Chapter – TGS hands-on impression

By Heath | September 18, 2010 at 7:40 am

Sega has been taking some of its best-selling console titles into handheld territory recently, from Valkyria Chronicles II earlier this year, to Kurohyo: Yakuza New Chapter, due out this month in Japan.  One of the biggest differences in the VC transition was that the huge battlefields had to be broken up into several smaller chunks; something similar was required for Yakuza‘s PSP debut.
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Whereas the PS2 and PS3 games featured big, sprawling areas of city to explore, those of New Chapter are much smaller. Gamers will find themselves seeing a whole lot of camera changes while strolling the city. These switches, a ncessary evil of breaking Tokyo down into little bits, happen without a single second of lag, but the jarring part is when the angle changes. Remember how in some games, you’ll be running, but then the camera angle will change, and instead of left, you’ll need to press up in order to get where you’re going? That happened a few times, mostly in the first indoor area.

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Outside, while attempting to run straight down the street, I timed the camera changes.  There was a camera change or area switch every 3-5 seconds.  One-two-three-CHANGE, one-two-three-four-five-CHANGE, one-two-three-CHANGE….  I couldn’t help but notice that it made city exploration feel somewhat jerky.  Not like beef jerky, like “there sure are a lot of stop signs in this town” jerky.

Other aspects of the game were quite fun.  The battles were similar to those of the Yakuza (Ryu Ga Gotoku) series’ previous installments and genuinely interesting.  The nartual assumption is that one’s abilities will eventually grow far flashier and more awesome than the already-neat fighting moves the demo displayed.
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Topics: Kurohyo: Yakuza New Chapter, Previews, Tokyo Game Show 2010