This month’s SegaNama stream included new gameplay for PS4 exclusive Yakuza: Like a Dragon, presented by Producer Hiroyuki Sakamoto, who explained how the game feels like in its mid-game. We most notably got to see Joon-gi Han, Tianyou Zhao, and Eri Kamataki as part of Ichiban’s party.
Joon-gi Han is the Korean mafia boss from Yakuza 6, he joins Ichiban and his friends at some point in the game. His speed stat is really high, meaning he has more turns than others, and he can also use guns with concentrated or AoE attacks. Tianyou Zhao is a brand new character and the leader of Chinese mafia Yokohama Liumang. His attacks and skills are perfect to inflict status ailments, most notably the bleeding status.
Meanwhile, Eri Kamataki is the actress who won the big audition for the game and who also acts as another party member, Saeko Mukouda. Eri Kamataki did the motion capture for Saeko, but the character is voiced by Sumire Uesaka. However, players will be able to unlock Eri Kamataki herself after progressing in Yakuza: Like a Dragon‘s company management mode, and she’s the second female party member in the game.
As you already know, Yakuza: Like a Dragon is a turn-based RPG, and each character can pick many different Jobs. The new gameplay sequence from SegaNama most notably shows Joon-gi Han, Tianyou Zhao, and Eri Kamataki’s base jobs and skills. We also get to see Ichiban in the fire sorcerer-like cook job, and Saeko in the Dominatrix-like Night Queen job.
Whenever Hiroyuki Sakamoto and the Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio staff talked about Saeko’s jobs in the past, they always mentioned how there are “women-only Jobs”, instead of “Saeko-only Jobs” so I was expecting at least another female character to join Kasuga’s party. I didn’t think they’d put Eri Kamataki herself though, and that’s pretty great. The other finalists of the actress audition also appear in the game as NPCs.
The gameplay sequence is embedded below.
Yakuza: Like a Dragon currently has a demo out in Japan. I’ve tried it out and explained how rather than the turn-based battle system itself, what might alienate fans of the series is the Job System, along with how comedy-like and wacky the battles are compared to the rest of the series. The Yakuza series’ producers gave out multiple reasons behind the RPG change, and the series will go back to an action battle system if this game doesn’t sell. You can read more details on the game here most notably regarding returning characters.
Yakuza: Like a Dragon is titled Ryu Ga Gotoku 7 Hikari to Yami no Yukue in Japan and will launch there on January 16. The game will come west later in 2020.
SegaNama are monthly streams with Toshihiro Nagoshi and best MC Ayana Tsubaki. We cover these each month on DualShockers, and today’s stream also had Nagoshi talking about the Sega Interactive and Sega Games merge.
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