Only a few weeks remain until the release of PlayStation 3’s exclusive brawler from Sega, Yakuza 3. The open world gangster game features an intriguing fighting system as well as a detailed environments and a compelling story. But will everything which made Yakuza 3 a success in Japan make it through in to the Western release?
Unfortunately for US and European PlayStation 3 owners, the Hostess Club scenes will not be featured in the Western release of the third game in the series. A Japanese quiz game segment has also been removed. A Sega representative told IGN that some content from the Japanese version of the fighter will be cut out from the western version.
The content between Yakuza 3 US/UK and Yakuza JP is a little different in that we took out certain bits in order to bring the game to the west in the time alloted for us to do so. The parts we ended up taking out were parts that we felt wouldn’t make sense (like a Japanese history quiz game) or wouldn’t resonate as much (such as the concept of a hostess club).
We didn’t replace the parts we took out, but we made absolutely sure that the story continuity stayed intact so that the story experience was the same as the Japanese version and that it didn’t take away the human drama so inherent to the Yakuza series.
Look on the bright side: Yakuza 3 is a great game, and this shouldn’t deter you from the experience which Yakuza 3 will deliver. Check out the latest screenshots and trailer for the game here.
Yakuza 3 releases in North America on March 9th and March 12th for the UK. Expect PlayStation LifeStyle’s review of the brawler soon.
