Numerous games have drawn inspiration from local US criminal enterprises - Grand Theft Auto, The Godfather and Saints Row to name a few - but it's taken until the recent release of SEGA's Yakuza for the PS2 to finally bring Japan's seedy underworld of organized crime to the videogame world, in its gritty, violent and profanity-laced entirety. Melding together open-world exploration, RPG-like character progression, a stylishly brutal beat'em up combat system and a cinematic plot and infusing it all with an authentic Tokyo atmosphere, all of the pieces appeared to be in place for one hell of a thrilling action/adventure gaming epic. But sadly, as I have come to realize from trudging through the game after months and months of anticipating its debut, Yakuza simple doesn't live up to its vast potential and is essentially an average-at-best brawler.

Yakuza's main failure is in its storyline, which is a considerable blow right off the bat, due to the significant story-driven focus the game presents, and doubly surprising considering the fact that the story was penned by award-winning Japanese novelist, Seishu Hase. Soft spoken and tough as nails all in one, Kazuma Kiryu is the star. He begins as an up and coming yakuza earning an infamous reputation as the "Dragon of the Dojima Family". However, after covering for a friend and taking the blame for a murder he didn't commit, he is subsequently sentenced to ten years of hard jail time. A free man again, Kazuma is unwillingly pulled right back into the belly of the criminal underworld and a dramatic tale involving a young orphan girl named Haruka in search of her mother, the theft of ten billion Yen and Kazuma's fight to put his life back together, is told.

While this may sound like a great starting point for an engrossing plot, and even though there are scattered moments of intrigue, there are too many flaws that seriously detract from the storytelling process and consistently hold the story back from ever taking off as well as it should have done. For one thing the script is poorly conceived, riddled with clichés, features dialogue that never seems to flow coherently and constant profanity that is way overdone, even for the subject matter. On top of that, the English localization process puts a massive dent in the authenticity to its subject matter, mainly in the realm of the Hollywood acting talent signed on to voice characters in the game. Michael Madsen, Rachel Leigh Cook, Mark Hamill and a few others voice their roles reasonably well (though nothing to go nuts over), however much of the voice acting is laughable, sometimes bordering on downright awful, and none of it meshes believably with the setting. An option for a Japanese language track with subtitles is a feature I wish Sega had included.

Beyond the so-so script and voice work, Yakuza's story also suffers from characters that are generally just not that interesting, led most of all by the main character himself. Simply put, Kazuma comes off as dull and lifeless thanks to the uninspired dialogue and acting behind his character, and from start to finish I never found myself growing even remotely attached to him or any of the other characters. Oh yeah, and I can't forget to mention the nagging load times that inexplicably break up the flow between long stretches of cut scenes and frequently stunt the pace of the storytelling. When one scene has to be broken into two with a load time in the middle, all continuity is completely lost.

While the story never really comes together in Yakuza, the gameplay is at least functional and decently entertaining. Combat is Yakuza's main claim to fame and overall the fighting system is satisfying. The gameplay is conventional beat 'em up material all the way, as you jump into fisticuffs against groups of enemies, smashing away at the PS2 controller to pull off combos and make anyone who gets in your way dead. Weapons factor extensively into the combat, providing you with swords, knives, tables, bikes, chairs, poles, signs, bats, umbrellas and all sorts of other objects to smack his opposition around with. While pulling off successful attacks, Kazuma's HEAT gauge increases, and once full you enter HEAT mode for a short time, during which you can perform certain environmental-based special attacks, such as slamming a guy's head into a wall, or brutal finishing moves determined by which weapon you have in hand. Introducing some depth to the mix, Yakuza also utilizes a basic RPG-style progression system whereby you earn experience by winning fights to put towards increasing Kazuma's Soul, Technique and Body attributes, and you learn new moves and abilities as these attributes increase.

Early on these elements make for a brawling good time, but you progress a few glaring weaknesses begin take their toll and the fun factor begins to sharply decline. Due to weak enemy AI and an all-around severe lack in challenge, the gameplay quickly enters into the realm of mindless button mashing, with repeated use of Kazuma's basic combo attack being all that's needed to defeat 90% of combative encounters. The occasional boss fight can be relatively tough, however in most cases they are only hard because the lock-on system is half broken, making it a frustrating chore to remain engaged with a quick-dodging boss amongst a crowd of his cronies. Because of this you'll be left watching Kazuma punch and kick into thin air while taking cheap shots to the back, as the lock-on fails to stay on point with the action like it should.

Like other games steeped in this criminal subject matter, Yakuza takes place in an open-world environment to roam around, just without vehicles and on a much, much smaller scale than the massive worlds found in the GTA games or any of the others (this game actually isn't like GTA much at all). Within the red-light Tokyo district environment you travel around from place to place on foot, meeting and greeting NPCs, completing fetch-type quests, searching for clues to advance the story, stopping into pawn shops and drugstores to stock up on items and dropping by cafés, bars, restaurants and ramen bars for a quick meal to replenish lost health. These elements, along with the bustling nightlife ambiance and the realistically recreated environment, featuring mobs of people crowding every corner and bright neon signs lining the streets, build up to generate a richly authentic Tokyo atmosphere. That being said, both the graphical and audio facets of the game are technically very average for a PS2 game in this day and age.

As is the case with every other aspect of the game, the open environment also raises some problematic issues. Although the world is small in size, tedious backtracking becomes a drag in a hurry. After you've run back and forth across the map for the second time you'll immediately dread the necessity to repeatedly make the same trek the next umpteen times you have to over the course of the entire game. A taxi system attempts to alleviate some of this backtracking, but it just doesn't get the job done - at least there are good map and quest guide systems that make it easy to know where you're supposed to be going. Equally annoying as the backtracking are the random encounters while walking through the streets. As you advance to your target destination, various hoodlums, gangsters and yakuza randomly jump out at you to pick a fight. If you stay on your toes you can avoid some of these but more often than not you get sucked into redundant battles that put you up against the same recycled, blandly modelled enemies over and over and over again.

The one quality I can't complain about is the hefty lifespan; through Yakuza's thirteen chapters you can expect to spend around ten hours simply completing the mandatory plot sequences alone. But in addition to that there are a ton of optional side activities to partake in that do provide a nice break from the combat and backtracking. There are casino games, a baseball batting practice cage, massage parlors, coin-op crane games and underground arena battles to spend some extra time with on the side, in addition to countless sub-scenarios to undertake within each chapter that add another layer of depth to the storyline, should you seek them out. Upon finishing the game you are also rewarded with a few other extras from the main menu, such as a cut-scene viewer and various mini-battle modes like time attacks and consecutive boss battles.

As much as I've criticized Yakuza, I honestly can't say that it's a terrible game - I'm just supremely disappointed that it failed to capitalize on its intriguing premise. It does have appealing qualities that make it worth a look, such as its tremendous atmosphere, respectable (if not astounding) combat, lengthy campaign and array of optional content. But for everything the game does right, it gets something else completely wrong, and as such it never quite achieves its ambitious goals. I guess we'll just have to wait for the already confirmed sequel to see if SEGA can bring the promising potential to fruition in its second attempt.

Reviewed by Matt Litten for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).