Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine: Ryu Ga Gotoku

It seems that the fine purveyors of Monkey Ball–based entertainment at Amusement Vision (a development team within Sega) got a bit tired of family fare, as its next title is entering Grand Theft Auto territory. Ryu ga Gotoku (rough translation: “like a dragon”) is a game not about monkeys, but a Japanese gangster. It’s also a game that integrates free roaming, brawling, gambling, batting practice (!), and hostess seducing.

Similar to Sega’s earlier franchise Shenmue (and, to some extent, GTA), Ryu ga Gotoku features a free-roaming map of the fictional Kamurocho district in Tokyo (seemingly by one of Tokyo’s red-light districts, Kabukicho). You’ll be able to accept side quests, gamble in pachinko parlors, and get sauced in bars. There’s even a hostess bar in which you can pick a girl and ply her with cheap talk and expensive drinks. As expected, playing a yakuza in a rough part of Japan usually leads to fighting. The fighting system isn’t taken from Virtua Fighter; it’s designed to simulate the harsh brawls that gangsters get into. Don’t look for elaborate combos that resemble ballet, but expect to see techniques like stomping on someone when they hit the ground, picking up garbage cans to pummel people with, or smashing your opponent’s face against a radiator.

We don’t have a whole lot of details about the story, just that you play as Kiryu Kazuma, a lifer in the yakuza just released from prison. Kazuma wants to leave the yakuza life behind, but then again, there wouldn’t be much of a game if he retired to a nice place in the hills. No American release has been confirmed, but we’d put our pachinko money on Sega bringing this sprawling yakuza epic over to the States.

Pub. Sega Dev. Amusement Vision Release Not confirmed for the States...yet