Entertainment

Games: Yakuza Remastered Collection will see you through lockdown and beyond

The entire Yakuza saga can now be played on one console
The entire Yakuza saga can now be played on one console The entire Yakuza saga can now be played on one console

Yakuza Remastered Collection (PS4)

By: Sega

I WAS due to review Resident Evil 3 this week, but outrunning a terrifying menace in a world on its knees due to bio-disaster seemed a little on the nose – and I have a lot of nose. Instead, discerning shut-ins perusing the virtual shelves could do worse than nabbing the middle trilogy of Sega's Yakuza series, finally gussied up for PS4.

Yakuza 6 may have wrapped up Kiryu Kazuma's chop-socky shenanigans back in 2018, but only it along with the fancy-pants do-overs of Yazuzas 0, 1 and 2 were available on current hardware. Satisfying both hardcore fans and OCD types, the entire saga can now be played on one console (providing you live that long) with these remasters of parts 3, 4 and 5.

All offer a chance to cock a snook at two-metre distancing as you rub shoulders with the virtual citizenry of Kamurocho, parading through shops with impunity and squeezing our grumpy star into the most congested of public gatherings.

Action role-play with a hard emphasis on action, Yakuza combines the open world of Shenmue with Streets of Rage-esque fistcuffery as shirtless men fight for honour amid soap opera plots. And though its worlds may be Lilliputian next to the acreage of GTA, they manage to cram every orifice with a bounty of bustle.

Gameplay boils down to exploration, fetch quests and thumping dudes with fancy knuckle work. And when they tire of smacking gangsters into comas, Yakuza gives players a wide berth to explore a living, breathing, neon-soaked world with an ambitious menu of side quests and mini-games – from fishing and karaoke to giving massages and running an escort service.

Getting wasted, raising orphans and having fistfights atop skyscrapers are all in a day's work for Kiryu – and with Yakuza 4 and 5, our stoic star is joined by a menagerie of additional playable characters.

To be fair, Sega have skimped on the bells and whistles here, with none of the plush upgrades fans got with the Kiwami versions of Yakuza 1 and 2. All three run as you remember on PS3, albeit with bumped up resolutions and sharper textures. And though 4 and 5 will still turn heads, no amount of digital botox can disguise the lines on poor old Yakuza 3.

But it's not just the tech that's been dragged into the modern world – a distinctly un-PC side quest featuring a butch, perverted transgender woman has been cut, while one of Yakuza's 4's stars is recast due to the original actor's headline-grabbing drug habit. Best of all, the localisation has been given a once-over to fix some of the clunkier translations.

For anyone who's ever considered dipping their toe into Yakuza's world but found the immense timesink off-putting, coronavirus is a opportunity to see what all the fuss is about. With hundreds of hours of virtual mingling to be done, this trio will see you through lockdown and beyond.