the psp yakuza calls to me
i was content to ignore the psp yakuza games, for a variety of reasons. they never got released in english, they don't have any meaningful narrative connections to the main games, and they were made by completely different people. but then i found out said different people are the artists formally known as aki corporation. y'know. the good n64 wrestling game people. the def jam fight for ny people. and then i found out the combat was way different, focused on a grittier slower system to really emphasize the street fighter turn. and now i want to play them a lot.
some cool stuff about kurohyō: ryū ga gotoku shinshō (or as it likely would've been called in america, yakuza: black panther):
- the game has no hud during fights, meaning you need to determine damage and stamina use from animations and tells
- cutscenes were told in a motion comic style not unlike metal gear solid: peace walker
- both games just recently received english patches
- the story is actually pretty well regarded, especially for being more grounded and less shall we say melodramatic as normal yakuza narratives
however, i still don't know if i will 100% jump on it or not. i haven't checked into it but not every aspect of the game was translated when those patches were released. emulation is an option but at least looking at footage from november or so shows some pretty egregious layer issues. y'see the game uses prerendered backgrounds to render it's kamurocho, but still uses 3d models for all of the characters. on ppsspp character models are always on top, even if they're around a street corner completely obstructed normally.
theoretically though, i could load this onto a hacked vita... and i do have a vita i've been meaning to hack... much to consider. i think i'm more likely to play the japanese copy of yakuza ishin my girlfriend bought me first before that, however.