Gamers owe Sega a great deal of thanks since the company had the courage to release Yakuza 3 in North America and Europe. Previously, the Yakuza games didn’t do that well outside of Japan but due to the constant demand by gamers, Sega finally caved in and gave us what we all wanted. However, there was a few issues with the Western release of Yakuza 3, most of which stemmed from features being cut.
With things like the Hostess feature being cut from Yakuza 3 gamers were a bit peeved to say the least. Thankfully, Sega have learned their lesson and aren’t cutting anything substantial from the Western release of Yakuza 4. In an interview with Kotaku, Sega’s Aaron Weber revealed that Yakuza’s 4 side missions “will pretty much be in there.” So that means gamers will indeed get the hostess missions which were so wrongly absent from Yakuza 3.
Weber revealed the only thing that will be missing in action from Yakuza 4 will be a trivia game. I’m sure a few gamers knowledgeable in Japanese culture may be bummed out by this, but Sega dropped the feature as it would’ve been too time intensive.
Yakuza 4 is still set for a Spring release in North America and Europe, and hopefully it won’t come out at time when two heavyweight titles are on the market. While it may be too much to ask, I’m kind of hoping Sega can do perform some magic and release Yakuza 5 in North America sometime next year as well. With Yakuza 5 featuring zombies, monsters, cybernetic hand guns, and attractive female Japanese models, the game definitely could become GOTY 2011 for the silly factor.
