Dark Ties, the Like A Dragon spin-off game that’s set to arrive alongside Yakuza Kiwami 3 next year, was originally just going to be a video. That was, obviously, until devs RGG studio opted to let folks wander around in the shoes of Yakuza 3 antagonist Yoshitaka Mine, whose karaoke singing to a picture of a follically-challenged gangster they’ve now also explained.
These bits of info come from an interview Kiwami 3 director Ryosuke Horii and Yakuza series chief producer Hiroyuki Sakamoto gave to Japanese publication Famitsu, which has been partly translated by Automaton.
According to Horii, the original plan was for Dark Ties to ship with the remake, but be “something that could be viewed like a video”. However, the devs decided to make Mine playable as a tip of the hat to players who’ve rendered him one of the most popular Yakuza characters, despite only appearing in Yakuza 3 – unless you count the character’s likeness being used in series spin-off Like A Dragon: Ishin.
Horii also acknowledged that the team were aware they likely wouldn’t get another chance to let folks step into Mine’s shoes, given his lack of appearances.
Naturally, because Yakuza, one of the results of that call to make calculating businessguy Mine playable is that players can do the series’ usual array of wacky side activities as him, including belting out Baka Mitai at a karaoke booth. We’ve already gotten a taste of just that via videos of Kiwami 3 coming out of the Tokyo Game Show (head to the ten minute mark below). While flexing his pipes to deliver the sad ballad made famous by Kazuma Kiryu, Mine stares at a photo of himself and bellicose underworld sidekick Tsuyoshi Kanda.
Dark Ties delves into the relationship between Mine and the bald Yakuza brawler, so it’s not a huge surprise, but it did catch some long-time fans a bit off guard given that the former’s presented as arguably having an even closer relationship with Tojo Clan chairman Daigo Dojima in Yakuza 3.
Famitsu asked Horii and Sakamoto why they opted to go with a snap of Kanda over Daigo. As a warning, I have relied on machine translation for the following answer from Horii, but it’s too important a remark not to convey: “Well, that’s where the punchline really hits home, isn’t it? (laughs) If it were too ordinary, it would actually be rather disappointing.”
Well, from now on that’s how I’ll be summing up the Yakuza series whenever anyone asks me if the games about duffing up tatted goons before getting up to zany hijinks are worth a go.
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Author: 360 Technology Group
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