Yakuza 2 for PlayStation 2 Reviews by Gamers

Was a great game! Slow at first, but that may be because I never played the first one so I had to watch a lot to figure out what was going on. It isnt forced though, you can skip it, not really required. I fully recommend this game! I just finished it an hour ago and i miss it already! Great fighting style in the game, really fun side missions, and an AMAZING storyline! Seriously...I shed a couple tears in this game I'll admit. Couldnt have had a better voice actor for Kiriyu Kazuma. Only thing I'm unhappy about is it isn't offered as a "keep" item.

OK, so here's what the game is like. It's a beat-'em-up/RPG mix. When you have control of Kiryu, you'll be freely roaming the streets, with the option to talk to people with green arrows over their head, go into stores/buildings, eat food, play minigames, sell/buy items, pretty much anything found in a typical RPG. Occasionally, some random loser will chase you down for a random battle encounter. When you're not free roaming, and you're actually on a mission, you're usually alternating between watching cutscenes and fighting short battles. Sometimes, if you're lucky, you'll get a really long level, where instead of commencing in a single short battle with just a few guys, you'll get to travel through a building or field of loads of dudes, getting in your way as you try to get to point B. Overall, the combat is pretty simple and satisfying. The first time I saw that you could grab a guy's face and slam it into a curb and follow it up with a swift knee to the back of the neck, I couldn't help but say, "Holy... awesome." But after that, battles get rather repetitive and don't expand much, and they're way too short and infrequent! The game is so in love with its own storyline that you'll literally be spending more time watching boring cutscenes than playing the game. The story is not terribly interesting and it's hard to follow. The combat is actually extremely satifying, so the game could have been fun if they kept the cutscenes short and infrequent and the battles longer, not the other way around. But instead, it feels more like you're watching a movie where, occasionally you take control of the protagonist for a couple of seconds to beat up a guy. Then you're back to listening to more rambling that is extremely hard to follow, or even worse, sometimes reading it. Overall, a game that could have been good if you spent more time fighting and less time walking around and watching people talk about who-knows-what.