I gamefly'd the first Yakuza. At the time I was in college and had recently discovered the Japanese film industry was a lot more than Kurosawa and Anime. Beat Takeshi, Miike and others were regularly in my VCR (I still had one because Hollywood video still rented them at the time, in fact, a lot of foreign flicks hadn't been converted yet) or DVD player. Actually, that led to other Asia films as well, like Wong Kar Wai in China and Park Wook Chan in Korea. Yakuza came out right at the height of my Asian film phase, and I had heard and watched the short films that Miike directed for the game, which held up as legit short films. It got so many of the characteristics and tropes of Asian crime fiction right that I thought it was perhaps the most brilliant game ever and actually held up under a film critical eye, though the gameplay could be a drag at times.
Then I didn't play Yakuza 2 until just this year. I'm living in Thailand right now, but I spent two years in Korea and one year in Japan (teaching English). I saw it at Panthip plaza in a bag along with all the other copied shit they sell (if it's not a downloadable game, it's pretty tough to find legit copies of anything older than a year). I picked it up and made some Thai pirate $2 richer, popped it in a PC emulator and really, REALLY enjoyed it, though it tended to be a little more goofy. More than that, it made me very nostalgic for my time living in both Korea and Japan. The Tokyo district, even in PS2 graphics, is so perfectly detailed it reminded me of nights out with friends, drinking Saki and hitting the Noraebangs, sleeping it off in a DVD room and going out again the next night. I'd like to play the other three, but with no PS3, only obviously pirated copies and no PS3 emulator, I sadly won't be able to until I return to the states or pay horrid shipping I can't afford to import them here on my meager Thai teaching wage (good money in Thailand, exchanges to McD's manger wages back home. Tip for teachers going to Asia, Korea and Japan, great, Thailand, a paradise but a financial trap!)
Yakuza games actually sorta hold a special place in my heart, flawed as they are (I like to overuse parenthesis). Oh, and no, I'm not proud of using an emulator for Yakuza 2, but it's the reality of getting older games in Thailand.
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