Of all the Sega properties still relevant this decade, none have had the staying power of Ryu Ga Gotoku, which translates to ‘Like A Dragon’. The series is more commonly known in the West as Yakuza. Compared to the wildly inconsistent Sonic franchise and the infrequent releases of Valkyria Chronicles sequels, Yakuza emerged as the most prolific series for the Japanese developer-publisher in its post-hardware era. If you count remasters, remakes, and spin-offs–some of which have never come out in the West–Ryu Ga Gotoku has averaged slightly more than one release every year since its introduction in 2005. As Yakuza, the series hits a milestone in 2018 as the story arc of its mainstay protagonist, Kazuma Kiryu, reaches its conclusion in Yakuza 6: The Song of Life. We thought this would be a fitting time to look back on this franchise in our History Of series. A Well-Planned Debut Yakuza was the brainchild of Sega veteran Toshihiro Nagoshi, the hard-as-nails director behind Daytona and Super Monkey Ball. He envisioned a gritty drama complemented by a sense of humanity in both its storytelling and characters. The game would revolve around the Japanese criminal underworld of the yakuza, exploring the power struggles between rival groups as well as their tenuous relationships with foreign organizations. The yakuza’s fixation to their code of honor would play a huge part in the series’ many stories. How its key characters adhere to or struggle with this code led to some of Yakuza’s most compelling narrative moments…. [Read full story]