If you needed a single word to describe Sega's latest 20 million dollar blockbuster production headed by staff from Jet Set Radio, Panzer Dragoon Orta, and other hit Sega titles, that word would be "Satisfying". Though not "satisfying" in the way that means a game is just ok but rather "satisfying" as in that feeling you get in your gut that makes you just want to jump up and shout "oh yeah!" That's the kind of satisfaction you get over and over again while playing through Ryu Ga Gotoku.
The Battle Engine:
Over the years Sega has tried time and time again to recreate the classic brawler feel of games like Final Fight and Streets of Rage in the third dimension. Die Hard Arcade, Zombies Revenge, Spikeout, etc. were all good games and further steps towards mixing the old school feeling of brawlers with the depth of a real fighter like Sega's own Virtua Fighter series. While most of those games can be considered successes, it really isn't until Ryu Ga Gotoku that Sega finally pulled it off in full glory.
In Ryu Ga Gotoku, you are Kazuma Kiryu. Kazuma is basically the most badass person in the universe, though it might take gamers (and the story characters) a few hours to fully recognize this fact. This is mainly because at first, while the battle engine is really fun, it also seems a bit simple.
You have 4 punch strings that can be ended with a different hard hit, a standard kick move, a grab, the ability to block, to taunt, and even strafe around an area in front of you (though if you point at a specific enemy, the game will try to lock-on to just that one guy). It's a sizeable move-list, but at first you might wonder where this 'perfection' lies. The answer to that can be found by looking at the non-traditional parts of the battle engine.
First we'll start with the heat gauge. The heat gauge is basically your badass meter. Beat up on enemies and you'll fill it up real quick and then Kazuma will let off a blue flame. This is the signal to stop just beating up your opponents senselessly, and start beating them up with bone-breaking style. When grabbing an enemy while your heat gauge is full, a little indicator will pop up at times telling you to hit triangle. This flashing indicator is in a detailed Japanese character that probably means something important, but when playing you'll just make up your own meaning such as "face meet wall!", "say hi to the bench!", or "pond throw!" It just tends to be more fun that way. Anyhow, if you hit the button when the indicator is up you'll be treated to a special awesome animation of Kazuma destroying his foe in some type of context-sensitive method (full of slow motion, blood, sweat, sparks [if electricity is involved], and bone-crunching sounds). These are utterly fantastic and just make the battles extremely satisfying. Soon you'll be doing a combo on one guy to build up your gauge, then grabbing the guy next to him and walking near a wall so you can dramatically shove his face straight into the said wall. There are a good amount of these environment-dependant finishers, and the absolute best times you will have with the game is when you're fight in some new location and you grab and guy and hit triangle not even thinking about your heat gauge. Then suddenly he grabs the guy and does something completely new, unexpected, and totally badass which gets you jumping in the air screaming "Oh my god! Did you see that!?" to yourself. Good times all around.
So next come the weapons. In short, there's a lot of them...a whole lot of them. In fact, there may be more useable weapons in this game than any other action game to date. This reviewer wouldn't be surprised if the total weapon-count number in the 50-100 range and they're all great fun to use. Players will get chairs, bricks, electric signs, spears, swords, scimitars, stun guns, grenades, riot shields, pistols, shotguns, metal knuckles, tables, cones, baseballs, and more. If you've ever wanted to throw a baseball at a guy and then jump kicked him when he tries to dodge it, Ryu Ga Gotoku is your game. All the weapons are either picked up on the fly during battles or equipped mid-battle from your inventory where you can hold 4 at a time. Weapons have a limited amount of attacks until they break (number is always shown on the screen), so you have to be a little careful in how you use them. If you're only going to get 9 slashes out of that brand new dragon sword you just bought for $2,000 you're going to make sure you're using it on someone worthy of a dragon slash. Luckily, there are tons of items lying around during every battle (which cost you nothing to acquire!) so you'll be spending lots of time picking up bikes and signs and smashing them into enemies with several types of attacks. You can even throw whatever item you have at an enemy with the grab button. Oh, and you can block weapons with other weapons as long as they would realistically be able to be used for defense. Getting beat around by a guy with a sword? Well, equip your own sword and it basically becomes Bushido Blade as both of you are strafing, dodging, poking, and attempting to get that one good slash in and knock the weapon out of the opponents hands (heavy hits knock out weapons). Did I mention that you also get weapon heat attacks? Yep, not too far into the game you'll be able to do dramatic finishers with every type of weapon you can find. The amount of unique animations for the weapon finishers is extremely impressive and the first time you grab a medieval metal shield, use it to block bullets, then knock the gunman down on the ground with it and final finish him in a slow-motion dramatic finale where you throw the shield down into his chest impaling him...oh man, as long as you can handle a bit of violence you'll be like a little kid in a room full of candy. From the very start until the very end of the game you'll keep finding new weapons with new attack strings and finishers everywhere you go. This really helps keep the game always exciting and fun.
Finally you have the leveling up system. This is actually fairly simple. See, Ryu Ga Gotoku is somewhat like an rpg in nature. As you run around the city from one story point to another, people will randomly run out and try to stop you. If stopped you enter a battle with either the person or their gang/friends (you'll fight pretty much everyone in the city; from drunken salarymen, to righteous kids who hate yakuza, to gangs, to the Chinese mafia). During these battles you beat the heck out of everyone and then it loads back to the city where the person apologizes and gives you money and or items to go along with your exp earned in battle. Just like an rpg!. From here you distribute the exp points to three skill categories and each time a category levels up you gain a new move. Unlike some other games that throw tons of useless attacks at you, every move you'll gain (or learn from a certain kung-fu master) has some great use to it and you'll always be excited as you're playing since you'll be anxiously looking forward to what great new move you'll be adding to your arsenal.
So that's the battle system in a nutshell, and throughout the game you'll be able to put it to good use. When wandering around the city you'll often be fighting in small areas vs. a group of enemies, but during the story battles you'll have all kinds of interesting fights at tons of great locations. In one section you'll run through an apartment complex jumping from roof to roof (RE4 style "hit A to JUMP" leaping) while running through the insides of buildings and fighting tons of enemies in broken down bars, apartments, hostess clubs. These longer sections feel like an entire level straight from a brawler and usually end with a boss fight (all of which are very fun and challenging). Enemies actually have a surprisingly high number of attacks. Later on when you get Garou-style Just Defense and Onimusha-style Issen abilities you'll start paying attention to the enemy attack patterns and notice that even the standard punk on the street will attack with punches, head butts, jumping kicks, throws, sweeps. If there's one final thing to say about the fighting engine, it's that the engine is so truly enjoyable to play, that once you open up some fighting tournaments in the story, you'll most likely be signing up to fight just because you can't wait to beat some more guys up.
The Story:
To pen the tale of Ryu Ga Gotoku Sega went out of their way and hired a famous writer. The end result? Basically one of the best stories to be found in a video game. Ryu Ga Gotoku is a dark, gritty, serious crime drama about the city of Kamurocho and the various yakuza gangs who inhabit it. With a huge cast of interesting and well fleshed out characters, the player is always looking forward to the next cutscene and trying to guess where the tale will go next.
The cutscenes themselves are very high quality. There are several hours of them (probably as many as some rpgs!). All with full voice acting, great looking characters (the facial textures on the characters are excellent and make everyone feel like real Japanese people), and excellent pacing. Becoming addicted to the story and getting that "must play just a little more!" feeling is easy to do with a story written, directed, and paced as well as this.
The Adventure:
Walking around the district of Kamurocho where most of Ryu Ga Gotoku takes place is a pretty interesting experience. On one hand it inspiration was obviously taken from Grand Theft Auto complete with a circle mini-map in the corner and a big bustling city. Though on the other hand, that's about all the similarities you'll get. You'll travel from point to point in the city as a red arrow guides you along the map to the next story point (so there are no slow "what do I do next" portions like Shenmue). But what about if you don't want to go to the next point...well that's fine too
If you just want to hang around the city and have some fun, Kamurocho provides tons to do. Gambling houses with all sorts of mini-games exist to increase your pocketbook (though remember, gambling is illegal in Japan, so you win 'items' and then you go and sell them for real money at the buy-back shop), fast-food joints exist to restore your health to max, stores sell all sorts of equip-able items ranging from bulletproof vests (recommended for later battles) to female attracting cologne. You can buy alcohol and random food stuff at the convenience stores, drink at the bars (note when drunk your heat gauge fills faster but you tend to pick more fights on the street), get a massage at the parlors, play with the UFO catchers at Club Sega, test your might at the batting cages, or have some nice talks with girls at the hostess clubs (give them some presents and maybe they'll tell you their life story). All in all, there's plenty to explore and enjoy. As you talk with people on the street or help them out in their side-quests (which almost always are solved quickly with your fists) you'll find out about hot new stores, or hidden underground dealers. After learning of a new place it will come alive on your map and you'll then be able to enter it. There are also glittering objects scattered around the game. Walking up to one and searching the spot awards a coin locker key. These are basically the rpg 'chests' of the game. Using keys found, you'll be able to open lockers at the main area and find all kinds of interesting items.
Lastly, throughout the game there are various sub-scenario events. These tend to be marked with a green rather than red arrow. The difference between sub-scenarios and the main story is that the sub ones are all optional, but in terms of quality they stand at the level of the main plot. Following up on one drops you into a high production story, filled with voiced cutscenes, new battles, and further background on the characters and tale of the game.
Between the main story, the sub-scenarios, and the side-quests Ryu Ga Gotoku can easily last 30 hours for those who want the whole experience. But those just playing for the main story should be able to finish it in around 15-20 hours.
In the end Ryu Ga Gotoku pulls it off. For the admission price, you get a top-notch fighting game that's always exciting and always evolving with new moves and challenges, an addictively well-written high class crime drama, and finally a large city (completely with daylight lighting changes and seasonal changes) to explore to your hearts desire. Visually the city is impressive with tons of character moving about the streets or just hanging out at their local corner. In terms of the audio, the sound effects are excellent, the voice acting high quality, and the music...well at first this reviewer didn't think much of the odd Japanese rock/hip-hop/metal tracks that play during battles, but as you get further and realize that each gang has their own theme song and the tougher the gang the more hardcore the song (the final battle music pieces are really good); once you notice all this you start to appreciate the soundtrack a bit. So it's got everything, is it perfect? Sadly no, there is one small gripe to be made. Basically it's just the loading. Going into random battles on the streets takes about 10-15 secs to load into the battle about 4-5 to load out. It's slightly annoying but the battles themselves are so good it's not really a deal breaker. Basically the loading isn't really bad in Ryu Ga Gotoku, but it's not really good either. Overall this is the type of game that would be getting straight 10s across the board if it wasn't for the loading. When loading is taken into consideration it's more of a 9.5 type of game.
One last bit that should be mentioned is the main character. Unlike 99% of games, in Ryu Ga Gotoku you play as a guy who is pretty much the coolest, most badass, most likeable character in the world. He's the ultra strong guy with a heart of gold; the suave guy whom everyone wants to be friends with. So following Kazuma through his adventure tends to be extremely satisfying since he's such a great character. There are parts where he will say a line and you will leap at your TV going "Yeah!". A great, great character.
Import Friendly:
Well, due to the helpful arrows it's not too difficult to play even if you can't read Japanese (though there are one or two parts where you would need to consult a faq), but considering how important the story and dialogue are too the game it's not recommended to play Ryu Ga Gotoku unless you have a decent grasp of the Japanese language.
