Introduction

Ryuu ga Gotoku: Kenzan is the third game in the series known in the West as Yakuza, and the first to be released on the Playstation 3. While the other games are all direct sequels and follow the same characters' stories, Kenzan stands outside that timeline. Instead of modern Tokyo, the setting is 17th Century Kyoto. Instead of crime bosses and street thugs, the players are feudal lords and samurai. Instead of Kiryuu Kazuma, the Dragon of Dojima, we control Kiryuu Kazumanosuke, the Dragon of Gion.

Okay, so not everything is so different.

You don't need to know anything about the other Yakuza games to enjoy this one, but those who've played them will notice some nods and more than a few familiar faces. As for the story, giving away much of anything would be a spoiler, but suffice it to say we control Kiryuu Kazumanosuke, a ronin samurai doing odd jobs in the licensed pleasure district of Gion at the beginning of the seventeenth century. When an unusual client hires him for an even more unusual job, he begins a journey to master the Way of the Sword and become the greatest swordsman in all of Japan.

I'll be playing with a fresh character on the highest difficulty and you can expect to see everything in the game. This means all power-ups and weapons, all sidequests, all minigames, the secret boss, and whatever else I forgot to list. I won't be getting perfect scores on all the minigames though because that's insane.

THINGS TO KNOW:

This game was never released outside Japan, aside from a limited run in South Korea that had the Korean translation in a companion manual rather than coded into the game. As such I'm doing my own translation as I go and editing my own dialogue boxes and subtitles into the video.

The other thing about doing my own translation is that making each video is extremely time-consuming, so don't expect updates on a weekly (or possibly even bi-weekly) basis. This is going to be a very long-haul LP, but I haven't abandoned a thread yet and I don't intend to start now.

Videos are at 854x480 because I'm using S-video. There won't be an HD option.

This is now a hybrid LP. Sidequests open up from Chapter 5 onward and will generally be covered in screenshot format alongside the main storyline video updates.

The Let's Play Archive

Ryuu ga Gotoku: Kenzan

by Egomaniac

Introduction

Cast of Characters