Yakuza: Dead Souls Review

It might sound more like some strange mod or DLC, but Yakuza: Dead Souls is honestly a full game about Japanese criminals fighting off a zombie outbreak in Tokyo.

If you’ve read the first entry in this review series you’ll know just how focused on melee combat the Yakuza series is. So it might seem odd that all of a sudden you’ll be killing waves of the undead, Left 4 Dead style, in a game which essentially plays out like a super-advanced Streets of Rage. How does that even begin to work.

Well, it doesn’t. Not really. Bear in mind that Dead Souls is really just a re-skin of Yakuza 4, which put the focus on melee combat more than ever. Guns have never played a large role in the series, in adherence to Japan’s strict gun control laws, so it just seems odd that everyone’s packing small arsenals all of a sudden. Shooting feels clumsy and imprecise and zombies attack in such huge numbers that even in the earlier stages of the game it’s easy to become overwhelmed and frustrated with what is normally a rewarding game packed with exploration.

The RPG elements haven’t been streamlined in the process, either. Some people might get a bit of a kick out of leveling up your Japanese crime lord and customising weapons as extensively as you can in the more serious games but here it’s painstakingly essential enough to become a chore. You have to spend vast amounts of time and effort getting your equipment up to scratch before you can venture out into the zombie-infested districts, and when you’re in there, your decent weapons burn out of ammo at completely unsustainable rates. The excursions to the zombie zones feel like a royal pain in the ass, to put it bluntly.

What makes it even more painful is that all the great things about the series are still present here. Odd, occasionally innocently inappropriate humour, ridiculous amounts of virtual shopping, even running a hostess bar, with a fresh and slightly obscure storyline. There’s a constant flip between frolicking around Tokyo throwing yen at everything that gives you the eye and trudging through the festering horde and considering bashing your skull in with the corner of the case. Perhaps it wouldn’t seem so bad if you didn’t have to fight for every single inch of progress – the streets are literally full to the corners with never-ending streams of zombies and there’s no way of fighting them particularly efficiently. It’s always just “empty gun, pause, top up health, continue grinding”, and it’s nauseous.

Zombie shredding becomes even more humdrum when they introduce the “special” enemy types – it makes me wonder just how literal that is when one of the types is clearly wearing a crash helmet – because it’s all just so typically terrible. There’s the huge damage-sponge tank zombie, and the bizarrely agile Monkey zombie that can trip you up and munch on your face, amongst others you can probably guess at. Fun and challenge do not lie in mindless repetition of the same obstacle, and that’s Dead Souls’ biggest crime by far.

The story by itself is outstanding, with top notch graphics and voice acting typical of the series, revisiting some of the long-standing series favourites like Kazuma and Akiyama – also playable is Yakuza 2 villain Ryuji Goda and the chaotic Goro Majima. There’s no back and forth here, you simply finish playing as one character and move on to the next, building up their skills and levels all over again. It’s a little more quickfire than the standard Yakuza fare, which might be more palatable for players who don’t want to get invested in the usual thirty-hour crime epics these games unfold into – at its best, it’s an interactive Japanese zombie film. At its worst, it’s a dull trudge through a zombie game that even Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City looks pretty next to.

Perhaps the best thing about Dead Souls is that it’s in no way essential to series as a whole. It’s more of a gimmick, and perhaps that’s all it was ever meant to be – a chance to utilise favourites like Majima as playable characters which certainly wouldn’t work in the context of the considerably more serious plot of the series.

So, should you play it? It’s debatable as to whether this title should have been put through the incredibly prohibitive and costly localisation process, especially seeing as series essential Yakuza 5 might not ever see its Western audience. Buy it if you’re a collector, avoid it if you’re looking for a decent zombie game (or a decent game at all).

Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.