Yakuza 4 hands its story to four men, and that is the best decision Sega ever made with this series.
The fourth main entry in the crime drama Sega calls Ryu ga Gotoku in Japan was developed by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio and published by Sega. It arrived on the PlayStation 3 in March 2010, with an international release following in March 2011. It picks up a year after Yakuza 3 and returns the player to Tokyo. Where earlier games followed Kazuma Kiryu alone, Yakuza 4 splits its story across four protagonists. That change is the whole game.
Trailer, via IGN.
Four Men, Four Fighting Styles
Kiryu returns, voiced by Takaya Kuroda. He is joined by three new leads: Masayoshi Tanimura (Hiroki Narimiya, later recast with Toshiki Masuda after Narimiya retired from acting over drug allegations), Shun Akiyama (Koichi Yamadera) and Taiga Saejima (Rikiya Koyama).
Each man fights differently, and the game makes the difference matter. Kiryu leans on the powerful blows of karate and boxing. Akiyama prefers swift taekwondo attacks. Saejima favors slow, heavy brawling and grappling built on wrestling techniques. The body frames differ, so the movesets do too.
The split is not cosmetic. It changes how each chapter plays, and it gives the story four separate ways in.
A Shooting in Tojo Territory
The plot opens with a man shot dead in Tojo Clan territory. A small gang inside the clan tries to work out what happened, and its leader is soon found stabbed to death. From there, four men are pulled into a fight over money, power, status and honor.
Akiyama, a loan shark, learns that members of the Ueno Seiwa Clan are causing trouble. He beats them, then watches Tojo men Hiroaki Arai and Takeshi Kido arrive. One of the group, Masaru Ihara, shoots at Arai and runs. Akiyama goes back to his office and finds Arai has killed Ihara.
Saejima and the 1985 Hit
The threads run back decades. In 1985, Majima and his blood brother Saejima prepare to assassinate the Ueno Seiwa Clan chairman. Saejima carries out the hit alone and kills eighteen men, though the chairman and an officer named Isao Katsuragi survive. Saejima is sentenced to death.
In the present, days before his execution, he is moved to a prison off the coast of Okinawa and meets former Tojo patriarch Goh Hamazaki, imprisoned for attempting to murder Kiryu. The two escape, and Hamazaki seemingly sacrifices himself to save Saejima from the prison chief, Saito.
Kamurocho, Above and Below
Most of the action stays in Kamurocho, the series’ stand-in for Shinjuku’s Kabukichō. Yakuza 4 adds three areas on top of Yakuza 3’s map: a rooftop stretch running across much of the town, the back streets known as Rojiura, and an underground zone called Kamuchika, covering sewers, a parking lot and shopping arcades.
The side content is enormous, and it is where the game’s personality lives. Each main character gets a mission:
- Akiyama scouts and trains hostesses for his cabaret in Create a #1 Hostess!
- Saejima builds fighters for tournaments in Create a Fighter!
- Tanimura answers police radio reports and breaks up street incidents
- Kiryu fights through seven gangs to reach each leader in Team Encounter Battle
Mini-games include pachinko, fishing, onsen, massage, table tennis, hanafuda and karaoke, with duets alongside non-player characters.
The Verdict on Yakuza 4
Four protagonists could have been a mess. Instead it is the series’ smartest structural move to date, and the reason this entry still stands apart from the Kiryu-only games around it. The four fighting styles give each chapter its own feel, and the split lets the story carry four separate stakes without collapsing into one long revenge run.
The additions to Kamurocho matter less. A rooftop and a sewer network are welcome, but they are space, not story. The hostess and fighter missions are the real second game here, and they are the reason players lose hours to Yakuza 4 without touching the main plot.
What holds it together is the convergence. Lies, betrayals and entwined stories resolve when the four men finally stand together, and the game earns that moment. This is a crime drama that trusts its audience to track four lives at once, and it pays off.
8 of 10.
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