Over the weekend Sega released a number of games for free to celebrate their 60 year anniversary. One of them is a remake of Yakuza entitled Streets of Kamurocho. Simply put, it is a Streets of Rage 2 level with Yakuza skin and aesthetics over it. You can play as either Kazuma Kiryu or Goro Majima, the two main characters if the series. The game is very short, about the length of one average Streets of Rage 2 level. There are three section in the level: the streets, the inside of the bar Bacchus, and finally a rain soaked alleyway where you fight Nishikiyama.
Once you beat this level it will restart and the enemies will be tougher and more numerous. This will continue until you die or give up. After you beat the level for the first time you will unlock a third character, Ichiban Kasuga, the protagonist of the upcoming Yakuza: Like a Dragon. All three characters are reskins of Axel from Streets of Rage 2. Even down to the voice clips, they are all just Axel. It would have been nice to hear 16-bit versions of the voices from Yakuza, but I digress. There is also a leaderboard to for you to show off your high score in true arcade fashion.
When I first played as Kiryu I wondered what Majima and Ichiban would play like. Thinking that Majima could play like Blaze, I was a little disappointed to find that all three were exact Axel clones. The only difference is that the fire that comes from their Grand Upper special is orange, purple, and light blue for Kiryu, Majima, and Ichiban respectively. It is cool, however, to see recognizable locations from the Yakuza series in the 16-bit style, and there is even a chiptune versions of the main Yakuza theme as you play.
The streets are burning… knuckle
For a free-to-play giveaway game, Streets of Kamurocho is a fun way to spend an hour or two and makes me wish that one day we can see a full game based on this concept.
