Pair of Yakuza 3 demos up

By Robert Purchese Published 7 January, 2008

Loitering on Japanese Store.

Those of you with sneaky eyes will have noticed two fresh samplers for Yakuza 3 on the Japanese PlayStation Store.

The game is called Ryu Ga Gotoku 3 in those reaches of the world and you can get at it by creating a Japanese account claiming you live there and enjoy it very much.

According to our cherished forum-goer disc, the first and biggest of the two is a narrative taster at 960MB. Here you can amble around fetching some bits and pieces for quests, as well as draw a picture to unlock a new finishing move. You should also get into a couple of scrapes and enjoy some swanky cut-scenes.

The other demo is collection of mini-games: one has you trying to win the affection of a Geisha, another riding on horseback while shooting things and avoiding obstacles, while the last focuses on arena combat against a varied range of opponents.

So far Yakuza 3 is only confirmed for Japan, although SEGA recently confirmed the second game in the series would make its way to the US.

Meanwhile, us Europeans have only been treated to the first third-person action title, missing out on the other two due to poor western sales.

Pop over to our Yakuza 3 gamepage for a spattering of videos, or slice into our Yakuza 1 review to see what's what.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (13) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Steroyd #1 4 years ago

    Why can't Sony update the PS store like this for non Japan? :(

  • ilmaestro #2 4 years ago

    WTF?! Front page in 'actually acknowledging existence of forum' shocker!!

  • JediMasterMalik #3 4 years ago

    Ooooh disc pimpage!

    Really like the demo personally. Hope it get's over to the west somehow.

  • Aretak #4 4 years ago

    I'd think it will make it over here. Considering the increased costs of making these newfangled next-gen games, they'll want to sell them to as many people as possible.

  • bdc #5 4 years ago

    Demo for the third game on a next gen console while we wait for the second game on last-gen consoles. Ho-hum.

  • JediMasterMalik #6 4 years ago

    It's not like it's a direct sequel so it hardly matters.

  • ccfb #7 4 years ago

    How long before this site gets all of its news from the forum, I wonder?

  • bdc #8 4 years ago

    Tried the demo just now, the bigger one of the two - it's fucking awful. It's just voice-less text after text conversations and running around. REALLY bad.

  • JediMasterMalik #9 4 years ago

    Then get the other one, it has combat.

  • Carroceiro #10 4 years ago

    This is probably my most anticipated game of the moment. Too bad that I still don't have a PS3. I probably wouldn't enjoy the demo that much, anyway, since I can't understand japanese. As long as they release it in Europe (even if it takes a very long time, as it probably will), it's all good. The thing is, we still don't even have any confirmation that Yakuza 2 is coming to Europe.

  • huxathon #11 4 years ago

    Apparently Miike Takashi has made a movie of these games. Best movie-games adaptation perhaps?

  • Christian_Otte #12 4 years ago

    This looks like the closest thing I'll ever get to another Shenmue, so pleeeeease bring it to Europe.

    I'm guessing the Japanese demo is entirely in Japanese, right?

  • The_Inquisitor #13 4 years ago

    The first demo is basically walking around town, so you don't have any idea where to go and what people are saying (unless you speak Japanese of course). The action demo is great though as it's three different game modes which you choose from at the beginning.
    The first is the Geisha game where you choose what to say and eat from a list hoping to please you female host. Same as yakuza but in Japanese, still worth a look though.
    The second, the horse back archery game which is great fun and gives you an idea of what to expect from the mini games. I just hope the other mini games are this good.
    Lastly is the meat of the demo, the fighting. It pits you right in the action in a sword fight where you must dispense of the bad guys to proceed. After, you get wisked straight into another battle, this time a fist fight, (which gives you an opportunity to try out the throwing moves and finishers). After that it's back to the swords. (I love how he blocks an attack from behind, unlike Onimusha; he just uses his sword, without suddenly facing the opponent, very nice). It reminded me how much fun Yakuza can be. I hope it does well this time.
    Edited by 2 at 08/01/08 @ 21:40