Yakuza 3...what, you mean Japanese GTA?

This is the first main assumption that many people have, and admittedly I sort of had about this game. Considering that it is advertised as an open world game about the Yakuza which many people know as essentially a Japanese version of the mafia it isn't surprising. But 10 hours in it is certainly nothing like it at all, it is more a story based beat-em up combined with several minigames which in themselves could eat up hours of your time, all whilst set in a believable modern day Japan which couldn't be mistaken for anywhere else. The large amount of story actually got to me a couple of times, not having played the two previous iterations, or having watched the summaries supplied on the disk, I really just wanted to play, and slowly get to know Kazuma (our protagonist who as I understand it was raised by a member of the Yakuza)and the 30 minute long stretches of dialogue felt like too much, especially early on in a game. While I still haven't completely fallen in love with the story the same cannot be said of the world. Running through this world is great fun and it is very clearly a Japanese game, even with real Japanese cities that constantly delight and surprise you. Then there is the brutal and fairly accessible combat which is always enjoyable, especially the epic boss fights. It is also amazing how many silly little side quests and mini-games there are to play. At this stage 100% completion of this game looks like a ridiculous prospect, but I might just try and do it, considering how fun this amazing game is turning out to be.