Yakuza 5 Title Intro (2012-15, Sega)
2Yakuza 5 (Japanese: 龍が如く5 夢、叶えし者 Hepburn: Ryū ga Gotoku 5: Yume Kanaeshi Mono, lit. "Like a Dragon 5: Fulfiller of Dreams"), is a 2012 open world action-adventure video game developed and published by Sega exclusively for the PlayStation 3. The game is the fifth main entry in the Yakuza series of action-adventure games. The game was released in December 2012 in Japan, and localized for North America, Europe and Australia as a PlayStation Network download exclusive in December 2015. The game features a brand new graphics engine, unlike previous PS3 games in the series that have been re-utilizing the same engine since Ryū ga Gotoku Kenzan!. For the first time in the series, it features five settings across Japan along with five playable main characters. This game is also the first in the series to be released in the west digitally only, rather than on disk as well.
The game's gameplay is relatively similar to previous games in the series, with a few changes. Similar to past games, gameplay is divided into two components being Adventure Mode and Combat Mode. Adventure Mode allows players to explore different areas and play spots across the city including mini-games. The cities will also be significantly bigger than previous games, providing more areas to explore in the game and is said to feature the greatest volume of play spots across cities in the series' history. The change between the game's Adventure Mode and Combat Mode is also said to be more seamless than previous games, which involved a transitional change when encountering enemies whilst in adventure mode. Controls for the game have also been said to have been improved "dramatically" as with the tempo of the game's combat mode.
For the first time in the series, the game features five distinct locales across Japan. First of which will be returning from previous games is Kamurocho (a.k.a. Kamuro City), a fictionalized yet realistic recreation of Shinjuku's red-light district, Kabukichō. Second is Sōtenbori, a fictional Osaka district based on Dōtonbori, which is returning from Yakuza 2. The three new cities in the game are Nagasugai, part of the fictional Fukuoka based on Nakasu, Tsukimino, part of the fictional Sapporo based on Susukino and Kin'eicho, part of the fictional Nagoya based on Sakae. According to producer Toshihiro Nagoshi and writer Masayoshi Yokoyama, it will be like the "San Andreas" of the Yakuza series, in that it is a "massive expansion on the core concept that takes the franchise to new heights."