Grounded in its own reality, The Yakuza Remastered Collection is a reminder of how competent and reliable this franchise has grown to be.

The Yakuza series has finally started to receive some of the acclaim and audience it has long been due. It deserves even more, however. These are some of the finest video games ever made, with no hyperbole. The storytelling is absolutely masterful, gripping and enthralling, filled with characters that the audience will fall in love with.

The Yakuza games are very much their own thing, and are so densely packed with content that they may require some palate-cleansers in between. But for those who don’t mind doing some serious homework in the form of three mandatory amazing-in-their-own-right prequels, this collection is easily a must-play.

The Yakuza Remastered Collection is about as perfect a rendition of the three included games as one could ask for. The three mainline PS3 games are here and look and feel better than ever. The redone scripts allow the stories to flow better and for humor to come across in ways that weren’t possible before. The visuals have been improved a bit — not radically, but more akin to a fresh paint job on a car that needs one. The bump up in visual clarity helps the games nicely, but doesn’t make the prior versions look awful either. It’s very much like the original Xbox version of GTA III receiving some mild quality of life visual upgrades, but nothing that affected the core story. Here, it just makes the story look a bit nicer while it’s being told.

As someone who only came to the Yakuza games when Zero was released, getting the chance to play the whole series now is something that really appeals. The narrative in these games may not differ too much from one another, but it is more than made up with the varied and entertaining cast. Kiryu’s Yakuza with a heart personality really stands out and only made me love him even more, especially when he was being an unstoppable fighting machine.

At times the games’ age is apparent – in some repetitive and annoying boss fights, or the way special moves shift you annoyingly away from where you initiated them in order for them to animate properly. Even so, they’re still immensely playable. Yakuza is one of the few series that elicits genuine belly laughs while telling a gripping story. [Issue#173, p.96]

The Yakusa Remastered Collection is a decent remaster bundle that fans and novices should enjoy despite his outdated gameplay and the lack of French subtitles.