PlayStation 3 Critic Reviews

Conceptually, the Yakuza series might appear to have "jumped the shark," but Sega has designed the game well enough and with such enthusiasm that you can't help but be impressed.

Sega's Yakuza team goes way off the beaten path with Yakuza: Dead Souls and infuses its otherwise serious, grounded series with a fresh injection of zombie mayhem. With gunplay as clunky as Resident Evil 4 it manages to emulate Capcom's franchise quite well, and in pure chaos and weirdness, actually manages to outshine the latter attempts. Not as much of a world to explore as in Yakuza 4, but way more zombies to murder and a nice catch-up of some of the series' strongest characters.

It's the equivalent of a shrapnel grenade rather than single, well-placed sniper bullets. Some bits will miss, others will lodge deep enough to leave a lasting impression. [May 2012, p.106]

It has a blemished, blood-soaked face that's going to scare off some gamers, but there's a lot of heart and fun to be found by those willing to dig beneath the ghoulish surface.

Packs a charming city hub, but dull repetitive combat lets it down. [June 2012, p.80]

Yakuza: Dead Souls doesn't reinvent the zombie shooter with its simple combat scheme, but mowing down the walking dead in their hundreds and executing some neat special moves provides some frantically-paced arcade-styled thrills.

Going into Yakuza: Dead Souls I had some reservations, but after playing it, I'm happy to say that this works surprisingly well.

Well, you certainly didn't see this one coming. Zombie invasion in Yakuza controlled Kamurocho is certainly something you don't see every day. The game isn't an Asian version of the Left 4 Dead, thanks to the sloppy controls. [May 2012]

Unlike its predecessor, which could be described as a brawler that focuses on brutal melee attacks, Dead Souls is a true third person shooter. Pistols, shotguns, machine guns: anything that smells like lead and gunpowder is used to blow those brain munchers back to Yomi. (You'll have to look that one up). [April 2012, p.86]

Dead Souls sits in a strange middle zone, stuck somewhere between the past Yakuza series games and the tired zombie sandbox genre. While fans will surely enjoy seeing series stars in this zombie apocalypse setting, they could miss some of the classic Yakuza pacing and gameplay.