If fans of certain franchises could measure their love for them through volume, Yakuza's would be deafening. Originally released in the West under all sorts of 'GTA goes eastern'-style marketing (which couldn't be farther from the truth), its nature as a narrative-heavy brawler latched on with a few, but too many off after being so misled. Now we're onto the fourth instalment (or the fifth, if Sega deliver on their many promises for a late 2015 release) and Yakuza is hands-down one of the best-looking games on last-gen, with a story that's somewhere between Dragon Ball Z and a John Woo-directed martial arts flick. It's that story that'll take you through some immensely fun characterful highs, continuously backed up by enjoyable cutscenes and an open-world stuffed full of mini-games and licensed materials - all experienced through four wildly different characters to learn and master. GTA would slowly implement things like playing golf, shooting pool or getting wasted down the local bar, but Yakuza's had such things for years. Random encounters mean you're never that far away from introducing another thug's teeth to a lamppost, and when the production value for this is so damn high (Yakuza is routinely one of Japan's best-selling games - think GTA-levels of sales, ironically) it produces not only a rather shiny hidden gem, but one of the best games of all time.
