We present today an atypical review, as we are talking about a game of atypical circumstances. Street of Kamurocho is a free title, given by Sega to celebrate its anniversary, and which sees the characters of Yakuza in a game with mechanics taken from Street of Rage. We will explain why this review is atypical in the next few lines, but you can understand it immediately from our first impressions of the game. In fact, anyone who has already tried Street of Kamurocho will already have a good idea of where we are headed. With Yakuza: Like a Dragon coming out in November, it seemed a must to talk about this celebratory product, despite playfully offering relatively little.
For those who do not know what Street of Rage is, it is practically one of the fathers of the beat'em up genre, of which Yakuza can be considered a modern evolution (and re-interpretation). A crossover that sees Kazuma Kiryu, Goro Majima and a third mysterious character fight on the streets of Kamurocho in 16 bit is objectively a great idea, especially from a celebratory point of view. Street of Kamurocho combines the past and present of the colossus SEGA with an appreciated little experience that exudes nostalgia and excitement for the event of trying an exclusive and limited-time product with a Yakuza theme, for all the numerous fans of the series.
THowever, the product itself, is not to be taken for anything more than what has been said in the preceding lines: a celebration. The effect that playing Street of Kamurocho gave us is comparable to what we, as children, had playing the Sonic the Hedgehog Game & Watch they gave to MCDonald, on the occasion of the release of the animated film in the early 2000s. extremely basic and low-content video game. There are three levels: the streets of Kamurocho, a bar and the back of the aforementioned, where we will face the final boss. The game can be completed in about 15 minutes, but aiming for high scores in a purely arcade style is certainly a lot of fun. Once the final boss is defeated, then, it will start over, keeping lives and scores but with more resistant enemies in front.
In this sense it strongly reminds us of those old Game & Watch, simple minigames that are fun to play while aiming for high scores.. Street of Kamurocho gives the impression that it can be an actual minigame present within a Yakuza, without however being one of the best among them. The combat is in fact extremely limited: there are no actual combos, the holds are activated based on the position with respect to the enemy and the moves with some more complex inputs are few and not much worth using them. Enemies can be stunned indefinitely by pressing the attack button with a certain rhythm, making the player invincible in all respects. This, much more than the little content, is the reason why we cannot consider Street of Kamurocho anything more than a celebratory product, and for which we will consider it as such also in terms of voting.
On balance, there is very little to say about Street of Kamurocho. It is a simple game (too much) but that thanks to its status as a “limited event” and its being free, has attracted a lot of attention. We do not want to imply that it is an unpleasant gift, indeed we are pleased that SEGA wanted to celebrate its anniversary with, also, a title that combines its past and the imminent future in a very nice way. Unfortunately, however, it is nothing more than a little game that will hardly hold your attention for more than 20 minutes.
