Yakuza Goes Turn-Based JRPG
5 April Fools Day Jokes That Made Us Want to Believe
While some may already consider Yakuza to be a JRPG, most see it as an action adventure game. Its gameplay and combat are streamlined for fast, fluid gameplay, and its generally more grounded than the more fantastical JRPG fare.
The Yakuza development team flipped this notion on its head, however, with their April Fools joke: A mock recording of the team working on the next game, which had fully embraced turn-based JRPG gameplay.
Gone were the fast, frantic fist fights, replaced by turn-based battles between the player’s party of thugs and enemy characters.
Likewise, the new main character Kasuga Ichiban summons a magical barbed baseball bat from the sky, ripping it from the ground like King Arthur to lay waste to enemies.
It’s totally nonsensical and a far cry from the usual Yakuza games, but it also looks like a blast to play. In addition to flipping the series on its head, it could also have a lot of fun messing around with classic JRPG conventions.
Kazuga’s magic weapon being a magic barbed bat is funny enough, so imagining what else the team would put their twist on only had us all the more hopeful to hear that this wasn’t a joke.
