8 Incredible Tiny Details You Might Have Missed in Yakuza 6

NPCs React to Taking Pictures

Yakuza 6 updates Kamurocho to that of a modern city, and Kiryu gets a snazzy new smartphone to go along with it. What better way to use that, of course, than snapping a few pics and selfies? You can pull out your phone at any time and take a picture, or turn it around to take a selfie of Kiryu, but you might notice people acting differently if you do.

Citizens walking around the city will react to you taking a photo. Some will simply stare at you or turn the other way. However, others might actually strike a pose for you. In the picture I took above one person decided they wanted to pose, while the other was pretty annoyed with my picture taking skills and tried to block their face. Just try and break out your camera at some points, and see how different NPCs react.

Ghosts in Pictures

Another nifty little trick that can come from taking pictures is having ghosts appear. This doesn’t really have any impact on the game, but it does give you a neat photo with a ghostly apparition. If you take a photo in just the right spot, there’s a chance you could have a ghost appear, and they’re all characters from past Yakuza games.

The picture above was taken at the elevators at the Millennium Tower bottom floor, and the ghost that appeared was Yoshitaka Mine, the final boss of Yakuza 3. Snap a few pictures around town, and you just might see one pop up yourself.

Detailed Products in Convenience Stores

Yakuza 6 really takes its convenience stores above and beyond, making them closely resemble what an actual Japanese convenience store would look like. If you go into first-person mode with R3, you can take a look at just how detailed everything is in the new Dragon Engine. Each and every package in the convenience store has a design to it, and there are tons and tons of different products. Take a look in the freezer and see the wide variety of frozen meals you’d be able to get in a convenience store, or look behind the counter at the multitude of cigarette brands. There’s a lot of detail to soak in with Yakuza 6’s various shops.

Responding to Text Messages

Another small detail that doesn’t really change gameplay, but is a fun inclusion, is the fact that you can send stickers back to the various people that text you in the game. Even just the Battle Master, the random account that sends you tips and walkthroughs for combat, can be responded to. Hilariously, the Battle Master often responds by saying how much they wish they were real, and could actually meet Kiryu. You can see an example in the picture above, so make sure to try out your various stickers and see what kind of response you get.

Use of Light

The Dragon Engine is an impressive piece of hardware, but it gets really impressive when a cutscene is running. Yakuza has always had really good facial animations, but Yakuza 6 ups the ante even further. One especially impressive effect, however, has to do with the engine’s use of lighting. Keep an eye out in certain scenes for how the light plays off of characters and objects. For example, in the scene above Kiryu is standing with his back to the sun, and if you look closely at his ears you can see the light shining through the cartilage.

Yakuza 6 makes fantastic use of light in many occasions, as well as particle effects during battle. Things can really get hectic when you’re in the middle of a brawl, but cutscenes present a nice opportunity for you to kick back and appreciate the new engine.

Tons of Food With Actual Pictures

The Yakuza series has always featured a wide variety of Japanese cuisine, but Yakuza 6 ups the ante by adding in more than ever. There’s a ton of eateries around Kamurocho and Onomichi, with different menus for each one. What makes this so fun is that all the food items in the game are actual pictures of the food, not an in-game rendering. When you find your mouth starting to water from looking at all that food, there’s a good reason why.

Breaking Glass

This can be a hard detail to catch as most of the time glass is only breaking because you find yourself beating up a bunch of punks. Still, if you happen to get a chance just take a look at how a window or door shatters after you throw someone into it. Sometime the glass will just break into shards completely, but other times it’ll shatter in a spider web pattern until you hit it again.

The intricate design put into something as small as shattering glass is just an example of the care that was put into Yakuza 6. Funnily enough, the picture above is also good for noticing the weave on Kiryu’s suit jacket.

A Stunningly Accurate Recreation of Kabukicho

If you didn’t happen to know already, the main city in Yakuza, Kamurocho, is actually based off of Tokyo’s most famous red-light district, Kabukicho. It’s always been impressive how accurately the Yakuza games manage to emulate Kabukicho, but Yakuza 6 is on another level entirely. Sega managed to get multiple stores and chains to form an agreement, allowing those locations to actually appear in-game. This means that places like Don Quijote, the APA Hotel, and Cafe Alps are both in the game and in real life.

With the power of the Dragon Engine and these partnerships, the Yakuza team has managed to create something very close to virtual tourism. The streets of Kamurocho are modeled almost exactly after Kabukicho, right down to the glowing red entrance sign. Engadget recently wrote an article with some side-by-side comparisons of the game and real life, and the similarities are incredibly impressive. Just take a look at some photos of Kabukicho and you’ll see for yourself.