Yakuza -- The Art of Fighting.

Yakuza's battle mode is essentially the modern day 3D take on Streets of Rage beat-'em-up style games. When you're about to go into battle you'll get an introduction screen. They announce your opponent. You'll see VS. Street Punks or VS. Yakuza or a specific character name for example. In the battles you'll use the left analog stick to move Kazuma around the limited arenas you fight in. The battles are loaded in and out from the exploration mode. The square button is your standard attack. The triangle button is your stronger attack or finishing move. The circle button is your grab and throw button. Hit it once to grab, hit it again to throw. Your grab depends on a few factors. The level of your grab and the strength of your opponent. You can grab someone and depending on those levels, you'll opponent will be able to almost instantly shake your grab off, or you'll be able to hold on to them for varying amounts of time. To the point of being able to drag them around the arena to position them where you want. The X button is a special action button. The R1 button allows for what the game calls shifting. Shifting allows you to move your character around without changing the direction he's facing. While shifting, if you hit the X button for example, you'll dodge in whatever direction the left analog stick is being used. The L1 button is your guard. The R2 button is your taunt. The L2 button resets the camera based on where Kazuma is facing. There isn't any lock-on in this game. Button mashers will also have difficulties as there isn't a combo break. If you mash the button five times while facing toward the side of an enemy, Kazuma is going to throw those five punches off to the opponent's side. He's then going to be wide open to attacks. You can't stop him. You have to be more precise. You have to slow things down and retain constant control. It's slower and more deliberate combat. The combat has some depth. You can throw or attack from the grab. You can throw and knock enemies into other enemies. You can pick up and use almost anything not nailed down as a weapon. Everything from swords to baseball bats to chairs to signs and more. There is also the heat system. As you attack enemies you build your heat meter. Your attacks gain strength and you have access to brutal finishing moves and special environmental attacks. The heat meter will deplete on its own, and from taking damage. You earn experience from the battles and you'll earn more experience than normal from using heat moves. There are three categories to level up where you can spend that gained experience. They are Soul, Technique, and Body. As you build up the three categories, you'll learn new moves. There are ten levels in each category. Building up Soul will increase everything to do with the heat meter. It will make you get heat faster, make it deplete slower, increase your taunting heat bonus and the like. You'll get something for each of the ten levels. Raising Technique will give you new moves like drop-kick, it will increase your grab strength, increase your ability to escape a hold, and improve your combinations. Body will improve your defense and attack power, improve your dodge, and the like. As you raise your levels in each category, you'll be able to learn special moves from a certain NPC. There are eight special moves to learn. They range from counters to recovery techniques. The combat for Yakuza is really that of an updated Streets of Rage style with an action RPG's experience and stat raising. I personally like Yakuza's combat, but I can see where some people are going to hate it for its no lock-on and more deliberately controlled style. Because unless you realize the non-button mashing control aspect, you're just going to get a sloppy mess and it will seem like a poorly designed combat system. If you get it, you'll get a fun and brutal combat experience. But the combat is only one-third of what is Yakuza...