Happy Halloween!

Our final Celebrating All Things Spooky review this year is an entry in a series that has become near and dear to my heart, Yakuza.

That’s right, Yakuza has a “spooky” entry.

I’d been playing Yakuza 5 and hope to finish that before the end of the year, but when October came around, I decided to put that on hold to try the zombie shooter spin-off, Dead Souls.

Yakuza: Dead Souls is a non-canon spin-off set after Yakuza 4. A zombie outbreak sends Kamurocho into chaos, and our characters find themselves at the center of it all as they try to survive, help the people of the city, and learn the truth behind the outbreak.

The thing that struck me the most about Dead Souls is how sincere it feels. I didn’t expect much from the story of a zombie Yakuza game, but it doesn’t feel like an excuse plot or something quickly thrown together. It feels like a genuine Yakuza story exploring what would happen if zombies overtook Kamurocho. To some degree, it comes across as Yakuza Resident Evil, but it uses these elements in a way that makes sense for the series.

It also has great character interactions and some surprisingly emotional moments.

Then there are the substories. In true Yakuza fashion, Dead Souls is filled with optional substories that are often hilarious and occasionally heartwarming. Some are ridiculous even by Yakuza standards, and then there are others that involve minor characters from past games, part of the attention to detail that makes it feel so sincere.

If you’re wondering if Dead Souls is worth it, I’d personally recommend it for the substories alone.

We do have to consider the gameplay, however.

Unlike the rest of the series, Dead Souls is a third-person shooter. You get a variety of guns, with each character having a main type. Handguns have infinite ammo, while the rest require you to have ammo in your inventory. Heat is replaced by the snipe gauge, which lets you use things in the environment to wreak devastation upon the zombies.

The shooting does not feel great, especially when you aim. You can aim by going into first-person, but you can’t move while aiming. That would be fine, except it also decided that means the left stick should control your aim instead of the right stick (which controls the camera in third-person). Going into first-person also sometimes swung me around so that I was facing a different direction; I never figured out what caused it or how to avoid it. Aside from fights with bosses and certain types of special zombies, I found it easier to shoot without aiming, since there’s some sort of auto-aim in place.

I’m not the biggest shooter fan, so I can’t really speak to whether it’s fun or not. Combat was the game’s weakest link for me, but not enough to stop me from playing it.

(Chases were also rough and felt clunkier to me than Yakuza 3’s chases despite this game coming out after Yakuza 4, but fortunately they don’t occur often.)

Now, all of this zombie shooting occurs in the quarantine zone, which gets larger and larger as the game goes on. Outside of the quarantined area, life in Kamurocho goes on like usual. Between that and the ability to liberate businesses within the quarantine zone (at which point they act like things are totally normal despite zombies swarming outside), all of the usual Yakuza side activities are here. While it might feel surreal to eat with a hostess, enjoy some karaoke, and then blast your way through a legion of zombies, I appreciate how Dead Souls is a complete Yakuza experience.

It’s the shortest game I’ve played in the series, with my playtime coming in at a little over 30 hours. However, while I did all the substories, I skipped a chunk of side content – like the procedurally generated underground dungeons, which I did one floor of and then left – that could make a playthrough much longer.

So, is Yakuza: Dead Souls worth playing? If story, substories, and side content are the main draw for you, I’d say it is, although finding it is another matter. Dead Souls is only available on the PS3. You can buy a digital copy for $19.99, or hunt down a physical copy like I did. Since PS3 games are region-free, I imported a PAL copy since they’re easier to find.

Will they ever remaster Dead Souls? I don’t know, but I think it deserves it.

Yakuza: Dead Souls is a strange spin-off that has a lot more good in it than you might expect. It turned out to be the perfect way to end this year’s Celebrating All Things Spooky celebration. Happy Halloween, and don’t forget you have until midnight tonight to participate in the contest!