On February 22nd, Sega will release their next Yakuza game in Japan, titled Yakuza Restoration. Like the Yakuza Kenzan! games, Restoration takes place in a historical Japanese setting, and will be released for both PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4.
Siliconera recently had a chance to speak with Yakuza series producer Toshihiro Nagoshi about Yakuza Restoration, and asked him about the major differences between the two versions of the game. Nagoshi began by clarifying that it was more of a coincidence that discussions of the PlayStation 4 launch had begun as Restoration was being developed.
“This was fortunate for us, and when we realised that we could release Yakuza Restoration as part of the PS4 launch line-up, we put in a lot of work to make it in time for it to happen,” Nagoshi said.
With regard to the effort that went into the PlayStation 4 version of the game, Yakuza Restoration director Daisuke Sato pitched in with a few thoughts of his own.
“The biggest challenge we had with developing the PS4 version was in trying to incorporate elements that would best utilise the unique features of the platform,” Sato said. “With that process, we’ve also received quite a bit of suggestions and requests from SCE for the game, as it’s a PS4 launch title, in order to best showcase the PS4’s features. So this was the aspect that we worked particularly hard on.”
“I guess I’ve got something to add too,” Nagoshi offered. “With high performance hardware comes the ability to make things more expressive. And the more time the modelers are able to pump into doing so, the more expressive the results we’ll be able to get. However, we do have a limited development budget and time. So from a producer’s standpoint, deciding how much of the hardware’s high performance we should take advantage of was particularly difficult.”
With that in mind, the key differences between the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 versions of Yakuza Restoration come down mainly to differences in visual quality.
“With regards to the differences between the PS3 and PS4 versions, well since the horsepower on the PS4 is roughly ten times of that on the PS3, the graphical output is greatly enhanced on the PS4, and more effects could be rendered, allowing for a better-looking picture,” Nagoshi shared. “And also, this also has an effect on the battles in the game as well, which play out with a level of smoothness that is only possible on the PS4.”
[Note: Yakuza Restoration will run at 60fps on PlayStation 4, but not on PS3.]
“But with that said, it’s not like the PS3 version is an inferior product either,” Nagoshi elaborated. “Even with the PS3 version of Yakuza Restoration, development only began after we were done with Yakuza 5, so at the very least fans can expect improvements in the PS3 version of Restoration over Yakuza 5.”
“We also didn’t want gamers to, upon playing both versions of the game, feel that the experience on the PS3 is just nowhere as good as that on the PS4, so we took extra care during development [to ensure that even on the PS3, you are not getting an inferior experience].”
That having been said, the one area in which the PlayStation 3 version has an edge over the PlayStation 4 version of Yakuza Restoration is bonus content. Nagoshi revealed to Siliconera that, if you have save data from past Yakuza games on your PlayStation 3, you’ll receive “a little bonus” within the game. This will not be possible on PlayStation 4.
