It might not have been particularly huge news on all the main gaming sites, but I’m very excited by the news that Sega’s recent Japanese action game Ryu ga Gotoku (translates as “Like a Dragon”) will be released in the West under the more marketable name of Yakuza.

As you may or may not have guessed, the reason why I’m excited is not only that it’s supposed to be an excellent game and a return to form for Sega, but because it’s also been called a spiritual successor to Shenmue, a game that I’d rank as my second favourite of all time and that I’m borderline obsessive about. It’s not as slow and doesn’t have the emphasis on exploration and investigation, but it looks nice and I can’t look at this shot without being reminded of certain areas of Shenmue II by night. This is one I’ll be watching keenly over the next few months.

Let’s just hope that the localisation isn’t ruined by horrible voice acting again.