Classic Arcade Games Are Playable Within Yakuza 6

For a while, during the fifth generation of consoles (Playstation 2, Gamecube, Dreamcast, the first XBox), there was a trend of hiding older games inside newer ones. Shenmue had Sega’s arcade titles inside. Animal Crossing had several NES games to find. Metroid Prime had the original Metroid unlockable by connecting it with Metroid Fusion. The trend expired when all these companies realized they could sell old games separately as downloads, and stopped giving them away.

So we’re pleased to hear there’s a game coming that’s trying this again: Yakuza 6. The most recent issue of Famitsu reveals that Super Hang-On, OutRun, Space Harrier, Fantasy Zone, Puyo Puyo and even Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown (released in 2012!) can be found within the larger game, and are fully playable — in some cases their two-player modes are functional too!

You find them in a similar fashion to the way you found them in Shenmue: by finding arcade machines running the games. In the Yakuza world these are called “play spots” and also include minigames like mahjong and darts.

English translations of Yakuza games are behind their Japanese counterparts by at least a year. Yakuza 0, the game that precedes Yakuza 6, has yet to come out here (wait for December 8). But after it does, odds are good Yakuza 6 will be announced for a Western release.