Beyond the demo for Yakuza 3 earlier this year — and all the hoopla about the cut content from the final release — I never had a proper Yakuza game experience. I don’t know if the Yakuza 4 demo at E3 2010 counts as “proper” but it did pique my interest in a series I had ignored.

The demo was one large series of beat-em-up arenas with brawling reminiscent of River City Ransom. Bash enemies to a pulp, pick up weapons and items from around the environment. Difference being, in order to pull off special moves like bashing an enemy’s head in the nearby wall or stomping on his face you have to soften him up first with a series of button-mashing combos to build up a special guage below your life bar. Do that and then the sparks really fly.

I can see this style of play becoming cumbersome, but Yakuza 4 offers four playable characters to jazz things up. The demo let me play as each one in a linear progression. I beat all the bad guys as the small, speedy, crooked cop, and then went on to beat more bad guys as series star Kazuma before finally playing the big, brutish character who could pick up heavier enemies. I don’t remember the first guy very well, unfortunately.

The demo didn’t showcase any other elements of the game though I was assured the hostess bars, some of the content cut from Yakuza 3, would remain intact.