Ryu Ga Gotoku's Yakuza series was once considered niche but has been booming in the West in recent years. The games are now available across multiple platforms, the Judgment spin-off proved so popular it recently received a sequel, and the fandom had grown ♔even larger.
Dౠespite its growth in popularity and the demand from fans, there are a number of Yakuza spin-off titles that have yet to be localized for the West. However, thanks to a team of dedicated Yakuza fans, Yakuza: Black Panther 2 will be receiving an English localization in the new year.
Known in Japan as Kurohyou 2: Ryu ga Gotoku Ashura-hen, B🤪lack Panther 2 was the second Yakuza spin-off to launch for PSP and continued the story of the first Black Panther game that followed Tatsuya Ukyo as he gets involved with the Tojo Clan and finds himself fighting in the coliseum as a result.
TeamK4L has been working on this English patch projec⛦t since the beginning of the year, which will feature a fully translated main story, substories, menus, minigames, item descriptions, cutscenes, in-game dialogue, and more. The patch is due to launch on January 7, 2022.
TeamK4L does not support pir🐲acy, so for those hoping to use this patch, you will need to own the game yourself. You then have to transfer it to your PC as an ISO format, apply the patch, and then play it via emulation or via a modded console.
"I think it's quite fair to say it really has been a community effort to get this out the door, especially so quickly," AugmentedSmoke, one of the people behind the localization patch tells me. "In the main K4L team though, there are five of us. We're all from different backgrounds so it's been an interesting experience being from all over the world. In the end, though, I think the different perspectives have helped us work even better though.
"The main drive for creating the localisation was honestly so that my friends could play the second Kurohyou game after absolutely loving the first game. Initially, it was going to just be a story explanation, then recorded videos with English subs, and then it snowballed. Another big motivation for me personally was the fact that these are fantastic games that unfortunately were a bit lost to time and the fact they were Japanese only. Seeing Sega localisation staff like Scott Strichart saying they would love to work on things like this but can't due to the fact it would be very difficult to find approval, made us feel like if the fans didn't do it, it may never get the chance to be experienced by the English speaking fanbase."
That's not to say that AugmentedSmoke has given up on the Japanese-only spin-off games getting an official localization from Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios. "I absolutely hope that RGG will be open-minded about bringing these games to the West," AugmentedSmoke says. "As someone whose favourite RGG games include Ishin, Kenzan, and both PSP titles, it really would be a dream come true. I would love to be able to share my passion for these games with a whole new community of people, so here's hoping one day that becomes a reality hahaha."
The Black Panther spin-off series was so popular in Japan that the first title received a manga series, and both games received a live-action adaptation. If you want to get stuck in with the new translation in January, but don't want to miss out on the first game, the . While the whole of the main story was translated, the substories were never fully finished in this translation.
TeamK4L has expressed an interest in doing their own translation of the first Black Panther in the future, so we can look forward to a fuller translation then. In fact, they are also contemplating helping with translations of Ishin and Kenzan also, but AugmentedSmoke explains their team is too small to go it alone. "Regarding Ishin and Kenzan, we would absolutely love to, I am a huge fan of those games. After we have run out of projects, if the current teams working on the fan translations for those games are still looking for help, it's definitely something we would consider. Unfortunately without a bigger team, it would be very difficult to pull off ourselves."