The Forgotten Yakuza City/District

Imagine this map in the Dragon Engine.

The real forgotten district is Gion from Kenzan, but that's pretty much true for everything about Kenzan. Poor Kenzan....

Never played the PS2 Yakuza 2 but something about Shinsheicho feels pretty cozy. Especially the tower.

I think many fans don't quite look at how many projects were being developed between 2015-2018. I think this affects how Shinseicho was being left out. In those 3 years, RGG need to build a new engine, make Yakuza 0, Kiwami 1, 6, Kiwami 2, Fist of the North Star, Yakuza 3 Remastered, RGG Online and Judgment. Even Kamurocho in those games I mentioned have their differences, not to mention creating a fairly small area that has nearly zero chance to reuse again in later entries.

Meanwhile, 2006 RGG was just focused on Yakuza 2. It took them 2 years of work to release Kenzan after that. They were not working with multiple projects at the same time.

I like Shinseicho but I like it better if RGG employees are not worked to the death and still get criticized to death by angry fans

It's a shame they didn't bring it back for Shinada's part in yakuza 5, since it features the same tower and the two locations are in close proximity from one another. It would've been fun to see in the HD yakuza universe.

Time to port it to Gmod!!

An interesing tidbit about Shinseicho, despite the cozy atmosohere people get from it (myself included) the Japanese audience has some extra context for the area that completely changes that feeling. Like Sotenbori, Shinseicho has a direct real life analog that I unfortunately forget the name of. However, I do remember it has a seriously dangerous reputation among tourists and locals. Even native people clutch their purses closer and keep a vigilant eye out when they're visiting that part of town, and visiting foreigners are warned about how it puts the "trap" in tourist trap. For the part of the story where Kiryu and Sayama finally make a direct, aggressive search for any information about the Jingweon they can find, this district is a suitable lion's den for them to enter. It has secrets only locals and those in the know would be able to find, and seemingly multiple businesses in the town are in collusion with keeping Keima hidden. In-game, this is where a young man is able to steal the deed to his mother's business without repercussion (until Kiryu shows up), a mysterious gun modder wanders the streets apparently just pulling people aside to test his weapons on them, and a massive man regularly steals donations off a statue of Billiken without any resistance from anyone. Suffice it to say, Shinseicho might be even shadier than Kamurocho and Sotenbori just for how condensed all of its grime and corruption is. And considering it's the only place where a Jingweon survivor is able to hide for long enough to pass information to the heroes, I'm willing to bet even the Jingweon try to avoid it.

We all know why it isn't in Kiwami 2...Yokoyama kept loosing his shogi matches in the district and banished to stay in the PS2 version

Not sure if this was noted but remember that also during Yakuza 6 the kamurocho hill district wouldn't see the light of day till yakuza 7. With Kiwami 2 being the construction version of it. Since it just started.

Shinseicho should have been on the remake. No excuses.

I just visited Shinsekai the other week (was debating comparing the game and irl one). It's interesting they moved that mall's location to run along the same side as the main road so you have two lanes to explore since in reality the mall is kinda the entrance and way further back (but also 3x as long).

"You will rarely see brought up in modern fan discourse."
Not really, someone will always bring it up.
I was hoping for idk Y5 cities.

my favorite mainline Yakuza game, i'm so glad you made a vid dedicated to this district because once the PS3 goes offline, Yakuza 1 and 2 are officially lost in time, and I still have a small bit of hope that RGG will one day decide to port AND localize the HD remasters of these two games

Having started with Zero and then played Kiwamis 1-2,
going back and researching how the originals played and learning how much was CUT and/or RUINED in the remakes made me kinda sad.

If you want to see a modern video game version of Shinsekai, it does show up at the end of Persona 5 Strikers/Scramble. :P In fact, you'll run into some familiar locations if you've played Yakuza 2, 3, and 5, you'll see plenty of familiar cities in that game since, like Yakuza 5, it feels like a sort of whirlwind tour of major cities in Japan.

i love sontenbori and shinseicho places, cuz i love golden rod city in pokemon games

Maps like Shinseicho are severly underrated and underrepresented in games nowadays imo.
I find that small condensed places like this really help to switch up the vibe from the games main area and often end up being quite memorable.
They can provide a cozy atmosphere in contrast to a larger, more busy open world. A breather inbetween bigger adventures, or a subplot of sorts.

This video makes Kiwami 2 chapter 11 makes sooo much more sense, since this district was cut. Chapter 11 felt like a filler episode and it was a little too convenient how the Jingweon was hiding coincidently in Sotenbori. It would’ve been nice if they could’ve included it and the investigation leading up to the end of chapter 11 to have more of a satisfying payoff.

This is a really neat little video here. No massive topic or long video, just appreciation for a unique map and I love that.

W video.

I didn't even know that Shinseicho even existed, thanks for enlightening me.

You can visit the place in Persona 5 Strikers, at least

I adore a video like this about a specific district. These places absolutely give the most life to these games.

Both times I visited Osaka, I've stayed in Shinsekai. It's a pretty vibrant district with tons of restaurants, fairly close to a train, a Mega Donki close by and the hotel I stayed at both times is relatively premium yet still pretty cheap. Dotonbori is also a 30 minute walk from that district. By walking from Shinsekai to Dotonbori, you can also come across Den-Den Town halfway through, Osaka's answer to Akiba's Electric Town. It's pretty neat.