Sega has confirmed that the western versions of Yakuza 3 will lose the hostess bars and the Japanese quiz show mini game.
IGN recently spoke to Sega regarding the western release of Yakuza 3. A Sega representative has confirmed that the Western versions of Yakuza 3 will lose the hostess bars and the Japanese quiz show mini game, however, the rep confirmed that the strip clubs are still in the Western release.
When questioned why they were removed, the Sega representative said the following, "The content between Yakuza 3 US/UK and Yakuza JP is a little different in that we took out certain bits in order to bring the game to the west in the time alloted for us to do so. The parts we ended up taking out were parts that we felt wouldn’t make sense (like a Japanese history quiz game) or wouldn’t resonate as much (such as the concept of a hostess club)."
Even though the hostess bars have been removed, Sega confirmed that you will still be able to date the hostess girls in the game. Sega also confirmed that these changes will not affect the story in Yakuza 3.
Yakuza 3 will be released on March 9 in North America and Europe and March 11 in Australia.
While it's a shame that the Western versions are losing some content, I'm not that concerned that the Japanese quiz show is being cut.
The hostess bar is a weird cut since if I remember correctly, the hostess bar was included in the US version of Yakuza 2. I have a feeling that Sega really wanted to expedite the translation and unfortunately that means some content had to be cut.
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