Yakuza: Like a Dragon 8 is slowly approaching. The Yakuza games were renamed Like a Dragon with its 7th introduction, changing the name, and also its combat system. Something else that’s kind of new to the entry, is English voice acting, most likely so it can reach out to a broader audience, since they’re already making a huge leap with changing it from beat'em up combat to turn based. Well, I can safely say that I enjoy the English voice cast for the main group of characters that you’re playing with the OG Like a Dragon, but with Like a Dragon 8, and Yakuza stample is coming in with his new English voice, and let me just say, it’s breaking more that just the law.



The new English dub for Kiryu Kazama, Yong Yea, is getting flamed on twitter for his singing performance in Like a Dragon 8. He’s even done a side by side comparison of the original Japanese Kiryu and his English rendition of the voice, and let me just say, it’s easier to see the difference in quality.

Now I don’t think Yong is a bad voice actor, but his voice doesn’t fit what I’ve come to know from Kiryu. Kiryu has this intimidating, get the job done aura and voice. While Yong just sounds like an evil nerdy villian/crime boss. While Japanese Kiryu solve things with his fist, English Kiryu solve things with his words and big money.

It’s not like other VAs in the English cast didn’t have to sing on karaoke night. The hobo Namba even had to sing the iconic Bakai Mitai, and it sounds pretty good.



With Yong going around blocking anyone who shows distaste for his performance, and people digging up past times when he took jabs at Chris Pratt for his performance as Mario, I’m wondering how this is all going to pan out, and conclude. Maybe once the game actually drops, we’ll learn to love Yong’s Kiryu…or, just learn how to deal with it…OR, just change it to the Japanese audio. It’s not like Yakuza was known for its English dub anyways. Or, play Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, with its new free English dub patch, to see how his performance is.

What do you think of Yong’s singing? Do you think Yong is going to do a bad job as Kiryu? Are you getting Like a Dragon 8? Tell us in the comments.