Would you consider the Ryu Ga Gotoku / Yakuza / Like A Dragon series to be a classic Sega series? Debuting on the PlayStation 2 in Japan in 2005, there are definitely gamers who were not even born when this franchise got started.
However, there are also a large number of gamers who remember this franchise as the company’s big push to move away from arcades and the game console business, to becoming a third party console game developer. Obviously, it’s become a successful series as well, evolving from a crime drama action game, to a stranger and more interesting open world experience, filled with many delightful mini games. Many gamers show up to play those mini games more than the games’ actual storyline.
And who can blame them? Among the games Sega puts into this world’s virtual video game arcades are Sega’s very own arcade games. These games all preceded Ryu Ga Gotoku / Yakuza / Like A Dragon, and many gamers would consider them to be the real classic Sega games.
For Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, Sega has curated a new set of fan favorites, obscure and deep cut alike. As reported by Noisy Pixel, the big game you can take a ride on this time is Daytona USA 2. Daytona USA 2 is an arcade racer that released in 1998, in the middle of Sega’s rivalry with Namco over being the king of polygonal CG arcade racing games.
Running on the Sega Model 3 board, Daytona USA 2 let you choose different racers alongside their cars, with each racer bringing different statistics for more variety. Like the 1st Daytona USA, there are only three courses, with each having an assigned level of difficulty.
Because of the limited number of courses, Daytona USA 2 was always a hard sell to rerelease, even on digital. In this version, Sega did not pay for the license from NASCAR or the owners of the Daytona race track. As a result, it’s getting renamed to Sega Racing Classic 2.
Joining Daytona USA 2/ Sega Racing Classic 2 is Fighting Vipers 2, the somewhat obscure but still very playable 3D fighter that never saw a US release. Like the first Fighting Vipers, this game is about breakable walls on stages, and breakable armor on enemies. This release will be the first rerelease of these games for decades, and could open up the possibility they could be released as separate digital downloads in the future.
But, for fans of Kazuma Kiryu, there’s no reason to pass on Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name at all. It’ll be great to play these games, as well as console games Flicky and Galaxy Force, on top of Kiryu’s latest tale.
Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name will be released on November 9, 2023, on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Windows via Steam.
