The English demo for Yakuza 3 was released this past Thursday on the U.S. Playstation Store for the Playstation 3. It was identical to the Japanese version released last year with the one big exception: the removal of the Ageha Club (and, to a lesser extent, the Answer x Answer quiz mini-game).
Not only is that particular hostess club blocked off from entry, it wasn’t highlighted on the map for some reason unlike the other hotspots that weren’t accessible in the demo. This caused a bit of panic among the Yakuza fans, who are left wondering if content would be cut when the final product comes out. To further add fuel to the fire, two trophies pertaining to hostesses from the Japanese version of Yakuza 3 have been removed from the U.S. list. With all that said, you can still bring one of the hostesses along for a Karaoke session in the U.S. demo. Thus, fans looking forward to the Playstation 3 game are confused with the entire situation.
Hostess clubs appeared in the Yakuza series before and haven’t been cut when the games were released in the U.S. For the third Yakuza game, Sega teamed up with Japanese fashion magazine, Koakuma Ageha, to use real-life models in the game as hostesses.
--------------------
This sucks if true :( The hostess club was one of the best things in Yakuza 2.
So first they take more than a year to localize it, then they choose the worst possible release date, and now they removed the hostess club. Fuck you Sega. No wonder you dropped out of the hardware race; you guys can't do anything right. I won't support your crappy decisions. I'm buying it when it hits the bargain bin which will be very soon by the looks of it.
