You can pop into that shop and buy some drinks and snacks after executing finishing moves like this. It's lovely.

Kazuma Kiryu is the 4th Chairman of the Tojo Clan, ex-gangster, patron of the Sunshine Orphanage, possibly the hardest and noblest man in gaming, and I kind of love him. I wish he were my dad. My real dad’s pretty great, but if anything were to happen to him and I had to be sent to an orphanage even though I’m 34 years old I would want it to be Kazuma’s orphanage. I’ve never seen my dad pummel a horde of thugs into submission using a golf club and a bicycle, or wrestle a bull, or headbutt someone repeatedly before kicking them through a window – all activities that Kazuma indulges in during Sega’s amazing Yakuza 3 – but it would be nice to think of someone doing this sort of thing in your defence whilst maintaining a responsible moral code.

How my dad stacks up against Yakuza 3's Kazuma Kiryu

Yakuza 3 is a curious mix of RPG, beat-em-up and adventure romp and it is inventively, addictively crazy in a way that only Japanese games seem to manage. The deeply convoluted plot (which concerns deeds and land rights issues that escalate into assassinations and inter-gang warfare) is merely a narrative framework to provide the player, controlling Kazuma, with direction and objectives. It would theoretically be possible to go through the basic plot of this game in perhaps six or seven hours, but that would miss the point entirely: the distractions here are the real joy, and it’s why after 50 hours of playing and a victory in the story mode, my completion stats screen tells me I have only done 39.65% of the total content.

Those distractions are many and varied and wholly unrepetitive – expect to be looking for lost cats, helping old men find bars they haven’t been to in years, disrupting water-cooler sales scams, running away from muscular drag queens, solving murders Phoenix Wright-style… I could go on, but to do so would spoil dozens of lovely surprises. This game is bursting at the seams with stuff to do, and there are very well implemented mini-games of darts, pool, bowling, golf, fishing, Japanese and western casinos, fighting tournaments and a Sega arcade with UFO Catcher (a claw grabber prize machine) and Boxcelios (a curious but beautiful shoot-em-up). There’s even karaoke, rendered through a rhythm game, and it’s possibly the most berserk thing I’ve ever played.

Even the main quest takes you down several weird alleys. Because Kazuma runs an orphanage, some of these involve helping your kids out of Grange Hill-esque mini-dramas about bullying, stealing and so on, and they rarely play out the way you think they will. Because Kazuma has largely left his yakuza life behind, the survival of his orphanage and the well-being of the kids (an appropriately loveable mix of cute, charming, admirable and bloody annoying) are placed as the cause you’re fighting for, and by criminy does Yakuza 3 make you feel it. The time you spend at the orphanage and the gorgeous, Sega-blue skied beach directly beside it are lovely, and you know noble Kaz and all those children really are better for being there. When it’s threatened, you want to smash people to bits with a baseball bat. Fortunately, that is precisely what’s expected of you.

The vast majority of quests end up in a massive rumble, and in Yakuza 3’s version of random battles (avoidable after getting an item about halfway through, though I never used it), Kaz gets accosted regularly by punks, thugs and yakuza looking for a fight. After a couple of lines of dialogue, mercifully varied and often pretty funny, the camera will pan around and some thumping music will kick in, signifying the switch between adventure mode and combat mode. If you’re on the street, onlookers will form barriers effectively creating an arena, but otherwise you’re fighting on the spot that the fight started with all the attendant street furniture at hand to help you. You can pick up anything that’s not nailed down to help you, and you’re able to arm yourself with weapons you buy, find or make in adventure mode or anything that the bad guys drop during the fight. You also have your fists and feet, and Kazuma really is a tough, unmerciful sod during a tussle, smashing faces into walls before stamping on necks, or slicing dudes up with swords. Usually alone but sometimes with an AI friend, you can be facing anything from a single opponent to a dozen armed men, but the challenge is very sensibly scaled as you progress. The fighting system is simple but probably one of my favourites in all of gaming, with the pad’s face buttons used as grab, dodge, attack and finish, and lock-on and block on the shoulders. There’s an absolute ton of variations introduced throughout the game in a number of imaginative ways, best of which is a hilarious blogging minigame that lets Kaz learn unusual techniques from everyday folks in the street.

In terms of looks, Yakuza 3 is a bit of a mixed bag. The streets of Kamurocho and Ryukyu are colourful, detailed and gorgeous by day or night, and really capture the bustle and atmosphere of urban Japan. The main character models are really good too – Kazuma is not an emotionally demonstrative man, but a lot gets conveyed effectively by close ups of narrowing eyes, clenching fists and gentle smiles. There are a lot of tiny touches, like Kaz’s ward Haruka reaching up to hold his hand if you walk at her pace whilst out together, that sell this world brilliantly. Secondary characters, like the ever present thugs who randomly attack, don’t fare so well and are sometimes a bit light on detail and character, but there does seem to be scores of variations. Anyone you talk to or interact with in any way other than a punch-up is distinct and extremely well done. The game has a great soundtrack, pounding and gentle where it ought to be, and all the voice acting remains in Japanese. It sounds moody and believable, and the English subtitles are reliable and seem thorough. Not that I’d know, I can’t speak Japanese, but it feels right.

Shopping arcade in Naha, Okinawa

Fight outside that arcade as it is in the game's equivalent, Ryukyu

Much was made in the run-up to the western release of the game of cuts from the Japanese game, and it seems these total about 20 side quests (there are 100 in the western version), some hostess clubs where Kaz can enjoy the company of ladies (there are still girls to date and bed in the cut version, don’t worry), and mahjongg and shogi mini-games. It’s sad to think that these were cut due to language or cultural reasons and the game could potentially be even more appealing, but playing the game I don’t think they are particularly missed. Yakuza 3 is ambitious and enormous even without them – it’s one of the most fun games I’ve played this year.