For people who imported, what does Yakuza 5 improve on/change from 4? Have shied away from reading too much about it given I figured it'd never show up.
You get the following:
720p resolution. Technically all PS3 Yakuza games before 5 were sub HD resolutions so the games looked sightly blurry/muddy. Yakuza 5 looks cleaner/sharper thanks to the bump in resolution.
New/improved game engine - My main take away from the improved engine is the better animations here and there - like Kiryu climbing/decending stairs. Just little touches here and there that make the game look smoother.
Substantial Side Missions for all characters bar Akiyama - Not sure why Akiyama really misses out on this, but the other four characters all get pretty huge side missions that have them taking part in a unique activity:
Haruka has her Idol singing mini games which plays pretty much like one of Miku's Project Diva games (also made by Sega). Plus she has plenty of other mini games based around interviews, training etc. where she builds her reputation...
Kiryu has his taxi driving mini game. I've seen this referred to as Crazy Taxi esque in execution but I don't agree with that. Its one part Tokyo Bus Driver (except in a taxi) and one part Daytona Racing.
You have a few different taxi driving story missions that are really broken up into three categories - the first is conversing with your passengers. You don't control the taxi, but rather select responses from a menu. As with hostess interaction the idea is to pick the best response.
The second type is driving your passenger to a destination. You have to obey the rules of the road, don't speed. indicate on each turn, don't run anyone over etc. Its about as far from CT as possible.
The last of the three is one on one races on the highway, I personally feel that it feels Daytona ish thanks to its handling, basically you mod your car to improve its performance and your objective is to beat each of your enemies in a race. You can pull off badass power drifts to build up your heat gauge (for a speed boost) plus there are some further awesome heat moves to pull off on the road at certain points.
Shinida has a more advanced Baseball mini game. Basically its sorta like the batting cage in that you aim for home runs, but the controls are slightly more complex, you have a slo mo option to make things easier and as you progress you have certain home run missions outside of the batting center. It falls short of being a complete baseball sim, but I much prefer it to the old batting cage.
Seijima has my favourite of the side missions. He ends up in a small snowy mountain town and as part of his story he ends up taking part in a hunting mini game. Here you lay traps, snipe wildlife, hunt for supplies and also take part in other side stories to progress this side of Seijima's story. As part of this mode you'll be given a whole slew of mission objectives to complete as you continue throughout the game and its an excellent source of money. Its easily the most addictive and feature complete side story in my opinion, I probably spent a good 10+ hours at least on this mode alone completing all the objectives!
New Cities: 5 cities to explore this time, with Tokyo and Osaka (from Yakuza 0 and 2 returning) along with 3 brand new cities to explore. While these new cities aren't as big as Tokyo its still nice to have a change of scenery!
Virtua Fighter 2: Sega finally realised that its sitting on a treasure trove of arcade games, so we finally get a real arcade game in the Yakuza arcades! Virtua Fighter 2 in its entirety can be played in arcades, as can a cut down version of Namco's Taiko Drum Master.
Tons of new mini games: Too many for me to list, but there are tons of mini games included in this game, included new and old favourites. Its easily the biggest Yakuza game in terms of content!
There's probably much more that I'm forgetting, but this basically covers my favourite new inclusions to 5.
