The Component
As with the original, Yakuza is really highlighted by its cool foam weaponry. There's a few other things included in the box too.
Foam Bits: This set contains: 3 foam Tantos, which are short swords made out of two pieces of foam each, to give them a 3-D look; 3 foam shuruikens, and 1 foam shotgun. They're all cool bits, every bit as evocative as the guns of the original.
Yakuza Characters: To go with these, you have 3 new Yakuza characters, complete with all the bits you'd expect. There are cardboard characters, decks of Yakuza cards for each character, and new Yakuza banknotes. In addition, instead of Super Power cards, the Yakuza have Super Kiai cards, which include things like Shaolin Monk and Kamikaze, and are pretty much the same thing as the Super Powers. Finally, two-sided honor tokens replace the shame tokens used by Gangsters. All of the components are of the same quality as the originals.
New Cards: There are a few totally new cards as well, printed on the same glossy cardstock as the original. These include three Gang cards, which show how to divide players among Yakuza and Gangs and eighteen object cards, which are used for a variant game (e.g., not necessarily with the Yakuza) and which give yet more special powers. There's even one new Super Power card for the gangsters, which is of course the Shotgun.
Overall, this box comes really packed with lots of cool new stuff with great stylings. As with the original, I give it a "5" out of "5" for Style.
The Gameplay
Cash n' Guns: Yakuza comes with two new ways to play the game: with the Yakuza and with the object cards. The Yakuza is the main point of the expansion.
Selecting the Yakuza: Cash 'n Guns: Yakuza requires (and allows) higher player numbers than the original game: 6-9 to be precise.
Choosing Sides. A game of Yakuza is most unique for the fact that players are arranged into three teams, always included one Yakuza gang and two gangster gangs. The exact sizes of each depends on the number of players. For example, a 6-player game includes three teams of two players each while an eight player game includes a team of two Yakuzas and two teams of three Gangsters each.
Players will choose their Super Power (Kiai) cards together as a group.
Playing the Yakuza: The Yakuza work slightly differently from the gangsters of the original Cash 'n Guns. Besides different super powers (which are drawn from the new Kiai deck), they also have different weapons and react differently to fleeing.
The Yakuza Weapons. Each Yakuza has five "cling" ("click!") cards, 2 Tanto cards, and 1 Shuriken card.
The Tanto cards are sort of like Bang!s, but they only affect the player next to the Yakuza, either right or left depending on the direction he aimed. However, a Tanto always hits someone. If players in between withdraw, the Tanto just hits the next player in this direction. This means that a Yakuza can accidentally hurt his teammate or even himself! (if everyone withdraws).
The Shuriken is faster than a Bang! (but slower than a Bang! Bang! Bang!). It can be thrown, which means you can only hit opponents not adjacent to you (unless that's all that are left). However, it must actually be thrown! The Yakuza must hit the character of his choice from at least 3 feet back!
Yakuza Flight. If a Yakuza flees, he gets a (dis)honor marker rather than a shame marker. The front side of this just shows a finger, but if you flee a second time, you flip it over, revealing a wound. So, there's no money lost for Yakuza flight, but you're slowly driven out of the game.
Winning the Game: At the end of the game players count up their earnings as a team to see who won, losing money for each team member killed.
The Object Variant: This expansion also includes an "object" variant, which can either be played with the original Cash 'n Gunz or with this Yakuza expansion. There are 12 gangster objects and 6 Yakuza objects.
Each player or team gets objects at the start. Each one is a one-use item. There are things like "magic bullets" which continue on from the target and hit another player and the "poisoned Tanto" which causes an extra wound to the first person you hit.
The Shotgun: This is a new weapon that may be thrown into any gangster game by adding its Super Power card. You can either aim it at a single person or between two people; in the latter case, there's a 50% chance that each player was hit, if you used a Bang!. If neither player is hit, you get your Bang! back.
Relationships to Other Games
Cash 'n Guns: Yakuza is the first major expansion to Cash 'n Guns.
The Game Design
I think most broadly you can call Yakuza "more of the same." If you liked pointing guns at each other with the original game, then you'll be equally pleased with getting to point swords and to throw shurikens in this expansion.
I do have some concerns about the complexity of the Yakuza expansion, as there's suddenly a whole other set of stuff to explain and a more intricate ordering of what goes when. However, every serious player of Cash 'n Guns I've talked to has been totally blase about this possibility--and moreso, totally enthused about the new stuff. So, perhaps the casual player (like me) might consider the complexity before buying, but if you play with any regularity, I think you'll be fine.
Finally, I think the fact that this expansion cranks the game up to 9 players is great, because Cash 'n Guns is a game that works quite well with large player numbers.
I've given it a "4" out of "5" for Substance: though not as amazing as the original, it remains strong.
Conclusion
Cash 'n Guns: Yakuza is a supplement for Cash 'n Guns that offers two major benefits: it'll support more players and it'll give you some wacky new things to do in the game. It does up the complexity of the game, but if you're a regular player, you shouldn't mind, and will instead enjoy the fun new theming and cool new foam weapons.
