So, yet another report coming from yours truly on my experiences in trying out the latest offerings that Tokyo Game Show 2026 can bring us. For this edition, we’ll be going over what I was able to find from SEGA’s absolutely enormous installation.
The two titles we have for today include the revival of the arcade hit Crazy Taxi, as well as the highly anticipated Stranger Than Heaven. SEGA was kind enough to give us access, so thanks for that, but let’s not beat around the bush and get to the games.
Crazy Taxi: World Tour
For those not in the know, Crazy Taxi originally had the arcade game based around the West Coast of the United States, specifically somewhere around San Francisco. Since we’re now adding “World Tour” to the title, it’s clearly going to be going around several locations around the world. Previously, we were aware that the game has stops within Germany. At the Tokyo Game Show, it’s been revealed that Japan is going to be part of the Crazy Taxi circuit.
Having our hands on it for the first time, I’ve learned that there are two new functions from the last time I’ve ever touched this series. One is the ability to drift across turns, and the other is a button that activates nitro. Giving you a burst of speed that’s especially handy when you’re either recovering from losing speed or have a long, straight stretch ahead of you. Having played it on the PlayStation 5, the controls felt responsive and the new functions fit the style of driving the game demanded well. I found it a bit funny that the little spin that the Yakuza mini-games had for their mini-game version of this might have played a part in helping Crazy Taxi innovate itself into the game that it is now.
Aside from the arcade experience of driving people from point A to point B in the fastest possible manner, there appear to be new things you can do and wander the game like a normal open world. You can stop by some specially marked people who give you some new things to do. It still generally revolves around driving fast, but this time you either have to drive through certain objectives like paper bins, or maybe go around a fixed course with time-limited checkpoints as part of a parade, or collect delicate cargo fireworks and deliver them to a specific point without dropping them. The variety is appreciated. I wonder if there’s some sort of progression system paired with this. For example, will clearing map quests give you access to some sort of new car or upgrade for your current taxi? Will this culminate in some sort of challenge or boss encounter to cap off the map?
This is about as far as I got with Crazy Taxi: World Tour; we are aware that there are more maps planned down the road. And they’ve already revealed their plans for an online mode where you compete with other drivers for domination. Not sure how that will exactly play out, but I welcome this revival and look forward to future updates.
Stranger Than Heaven
The available demo on the TGS floor included three battles of varying difficulty across three periods. This is very much only a vertical slice of the entire Stranger Than Heaven pie, where what we experienced is probably the biggest change in what we recognize as part of the Yakuza library. That change would be RGG’s approach to the combat system.
It’s no longer face button functions that let you cruise through fights easily. In fact, there are separate buttons for left and right attacks of your character’s body. Which almost feels like a Souls game counterpart. Even the weightiness and required intent of each move almost feels like there’s a stamina bar. Even with the recovery frames, even the use of inventory items feels very familiar. There’s even what looks like some sort of poise system where you can break someone’s stance and force them into a stunned state to be freely wailed on if you play your moves correctly. While it doesn’t sound that original, I think none of this is bad. It would make big encounters like boss battles feel more significant, and make for a more involved way of combat.
There are also little touches that you see if you go around the demo looking for more detail. You can go indoors and potentially interact with others, but so far what we have is a little arm wrestling mini-game and eating from food stalls that give you a temporary buff related to combat. The ones I managed to find gave me regenerating health.
There’s not much more than that, but a bit of research shows that you’ll be living through the life of one character through decades, where he tries to get by through the profession of a musician, and ultimately a music producer. His talents come into play in an attempt to get around his mixed background and upbringing that made adapting to his new home in Japan that much more difficult.
It feels like Stranger Than Heaven not only attempts to build a prologue towards the events of Yakuza and the Tojo clan, but also attempts to reflect the experiences of its creators as well. As the team has changed and begun to take in more talents of diverse backgrounds around the world, creating a title that features a character who has a hard time finding a place to call home, along with a period of Japan that rapidly changes to the winds of the world within the first half of the 1900s seems like an interesting angle to take.
Speaking of talents, RGG’s habit of recruiting popular and budding talents in the showbiz industry hasn’t changed at all. Featuring Ado, Snoop Dogg, and other characters that are currently gaining popularity in the world seems completely within their wheelhouse. The poetry of becoming an odd music producer recruiting popular and rising talent to make money in-game isn’t lost on me, either.
Still, RGG Studios hasn’t lost the momentum of trying new things with every iteration of their series, so I’m pretty interested in trying out Stranger Than Heaven once it comes out.
That’s it for the SEGA games for this show, but stay tuned for my next posts as there’s quite a bit more to talk about!