Yakuza / Like a Dragon: Kamurocho, Sotenbori and Ijincho

This is the center of the whole series: Kamurocho, the primary setting of most Yakuza titles since the inaugural 2005 game, modelled directly on Kabukicho, Tokyo's red-light and entertainment district in Shinjuku. The real place earns its nickname, the Sleepless Town, with its dense concentration of host and hostess clubs, love hotels, shops, restaurants and nightclubs. Stand on the main street at night and you are standing in both places at once.

Location precision: Kamurocho is fictional; the pin marks central Kabukicho, the district the game recreates.

Visitor guidance: Kabukicho is at its most itself after dark; the streets are public and walkable at any hour.

The games give this corner a grand playhouse: the Kamuro Theater, an unambiguous and deliberate close approximation of the real Shinjuku Koma Theater. The Koma was a major theatre in Kabukicho: it opened in 1956 with 2,088 seats and ran until its demolition in 2009. The theater itself is gone, but the address survives: the Shinjuku Toho Building stands on the site of the theater, and the crowds outside it are pure Kamurocho.

Location precision: The Kamuro Theater is fictional; the pin marks the demolished Koma's site, now the Shinjuku Toho Building.

Visitor guidance: Find the Shinjuku Toho Building on the square where the theater stood.

Osaka's Dotonbori becomes Sotenbori in Yakuza 2, and the translation is faithful: one of Osaka's principal tourist and nightlife areas, running along the Dotonbori canal from Dotonboribashi Bridge to Nipponbashi Bridge through Namba. Look for the district's most prominent feature, the illuminated Glico Man billboard, showing a runner crossing a finishing line, often seen as an icon of Osaka within Japan. At night, with the signs reflected in the canal, the game and the street are hard to tell apart.

Location precision: Sotenbori is fictional; the pin marks the Dotonbori canal frontage it recreates.

Visitor guidance: Walk the canal between Dotonboribashi and Nipponbashi bridges in the evening.

Also new in Yakuza 2 is Shinseicho, the game's version of Shinsekai, a neighbourhood created in 1912 with New York's Coney Island as the model for its southern half and Paris for its northern half. Its centerpiece is the Tsutenkaku, a tower and landmark of Osaka that advertises the Hitachi company: 108 metres tall with its main observation deck at 91 metres. Climb it, and join the thousands of visitors who place a coin in the Billiken's donation box and rub the soles of his feet to make their wishes come true.

Location precision: Shinseicho is fictional; the pin marks Tsutenkaku tower at the heart of Shinsekai.

Visitor guidance: Buy a ticket to the observation deck at 91 metres.

Yakuza 6 trades the neon for a quieter stage: Onomichi in Hiroshima, a setting the developers based on the town's contemporary actual location, as with every district in the series. The real port opened in 1168, serving five centuries as a significant rice shipment center and a hub for foreign trade. Climb toward the Buddhist Senkoji Temple, founded in the 9th century, through streets often used as a filming location for movies, and the in-game town is all around you.

Location precision: The in-game town compresses the real one; the pin marks Senkoji Temple above the historic port.

Visitor guidance: Climb the temple lanes to Senkoji, founded in the 9th century.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon moves the series to a new city in a fictionalized Isezakicho named Isezaki Ijincho. In the game, Ijincho collectively covers the pedestrian part of Isezaki Mall, as Isezaki Road, plus Chinatown, Kannai Station and Yamashita Park, as Hamakita Park. Start with the real shopping street, 1.2 km long, then cross into Yokohama Chinatown, the largest Chinatown in Japan, larger than those of Kobe and Nagasaki.

Location precision: Isezaki Ijincho is fictional; the pin marks the Isezaki Mall pedestrian zone at its core.

Visitor guidance: Walk the 1.2 km of the shopping street, then eat in Chinatown.