The new Yakuza demo for Of The End was released recently on Japanese PSN. A couple day's ago I dived onto my Justin.TV page and played through the entire demo, while talking to GB members in chat. ( Pepsiman doing on-the-fly translation!)
 
The demo is surprisingly comprehensive, and it pretty much solidified for me at least what conceptually this game is going to be about. 
It's easy to say that it's "Yakuza with zombies!" Although that statement is obviously quite loaded, and give impressions of a completely altered game both thematically and from a base design standpoint. 
 
Instead what immediately drew my attention was how similar this game was to past entries. Perhaps too much. This is not a numbered entry into the series for a reason, and while it might chronologically take place after Yakzua 4, it is not Yakuza 5.
Instead "Of The End" is a side-game that is similar to that of Yakuza's other side-game " Kenzan!" although "Of The End" clearly aspires for something far more specific than period piece Yakuza shenanigans. 
In previous games gun combat has been regulated to a quick power-up, something to quickly turn the tide of combat. Not so with OTE, which focuses primarily on gun combat exclusively. It's quite clear that this is OTE real intent: Bringing gun mechanics to the Yakuza series. 
What better way to incorporate gun combat with the same insane intensity of previous Yakuza combat? You guessed it: Zombies.  
 
The gameplay flow is pretty straightforward: Populated sections similar to a traditional Yakuza game, then it switches over to a straight-up third person shooter for linear sections, specifically:
It's Yakuza meet's Resident Evil 4/5.  Complete with over-the-shoulder aiming and a mission clear screen that rates you. It's pretty fun when you get the basics down.
 
At the same time it's easy to write-off OTE for it's decision to use zombies. Even though the demo gave me a better idea of what Sega is trying to accomplish with this title, the zombie fad is beginning to over-stay it's welcome for me personally. At the same-time, I see room for improvement for the core-shooting mechanics.
 
I promised video, here we go: