Yakuza Kiwami is a remake of the first game in the Yakuza series, which was originally for the PS3. This game uses the same engine as Yakuza 0 and has Japanese voiceovers with English subtitles. If you have already played Yakuza 0 then the game will start off with familiar characters and takes place not too far after the ending of that game. However, there will be a surprising development and a time skip such that Kiryu will return with the situation completely changed. Kiryu will then have to move forward and find out the conspiracy underneath everything that has happened. It actually flips the balance of power around from several characters.
The combat largely remains the same from Yakuza 0 with some subtle tweaks. Kiryu instantly has access to all four of his various styles. The styles vary in characteristics. One will be weak but fast and prioritizes dodging, while another is slow but packs a mighty punch. There will be the obligatory solid all-rounder and you can swap these styles at will during combat as you see fit. Once you encounter enemies, NPCs will clear the area to allow you to fight. Kiryu has a weak attack and a strong attack. Then once a bar is filled, they unlock “Heat” actions which are powerful moves that knock a huge chunk off the enemy’s health bar.
Kiryu can use his surroundings to his advantage including picking up objects to use as weapons. After gaining experience points, he can use them to unlock more moves, strengthen his stats and get access to advantageous effects during combat. The combat doesn’t actually lend that well to bosses or where you are pitted against a lot of enemies at once. Button mashing will get you killed and you’ll end up relying heavily on hit and run tactics which drags out the fights. Opponents that use guns can be frustrating since it breaks your flow when Kiryu gets stunned.
The storytelling is not the best and the cutscenes can be quite boring at times. They seem to go on for a long time. The story bounces Kiryu from place to place, character to character, as the mystery is slowly unveiled and he meets up with his various allies. It becomes better from around the fourth chapter since that is when it starts to take shape and we find out just what is driving the characters. By slowly understanding what happened to Nishikiyama, we can see how it influenced his actions.
There are elements of the story progression which are really annoying since a lot of them are fetch quests. If you have already played Yakuza 0, then Kiwami uses the same map so it can feel like a reskinned game with a new story tacked on top. It is limited to only the one place and the story will force you to walk over half the map to get to a guy who won’t talk until you get him something else. It has a lot of padding and filler requirements.
There are a lot of sidequests, which are called substories in the game. When you are walking around, you will most likely trigger a lot of them. Some of them are serious, some of them are wacky, but they all either have you beating some punks or are fetch quests. Some of them are really short encounters who definitely feel like filler, although there is an attempt to make their situation more in-depth. If you put aside the story to do the substories, you will gain a lot of experience points and can become quite powerful early on in the game. Based on the substories, there are definitely a lot of con-men in Japan… These substories also show that despite being ex-yakuza, Kiryu is a nice guy. He is the embodiment of the positive aspects of yakuza, such as honor and pride. Of course, the game doesn’t glorify yakuza, the majority of them are scum.
The other protagonist of Yakuza 0, Majima, makes frequent appearances in Kiwami. He is crazy and quirky, you can’t take him seriously but he is charming in his own way and ends up being quite an awesome character. There is a minigame / gimmick involving him randomly appearing and picking fights with Kiryu. It should be annoying given that they are most unavoidable and breaks the pacing, but it just works so well with his character that you may actually look forward to his crazy shenanigans. This is especially since Majima escalates his way of picking a fight with Kiryu, going so far as hiding with random objects of wearing costumes.
The other big thing with Yakuza games are the minigames although some of them have terrible design. They are all mostly optional but if you want to 100% the game (which is no easy feat) or just have some fun, it can be frustrating. Perhaps one of the worst is the karaoke minigame, which is a rhythm game… with extremely annoying mechanics. The timing of the notes is variable and hitting the notes feel hit and miss when you can miss a row of notes because you missed the first note. The game then punishes you by not registering the presses afterwards. It is frustrating and terrible… so you’re better off ignoring a chunk of the content after your first go.
The game isn’t actually all that long, although it’s still a decent length. The story takes around twenty hours to complete depending on how many of the substories that you do to power up before you tackle the finale. After you clear the game, you can either spend your time cleaning up in free roam or play New Game+ which allows you to carry over items.
Overall, Yakuza Kiwami is a solid game. While it isn’t as varied and as novel as Yakuza 0, it is still decent in its own right. It is nice to see the first of Kiryu’s story being remade, even if it is too similar to Yakuza 0.
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