A little over 60 hours later, my 100th game beaten in 2020 comes to a close. Not to mention this is a game I've owned damn near since I beat Yakuza 2 like four years ago XD. This is one of a handful of games in the Yakuza series that have never come out in English, and given that this one takes place in the early 1600's, there's a lot of vocabulary that is period appropriate. That extra hard vocab kept me away from trying out this game for AGES, but this year I decided that it was finally time to push beyond the third Yakuza game, and I did it. As I mentioned before, it took me a little over 60 hours (although a decent amount of that is idled time, so I'd say probably more like 50-55 hours of actual playing) to do about 90-ish% of the content in the game on hard mode.

Kenzan is based very (and I mean VERY) loosely based on the real life person Miyamoto Musashi, who is a famous historical figure of Japan's warring states period famed for his mastery of fighting with two swords at once. The Kiryu of this story (named Kiryu Kazumanosuke, yes really X3) is the assumed name of Musashi after he's set up to take the fall for an assassination plot to kill one of Ieyasu's adult sons right before the battle at Sekigahara (the final battle that ended the warring states period and unified Japan). He is now living in Gion as a sort of loan shark (he collects money from people who couldn't pay before at the entertainment sorta-brothels), which is the red light district of Kyoto. Gion and the surrounding area play the role of Kamurocho as Kiryu tries to unravel the mystery behind why a girl with links to his past has suddenly showed up and asking him to kill a man.

The story of the game is a HECK of a mixed bag. On a base level, there are a lot of characters effectively pulled from Yakuza 1 and/or 2 and put into a historical garb (like Kiryu's friend Itou), and then there are just plain inserts of classic Yakuza characters like Haruka and Majima. There are also a handful of pretty bad queer-phobic jokes on the worse side of humor, but on the better side of humor are the sort of ahistorical "part of history" stuff like Yakuza Zero has, like how Kiryu helps invent kabuki theater (which was invented around this time, yes, but with an all-female cast, so it makes no sense how Kiryu is allowed to be a part of it XD). That stuff is all more or less part and parcel for what I expected in this game.

The overall narrative is a mess with an awful bow at the end. The game has some really interesting themes it brings up like "escaping being someone defined by violence" or "what it means to live with two identities", and they're introduced really well via the first five or so chapters that are effectively a "how did he get here?" series of connected flashbacks starting before Sekigahara and ending when Kiryu establishes himself at Gion. From there, you have that A plot of Haruka and Kiryu HORRIBLY sidetracked for what is effectively a third of the game as a B plot comes up whose main point seems to be to have Kiryu recreate the climax of Yakuza 2, right down to a 17th century stand in for Daigo Dojima.

The ending especially has genuinely had me puzzling for days as to just why it's there, as it seems like they went out of their way to ruin any good messaging the game had. The game struggles with establishing stakes (everyone in the main cast just seems invincible) and keeping a consistent plot thread (that B plot sidelines stuff REALLY hard but pretends it isn't), but the ending is really what pushed me over the line from viewing the story as just unpolished to straight up not good. It's still got the fun, action movie quality of presentation that Yakuza is always good at, and it at least avoids tumbling head-over-ass into outright nationalist propaganda like something like Ghost of Tsushima does, but it's definitely a very weak follow up to Yakuza 2, and it's not difficult for me to see why people weren't exactly blown away by this game (reviewers derided it as "Yakuza 2.5", as it wasn't a "real" next-gen Yakuza yet) back when it came out.

As far as the world design goes, it's pretty darn solid and has a really nice amount of content (as my 60 hour playtime should be self evident of). The side quests are good fun, and exploring around the content-rich surroundings of Gion are also Yakuza at its finest. I don't usually indulge in the hostess club and gambling stuff in Yakuza, and this game was no different. That stuff just doesn't interest me. The quests on the other hand have some neat spins to them, as there are 100 normal quests (my personal favorites of which were the ones involving helping a foreigner with very bad Japanese) and then there are 20 loan sharking quests and 20 bounties to collect as well. While it doesn't make a toooon of sense how Kiryu can both be a wanted man but also call the police to arrest people, the special conditions on some of them (like, "take them alive" (i.e. use only your fists)) do make them a bit more special, and it all begins to have more and more of that Yakuza-weirdness that the games start to lean into more and more after the first game. That said, there's also a cop who patrols around the streets outside of Gion, and if he sees you, you'll need to run away, and if he catches you, it's a REALLY hard fight you'll almost certainly lose. That cop is awful and it's a terrible mechanic they should feel bad about putting in the game XD.

The combat is VERY much Yakuza 2 but with a new twists: swords! Now, of course there's the "Kiryu Kazuma has never killed anyone" jokes, and that's soooorta in play here. It is absolutely hilarious with the apparently non-lethal viciousness that some of your heat actions with the swords can pull off. You effectively have five fighting styles (unarmed, katana, short katana, big sword/club, and dual-swords) of which you can have 4 of equipped at a time. Getting a shiny new sword is always fun, and even though I found that normal katana (high offense) and dual-blades (a defensive stance, believe it or not) were my two favorites, getting new heat actions and messing around with the other weapons are always nice, and the combat is as reliably a fun time as it is in any other Yakuza game. The only thing I'm a little unsure of (at least I don't remember if it was so present in Yakuza 1 and 2) is how easy it felt it was to get knocked down and just really bullied by dudes charging up sword attacks. Part of that certainly may be down to playing on hard mode (which I still don't think is terribly difficult, but a more fun challenge than normal), but it was something minorly annoying for the encounters with loads of dudes to fight against.

The presentation is pretty good but certainly hasn't aged well. This is a relatively early PS3 game having come out in 2008 (so it also has no trophies, which is weird to get used to), and while the main characters look quite nice, the contrast with the lower detailed models makes the game have quite an uncanny look to it at times during certain in-game cutscenes. There's also not a ton of music, and while the special tracks for certain fights and longer scenes are great, the normal battle music is something I really started to tune out pretty quickly. It's nothing special, but it's nothing great either, and while 1600's Kyoto does look pretty, it's not quite the hustle and bustle of 2000's Kamurocho.

Verdict: Hesitantly Recommended. Part of me does wanna not recommend this, but I really can't say that I didn't enjoy a majority of my time with this game. The story is very irritating in retrospect, especially the ending, but I enjoyed my time going through it, and I enjoyed the large amount of time just playing the game. That's why I put so much time into it. I understand most people reading this likely won't be in a position to play the game themselves unless it gets some kind of Kiwami-esque remake, but there are SO many other Yakuza games on the PS3 that you're really better off playing one of them. That said, if you DO feel the need (and have the ability) to play Yakuza Kenzan, it will likely be an underwhelming time, but it is certainly still an enjoyable game.

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𝖤𝗇𝗍𝗋𝗒 𝗇𝗈. 3 - The Journey to Improve my Japanese
Finished in May 2020
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Easy to Understand ★☆☆☆☆
- Honestly I barely understood 80% what was written, mainly when receiving letters. Sometimes, Miyamoto Musashi repeat to himself what he's just heard "つまり...", and would smooth a bit. However everybody speaks in a traditional way in Edo period making things really harder. I believe a N1 or N2 here is a must.

Gameplay ★★★★☆
- If you are used to Yakuza series, be prepared! Bare-hand attacks are so weak compared to weapons and the system requires lots of skills and quick thinking. It was really challenging and reminded of Way of The Samurai a bit. If you want to take a deep breath, substories are there to give you some laughes.

Story ★★★☆☆
- The story is very interesting and it seems to be based on the story of Musashi Miyamoto in the Edo era! I had a bit of trouble understanding everything, at least I managed to grasp the basics. The characters are from the Yakuza series, but in this game, their characteristics and personalities in the new characters have matched very well.

Played with the menu translation mod, and by following egomaniac's Let's Play and ThePatrick's guide. Sometimes more trouble than it was worth to do the side stuff (gave up on substories in the middle of Chapter 9) but a great set of locations just to spend time wandering around in. Coming straight from Yakuza 3 to this, I think the fact I couldn't say that about the Okinawa areas was my issue with that part of that game more than anything. This actually make me appreciate 3 less as this came out the year before but seems ahead of it in some QoL ways. Combat feels much better too but could be because of how the Remaster supposedly broke the combat in 3. Though despite the character's whole deal being his two sword style, I always found it more fun to fight with just the one.

It's a decent game, let down by some wack combat that makes the crowd fights a drag. Out of the four RGG games I've played so far this easily has the worst combat, and that's including the original Yakuza. The game also has extremely long exposition dumps even for a Yakuza game which are doubly annoying if you're following a translated guide. I was a little tired of it towards the end for those reasons, so I would only recommend it to people who are planning on playing the series from start to finish. Getting to a new story beat was always interesting and the game has great characters, bosses, and music, so overall I liked it but wish the combat wasn't so stilted.