As a big fan of the series, I really enjoyed Kiwami on my first playthrough back in 2019. Since then, I've played through all but four games in the series (Ishin, Black Panther 1/2, and Fist of the North Star) and even gotten the platinum trophy/100% on seven of the games I've played, so I've got a new view on a lot of the entries with some new context. Because of that, I view Kiwami as easily the worst game in the series on a multitude of levels.

For this replay, I played using the Xbox application on PC which had a significant amount of technical issues. The more I played the game, the worse the load times were to the point where entering a coliseum match took about 10 seconds at one point. The game had consistent framerate issues, which my GTX 1070 shouldn't be experiencing and didn't experience on the Steam version of this game. Lastly, I experienced several crashes in random places, the most infuriating one happening as I selected the save option. I wouldn't recommend this version of the game due to technical issues.

Now onto the complaints about the game itself. Kiwami is a remake of Yakuza 1, but instead of improving the game it either adds in unnecessary bloat or changes that make the game play worse. Every single boss in the series reuses a moveset from a different boss in a different game, which doesn't sound bad until you realize that the gameplay does not suit these bosses. The skill system from 0 returns which isn't bad on its own, but the leveling system requires a metric ton of experience points to get the most useful and needed skills. On top of that, the Majima Everywhere system is extremely obstructive to gameplay since he can just interrupt anything you're doing for a long-winded and tedious fight that you need to do AT LEAST 50 TIMES to max out your Dragon fighting style. The gun cripple mechanic from Yakuza 0 returns in a game filled with enemies that use guns, over half of all enemies moves have super armor that you can only counter with the Tiger Drop ability, which requires you to grind in the coliseum against obnoxious opponents, the vast majority of moves you get from leveling up are insanely situational and you probably won't use unless you're a crazy no-damager, there isn't a single completely unique minigame in this game (Mesuking is just a reskin of the atrocious cat fights from 0), and a lot of substories from the original PS2 release of 1 are ruined by either additions of unnecessary sequel substories or by adding new dialogue that was completely also completely unnecessary. I've got even more gripes to go off with, but I'll stop here.

I wholeheartedly do not recommend Kiwami as a game. Even past being a Yakuza game, it's really frustrating to play to the point where I doubt the game was ever even playtested. As a Yakuza game, it's embarrassing how poorly the asset reuse is done, especially since you have games like 4 and 0 that do a fantastic job reusing old assets. I recommend the PS2 release of Yakuza 1 because despite it's worse graphics, it's got really punchy and fun combat, none of the bloat Kiwami added, some of the best atmosphere the series has ever had, and an absolute banger of a soundtrack. I would also like to recommend the PS2 release of Yakuza 2. While Kiwami 2 isn't as bad of a game, Yakuza 2 has some of the best combat in the series as well as one of the best soundtracks plus the same grungy atmosphere of Yakuza 1. Still holding out for official re-releases of the games, but as of now the best way to play them is through emulation, and if your computer can run Kiwami, you can emulate Yakuza 1 and 2.

Definitely one of the weaker Yakuza games, but Dead Souls shouldn't be written off. It's got a good story without any annoying typical Yakuza twists, solid substories, and the absolute best characterization for Majima and Akiyama. It's still a fun game but it's unfortunate that it gets samey quick and the performance on PS3 is lacking to say the least (thank god for emulation, it runs like a dream on RPCS3). I've spent a lot of the game due to writing a guide on it and I feel people should appreciate the game more for what it is - a silly Yakuza spin-off to celebrate the old game engine