After that God Forsaken Blockuza 3 game, this one did a cast reboot. Akiyama carries this game hard; his antics with Hana are funny, and he brings something that a game about fashionable criminals lacks—that suave attitude of his. Saejima is a meh character, and his plot twist is so stupid that I just pretend it isn't there. Tanimura is fun, and his ties to the Chinese meant that he could have been an interesting character were it not for the actor's real-life scandal, making RGG bin the whole character. Kiryu feels like an afterthought to the story, which is okay since the rest of the cast is good. The kareoke songs are all great; the revamped combat system makes Blockuza 3 look like it's 2 generations apart and the OST is fire, the jazzy feel just compliments Akiyama so much.

Unbearable. Besides the memes, this game is the worst. Enemies block every single time, so it stops being a beat 'em up and becomes a teleports behind you 'em up. The 120+ side missions are just mind-bogglingly stupid, especially since you could condense them to like 40 missions as they all relate to each other. The hostesses side content is a much worse version of its 0 and Kiwami 2 predecessors. Despite that, I still can't understand the story; it feels like a Kojimbo fever dream. What does the CIA super-assassin have to do with anything? Why do I meet up with a powerful politician if I'm an ex-Yakuza? Why do I have to care about every kid if they'll just get sidelined by the third hour? Also, don't get me started on the clunkyness of the controls and minigames. It's hard to rate this game because if you are playing the story chronologically, the whiplash from Kiwami 2 to this will make you hate it more than it probably deserves. This game is in dire need of a remake because, as it stands, it blows huge dick, and I wouldn't wish it's completion on my worst enemy.