After playing through Yakuza 0, I just couldn't shake the feeling of wanting to play more in the sandbox of Kamurocho, so I jumped in. Yakuza Kiwami is an interesting title in the series, as it's a remake of the original Yakuza on PS2 in 2005. Yakuza Kiwami faithfully remakes and in my opinion improves upon the original in many ways. I didn't play the original all the way through, however I remember playing it at a friend's house back in the day, getting at least halfway through the main story, being more distracted by the minigames. You can see RGG Studios using the foundation of Yakuza 0, which released a year prior, as well as 10 years of making games in the series at that point to remake Kiwami for a modern audience, while still retaining the feeling of the original. The PS2 Yakuza had a fixed camera angle, in the vein of the classic Resident Evil games. That camera angle is removed in Kiwami, having it changed to the traditional third person, over the shoulder view behind Kiryu, which I prefer. The original also had an English localization, which hearing now is funny to look back on, but suffers compared to today's standard as back then voice acting in games was just improving. Kiwami opts to have most of the original Japanese voice actors return to re-voice the character lines with English subtitles. Again, I prefer this to the original, as much as hearing Mark Hamill as Majima is entertaining, the Japanese cast emit so much emotion and conviction in their lines. A personal standout being Kazuhiro Nakaya as Nishiki who I thought was also fantastic in 0.

The story of Yakuza is a beautiful crime drama, following the events of Yakuza 0, it picks up in 1995, with Kiryu now as lieutenant advisor of the Dojima Family. Kiryu very quickly gets thrown into another situation involving a murder and ends up serving 10 years in prison. After his release in 2005, he has to not only adapt to the advancement of technology and the way life is lived at that time, but also quickly unravel a mystery involving another shocking murder and the theft of 10 billion yen from the Tojo Clan. What I believe is so great about Kiwami is how they also added scenes for more context that wasn't present in the original. Without spoiling the story of the game, protagonist Kiryu suffers pain and anguish throughout the story and at the beginning of each chapter, we see a cutscene that takes place while Kiryu is in prison that involves his best friend Nishiki and how his life is spiraling without Kiryu to be there for him.

These are so well done as in the original, we only play what happens to Kiryu, but we never get added motivations of other major characters in the story, helping us understand why Kiryu feels so strongly as he does. That's why Yakuza 0, in my opinion, is the ideal starting point for new players of the series. You essentially grow up with Kiryu and his friends, even if they aren't on screen, you understand Kiryu's devotion to his family. You learn of the inner workings of the Tojo Clan, the hierarchy and most importantly, the motivations of the family leaders that become so vital in Kiwami.

Some substories in 0 are even vital to Kiwami as for example, you meet Shinji, a punk kid in a biker gang that ends up in Kiwami as Kiryu's right hand man in the family after all that occurs. Yakuza 0 makes so many different plot points and details mean that much more in Kiwami, it becomes a direct sequel to 0 that adds to the lore of the series, and I think that RGG Studios did a really great job interweaving a prequel with the developer’s 1st title in the series. You also can't forget the traditional minigames, from claw machines, pocket circuit racing, casino games, bowling, batting cages, even a card game with scantily clad women dressed as bugs (don't ask), all minigames in Kiwami are fun enough on their own to distract you from the main story.

In terms of gameplay, if you enjoyed the combat in 0, you are going to enjoy the combat in Kiwami, albeit with a caveat. In Yakuza 0, there were 8 fighting styles you can mess with in combat, 4 styles each for Majima and Kiryu respectively. However, as you only play as Kiryu in Kiwami, the fighting styles are split in half and you also don't have access to Sotenbori, a second city available in 0. One thing I believe Kiwami does better than 0 is with upgrading the styles. In 0, every upgrade you had to pay real money for, with late game upgrades costing a fortune. In Kiwami, you upgrade Kiryu's proficiency of three of his four styles with simple upgrade points you earn in fights and completing various activities in the game. What about the fourth style you ask? Well, that's where Majima comes into play.

In the original Yakuza on the PS2, you only fight Majima I believe twice. Yakuza Kiwami adds the now infamous Majima Everywhere gameplay mechanic, which is as ridiculous as it sounds. Very early in the game when Kiryu returns from his prison sentence, you stumble into Goro Majima, the second protagonist from Yakuza 0 and someone who beforehand had become obsessed with fighting Kiryu. He tells Kiryu he can tell he's gone soft in prison and he's going to keep fighting him until "The Dragon of Dojima" is back. With this mechanic, Majima can show up all over Kamurocho, in the streets, when you eat, even while relaxing from the main story playing minigames, Majima can just show up out of nowhere. It's jarring, hilarious and you get used to it very quickly and overall, I enjoy that Majima is present more in Kiwami than the small portion he had in the PS2 game.

Majima Everywhere is also important if you want to upgrade your "Dragon Style". Every time you defeat Majima, you can unlock an upgrade to your 4th style, which when fully upgraded makes Dragon Style the best of Kiryu's styles to use. There's also Dragon upgrades locked behind items you collect from Coliseum tournaments, with some of the best moves in Kiryu's arsenal tied behind training with a wise old man named Komaki with the items earned in said tournaments. With all that in mind, Yakuza Kiwami has plenty of stuff packed in that will have you playing for many hours without getting bored. Kiwami is a fun game, one that after I go over my complaints, will help illustrate that it is a beautifully flawed game.

I just want to get my biggest frustration out of the way, some of the bosses are annoyingly clunky, spam incessantly and are just irritating to deal with. I do not hate the bosses in the game, the problem is that by design even someone who has a feel for the combat as I feel I have, the boss fights test my patience with a cheap gimmick they all can perform. Every boss can heal themselves, having aura around them that matches the color of the style you need to use to perform a heat action on them, or they heal a huge chunk of health.

The worst instance of this particular problem is near the end of the game where you are fighting two highly skilled enemies wielding knives and pistols, with the "boss" running away at a distance shooting you with a pistol and lobbing grenades, a fight where two of them resurrect after knocking their life points to zero and the main boss healing multiple times. It has to be one of the most frustrating bosses I have every played from a combat system that isn't hard to master. It's with this fight and other bosses that you feel the PS2 stiff feeling to the game. And for any Yakuza diehard fan about to tell me about how it's a skill issue and Tiger Drop makes the fight easy; I figured that out. The other issue I had was the substories didn't have the same emotional impact as those present in 0, an issue I'm sure is due to them retaining the original games substories. This means they are simple quests of this random person trying to scam me so now I must fight them or a group of enemies. It just does not hit the same as substories in 0, but it's a remake so I understand that it is written that way in the original.

I don't want to even really touch on the story that has flaws in its writing compared to the prequel, as I want people to get a feel for my personal experience from the game without spoiling anything. Just know the writing is excellent at key moments and inconsistent in some small areas as that's to be expected from a game released in 2005. The writing in the series I'm sure as I go through it will get better with each numbered entry. Graphically the world looks great but there's still NPC's that have low resolution faces which I'm sure will not change until I get to the more recent entries. Lastly, as much as I love Majima Everywhere, it does get tedious when you can't get the right encounter to spawn for a particular upgrade. Consequently, Yakuza Kiwami is a great remake of the original game, the definitive way to experience Yakuza's first game. To me, it just does not hold up narratively and mechanically to the prequel I played before it. It's a small step down from 0, but still a great game to play through.

8/10

I've always heard great things about the Yakuza games, and I never had a good reason as to why it took so long for me to playthrough at least one of them. I purchased Yakuza 0 back in 2019 and have pushed it aside for new games. Boy, do I feel dumb for holding off for so long on this series. Yakuza 0 is a spectacular open world game with a gripping story, incredible characters and so many distractions that made my almost 100 hour play time so fulfilling and just so damn fun. Before I played Yakuza 0, everything I had ever seen from the series was memes and scenes that looked really goofy, so I was expecting the main storyline to be a crime drama that had serious elements but in the end was charming and whimsical.

Right from the start, my expectations were subverted as I was introduced to Kazuma Kiryu and his life in 1988 as a low-ranking member of the Dojima Family, being charged with a murder he didn't commit at an empty lot in Kamurocho. An empty lot which is the last thing his family needs to own in order to start a revitalization project that would promote the patriarch of the Dojima family as the new chairman of the main crime syndicate in the game, the Tojo Clan.

Kiryu's story goes side by side with the second main character in the game, Goro Majima. Majima's story without spoiling, has so much complexity and emotional weight packed in, and that's saying a lot with Kiryu's struggles in his journey. Before playing this game, I knew of Majima as a wacky character from clips I've seen, but this game gives him so much depth and character growth that I never would have expected in a game that also allows you to sing karaoke and race toy cars.

The characters in this game are so well written, and the switching from each characters every two chapters paced the game's story effectively, better than most games I've played with multiple protagonists. Each chapter had high stakes and was exhilarating to play, a crescendo of events that kept me invested all the way through. This game is a masterclass in story, which is incredible as it's a prequel to the main series.

The combat is easy to pick up, with each style having slick combos and punishing heat actions that look awesome in use. Some may find it simplistic and repetitive compared to some action games today, but investing in the skill tree rewards you with extra moves and heat actions that for me get the job done. Is it perfect, no, but the stiff combat has charm if you can endure some encounters throughout the game frustrating you. For Kiryu, I loved using Rush and Brawler styles for bosses and one on one encounters, while Beast style was my go-to for large crowds of enemies, the highlights of the style coming in areas with tons of weapons to pick up. For Majima, I used Breaker style for the big groups and Slugger style for everything else cause swinging a baseball bat around comes in handy in many a fight.

Yakuza 0 has so much extra content packed in, side missions are referred to as Substories, and these range from having real heartfelt exchanges with characters with clear messaging and a lot of care, to laugh out loud missions and downright insane shenanigans. I wouldn't have had it any other way, and the range of emotions over the course of the game shows that Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios knows how to get the best of both worlds.

Another thing RGG Studios can do really well is mini games, and I can't believe how much time I spent in the wide array of mini games, just having a blast at these well-designed distractions to the main story whilst making money in real estate and the cabaret club. The world looks good and feels alive with all the NPCs walking around the streets of Tokyo and Osaka.

I can talk about this game for hours, and it was hard finding things I did not enjoy about the game. Some issues I had would either fix themselves later on or not hinder my enjoyment. For example, earlier in the game I would be working my way towards an objective and be constantly bothered by random encounters, but you get an ability sometime later in the game that allows you to toss money in the air to distract these groups, so that saved me in spots when I just wanted to complete main missions and sub stories.

I can see some people get frustrated that there isn't an English dub and having to read a lot of text, but personally it never bothered me as I watch numerous anime with English subtitles. The sheer number of things to do in the game might be an issue for some in terms of pacing for the main story, and for me finding the right balance of main missions and side content is key to enjoying the game to the fullest.

In the end, Yakuza 0 has me hooked and now I'm excited to continue the series. This is one of the best recommendations I've ever been given to play. Even with minor nitpicks such as the lack of an autosave, a slow first few hours, Mr. Shakedown, and others that I may have forgotten, Yakuza 0 overshadows those things with an A+ narrative, deep characters, and an explorable world with extensive side activities you can get lost in. It may not be for everyone, but I'm sure glad it is for me.

9.5/10

To preface, this is the 1st Final Fantasy game I've ever played, so I did not have any attachments to the previous game's gameplay loops and direction. The combat is fun, using and combining the different Eikons abilities for stylish combos and high damage. The boss battles are a highlight for me as well as you take on other Eikons over the course of the main campaign, the spectacle and scale are a sight to behold.

The game was recommended to me as an RPG, however after playing, it felt to me more akin to a God of War style action-adventure hack n' slash. As I love Kratos' series of games, it felt familiar to me while also being distinctly Final Fantasy in its presentation and music. The score is phenomenal, and the voice acting is great, the standout being Ben Starr as main character Clive Rosfield. The story for the most part was entertaining, and I appreciated the active time lore that I can check when I pause the game, notably when certain plot points and character appearances are glossed over in cutscenes.

Now on to a couple of nitpicks, I did every side quest before tackling the final mission and I was not a fan of certain side missions, as they were there to just pad the length of the game, instead of enriching the lore and truly building the world of Valisthea. Certain missions make Clive the cliche video game errand boy of whatever town he is in instead of establishing genuine connections with the townspeople. These tasks come across as boring and there were a couple of times where I got the feeling of either turning the game off and coming back to it later or just skipping it for the main story. To me, it messes with the pacing of the game to go from an epic Eikon battle to a long quest of fetching materials or saving a character you've never interacted with prior, which stops my excitement of the main storyline to a screeching halt.

The best side missions in my eyes are towards the end of the game, where Clive has purposeful missions with the ones closest to him in his party and those in the hideaway. Without spoiling, these missions along with the hunt board are the side content that I enjoyed the most in my playthrough.

Another issue I had with the game was I feel they time jumped too quickly where we could have had more meaningful interactions with characters that had little screen time. Each stage of Clive's life could have been extensive arcs to play through, comparable to the seasons of Game of Thrones that I believe Square Enix was inspired by for this game. For example, instead of jumping from teenage Clive so quickly after the incident at Phoenix Gate to the present, there could have been more time spent with his father Elwin, uncle Byron, and even his mother Anabella whom he has a strenuous relationship with to further show their very different relationship dynamics. This would help humanize Clive further than what we got in the first few hours of the game. You could have even seen some of the time Clive spent with the Bastards, the group of Bearers he was stationed with years after the incident, as his team could have offered different side stories to tell as well.

It's interesting they decided to condense the game in this way, as looking up Final Fantasy as a series and deciding which ones to play first, I see Final Fantasy X has a second game, VII has Crisis Core and the remake is being split into two games, and XIII has TWO direct sequels. All this to say maybe FF XVI could have benefitted from being split into 2 games or more as well, so we could have had more time to fall in love with these characters in the game's world.

Overall, I did enjoy my time with Final Fantasy XVI, with a fluid and responsive combat system, with bombastic boss fights, a beautiful score and sublime voice acting. Clive's story is an epic of pomp and circumstance akin to a season of Game of Thrones that I wished had more story beats to watch his character grow up in and establish more personal connections with the vast cast of side characters. Seeing how others feel about this game, especially the debate between action combat versus turn-based combat, I'm interested in playing other games in the series and seeing how this game holds up to them, because I have heard some incredible things about other entries.

8.5/10