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
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