It's called Yakuza 2 because there's two yakuzas. Did you know that?

After I finished Yakuza 1 last year, I was eager see what Yakuza 2 had in store. At first I didn't think much of it because it felt like the same ol' Yakuza in the same ol' Kamurocho, with nothing new to spice things up. I was gradually proven wrong throughout the playthrough and I couldn't be more thankful.

The devs brought their A-game, taking traits from Yakuza 1 and polishing them 'til they shined like a gem. We've got a new region to explore, twice the side quests, refined combat mechanics, more minigames, on top of a story I found more interesting than the first. The Jingweon mafia is a slightly interesting group of villains, but they have so many dumb plot twists that I stopped caring for them by the end of the game. Kaoru Sayama and Ryuji Goda were my favorite additions to the plot. Both of these characters had interesting dynamics with Kiryu, and I enjoyed their moments with him whenever they showed up.

Kaoru is a woman who hates yakuza, which is ironic considering that Kiryu is her greatest ally throughout the story. She wants to investigate the Jingweon mafia to discover whether or not she has connections to them, despite the warnings from everyone around her. Kaoru is headstrong and is willing to endure the toughest trials to know her past, which made it easy for me to root for her.

Then there's Ryuji, a ruthless man that wants nothing more than to be the strongest in the yakuza world, even attempting to usurp his father's position as Omi Alliance chairman to do it. He hates the idea of there being two dragons, and wants to eliminate Kiryu so that he will be the only Dragon. Despite Ryuji's impulsive nature, he is honorable and doesn't use dirty tactics to get what he wants. He has the same issue with Nishiki in the way that their presence in the story is lacking. The Jingweon mafia is given more attention than Ryuji which sucks, but I won't complain too much.

Then there's the combat, which is the strongest part of the game for me. I heard that Kiwami 2's combat was worse than Y2, and if that's true, I feel bad for whoever's missing out. The combat blows Y1 out of the water. I highly advise you to do as many substories and minigames as possible to use Kiryu at his peak. Kiryu is fluid and quick to control, and with the abundance of moves you can do, the possibilities are virtually limitless.

In the early game of Y2, I fought without thinking. Doing the usual combo strings and heat actions worked, but I lacked proper experience. That changed the day I saw DillionT doing a no-damage run of the Hiroshi Hayashi fight, and it made me realize that the game was deeper than I thought. I tried applying what I learned from Dillion's video to my playthrough, adapting to my opponent's skills while figuring out the most efficient way to beat them. It's like a puzzle. Let's say there's a karate guy with armored attacks... What can you do? You can grab him... Tiger Drop him... Do a Komaki Parry... Hit him with a counter heat action... It's just so rewarding to experiment with the ways you can fight.

Yakuza 2 is a fantastic game that improves on everything from before, and I can't recommend it enough. I had the misfortune of playing through this game's poor localization, so I sat through a bunch of superfluous "FUCKs" and "SHITs" in the script which was likely written by a middle schooler. But I had no idea there was a patch in progress to fix it... So once again, I beg you to apply Sylwahan's Restored patch to get a mature experience. I heard Yakuza 3 had a mixed reception from fans, but I'm looking forward to playing it anyway.

Big ups to @kevin_anderson for encouraging me to play and finish Yakuza 2