Honestly for as much as the genre shift leads to some not-great elements early on this is absolutely a 4.5 for that ending along like GODDAMN (actually teared up)

So I'm assuming I'm nearing the endgame based on how many chapters 0 and Kiwami 1 have (on Chapter 12 atm) and I think that my thoughts can be summed up as: Part of me feels that the combat having been changed into a turn-based RPG definitely feels a last-minute thing (they REALLY should have toned down the overworld battles with how borderline useless they feel after a while in terms of what you get out of them), and after entering Yokohama it feels like the game takes its time to get REALLY going (not helped by the first real dungeon being pretty damn dull tbh), but this being Yakuza the main cast is so damn strong that they really do carry those earlier sections and once things pick up I mean goddamn

I AM STILL CHIPPING AWAY AT THIS BTW