I had more than a few problems with Kiwami 2 during my time with the game. I felt the combat was less interesting than either of the previous installments I played (though the destructible environments were pretty cool) and couldn't help but get a little distracted from the story as the twists kept piling on. The more familiar with this series I've become, the more I've come to realize that part of Yakuza 0's brilliance was derived from its' creators' knowledge of where it would end. As such, they were able to tell a very specific story about succession in Japanese gangland and the fragility of friendship and honor within that pressure cooker.
Kiwami 2 (and, I suppose, Yakuza 2 itself) is a far more ambitious tale, weaving in aspects of nationalism, identity and gender roles into its usual charcuterie of honor, sex kinks and male fragility. It all gets a bit too convoluted and/or ambitious for the amount of track it's given to run, though, resulting in a game that feels like a constant whiplash of memory disorientation.
The game intones memory epics like Rashomon without any of the narrative density and clever scripting that sort of story demands. Instead, what the plot needs the plot gets and it's not so important whether the player can make any sense of the progression at all.
Accepting that, however (and, admittedly, it's a easier for me to do so when consuming a Japanese-language video game about men that beat the shit out of each other with samurai swords for eight minutes before realizing they share a common enemy and becoming allies, until they become enemies again so that it can be a total surprise when they wind up having been allies all along. This is just how so much Eastern media I've consumed prefers to tell stories, prioritizing emotional catharsis and shock value over continuity or sensible action, and the RGG studio has by the this point honed that nature of their games to the point it's impossible to miss that they're in on the joke.
For the CURIOUS, Kiwami 2 seems likely to be the most like Zero in terms of gameplay thanks to its familiar mini-games and same two city zones. In that sense, it's probably also Zero's best companion if you had to choose any two Yakuza games to play (I can't speak to 6 or 7, but I can tell 3, 4 and 5 ain't it) and it's that comforting feeling that you could do all of it or none of it that this studio really nailed with Zero that carries Kiwami 2 through some of its more convoluted moments.
There's also this thing with these babies...
Kiwami 2 (and, I suppose, Yakuza 2 itself) is a far more ambitious tale, weaving in aspects of nationalism, identity and gender roles into its usual charcuterie of honor, sex kinks and male fragility. It all gets a bit too convoluted and/or ambitious for the amount of track it's given to run, though, resulting in a game that feels like a constant whiplash of memory disorientation.
The game intones memory epics like Rashomon without any of the narrative density and clever scripting that sort of story demands. Instead, what the plot needs the plot gets and it's not so important whether the player can make any sense of the progression at all.
Accepting that, however (and, admittedly, it's a easier for me to do so when consuming a Japanese-language video game about men that beat the shit out of each other with samurai swords for eight minutes before realizing they share a common enemy and becoming allies, until they become enemies again so that it can be a total surprise when they wind up having been allies all along. This is just how so much Eastern media I've consumed prefers to tell stories, prioritizing emotional catharsis and shock value over continuity or sensible action, and the RGG studio has by the this point honed that nature of their games to the point it's impossible to miss that they're in on the joke.
For the CURIOUS, Kiwami 2 seems likely to be the most like Zero in terms of gameplay thanks to its familiar mini-games and same two city zones. In that sense, it's probably also Zero's best companion if you had to choose any two Yakuza games to play (I can't speak to 6 or 7, but I can tell 3, 4 and 5 ain't it) and it's that comforting feeling that you could do all of it or none of it that this studio really nailed with Zero that carries Kiwami 2 through some of its more convoluted moments.
There's also this thing with these babies...