Playing through the Yakuza series these past few months has been a treat because despite the main stories for each game all being essentially crime drama movies you'll never know what you might get. Whether its an inter-clan battle over the position of one of the family captains while tying into a much bigger conspiracy, or its a story of trying to find a missing friend while you protect her daughter, deal with your former clan, and try to get through to your brother who has fallen from grace you can generally expect a pretty interesting story front and center while the rest of the game is filled with wacky and interesting side stories and minigames. Yakuza Kiwami 2 mostly continues this trend. This review is going to heavily go into spoilers for the main story of Yakuza Kiwami 2, just as a heads up. Before we talk about those aspects of the game though I do want to touch on the general gameplay of the game first.

Due to engine changes Kiwami 2 has a different combat style from Yakuza Zero and Kiwami 1, and honestly while it took me a bit to adjust to not having styles I did grow to like it by the end. The actual acts of attacking, dodging, blocking, and using heat actions all remain relatively the same but the way the game's new engine makes them feel more fluid on top of how all of them have been reworked slightly just make them all feel better and more impactful than the combat in Zero or Kiwami 1 did. Kiwami 2 also removes the worst mechanic from Kiwami 1, the essence of Kiwami actions that you have to use when a boss charges up otherwise they regain a ton of health, and replaces it with a much better system of finishing heat actions that you can activate towards the end of boss battles for a big cinematic finish to the fight. These changes come together to make a fun and fluid combat system that I think is probably the best in the series for me as of me writing this.

Building on top of the base combat system weapons and picking up items off the street has also been revamped, and I both like and dislike these changes personally. The way they have items bound to the dpad instead of styles made me want to use weapons more since I could have multiple equipt to switch through at a time, and generally most of the weapons and their heat actions were really fun to use, but I do feel like they gutted pick up weapon objects in doing this. For those that don't know in Yakuza 0 and Yakuza Kiwami there was a combat form for Kiryu, Beast style, that allowed you to pick up items from the area of the overworld map you were in such as signs or bikes and just start swinging them around like crazy to do massive damage to groups. This is still in kiwami 2 too a degree but it's severely cut back in terms of how many uses of the picked up objects you have, how many objects can be picked up, and if they have unique heat actions like in Kiwami 1 and Zero. I do get why this system was cut back, since it's not needed and it allowed them to refine Kiryu's hand to hand combat a lot more so this isn't the biggest of complaints, but it is a part of the two games before this that I particularly enjoyed that got cut down so I wanted to talk about it a bit.

While we're on the topic of the overworld I do want to say that I really love how Kiwami 2 expands and adds more functionality to the two cities, Kamurocho and Sotenbori, that we go back and forth between. You can just walk into buildings now instead of needing to load into every small building you may want to visit for a side activity and while this is again a minor thing it's a really cool change that I greatly appreciated coming off of Zero and Kiwami. This functionality of including small buildings and shops on the main world map mixed with the increased graphical quality and crowd sizes of Kiwami 2 makes the world feel a lot more lively and bustling than in previous games. It's cool how small touches like this can make a game feel a lot more alive and I think it's a very notable thing about Kiwami 2 that could easily get looked over.

I think an aspect of why the dev team decided that it was important to make the restaurants and stores part of the overworld is that it also is more important to visit some of these places this time around, mainly in regard to restaurants. Instead of just healing you when you eat like in Zero and Kiwami when you eat in Kiwami 2 you get various amounts of the five different kinds of exp points that are available in the game. Each different kind of point corresponds to a different stat and is used to upgrade different aspects of Kiryu and unlock moves. Restaurants are where you'll be visiting most often to get these points since eating will supply you with way more points than combat usually will. I'm not the biggest fan of this style of leveling up because it feels a tad frustrating to try and manage all five different kinds in order to consistently upgrade your stats on top of also unlocking new abilities since some stat upgrades and most abilities require upgrade points from multiple different exp pools. It's easy enough to get points if you eat consistently throughout the game, but it still feels like a step down from Kiwami 1's level system to me personally.

I'm not a completionist so while I didn't do all the side stories in the game, the ones I did do were really enjoyable and pretty par for the course for the franchise. Whether it's being a VA for a Gay dating sim, being a shirtless model, stopping a dude from killing his girlfriend with a knife on a rooftop, finding a puppy for an orphanage, or beating a millionare at Virtua Fighter 2, there's plenty of fun and unique side stories that can be found throughout this game's world. Something I noticed about this game's handling of substories is that instead of just instantly forcing you to chose if you want to do them right as you run into them like in Zero and Kiwami they sort of structured them as to where you would get introduced to the story character, and then be free to approach it whenever you want later now that you know of its existence. Like a few other things I've mentioned it's not the biggest design change, but it was noticeably different in how the NPC's giving the sub stories interacted with you; which in turn made the world feel a bit more alive during my playthrough.

Finally getting into talking about the story for this game, it's mostly alright with the ending completely destroying any good will I had for it. The main plot of the game follows Kiryu getting dragged back into the Tojo Clan's shenanigans when the person he left in charge of the clan at the last game, Terada, is killed and in his dying breath he begs Kiryu to bring an alliance between the two big Yakuza clans on their side of Japan, the Tojo and the Omi. This alliance is stopped and delayed due to interference from the son of the the Omi alliance chairman, Ryuji Goda, who wants to completely wipe out the Tojo and take out over their territory. This battle against Ryuji and the Omi is intertwined with a revenge plot from the few members of the Korean Jingweon mafia that Kiryu's father figure Kazama spared when he and other Tojo clan members were ordered to eliminate them all Twenty-six years ago. Kiryu is joined on this quest by his new love interest, the Yakuza Huntress Sayama, as the two of them try to unravel the plots and mysteries of these two plot lines. Honestly I do think the game handles both of these plot lines well enough and they kept me engaged and trying to figure out where they were going with them, right up until the ending of the game where it completely managed to unravel the entire story and make everything feel stupid in a fifteen minute timespan.

Remember Kiryu's pal Terada who died within the first twenty minutes of the game? Surprise, he's alive. He also is the one who has been planning the events of this game for the past twenty-six years because he was apparently also a member of the Jingweon mafia that was spared by Kazama, who then decided to get revenge on the Tojo clan by moving up the ranks of the Omi Alliance, defecting to the Tojo clan after Kazama dies and has his son make him the new chairman of the Tojo clan, only to fake his death to cause a war with the Omi Alliance and have both of them take each other out. This part of the ending just doesn't work and feels really out of nowhere. There was no foreshadowing or build up to this reveal, and then they show us that they just left off part of the flashback to the original raid on the Jingweon, that they showed six times before this without any indication of this being a thing that happened that night, in order to throw it in here and make this make sense at the last second. However it doesn't make sense and just feels horribly convoluted. I wish I could say that's as bad as it got, but unfortunately that's not the case.

Immediately after this Terada is betrayed by his benefactor and biggest supporter in the Omi, a family captain named Takashima, and killed. But not before he activates the giant bomb that he brought to the roof, giving everyone 10 minutes to escape. Takashima is then killed by Ryuji, who despite everything you put him through in the boss fight right before this plus being shot multiple times is still able to get up and kill a man. Then instead of trying to escape the bomb Kiryu and Ryuji decide they need to have a final fight right then and there, despite both of them resolving their fight earlier and probably not needing to do this right next to a bomb. Kiryu wins again, Ryuji dies, Sayama comes back up the tower after being sent down to escape the bomb, and instead of trying to escape both of them accept death and start making out as the bomb ticks down to zero… but then doesn't go off in the post credits because Terada had disarmed the bomb before setting it to blow. For some unknown reason.

This ending is bizarre and really dumb in my opinion, and not dumb in the "oh my god this is hilariously weird I love it" kind of dumb like earlier in the game when a golden castle was hidden under Osaka Castle or when Kiryu fought tigers, it just felt needlessly convoluted and poorly written. I feel like if you just removed the Terada reveal and the bomb and instead had Takashima show up at the last second after you fight Ryuji, have that conflict play out, and then fight Ryuji again with him still dying at the top of the tower it would have felt infinitely better narratively and writing wise. I'm not kidding when I say this whole ending sequence significantly lowered my opinion of the game overall, which is unfortunate because I did enjoy the narrative up to this point despite its weird pacing at times.

Yakuza Kiwami 2 is a prime example of a game that has a good run throughout but doesn't manage to stick the landing at all and ends up stumbling and falling on its face right at the end. That being said it was a good run up to the ending in my opinion, a bit poorly paced at times as I mentioned but still having some really solid moments and decent-good writing. It has the best combat you'll find of the Kiwamis + Zero, some really solid sub stories, and looks absolutely stunning while opening up the world a bit more. It's really unfortunate that the ending played out the way that it did, because if it wasn't for that I probably would have liked this almost as much as I like Zero. But, unfortunately while it is a great game I can't really say I prefer it to the other two games in the franchise that I've played at this point. Still definitely a game worth checking out in my opinion, but keep your expectations in check going into the finale.

8/10

As a big fan of horror media I've been trying to branch out and try more horror games since outside of Resident Evil and (arguably) Dead Rising I haven't played a lot of horror or horror adjacent games. Which lead to me trying out the Metro series, games that aren't entirely horror but have enough of it in their DNA for me to count them as such. While I did like the first game in the series, Metro 2033, it had its fair share of problems that brought the experience down for me a bit. I can safely say that for the most part those problems were fixed for Last Light. There are so many systems and general gameplay elements that were tweaked for this sequel that just makes the game as a whole feel so much better to play and made it a much more enjoyable experience overall.

One system in particular that I would like to touch on first is the filter system the series has. A big part of the game's lore is that humanity cannot survive in the open air thanks to how toxic the air has become due to radiation poisoning, which leads to needing air filters whenever you venture onto the surface world. These filters run on a timer that limit how long you can survive on the surface or within pockets of toxic air within the metro. I don't have a problem with the mechanic itself and found it added to the tension a lot in certain areas. For example there was a boss fight on the surface that I had to figure out how to defeat in less than a minute since when I reached the checkpoint before the boss I only had about a minute of filter time left. It made the boss a lot more difficult and forced me to strategize and really figure out how the boss's mechanics worked in order to beat it on time, and even then I barely made it to the next level without passing out in game. Experiences like these really elevate the feeling of tension the game tries to create and made it a really memorable part of the game for me. The system itself is great on paper and when it works, it really works. There is a problem with this system though, which is the number of filters in the game.

In my opinion to get a system like this right you need to balance it well around having enough filters but not too many to make the system feel pointless. Last Light doesn't really accomplish this and ends up going to both ends of the extremes on this issue. The start of the game is pretty light on filters and you're constantly struggling through a lot of these areas just trying to find the next filter to the point of being more frustrating then fun. This is exacerbated by the fact that unlike the first game you can no longer buy filters in the early game and have to make due with only what you find in the tunnels. This then switches over about halfway into the game into having too many filters. You still can't buy them but suddenly you have 25 minutes worth of filter time from random large groups of them you find during a certain section and as long as you're not just ignoring every pick up, you maintain that amount of filter time for the rest of the game. While throwing more filters in late game as they expect you to spend more time outside makes sense and I think it's a logical course of progression, it does feel like it was less of a progression and more just going from having no filters to never having to worry about filters. I would have personally liked it if it was a bit better balanced, and I hope Exodus improves on that aspect, but it's still a cool system that I enjoy during the points where it's balanced well.

Speaking of balance I would like to say that they really fixed the balance on human vs human combat this time around. My biggest issue with 2033 was how much of a slog the combat against other human opponents was because of the arenas you fought them in, and I am glad to say that Last Light definitely fixes that. It actually feels fun to fight human enemies this time due to the changes to the general level design for combat encounters.

The rooms for human enemy encounters feel like they were designed in a way that makes both combat and stealth feel really good this time around. In 2033 the level designs for most human encounters felt like they designed the levels without human enemies in mind, and because of that a lot of the stealth or just outright combat that was intended for those moments felt more frustrating than fun because any attempts at stealth were ruined by the level design not really giving you places to hide but then also not giving you a ton of places that provide true cover at the same time for full on combat. Thankfully Last Light takes care of both of these problems and manages to craft a lot of levels against humans that allows either approach to work well in most cases. Most of my time I would go for a stealth approach until I deemed that the herd was thinned enough to take them out in a fire fight and then went from there. Both approaches worked well and felt like you could tackle the entire game with either gameplay style if you desired.

On the topic of level design, while I do love the general aesthetic of the game and feel like it fits very well within the tones and themes the games try to set up, it can be a bit too similar at times. I may just be bad at videogames and the whole "seeing" thing in general but a lot of times the environments, especially in the tunnels, all blended together and it became a tad difficult to figure out where I needed to go exactly when things would divert from a linear path. I would generally find it after fumbling around a bit but the earlier parts of the game were rough due to most of them looking incredibly similar. Thankfully the later parts of the game address this issue by giving you a lot of unique outside areas that really showcase the game's aesthetic while also having subtle level design that shows you were to go without telling you where to go. The final trek through the garden and the surrounding area to get back to the city you started in is honestly beautiful and really shows off the art direction to its fullest in my opinion. This area also just happens to be one of the best parts of the game in terms of story.
So the story of Metro Last Light is that after the bad end of the first game where you accidentally nuked and obliterated a race of people known as the dark ones after thinking they were hostile the whole game, only to find out that they were trying to make contact with humanity instead of kill them, you are alerted to the existence of a child sized dark one that has been spotted living around what remains of their nest. Your mission from there is to then retrieve the baby dark one; which unfortunately doesn't go as planned when the nazis show up. You then spend the rest of the game trying to get back home after escaping from the nazis, combating the reds, and then reuniting with the baby dark one in order to stop the reds from wiping out your friends. The story is alright for the most part but the last third of the game is where it really shines in my opinion.

After you reunite with the young dark one he essentially acts as someone to question your morality and make you think about the choices you've made, both as just the character Artyom but also as the player. I found this angle of having a child character essentially questioning why you did things a certain way and reminding you of how you had a hand in genociding his people (though the player did have no say in letting that happen in the first game) really compelling, because it makes you think of the actions that have lead to this and think about the actions you can do now. They remind me of Clementine from the first season of the walking dead game in a way with how they act as someone who makes you explain yourself for things you've done and makes it more apparent when you realize you've done something wrong because now you have someone reacting to all of your choices and actions. It's a dynamic I love because of how it makes the player think about what they're doing and what they're allowing to happen within the game's world and I think it is done really well here for the brief time that the young dark one is with you. That all being said, the game introduced this far too late into the game.

I really like this dynamic but I feel like the fact that the small dark one just isn't relevant for over half of the game does lead to feeling like we didn't get enough time with them. While it would have been a bit difficult I could see a way for them to incorporate this character throughout more of the story and keep them as something that accomplishes what I mentioned earlier but on a much wider/larger scale. I still love how they're used in the game and how they play into the plot as a whole, I just think it was a bit of a wasted opportunity to restrict how much this dynamic can be explored in this way. I understand needing to not have the dark one in the story for certain sections to make some reveals land, but I feel that there may have been a way to keep the dark one out of those moments without writing them out of the story entirely like they were in the final product.
Regardless of this Metro Last Light manages to improve in almost every way on its predecessor and I am extremely impressed with how much they managed to improve between games. Still a few things that need to be worked out to make it a incredible experience to me but this game overall was one I had a great time with.

8.5/10