Kiwami is a great remake, but a poor sequel to Zero.

Kiwami takes, copies, and strips down some of Zero's content. For example, there's nothing new in terms of minigames, with some of their completion list objectives taking way longer to complete even with cheat items. The only other "new" ones are the arcade games which always change.

The combat is at least slightly better, but also a bit of an inconvenience when it comes to upgrading. Kiryu's moveset is tuned to be a bit more balanced but also still broken. The new heat system along with the enemy regeneration puts a bit of a twist on the combat, but inconveniently you need to unlock the skill that prevents enemy regen. It should really have been an ability that should already be unlocked when it's for a system that's new to this game and is used at the very start.
Upgrading Kiryu's Dragon of Dojima style is also a pain as well. For a style that was the very original moveset of the first game, it should not be that hard to upgrade it in the remake. Hunting Majima is easy, but hunting a specific scenario of Majima can be a stick in the cog sometimes. Also even though I love Majima, I really think he appears way too frequently during regular gameplay.
Important story bosses reusing very known movesets really sucks and makes them feel less important and comes off really lazy, like how Shimano uses Mr. Shakedown's moves. It would've been cool if some used the moveset from the original instead with added moves

The story itself could've been way better than the original, but still falls short. While it builds Nishiki from Zero to make his side of the story more interesting, it does nothing for Yumi who is supposed to be Kiryu's love interest and the reason why the story exists in the first place. All we know is that both Kiryu and Yumi love each other but don't show or develop more of that relationship, which is a problem considering her importance in this story.

I'm not sure what's going on with the cutscenes in this game, but they feel slightly lower quality compared to Zero. Every time I'm watching it, it feels like its slightly blurrier or oversharpened on focused objects and becomes off putting. Speaking of cutscenes, I find it also lazy that they're reusing the same animations for cutscenes from the original game. While it's great to be faithful, some of the facial animations or movement feel a bit off if you're observant enough. With most of the games content already being reused from Zero, I really think they could've at least spent some time making new animations for the cutscenes.

This was a pretty disappointing and mediocre title in the series, brought down even further by it's predecessor. Really a shame