It's not that common for me to have played and finished three games in a series, so it felt extra special to hit that milestone with the Yakuza series. Yakuza Kiwami 2, a remake to Yakuza 2 released in 2017, is exactly what you would expect if you have played the first game or the prequel, so my recommendation to you starts and ends there. Did you enjoy the previous ones? Buy it. Did you not enjoy them? Don't buy it. As a fan of these two other games, I've had my expectations met, though Yakuza Kiwami 2 does not top Yakuza 0 for me due to some issues I had with its story and its combat.

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STORY(TELLING)/CHARACTERS | 8/10
Yakuza Kiwami 2's story builds on the ending of Yakuza Kiwami directly. I'm not gonna go into it too deeply in case you haven't played Yakuza Kiwami, so let's instead go over whether I liked it more than the first game's. And the answer is: Yes.

I wouldn't say I liked it a lot more though. The main story has its usual strengths. Kazuma Kiryu as the main character is great. Ryuji Goda as the main antagonist is also great. In between, the game brings some familiar faces back but the majority of the cast is actually made of people that weren't in Yakuza Kiwami, so it took a while to get to familiarize myself with them. There are police officers, detectives, the Omi Alliance main players and more, including Kiryu's main 'partner' throughout this, Kaoru Sayama, a police officer who puts Kiryu in "protective custody" to learn more about her past, as she had learned that her parents were killed "because of the Tojo Clan". I thought her story was really interesting and fleshed out, with some pretty depressing moments throughout. She and Ryuji Goda definitely were the best parts about this game's story.

Ryuji Goda is an Omi Alliance patriarch who is not at all a fan of the rival Tojo Clan. So he obviously instantly objects when Kazuma Kiryu comes to their headquarters to ask for an alliance. Again, no spoilers, but things happen from there and Ryuji Goda and Kazuma Kiryu don't get along that well.

Ryuji's motivations are well explained and the game dives deeper into his emotions than you would expect for a game to do of its villain, and that's exactly what I loved here. Unfortunately, Ryuji Goda didn't appear as often as I would have liked.

Same, unfortunately, goes for a bunch of side characters, especially from the Omi Alliance side and a foreign group that Ryuji works with to fight the Tojo Clan. A major story point that I won't go into further.

During the first few chapters of this game, you assume that you will learn more about these guys as the game goes along, but it's unfortunate that this doesn't really happen at the end. I'm not sure what the reason for that is, whether the game just introduced too many characters in one game and couldn't find the time for them all or the story couldn't be extended for budgetary reasons. The game's story is "only" 18 hours or so long on its own, so it's not nearly as long as the story of 0. But whatever the reason is, the game's ending didn't feel quite as impactful as a result.

The game's ending in general is just bat shit crazy on another level and while I obviously very much enjoy the Yakuza silliness, otherwise I wouldn't be playing them, I think they may have gone a step too far without giving good enough of an explanation.

Apart from the main story, there is also obviously a bunch of side missions (sub stories), of which there are 76. These are funny and silly and very enjoyable as per usual and remain the unique factor about these Yakuza games. A major contrast to the main story, and some of them also are among my favorites for the series. The baby one especially is worth a look on YouTube.

Finally, the game also has a few chapters included in "Majima's story". Three chapters in fact, and they take us through what happened shortly before the start of the main story and why Majima, in the main story, works in his own Construction Firm all of a sudden. Plus, there is a very nice surprise for fans of Yakuza 0.

But overall, I just want to add that the game had plenty of highlight scenes that are extremely memorable, none more so than the bridge scene in Sotenbori when he is smoking in the rain and ... well, play it to find out.

GAMEPLAY | 16/20
Gameplay is pretty much the same as in the first two games. This game is a Brawler, so you do a lot of brawling. The two main differences here compared to Yakuza Kiwami would be that, instead of having four styles, you now have one. And instead of upgrading combat skills with experience points and open world gameplay stuff with Completion Points, you now collect points for four different colors. You use those colors to unlock everything. You gain them by consuming items as well, and a Hunger Meter fills up when you eat or drink, which increases your point gain after fights. I wouldn't say I preferred this over what we had in Kiwami or 0, but it's different and not bad or anything, so I did like it.

But yeah, other than that, you're still punching and kicking, grabbing and throwing and using Heat moves to brutally annihilate your foes.

HOWEVER: The game uses a different engine compared to the other two games, and this is notable for two reasons. First, it makes combat kind of more floaty. It doesn't really feel as brutal as the other two games in how the kicks and punches hit. Second, the new engine comes with a whole lot of ragdollin'. Throw an enemy into a bike, and he will suddenly fly a few meters up into the air like if shot out of a cannon. Or have an enemy take you down with a pistol shot or something and often you will do the same.

I don't know, this just felt kind of out of place for a game like this and I can't say I really liked it. It always remained a slight distraction but I did get used to it at the end.

Apart from combat, you still explore Kamurocho (and Sotenbori), you still play a bunch of mini games and you do a bunch of sub stories.

For mini games, the most notable thing here is the return of the Cabaret Club mini game from Yakuza 0, where you run your own cabaret club. It's incredibly addicting and comes with so many features, that it could almost be its own game. You compete in four different leagues and have to do 3 minute "runs" where you try to collect as much money as possible. Collect a certain amount, and you will be able to challenge the League Champion to a Title Match.

You have to partner with shops and keep playing more and more to grow your fan base (and income), plus your hostesses gain experience as well while you're doing so, further increasing revenue. You scout for new hostesses with different skills, you can actually dress up your best hostesses to change around their stats, and after a while, you actually unlock 10-15 minute long dates with them where you learn more about them and, if you reply well, increase their level a bunch. To beat this mini game, you'll easily put a dozen+ hours into it if you want to.

Definitely surpasses Gwent as my favorite mini game ever.

MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 9/10
Voice acting, as per usual in this series, is class. I still would like to actually have everything main story related be voice acted, but the most important scenes are, so it's fine. Whenever drama increases, the best of the voice actors comes to show, and the impact they're leaving is definitely felt a lot, especially for Ryuji Goda's character, who has a fantastic voice actor.

I enjoyed the soundtrack here as well, it was used nicely throughout and especially the Outlaw's Lullaby Battle Theme in Sotenbori is top class. Really liked the song choice for the bridge scene in Sotenbori I mentioned above.

GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 9/10
The world needs more modern, realistic, grounded games. Not because the other games aren't great, they are, but I feel it's a style of game that has become almost forgotten over the past decade apart from the Yakuza series and a few select games that fit this style here and there, like Mafia 3 and the Definitive Edition and RDR2. Anyway, while Yakuza's combat may not fit my description, the design of Kamurocho and Sotenbori certainly does. The graphics are even better in Kiwami 2 than in the other two games chronologically before it, and it's genuinely been a treat to look at throughout. If I have any complaint it's that the faces of some characters looked a bit too dated compared to the rest of this game, like Kaoru Sayama's.

ATMOSPHERE | 9/10
Just like with the graphics, the atmosphere in this game is fantastic and I love to see a modern and grounded world like this. Yakuza's atmosphere would of course also not be what it is without its unique mix of serious main story and silly sub stories, and this game nails that once again.

CONTENT | 9/10
As per usual, there is a ton of quality main and side content here that will entertain for 20-40 hours depending on how much of the side stuff you wish to do. The only issue I have here is that some of the main story stuff unfortunately feels a little bit like filler to me.

LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 8/10
The filler I mentioned for the main story is something I do kind of have an issue with here as well. There are multiple parts where you have to go to a guy to go to a guy to go to a guy and I just don't really see the point in that, especially when it's done more than once. There are also many times where you are tasked to "go waste some time until you get a call" and sometimes this leads you to some forgettable side-but-main story sequence that I'd personally like to keep separate.

Other than that, the design in this game is the same as with the other two games, and it's a fun gameplay loop here too.

CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 7/10
The concept of this series remains unique and will do so for all entries I presume. The Remake is really well done and I'm really glad they did it, because I wouldn't have gotten into this series without one.

REPLAYABILITY | 3/5
Plenty of replayability due to its plethora of side content, but not necessarily replayable for its main content, as its pretty linear and for good reason obviously.

PLAYABILITY | 5/5
It works well from start to finish.

OVERALL | 83/100
Another great entry into the Yakuza series. The main story has a lot of depth and, while not everything works in the end, it created multiple emotional and dramatic scenes that I loved. The side content is fantastic as usual and especially the Cabaret Club sim adds a whole extra game to the package. I would say it's better than Yakuza Kiwami 1, which is how it should be for a sequel, but I'd place it behind 0, which in my opinion had a better overall plot, a big advantage by giving you Majima as an additional protagonist, and slightly more satisfying combat.

Reviewed on Dec 23, 2022


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