This review contains spoilers
The story is pretty good for the most part. It already has a leg up on a lot of the other Yakuza/LaD stories simply by not having massive pacing issues and/or nonsensical plot twists that'll melt your brain. Despite that I can't say I was too invested in it and most of that has to do with the new protagonist, Kasuga.
Throughout most of the game he moves the plot forward by constantly making the most nonsensical, high risk low/no reward decisions possible that happen to work out thanks to his incredibly thick plot armor and the power of the friendship. It gives the whole story this weird comedic unserious tone. He basically just waltz into every organized crime HQ in Ijincho and they all hear him out for no real reason despite him an his gang (pre Joongi/Zhao) being a bunch of unaffiliated nobodies. In past games Kiryu at least had the Tojo Clan affiliation and his status later on that made people respect him. Realistically they could just blast Kasuga's head off and not lose anything or suffer any consequences. The silliest instance of this is when he decides to break into Omi HQ for literally no reason other than to meet Arakawa a day earlier than scheduled. Even the other party members are bewildered as to how this peabrain can't follow simple instructions. But hey, Majima and Saejima are randomly there and Arakawa then fills the gang in on their big dissolution plan so I guess it all works out in the end!
Kasuga is just uncompelling to me, his personality reminds of a shitty shonen protagonist.
There's some other things that don't really add up.
Why did Mabuchi make Nonomiya's murder look like suicide? If Saeko wasn't on the phone with Nonomiya and then sought out Ichiban later his suicide wouldn't have gotten investigated further and thereby not achieved anything.
Why did nobody (especially the tech-savvy Geomijul) think to record Ogasawara's long-winded confession? The 2nd in command of Bleach Japan is admitting to everything and the recording would've then also disproven the narrative that he died in the fire. What makes this even stupider is that in the final confrontation against Ryo Aoki they DO use video recording to expose him.
Due to the larger cast, many of characters aren't fleshed out enough. This applies to some party members but especially Omi antagonists who (apart from Jo) have nothing going on.
Adachi and Nanba were pretty great but Saeko ended up disappointing to me. Her main motivation of avenging her boss comes off as weak when compared to other characters who hold more of a personal grudge. This is amplified by Mabuchi fading into irrelevance as the conspiracy unfolds and her then not really mentioning the boss anymore. She also doesn't get any scenes where she's the focus or even contributes anything major.
After Zhao and Joongi Han get recruited they basically become background characters as well with the latter only existing to serve as a fighter stand in for Seonhee because Kasuga can't fight her since she's woman!!! They even reuse a model from Yakuza 6.
After the "not so great" combat of Yakuza 6/Kiwami 2 I very much welcomed a change in direction but unfortunately the turn based combat is overly simplistic, beyond basic weakness exploitation there's nothing to it. It feels like a rough draft that needed some more stuff attached. There's also a fair bit of jankiness mostly relating to AI movement and inconsistent or lacklustre AOE ability hitboxes. It doesn't end up mattering all too much because the game is overall very very easy, I have no idea why they decided to make difficulty options a new game+ only thing but I'm not a fan of it.
There are 3 (more so 2.5) massive difficulty spikes in the form of boss fights, Majima & Saejima, Kiryu and lastly Tendo. The first 2 fights are great despite the insane spike but I can't say the same Tendo. He essentially serves as the final boss since the actual final boss is more so just cinematic. Not only does Tendo's character suck since they never gave him a proper backstory or anything beyond "boxer who wants to make it to the top" but his fight is a chore as well. He has a billion health and 2 phases, during the first phase he basically does nothing but once he's down to 50% hp (this takes forever even when exploiting his weakness) he enters phase 2 and starts spamming a guaranteed one shot move, cool. Fortunately Kasuga has an ability called "Peerless Resolve" which allows you to survive a KO and up until this point it's completely useless but here it's ESSENTIAL. There's really nothing else to the fight.
As a final note, all the underground dungeons are a slog and Subterranean Castle might just be single worst song in the series.
Throughout most of the game he moves the plot forward by constantly making the most nonsensical, high risk low/no reward decisions possible that happen to work out thanks to his incredibly thick plot armor and the power of the friendship. It gives the whole story this weird comedic unserious tone. He basically just waltz into every organized crime HQ in Ijincho and they all hear him out for no real reason despite him an his gang (pre Joongi/Zhao) being a bunch of unaffiliated nobodies. In past games Kiryu at least had the Tojo Clan affiliation and his status later on that made people respect him. Realistically they could just blast Kasuga's head off and not lose anything or suffer any consequences. The silliest instance of this is when he decides to break into Omi HQ for literally no reason other than to meet Arakawa a day earlier than scheduled. Even the other party members are bewildered as to how this peabrain can't follow simple instructions. But hey, Majima and Saejima are randomly there and Arakawa then fills the gang in on their big dissolution plan so I guess it all works out in the end!
Kasuga is just uncompelling to me, his personality reminds of a shitty shonen protagonist.
There's some other things that don't really add up.
Why did Mabuchi make Nonomiya's murder look like suicide? If Saeko wasn't on the phone with Nonomiya and then sought out Ichiban later his suicide wouldn't have gotten investigated further and thereby not achieved anything.
Why did nobody (especially the tech-savvy Geomijul) think to record Ogasawara's long-winded confession? The 2nd in command of Bleach Japan is admitting to everything and the recording would've then also disproven the narrative that he died in the fire. What makes this even stupider is that in the final confrontation against Ryo Aoki they DO use video recording to expose him.
Due to the larger cast, many of characters aren't fleshed out enough. This applies to some party members but especially Omi antagonists who (apart from Jo) have nothing going on.
Adachi and Nanba were pretty great but Saeko ended up disappointing to me. Her main motivation of avenging her boss comes off as weak when compared to other characters who hold more of a personal grudge. This is amplified by Mabuchi fading into irrelevance as the conspiracy unfolds and her then not really mentioning the boss anymore. She also doesn't get any scenes where she's the focus or even contributes anything major.
After Zhao and Joongi Han get recruited they basically become background characters as well with the latter only existing to serve as a fighter stand in for Seonhee because Kasuga can't fight her since she's woman!!! They even reuse a model from Yakuza 6.
After the "not so great" combat of Yakuza 6/Kiwami 2 I very much welcomed a change in direction but unfortunately the turn based combat is overly simplistic, beyond basic weakness exploitation there's nothing to it. It feels like a rough draft that needed some more stuff attached. There's also a fair bit of jankiness mostly relating to AI movement and inconsistent or lacklustre AOE ability hitboxes. It doesn't end up mattering all too much because the game is overall very very easy, I have no idea why they decided to make difficulty options a new game+ only thing but I'm not a fan of it.
There are 3 (more so 2.5) massive difficulty spikes in the form of boss fights, Majima & Saejima, Kiryu and lastly Tendo. The first 2 fights are great despite the insane spike but I can't say the same Tendo. He essentially serves as the final boss since the actual final boss is more so just cinematic. Not only does Tendo's character suck since they never gave him a proper backstory or anything beyond "boxer who wants to make it to the top" but his fight is a chore as well. He has a billion health and 2 phases, during the first phase he basically does nothing but once he's down to 50% hp (this takes forever even when exploiting his weakness) he enters phase 2 and starts spamming a guaranteed one shot move, cool. Fortunately Kasuga has an ability called "Peerless Resolve" which allows you to survive a KO and up until this point it's completely useless but here it's ESSENTIAL. There's really nothing else to the fight.
As a final note, all the underground dungeons are a slog and Subterranean Castle might just be single worst song in the series.