A 10/10 game stuck in the body of a 7/10.

There's nothing wrong with this game at the core of it. If anything smashing things in the face is great. But you know what doesn't feel great? Infinite stun-locks, no invincibility frames, stunlocks, guys that can stunlock you from a distance, bosses that spam infinite stunlocks... Did I mention stunlocks? I never died once in the entire game but the stunlocks felt like Zeus himself picked me out of a crowd to fuck with me.

Side quests are cute, and the majima everywhere gimmick is cute. But it's only cute when it's a prominent event that happens. Like Zombie Majima was really fun. Fighting Majima 4000 times before you get to see those and the fights being exactly the same until they change is not. There's a lot of that repetition in general. Cabaret girl dialogues starting to repeat before you even get to S, doing like 4000 laps of the racing game over and over, fighting kids a billion times, grabbing 400 items of the ufo catcher. So much repetition. These events isolated are fantastic, over and over makes them not so.

That said, I love Kiryu and can't wait to see more.