as a big fan of lucah: born of a dream, i knew this was a day-one purchase for me. what i didn't expect is that i'd finish it in a single 10-hour sitting. i quickly became very invested in the story, which is much less opaque than the souls-like minimalist surrealism of lucah.

death of a wish's combat is essentially the same as lucah's, though it feels extremely smooth and responsive in this one. i think the attack telegraphs from enemies are a lot more readable (something that was sometimes an issue for me in lucah given the shaky art style). it's challenging, fair, and feels great when you find your groove. and if you're just playing for the story, no worries, there are lots of modifiers you can turn on to trivialize it (but do give it a try first, it's really good).

[edit: i just went back to replay lucah, and one noticeable difference is that death of a wish doesn't have a stamina meter! you can dodge, sprint, and attack to your heart's content! that's why it felt so much smoother to me. death of a wish also has a wider variety of playstyles available. so really, it's sort of the same, but it plays much quicker. and in my opinion, death of a wish's combat is way more fun in the moment-to-moment.]

i don't want to spoil anything about the story because it takes some fantastic and unexpected turns, so i'll just say that a lot of the writing really got to me. the themes explored resonate with me a lot on a personal level, and there's an emotional depth of examination here that i don't usually find in games.

the developers have said that you can play these two games in any order, and that's true, but my personal opinion is that you'll get more out of this game if you've played lucah already. that said, i'd be really curious to hear from someone who played death of a wish first and then went back and played lucah, i bet that's an interesting way to experience it too.

anyway, i strongly recommend death of a wish, i really really loved it. i'm going to sit with it for a little while before hopping into ng+ and hunting around for secrets i missed.

i'll update this review if my opinion changes by the time i finish it, but so far this feels like a downgrade from kiwami 1. the combat feels more expressive and more limited at the same time, and while they've taken ragdolling to a comedic extreme, it winds up being frustrating because you have to run over to the enemy that you punched across the arena to finish him off.

the story is merely "fine" so far. this game has the yakuza charm, but it feels kind of phoned-in and samey at this point. i haven't played the original ps2 versions of the first two games, but i understand this is a vastly different game to the original yakuza 2, and the way i hear people talk about that original makes me think i should emulate it instead of playing kiwami 2. it's still an alright game on its own, but the first kiwami was a really focused and smartly-designed reboot for the series post-y0, and this one feels like a bit of a mess.

this is a really full-featured and modern remake of the first yakuza game, making it the perfect entry point into the series for present-day audiences!

well... it is directly in conversation with yakuza 0, both being built in the same engine and including references to it, so really you should start with yakuza 0, because it's a prequel to the whole series!

but... for a lot of yakuza 0's emotional impact to hit you full force, you'd want to have the context of yakuzas 1 through 5 to really get the most out of it... so you should start with yakuza kiwami, which is a full-featured remake of the fir-