Yakuza Kiwami

I came to Yakuza Kiwami immediately after finishing Yakuza 0, which is exactly what the game seems designed for and also the single biggest liability it carries. The setup is compelling on paper: Kazuma Kiryu takes the fall for his best friend Nishiki's crime, does a decade in prison, walks out into a Kamurocho that has moved on without him, and has to untangle a conspiracy around ten billion missing yen while keeping a traumatized orphan named Haruka alive. That is a genuinely good crime drama skeleton. The problem is that Yakuza 0 told a richer, longer, more mechanically generous version of the same genre first, and Kiwami never fully escapes that comparison. On the combat side, Kiryu has four style-switching modes: Brawler for balanced counterplay, Rush for fast aggressive pressure, Beast for raw grapple power, and the Dragon style that ties directly into the Majima Everywhere system. Speaking of which, Majima Everywhere is the remake's signature new addition, sending the fan-favorite Goro Majima to ambush Kiryu across Kamurocho in ludicrous disguises ranging from police officer to zombie to pop idol. Beating him in each encounter feeds XP into your Dragon style, which would otherwise stay locked and weak for most of the game. In small doses, the system is a delight. Majima remains an absolute scene-stealer and his escalating respect for Kiryu gives the two characters some of their best dynamic in the whole series. But the randomness starts to grate: encounters can interrupt exploration mid-substory, and early in the run when Kiryu is underpowered, the ambushes tip from exciting to tedious. The community is genuinely split on it, and after about fifteen hours I found myself wishing for an off switch. The substory roster is substantial, with 78 side stories scattered across Kamurocho ranging from one-beat comedy sketches to multi-stage personal dramas. This is where the game earns its Yakuza credentials. The writing in the substories is warm, weird, occasionally heartbreaking, and often laugh-out-loud absurd in that very specific way the series does better than almost anyone. Minigames carry over from Yakuza 0, so karaoke, batting cages, and arcade cabinets are all present. The main story runs roughly fifteen to twenty hours on its own; full completion pushes well past eighty. The newly added Nishikiyama cutscenes, showing what happened to Kiryu's best friend during those missing ten years, are the smartest addition in the remake and genuinely deepen a character whose arc pays off in ways the original PS2 version never fully earned. Where Kiwami stumbles hardest is in its boss fights. The main story confrontations lack the operatic build-up that made Yakuza 0's encounters so satisfying, and one late-game chapter built around dodging gunfire is the kind of design decision that ages badly. The soundtrack, while serviceable, does not hit the highs of its predecessor, and a handful of chapters feel padded in ways the writing cannot fully rescue. None of this makes Kiwami a bad game. It makes it a slightly undernourished one that happens to follow a masterpiece. For series newcomers who have not yet played Yakuza 0, the conventional wisdom still holds: start there. But if you have already put in your time in Kamurocho in the eighties and want to follow Kiryu's story forward, Kiwami is the only honest starting point for the main saga. The Kiryu and Haruka relationship, seeded here for the first time, is the emotional core that powers every entry that follows. That alone makes it worth the investment, flaws and all.

Monika · Scout Team

RPGs

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