Last year I played Yakuza 0, it was fantastic, so much so that I now rank it as one of my top 5 games on the PlayStation 4. Yakuza Kiwami is a remake/remaster of the original release from 2005, the visuals are massively improved, the fighting techniques from Yakuza 0 have been carried over making combat a lot more robust, additionally, there is extra story content. Despite getting the game as a Christmas present I only got around to playing it now, technically that's not true I have just been holding off to better savor the experience.
Meat good! I know that makes me sound like a caveman but it is what it is, in honesty, I can't really think of any meat I don't like. BBQ Pork Ribs are sort of my new favorite, soft meat that literally falls off the bones and always has me wanting more. I like having sides with my meals but with pork ribs, I just don't need them. Playing Yakuza Kiwami I found myself asking was this my new favorite I could not get enough of?
Story
The scene opens on a small dark room, a dead body on the floor, rain, and lightning crashing outside. The protagonist, Kiryu stands there looking pensive, a gun in his hand, a few moments later the police enter the room and take him away. Fast forward ten years and Kiryu is finally out of prison, the Kazama family and the Tojo Clan have all but turned their back on him, the man he killed was a high ranking Yakuza. His best friend Nishiki has gone to the dark side, the woman he loved has disappeared presumed dead and as if that wasn't enough 10 Billion Yen is missing from the Tojo Clan that is almost on the brink of collapse. Kiryu must traverse the town of Kamurucho and search for answers along with trying to clear his name.
Death, tragedy and betrayal, Yakuza Kiwami has it all. It's not all doom and gloom though, there are sub stories galore which dance between sometimes being a positive distraction from the main story and sometimes a negative one. Majima is a great character and a lot of fun, after returning from prison he thinks you have gone soft and wants to help make you the ultimate fighter again so he can defeat you. Watch out for bins, alleyways, oversized traffic cones, police and more as you never know where Majima could be hiding.
Overall a great story with some interesting sub-stories, however, I found the found the sub-stories and some of the main story to be nowhere near as engaging as Yakuza Zero.
Visuals
The visuals are greatly improved over the original release and are almost identical to those in Yakuza 0 in terms of quality. Both games boast a similar trait and that is that the towns look and feel really organic, there are people talking, laughing, pretending to play golf, fighting, and drunks. The town looks bright at night, along with being a lit grim almost seedy, during the day it's bright and become a more positive place. It is difficult for me to pick any one area as being better than another, I did like the look of the Millennial Tower especially near the top floors, I can't say any more than that unfortunately (spoilers).
Overall a visually impressive game, and already very much looking forward to Yakuza Kiwami 2 in August as the game is supposed to look even better.
Music
The Yakuza series has a very identifiable sound and is one of the many great things it has to offer. It often varies between a funk and rock sound depending on the situation. The soundtrack for Yakuza Kiwami features new tracks, old tracks, and some remixed ones. There are a number of composers who worked on the soundtrack including:
Hidenori Shoji, a Japanese composer, arranger, lyricist, and performer whose works includes Yakuza 3, Code of the Joker and Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed.
Chihiro Aoki, a Japanese composer, arranger, lyricist, performer whose works include Yakuza 3, 5, 6, and Phantasy Star Online 2.
Shunsuke Minami a Japanese composer, arranger, and lyricist whose works include Yakuza 5 and The Legend of Heroes Sora No Kiseki.
Shunsuke Yasaki a Japanese composer, arranger, and performer whose works include Tekken 7, Zone of the Enders Remix and Yakuza 5.
Zenta Tsuchihashi a Japanese composer, arranger, and performer whose works include Yakuza 0, 2, 6 and Yume No Tsubasa.
Tsuyoshi Kaneko a Japanese composer, arranger, lyricist, performer whose works include The Phantom Kingdom, After Burner 20th Anniversary and Yakuza 6.
Keitaro Hanada a Japanese composer and performer whose works include Yakuza 2, After Burner 20th Anniversary, Galaxy Force II and Thunder Blade.
Sachio Ogawa a Japanese composer, arranger, lyricist, and performers whose works include Virtua Fighter 4, Space Harrier 2, Yakuza 0 and Sonic Symphony 25th Anniversary
Saori Yoshida a Japanese composer, arranger, and lyricist whose worked on almost all the Yakuza games.
Yuri Fukuda a Japanese composer, arranger and performer and like Yoshida has worked on almost all the Yakuza games.
There were some great tracks, however, there were some not great ones including the Funk Goes On, for some reason they scrapped the original one that featured saxophone and changed it and gave it more of a dance sound - it was not for me.
The soundtrack runs a little over ninety and has over thirty tracks, while it was not as memorable or good as Yakuza 0 it did feature some good tracks, including:
'Revive You Reborn'
'迫'
'Flirt with Bomb'
'Scarlet Star by Fierce Tiger'
'Scarlet Star by Fierce Tiger'
'Flirt with Bomb'
'Scarlet Star by Fierce Tiger'
'Get Over It'
'キワメシトキ'
'Virtical Point'
'Lunatic Warrior'
'Everlasting Spirit'
'In A Dead Heat'
Overall not a bad soundtrack, there were just a few tracks that felt wrong and out of place.
Gameplay
The system used in Yakuza 0 allowed you switch between four different fighting styles, Brawler, Rush, Beast, and Dragon. Each one is fairly self-explanatory with the exception of Dragon, this style combines all the best moves and more to create an ultimate style. Yakuza Kiwami uses the same techniques with the exception of the Dragon style which this time can be only learned from Majima and Komaki. While it did not affect me, as I only played Yakuza 0 last year Kiwami does not go into much details about the styles and benefits of each if I hadn't played Yakuza 0 I would have felt a little lost.
This time you need experience points to unlock abilities, they can be acquired through fighting, eating or completing sub stories. The best way to get experience points is by taking on Majima, he will pop up randomly to test your abilities, it also unlocks Dragon abilities and was one of my favorite things to do. The only issue is you end up having a lot of excess experience points and nothing to spend them on, it would have been great if you could do something with them, maybe exchange them for money?
The action flows really well throughout the game with the exception of two really stand out points. The first is near the start of the game in which you have to sneak into a funeral, it's annoying and very out of place. The second one is right near the end of the game in which you are fighting a mob, you keep switching between fighting and seeing what another character is doing. Every time I got into fighting there would be another cut scene.
Like in the other Yakuza titles there is a lot of things to do outside the main story, you can go to the batting cages, play Shogi, Race Pocket Cars and play a game called MesuKing. It's supposed to be a kids card that is basically rock, paper, scissors. The characters wear some item of clothing that makes them look like a bug and very little else - not what I would call a kids game.
There are seventy-eight substories, the are some good ones but they were not as fun as Yakuza 0 (if you like Yakuza 0 why don't you just marry it?). My three favorites were finding giving a tour to an out of towner, helping a Romeo and Juliet type couple and helping my pocket racing friend find a successor.
Overall some great gameplay, a few parts I felt were lacking but for the most part, it was a lot of fun.
Final Thoughts
So after thirty plus hours how did I feel? Pretty good. The story was strong for the most part, the visuals were amazing, the music wasn't bad and the overall gameplay was good. It doesn't beat Yakuza 0 but certainly a lot of fun, this one gets a solid 4 out of 5
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