For years I have been curious about Yakuza series. Last year I finally had the chance to experience it with Yakuza 0 and it was quite a trip. After finishing Yakuza Kiwami, a remake of the original Yakuza from 2005, I have to say – I’m actually glad Zero was my first Yakuza experience.
First of all, it needs to be mentioned just how much of a unique remake Kiwami is compared to pretty much any other video game remake I know of. Usually, a game remake means either a new game based on the ideas of the original, like it was with Resident Evil 2002 and recent new Resident Evil 2. Or game that feels like an updated version of the old game on a new engine, with new features, tweaks to the plot and, of course, better visuals – that’s something like Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes or, in the indie scene, La-Mulana or Treasure Adventure World. Yakuza Kiwami technically fits the second kind as, just like Twin Snakes was the original MGS running on MGS2 engine, Kiwami is original Yakuza running on Yakuza 0 engine. However, for better and for worse, the Ryu ga Gotoku Studio from SEGA went to painstaking lengths to preserve the story bits of the original game almost exactly as is. Most of the story cutscenes, for both main story and side content, are almost always shot for shot recreations of the originals, with the same dialogue and same (but re-recorded) dialogue. That occasionally smoothly transitions into expanded story content created specifically for Kiwami. Though, sometimes those transitions are not that smooth.
At it’s core, Yakuza Kiwami, just like 0 and other titles in the series, are a unique blend of story-driven adventuring with beat em up action, mostly taking place in an open world that’s not particularly “big” in terms of square meters, but is packed full of details and story content. Kiryu, and unlike 0 he is the sole protagonist in this game, runs around Kamurocho district (based on real-life red-light Kabukichō district of Tokyo), following main story beats, helping random strangers on the streets and getting into fights because everyone seems to really want to fight Kiryu. Until they get their face kicked in and apologize by giving you money. This simplistic, yet somewhat engaging, essential core of the game was established back in the original game and in Kiwami it’s only expanded and made more fun to play, not outright changed.
As such, the leveling up system for your abilities is closer to how it worked in the original game – based on experience gained for fights, story and substories, – and not done via “investing in yourself”, like it was in 0. And because of this, and because of lack of any side-content heavily tied to it, money isn’t really a problem in this game. I suppose, the decision to tie everything to money was more of a thematic tie-in to the era 0 was set in anyway, but I must say, not worrying about them and worrying about Mister Shakedown actually feels nice and simply better. Leveling up is easier, though, as I felt, also more important as a result, for some of the later game fights and having 4 styles to choose from feels good and freeing, where in 0 it occasionally felt limiting instead.
The choice to have styles from 0 return, instead of just having one Dragon of Dojima style like it was in the original game, though, is a bit of a questionable decision. On one hand, this means that you have a good fighting chance and a lot of options even at the start and also means that enemies can be very varied in their styles with you being able to counter that. On the other, it means that the style that was defining Kiryu stays mostly useless until very late game since you cannot level it up the same way as everything else. Instead, that’s tied almost exclusively to fighting Majima in the Majima Everywhere system. Another idea, that is a bit questionable, if extremely entertaining most of the time.
The idea, that expands the character of Majima from his 3 simple appearances in the original game to a much deeper character he has grown since, is that since Kiryu is weak at the start of the game due to story events that transpired, Majima takes it upon himself to “train” him back to his previous strength. In his own chaotic and bizarre way of just randomly appearing during almost every possible interaction in the city to fight you. Each fight (sometimes a win isn’t even necessary) unlocks new abilities for your Dragon of Dojima style and sometimes gives some fun hints to Majima’s real personality or references events from 0. Some of these ideas are also integrated into expanded cutscenes or even additional scenes that usually fit the pacing of the story really well.
But that’s where I need to say that following the story of the original beat for beat might not have been the best idea. Even with added new cutscenes that expand on some characters, most notably Nishiki, the story in Yakuza Kiwami is just… okay. Where 0 really knew how to make engaging slow paced criminal drama work, Yakuza Kiwami feels like it is very much an action game from 2005. There are good character moments, good scenes, good ideas and the overall plot isn’t particularly bad as much as it’s just really simplistic and boring. As someone who has experienced it here for the first time (I watched a longplay of the original after finishing Kiwami for comparison), as someone who was genuinely engrossed in the story of Zero, I ended up being disappointed with Kiwami’s story.
Not that I didn’t enjoy the game, of course. In fact, I’d say that the pacing and the speed at which Kiwami progresses might be a better fit for most people. Yakuza 0 had a very long story with 2 characters and I’ve completed it in under 50 hours with lots of side content still unexplored. This game took me under 30 hours to do most of the story stuff, including optional content and if I were just following the main story it would’ve probably easily been under 20 hours. Which is more than enough to enjoy a Yakuza game and not get bored with it.
There are some other minor things I could mention, like the questionable Kiwami heat mechanic or a far less memorable soundtrack, but I’d still say that Yakuza Kiwami is a really fun game to play. If you’re more into really good stories, I would suggest starting with 0 and then, if you’re invested in the characters already, moving to Kiwami. But if you don’t mind the story being just okay definitely check Kiwami out. Now I can only hope that the rest of the games will get an updated treatment and will see a PC release in the future.