I’ve heard about the Yakuza series for a long time, but for various reasons never got into it. I was worried it would be like a GTA knockoff. I didn’t want to start at number four or five, and at the same time I didn’t feel like playing the first one (Playstation 2? No thanks) just for story.
Let me get to the point, it’s an excellent game and I wasn’t disappointed in the slightest. Now I want to go and play the rest of the series, because I want to see what happens to the characters. And now that Yakuza Kiwami one and two are coming out on steam, now is a perfect time to get into the series. Yakuza Kiwami is a 4k remake (gameplay remake as well) of the first game.
Positives:
+ Graphics are great, everything looks nice on both my 4k monitor and my 144mhz gaming monitor. Can’t ask for more.
+ Story moves at a brisk pace with no filler.
+ Mini-games are fun for what they are. I didn’t buy the game so I could spend my time essentially playing a cheap bowling, or pool app. But I did end up playing them a little, just cause they were there. They’re good enough to be fun, but this wasn’t a big selling point for me.
+ Side-stories are varied and fun. I’ll admit some of them got me to laugh. The humor here was really spot on.
+ The location was good. The world map is fairly small compared to GTA or other sandbox games of that type, but I thought that was good. It doesn’t take you ten minutes to walk across the map. Everything is designed well, and the game doesn’t have you running forever just to get from one mission to the next.
+ If you know Japan, you’ll probably like the game. The locations are based on real locations in Japan, (there are even some famous landmarks in the game) and the 80s setting during the ‘bubble’ was a good choice. (People fanning out hundred dollar bills and shaking them out at taxis was actually a real thing during the economic bubble).
+ The voice acting was excellent. I appreciate that they didn’t dub the game. The characters from Osaka speak with an Osaka dialect (as is to be expected), but it was just fun to hear.
+ You feel a progression with the game. Your characters start off weak, but by the end it’s like a musou game (think Dynasty Warriors) where you mow through crowds.
+ It’s kind of a simple thing, but in contrast to GTA, you aren’t just causing destruction and killing random bystanders and beating up on police just doing their jobs. You are usually beating up people that more or less deserve it.
+ Music was more positive than negative. It had you rocking out and beating up people, or somber when the occasion demanded it.
+ Gameplay was on the plus side. It’s not Batman, or LOTR, but it’s good enough. You can button mash if that’s your style and still get by. Or you can time your dodges and all that if you like. I’m more of a button masher and I was more interested in the story rather than replaying a single fight 20 times. (Hence, I played on normal difficulty). But I assume you could get more mileage out of the combat if you actually invested time in it.
Negatives:
The game was fun, but there are things that I didn’t 100% enjoy.
- The cut scenes were fairly long. The ending was at least half an hour. There was a bit of repetition and unnatural/unnecessary exposition. Lots of Yakuza really like to talk about their motivations. It’s like someone gets shot, and then someone else finds that the appropriate time to give you their life story and philosophy. Although the story itself was streamlined well, the verbosity dragged the pace a bit.
- I find it best if you don’t overstay your welcome. If you try to 100% the game, you’ll probably be miserable. The real estate game was a bit long for my taste, and I can see if you tried to do other things to that extent you might find yourself getting tired.
- I’m not sure if I like the character arc of Majima. Where he starts and where he ends seems like a bit of a leap to me.
Overall, the game was just a lot of fun. It could poke fun at itself with cheesy laughable side-bits which really helped balance the darkness of the game. The game itself felt epic, and there was a clear story from beginning to end with the characters doing the best they could in any given situation.
I can’t say how well this ties in with the rest of the series as I haven’t played the other games, but if there are characters that are in the other games as well, that would be pretty awesome.
I’m new to the series, and this was a great place to start. If the other games are as good as this one, I’ll probably end up getting them all at some point. But for now, it's time to get back into the game and help out more random people on the street~