Yakuza Kiwami 2 Review

This is the way is has to be

You know that this one had been a long time coming, and that has been due to just a plethora of constant issues and hang-ups, but now that they are all behind me (for the most part) I can get back to reviewing one of my favourite game series' of all time. What started with me being totally knocked for six by Yakuza 0 has turned into a red hot obsession as I scooped up the Yakuza 1 and 2 remakes, (codenamed: Kiwami) and even the remastered versions of 3,4 and 5. That's how determined I am to know and experience everything that these brilliant games have to offer. (I can't help it, I'm hooked.) This is a bit of a sad time, however, as this will mark the last of the newer games that I get to play until six. (Hey, maybe by the time I get around to that, RGG will have worked out their differences with Yagami's actor and I can get ahold of the Judgement games too!) So without further ado, let us commence.

Like a Dragon Engine

So my first problem with this review was a technical one, because despite having no problems with 0 or 1, Yakuza 2 made my computer freak the heck out when I first played it because it's the very first game in the franchise to use the 'Dragon Engine'. This shiny piece of software was designed to shoot the series into the modern age, and shoot my frames right in the nether regions. Thankfully the engine update came with some decent graphical tweaking options so I was able to get the thing working after a few sessions of messing around; and was the work worth it? Visually, oh my god yes. Yakuza has never been a series that has pushed the frontiers of graphical possibility, but it was never really a slouch either. Even after being several years old, Yakuza 0 doesn't really show it's age until you rub onto the outdated systems like the manual save box. (Can't believe they were still actively doing that in 2015) But the Dragon Engine changes that.

I saw the trailers for Like a Dragon so I knew this engine produced quality, but actually taking to the streets of Kamurocho in it's signature time of day (the dead of night) was simply jaw dropping. The effusion of neon bleeding onto the streets, the reflections of a dozen street-wanders swimming in the puddles, the tiny specks of particles that blossom in a azure aura whenever you charge a move; it's simply magical. And the animation, my god the animation! It's so impeccably smooth in the way that combos bleed together, or the seamless way Kiryu switches direction. I never had a problem with movement animation in the other two games, so this proves a rare treat for an enthusiast like myself. And that non-juttering seamless animation philosophy makes it's way onto the rest of package too. Fights no longer active cutscenes and just start, you can enter stores without a entering a new cell and even have fights that start outside and flow into a store (usually when you chuck a thug through the window) and weapon combat doesn't feel as awkward as before, to the point where the weapons almost feel like the power-ups to combat that they were designed to be.

Gameplay

But with this improvement comes a sacrifice, and this time that hit in the content of the gameplay itself. One of the best parts of Yakuza 0 was the way in which it gave the player three entirely fleshed out combat styles with their own strengths and weaknesses to work out. (Six if you count Majimas. Eight if you also count the secret styles) Yakuza Kiwami 1 really remixed and refined these movesets to make each as useful and fun-to-play with as they possibly could be. How does Kiwami 2 build upon this? By gutting the system and giving us one combat style. Yes, all we get is the Dragon of Dojima style for this game, and it's been tweaked to be fluid and more crowd control friendly, but even by late game standards with all the special moves unlocked it pales in comparison to the previous 2 games' offerings.

Back in those games, having a fight felt so much fun not just for the act of beating of thugs, but for the plethora of ways you can take it. Battling was usually undergone with the express purpose of building up for those flashy Heat moves, and with the three styles you had so much variety to chose from. You could switch to beast and chuck enemies around at each other, turn to thug and unleash a solid combo to stun them and then quickly jump to Rush for some of those great single-target masher moves. Now you've just got a slightly more beefed up version of thug, which feels a tad slower. (Although it's thankfully not as slow as Kiwami 1's Dragon style) I understand the intent to get the game feeling closer to the original, but the result was an experience that felt more shallow and a progression I didn't feel devoted towards. All I wanted was the Tiger Drop, and when I did get the Tiger Drop, the damage nerf made it useless anyway. Fighting is still fun, but completely basic. The only real combo variety comes from when you choose to active your flurry ending heavy attack, and that can make every fight feel utterly samey after the twentieth hour, which is something I never thought I'd be saying about a Yakuza game. So that is a surprising downgrade to combat which I didn't expect from this series. (Or at least, not as the games went on! I expect it from the remasters.)

Levelling has changed up once more from the last game, mostly due to the fact that there's no longer three combat trees to work through. Now you get several different colour values of EXP that are awarded to you for everything you do from beating up random thugs to going out eating. There's also a whole section dedicated to unlockable Heat actions, with a whole bunch of them only being unlockable after completing substories and then 'buying' them with those EXP points, which adds some interesting variety for Heat actions that only trigger when you're standing in a certain place within the city. Unfortunately, I found the levelling to be really slow compared to the other titles, likely due to the fact that fights don't really net you that much EXP at all and there's not really enough rewards in the side content to give you that boost either. The only way to really become competitive for endgame content (stuff outside of the story) is to find EXP grind tasks and work at them, (basically just find two or three restaurants to glutton out at) which strikes me as an odd way to balance your game's progression. But I can't say that was wholly untrue with Kiwami 1 or even 0 either, so there's that.

One of the biggest aspects of a Yakuza game are the minigames available to you, of course, and Kiwami 2 doesn't skimp on that variety. The sprawl of Kamurocho is resplendent with ways to spend your time, even if the majority of them is just gambling games this time around. (Really sad they got rid of Pool) Darts is almost too easy of a minigame, which is odd considering they built an entire quest chain around it. Baseball has been changed up for the third game in a row, although this iteration is my favourite in being the first time it's actually felt like a fair game that didn't require me to temporarily switch to mouse controls. Golf is nutty, and I'm not sure I'll ever get around to understanding how you're meant to shoot an accurate ball on a target whilst swinging over hanging obstacles in the air. Toylets is a new game introduced into the franchise whereupon you play a virtual game on the toilet to... pee better? I can't say I ever understood the game, and it's gameplay is based on a physics engine, which makes it wholly unfunctional for some people requiring a third party patch to actually work. (An idea was there, but execution missed the mark.) The arena is back and full with various exhaustive fights you won't get anywhere else in the game, only without rewards for some reason. Oh, and the arcade machines are loaded up with a Virtu Fighter 2 emulator; which is pretty freakin' cool.

But even better than minigames are the huge metagames which in Yakuza games can be broad enough to be entire small genre games on their own. Kiwami 1 disappointed me in this regard with no real developed metagame to keep me busy, whilst Kiwami 2 has hit the exact opposite problem, I'm almost overwhelmed by two heavily developed metagames. For one, you have the grand return of the amazing Cabaret club manager from Yakuza 0 with all the improvements you would hope for thrown in there, as well as a storyline which brings back one classic Hostess from 0 in a great fashion. The gameplay here has been sharpened to a fine point and for someone like me who loves this little diversion, you can quite literally spend hours dressing up your perfect platinum hostess', picking out the best tactical moments to drop party time and seeking total night life dominance, this time in the shoes of the Dojima clan's best boy: Kiryu Kazama. 

Also thrown in is a complete tower defence minigame in Majima construction, which pretty much has an entire campaign's worth of scenarios to pour over in order to keep you busy. Majima's idea of 'construction' is pretty much just fighting off entire armies with the help of his construction crew, and that's the tactical battle your Kiryu is placed in charge of throughout this entire metagame, however I will be honest and say that the controls for this one is a little fiddly. It's clear that this game mode was meant to cater for controllers, despite the fact that these sorts of overhead tactical games work better with mouse and keyboard, so you don't really have the choice of selecting a unit and sending them where they need to be in a split second without scrolling through an annoying list first. (Or dragging the cursor over to them, hitting a special button, and then dragging back to where you need to be, wasting time.) The storyline for this is simple but hilarious, with cameos from famous Japanese wrestlers as old scary loan sharks, all of which seemed to be great sports about playing silly caricatures of themselves in the bonus hang-out spots you can go on after the main quests.

Speaking of pillars of Yakuza, how about the various substories and side quests which litter the world? Kiwami 1 disappointed me again here by having some questlines which were literally just single fights or ambushes with little substance to it, again Yakuza 2 excels here. We're back to the standard of every single quest having a moral or a resolution or a surprisingly hilarious twist; all of which is bought to life beautifully by the incredible localisation job. (As these quests aren't voice acted, it really is all down to the localisation team's hard work) Some of my favourites where the Granny White chain, Kiryu's debut into video game voice acting and the surprisingly heartfelt back and forth with a movie director. Whatsmore, a lot of these substories involve characters who, when you meet them after completing their issues, come around to join up with your Cabaret business as Hostesses or Majima Construction as a gang member; once again effortlessly tying various optional world mechanisms together into this world so you always feel like you're progressing in some fashion no matter how you choose spend your time.

Kiwami 2 also leapfrogs it's direct predecessor by featuring both the cities of Sotenbori and Kamurocho this time around, so that over the course of the 16 chapter story you don't become blindingly sick of the same surroundings. (No matter how pretty the game looks now, the same streets are still the same streets.) And Sotenbori looks simply magical when walking down the, now wide, broadwalks along the canal. South Sotenbori has also been shrunken down a little so that there's less getting lost in backstreets and stumbling over yourself to find the location you're looking for. Plus, for us 0 fans, it's quite magical getting the chance to see, and later even enter, the Grand once again. (Just a shame they only built one interior for it and that's the upstairs atrium) I would have loved to duel it out on the main stage in front of the band once more.

Story

I made it no secret, in my last Yakuza review, how I didn't much like the story and thought it got plain stupid nearer the end. Yakuza always juggles comedy and seriousness, of course, but the main story needs to have that vaguely believable tension or nothing really sticks together. Seeing as how this was going to be another remade game translating the exact storyline of the original Yakuza 2, I didn't really have high hopes for this narrative, but I was surprised yet again. The tale of the Jingweon mafia is yet another dive into a 'past' which wasn't reflected in previous titles, which some could call a bit of a cop-out storytelling technique, (especially when Kiryu reveals his connection to the events that he seems to remember very well) but the personality of the characters introduced, Kaoru Sayama, adult Daigo, Jiro Kawara, really carry what should be a stupid tale through to the end. That doesn't mean some characters have issues, Kaoru's arc in particular feels weak against (for example) 0's Makoto, but I was still invested heavily in all sides and cared about the stakes when they were raised.

What disappointed me was the freakin' guy on the front of the box, Ryuji Goda, who had been built up since 0 as this absolute foil to the Dragon of Dojima. Even the beginning chapters of this story do their best to highlight the way this man is a dark shadow of who Kiryu might have become, and that duality boils over into what promises to be a heartstopping rivalry. And then he bloody disappears for half the story! (I'm not kidding.) The main villain on the front of the box spends most of the game 'on his way' from Osaka to Tokyo, a trip you can make as many times as you want in taxis between chapters, so I have no idea what kept Ryuji for so long. (Maybe he kept stopping for snack breaks) He vanishes from the story so hard that I honestly thought the game was building up to two entirely separate climax's until Ryuji is finally bought back into the other major plot in a little tied-up knot that feels like something of an afterthought. I'm still glad they got around to tying it up, though, that would have bugged me.

Also, no spoilers, but this game really did push me at the end with the number of 'surprise reveals' that happen in the last moments. There's literally a string of moments in the game where character after character pops up to say "Hah, you beat that guy, but that was part of my plan all along!" followed by someone else's "You beat up that guy after beating up that first guy, but that was all part of my plan!" None of it is played for laughs and that almost dragged me out of the narrative as badly as Kiwami 1's nonsensical 'twist', but the strength of the characters and how interested I was in them tied me down to the moment. That being said, this game ends on the simply nuttiest cliff-hanger in storytelling, I cannot believe how dirty that cut to credits was, even if it was resolved immediately after those credits, that was damn filthy. (And finally, without context, this game taught me that getting shot three times not only restores your recently depleted health, but actually grants four extra health bars. I guess what doesn't kill you makes you super stronger!)

One of the great new editions that comes fresh with this remake is the inclusion of a whole new set of chapters starring everyone's idol Majima Goro! But don't get too excited, as this isn't another expertly weaved story connecting two seemingly unrelated narratives, but just a bog standard direct prequel which hints as events from the main game. The real cool additions here is simply being able see Majima in the Tojo Clan, being just as much of a show stealer as ever, and playing as the best boi himself. (Albeit, without any progression trees and using only the Mad Dog of Shimano moveset) This narrative it set up like a prequel, but in truth it's purpose is to wrap up one last dangling thread from Yakuza 0 so that those characters can move on. If you've played Yakuza 0, you likely know exactly who I'm talking about, and it's just about as gut wrenching as you're imaging. A bittersweet, and a little bit powerful, wrap-up for poor Majima.

Finally I need to talk about the music, and not just because I always forget to. Yakuza music has the tendency to be really strong suites. Everyone remembers that haunting chorus in 'Receive You' and 'Pledge of Demon' is a freakin' masterpiece. But Kiwami 2 has a few strong themes in it's lineup too. Nothing quite stood out be, for the right reasons, except for one tune. One that, as I understand it, appears to be brand new to this Kiwami remake. I'm talking that most contentious of songs, The Sound of Breath. Some love it. I just hear Japanese Reggae and it makes my skin scrawl. And for the somewhat important (and well framed) scene it came paired with, the song completely took me out the moment as I spent no attention on what was happening in front of me for instead I was caught between the dual desires of wanting to laugh and cry. I also think that the tune was intended to be romantic to some degree, although I'm not certain on that, but if it was then I didn't feel that either. Maybe I just feel sensitive in this having grown up around so much reggae that it give me hives whenever I hear. Or maybe this was just one step too weird for me.

Conclusion

And so with that marks the end of Kiwami, and from here on no Yakuza game is allowed to be even a little bit 'extreme', thems' the rules. So much of Kiwami 2, from the story, to the metagames, to the visual look of the world, is vastly improved upon Kiwami 1 to the point that it almost seems inevitable that this game be rated better, but unfortunately the greatest trip up was on the most important part of any game; the raw gameplay. Kiwami 2 doesn't play bad at all, don't get me wrong, but it also doesn't hold a candle to the fun of 1 and 0, to the point where some of the tougher late gate fights are genuinely frustrating just for the lack of options available to you. For a Yakuza game, that's going to cost dearly as it's something I can't just forget about and ignore. But the rest of the package came together so well! I still think individual pieces don't reach a level of sheer mastery like Yakuza 0 did with it's story, so this game yet trails under that. All and all this makes my final grading a challenge. But taking into account the fun I had and how willing I am to play through again at a later date, I think that edges Kiwami 2's to a B+ Grade, just ahead of Yakuza 1. Again, these games continue to be brilliant titles and my gripes come from splitting hairs and comparing them against their own powerhouse predecessors. If you've never given the Yakuza games a chance I can only say that you are missing out on easily the best action brawler franchise in the industry right now and there's no reason to go on suffering. Suffering is what I've signed myself up for now that I'm due to play the remastered games. (I've already started playing Yakuza 3... let's just say that right now it's feeling like that review is going to have a totally different vibe...)