Your oath brother murders the head
of your crime family? That’s a slightly
trickier problem to solve. Instead,
series protagonist Kazuma Kiryu
decides to take the fall, resulting in a
ten-year prison sentence and his
expulsion from the
Tojo Clan. Kiryu
returns to Kamurocho
in 2005, only to learn
that Nishikiyama—the
man he willingly gave
up a decade of his
freedom for—has
betrayed the clan,
triggering a desperate
battle for leadership. This, too, is a
problem that can be solved by
punching. A lot of punching, spread
over many hours.
Yakuza Kiwami is, in other words,
another Yakuza game, and will be
instantly familiar to anyone who’s
played Yakuza 0. There’s the slowly
unfolding melodramatic crime
drama, the slice-of-life sidequests,
and the selection of minigames and
activities, from bowling to karaoke to
a questionable card battler about
scantily clad women roleplaying as
insects. It’s both serious and silly,
sometimes within the same cutscene,but works because Kiryu is such an
inherently likable lead—calm,
authoritative, naive, and endearing.
If you haven’t played Yakuza 0, go
and do that first. As a remake of a
13-year-old game, even one with extra
features, Kiwami takes
place entirely in
Kamurocho and offers
fewer side activities
and less playful
substories. It’s a relic
from a time before the
series fully knew what
it was, dressed up in
the clothes of Yakuza at
its best. Perhaps it’s best to think of
Yakuza Kiwami as an expansion pack
to 0. It’s by no means a bad game, but
expectations need to be managed.
Yakuza Kiwami is a mostly faithful
remake. Many of the cutscenes are
shot-for-shot recreations of those
found in the PlayStation 2 original.
But Kiwami also adds new elements,
both for better and worse. A clear
improvement is the cutscenes added
between each chapter that show
what happened to Nishikiyama
during the ten years Kiryu was away.
They help to add further depth to the
character, and build nicely on his rolein Yakuza 0. Less positive is what the
remake does with Majima.
He’s the star of a new system
called Majima Everywhere, and it’s a
bit of a mess—a clunky way to
shoehorn Yakuza 0’s second
protagonist into a game he barely
appeared in. When Kiryu returns
from prison, Majima challenges him
to a series of fights—ostensibly as a
way to help him resharpen his edge
after ten years away. Throughout the
game he’ll appear, either chasing you
down on the streets, or ambushing
you out of bins and manholes and
giant traffic cones.MANY-PUNCH MAN
Some of the scenarios are
entertaining, but the frequency and
progression of the system means it
quickly becomes tedious. Yakuza
Kiwami’s combat system is just as
explosive and entertaining as 0 ’s
(because it’s exactly the same), but
the lengthy, protracted battles against
Majima at his highest ranks are more
about repeated execution of a
handful of counters. After a certain
point, he’s just not much fun to fight.
Despite everything, I still
recommend Yakuza Kiwami. If
nothing else it’s worth it for the story,
which introduces characters and
events that go on to shape the series
as a whole. More than the internal
disputes of the Tojo Clan or the
peculiar friendship of Kiryu and
Majima, the heart of the series’ story
revolves around Kiryu’s relationship
with Haruka. That makes Yakuza
Kiwami, and the pair’s initial meeting,
an important part of the series as a
whole. Kiwami is probably my least
favorite Yakuza game, but it’s still an
evocative, detailed, and largely
entertaining gangster thriller full of
charm and absurdity.NEED TO KNOW
WHAT IS IT?
A remake of 2005’s
Yakuza, in the engine of
Yakuza 0
EXPECT TO PAY
$20
DEVELOPER
Sega
PUBLISHER
In-house
REVIEWED ON
GeForce GTX 1070,
16GB RAM, i5-6600k
MULTIPLAYER
Online minigames
LINK
yakuza.sega.com74
Suffers in comparison to
Yakuza 0, but is still a
compelling drama, and
an important part of the
series as a whole.VERDICTIt’s both serious
and silly,
sometimes
within the
same cutsceneW
elcome back to Kamurocho, the city district where
nearly every problem can be solved by punching. A
conman tries to scam you out of money? You can
punch your way through that. A retired judo pro
requests a tour of local nightlife? Yet more punching.
An eccentric gangster engineers a series of increasingly elaborate attacks
in an attempt to provoke you into fighting him? You get the idea.DR AGON AGED
YAKUZ A K IWAMI proves that the mid-2000s
weren’t as much fun as the 1980s. By Phil Savage
GLOW UP What’s new in the remake?
DIALOGUE
The English voice
acting has been
replaced by the
original Japanese.
Sorry, Mark Hamill.GAMBLING
Kiwami has some
new minigames, but
this irritating slot
machine didn’t
make the cut.SINGING
According to this
new montage,
Kiryu’s time in
prison involved
winter radishes.GRAPHICS
Kiryu looks older,
and no longer sports
an annoying,
low-poly,
smug grin.SAVING
The PC version
features autosave.
Even in 2005 the
death of payphones
was near.REVIEW