Yakuza Kiwami Game Review

2017, Year Of The Amazing Remakes

The Yazuka series of games has a long running history at this point. Spanning over 10 games if you include the spinoff titles. If that seems a little overwhelming, don’t stress because the newest title Yakuza Kiwami is the perfect starting block to dive into the action-adventure series for newcomers.

Yakuza Kiwami is a complete, from the ground up remake of the original Yakuza game, originally released back in 2005. In Kiwami, you play as Kazuma Kiryu, a Yakuza gangster with a conscience. One of a small few in this game that actually do. You begin the opening hours of the game as a very powerful fighter, and it’s revealed quickly that you are a well known and respected person among the many gangster families in the city of Kamurocho and is referred to by many as the ‘Dragon of Dojima’.

Due to story events that won’t be mentioned in this review, there is a time skip in which Kiryu’s fighting abilities have gone untested and requires the player, throughout the course of the game, to re-level and learn the Dragon of Dojima abilities once more. This is the core progression system mechanic of the game that you will focus on most when not progressing through the story quests. Leveling these systems is fun, rewarding and most skill tree’s are able to be progressed just by spending the points earned playing the core story of the game.

Regularly updating these skills is necessary to progress, as there wasn’t really a time in the game where I felt too overpowered. The enemies were consistently tough and provided a sense of accomplishment every time I managed to defeat a boss.

Speak With Your Fists

One of Kiwami’s biggest strengths is it’s story. It is written well and contains characters you will love, some you will hate and plenty of moments that will pull on your emotions. It also wouldn’t be a Yakuza game without the quirky characters that pop up (quite literally) to provide some laugh out loud relief from the serious segment of the story. Most of the time this involves scenes with Goro Majima, but more about him later. This remake stays true to the original game’s story but also further fleshes out some scenes and includes more character development than the original in the form of completely new original cutscenes.

The core combat in Kiwami is mostly hand to hand combat based, there is the occasional weapon or destructible object that is able to be used to assist in the fight but for the most part it will just be your fists and some mastery of the 4 combat types, that can be switched on the fly during combat using the 4 d-pad buttons. These styles provide a deeper level to the combat as they are all drastically different. For example the Rush stance allows Kiryu to unleash a speedy barrage of punches that hit fast and do less damage than the Beast stance which consists of slower but more powerful hits to be performed. The way you fight is up to you and you will work out quite quickly the pro’s and con’s of each style.

A Faithful Japanese Experience

You should be aware before picking up the game that the voice track in the game is completely in Japanese. Unlike some earlier entries in the series, Sega has opted to leave this game undubbed and in it’s original Japanese format. This makes perfect sense, as the game is set in Japan, with a cast of Japanese people but not having an English track may prevent some players from buying the game if they aren’t used to experiencing media in other languages. The dialogue for the game has all re-recorded for this remake as well.

It’s not just the language that is super Japanese, the whole setting nails the Japanese culture. From the neon lit streets in Kamurocho, the way people act and speak, all the way down to the food you can buy. It’s all super Japanese. So if realistic depictions of Japanese culture, lifestyle and crime families don’t interest you unfortunately this may not be the game for you.

Despite being a modern remake, the engine the game has been developed with is showing it’s age in some area’s. This is the same engine that developed most of the PS3 Yakuza titles, as well as the most recent Yakuza 0. The engine has been confirmed to be getting an overhaul for the development of Yakuza 6. While the city and core character models look great by today’s graphical standards, many npc’s lack the same level of detail and in some cutscene’s certain textures look very stretched out, low resolution and like they were meant for a previous generation console.

Also Introducing Great New Systems

Yakuza Kiwami introduces some new systems that the original didn’t contain. The prior mentioned fighting styles being one of them, but the biggest change comes in the form of the ‘Majima Everywhere’ system. This new mechanic allows you to be attacked by series favourite Goro Majima at any point while traversing the streets. This always keeps you on your toes and he’ll go above and beyond to locate you and start a new fight. He will use many different disguises to try and catch you off guard, one minute he’s a police officer, then a zombie then he’s the bartender serving you drinks. You can’t escape him and he is obsessed with fighting you and pushing you to become better.

These moments never cease to cause a laugh, and you never know what the next disguise will be. Fighting Majima is the only way to level up the Dragon skill tree which progressively returns your Dragon of Dojima abilities. This system and the number of substories are a great way to keep the game interesting even after completing the core story and provides a great deal of longevity in the title.

Final Thoughts

Overall, Yakuza Kiwami is a great game. Certainly not everybody’s cup of tea, especially those that aren’t a fan of Japanese culture or media in languages other than English. But I thoroughly enjoyed my time spent with Yakuza Kiwami. While not as long as other games in the Yakuza franchise, it’s great story and substories(side quests) combined with it being the perfect jumping on point for anyone looking to dive into the series for the first time make it well worth the asking price.

A retail review code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.

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