I just realized something. In Sonic and the Black Knight, Galahad is Silver the hedgehog, while Lancelot is Shadow the Hedgehog. In the Arthurian legends, Galahad was the bastard son of Lancelot. So… they’re implying that Silver is the bastard son of Shadow? Neat.
OOHHH THE PAIN OF A CRAP SEQUEL IS TOO MUCH TO BEAR!!!!
As a person who’s only recently gotten into the Yakuza series, and barely invests in it after several years, I’m certain there are many who would rush to defend their oh so perfect franchise from the dregs of non-fans like me. It’s only fair, I do the same for non-Sonic/Resident Evil fans myself. Can’t say much for Pokemon anymore since it, apparently, can do no wrong. I recall having barely anything good to say about Yakuza 0. A game that, from recent memory, has received nothing but praise from fans and critics alike merely for having a lot of shit to do, and having a good story. With high marks like that, I’m once again reminded of the title I made for my blog. I cannot ever imagine how 2 giant mafia organizations could fight and kill each other over a tiny back alley. No matter how the game tries to sell it, the fact of the matter is that the Tojo clan controlled most of the city to the point that they did not need to worry about a back alley at all. But they did for… reasons, and so we go back and forth between 2 parallel storylines that do all they can to misdirect the audience from figuring out the story all too well.
Considering that this was my first real taste of the Yakuza series (I’m sure Dead Souls doesn’t count), I was just about ready to quit the series right there. 0 simply wasn’t good. It was a messy, grindy experience from start to finish. I’m assuming that Yakuza 6, a game that came out before 0, was so terrible that 0 came out smelling like roses. It’s not a good excuse, but there it is. The combat was ass, the minigames were tedious, and the pacing was so slow, I think I’m still playing it. Who’s the genius that thought forcing the player to switch back and forth between 2 characters that you had to micromanage… was a good idea? Fuck having a choice in the matter like you would for a Sonic game when you had interconnected stories and what not, lets make switching up after 2 chapters mandatory, that way you get invested in one story only to be stripped away from it for 2 long chapters. Probably the only decent thing in Yakuza 0 was Pocket Circuit. Oh amma, that Pocket Circuit was the SHIT!
Despite these greveinces, I took a chance and checked out Kiwami which was a remake of the first game. And it was FUCKING AWESOME in comparison! Combat was refined, the story was actually focused and stayed on course without diversions such as real estate and Cabaret Clubs, and better music… unless you’re a fan of the karaoke shit, then you’re assed out. Kiwami was a FUN game in comparison to the slow paced and grindy Yakuza 0. You didn’t have to grind funds just to upgrade your character (as that meant the amount of money you get would be slow without the shitty minigames, forcing you to play and learn them to save time), and it kept Pocket Circuit so I didn’t have to go back to Zero for it. It was an overall enjoyable experience!
So I figured I’d give Kiwami 2 a shot. Afterall, with such a huge improvement with the first Kiwami, this was bound to be just as good!
Goddamn do I hate being wrong.
I’m not sure what happened between the development of Kiwami 1 and 2, or perhaps it was the nature of how the original game was made in comparison, but Kiwami 2 is… just… awful! It makes me want to pull a spoony and take back every bad thing I said about Zero, but is impossible to do because Kiwami 1 already exists, and has most of what I cared about from Zero without the shitty grind fest and awful minigames. It’s like Sega (typically) saw that they improved too much from Zero and decided to poop on the next game in order to make a turned based combat system look better in comparison (Btw, fuck you Sega for making the rest of the series a turn based RPG for no other reason than it’s easier to design). According to everyone, a lot of the changes to how the game works comes as a result of utilizing the “Dragon Engine” for this game. Because nowadays, every gaming engine has to be named after the games they’re built for if only to not be whored out like the Unreal Engine. All this tells me is that this game is held back for the sake of a gaming engine. But according to those same fans, this really shouldn’t be the case because this same engine was used for a previous Yakuza game… I guess, meaning they had enough time to not make it shitty. Unfortunately, this is Sega we’re talking about, and even with a series they actually care about, they’re cutting some corners anyway. It’s… what they do.
Well lets start off with the good stuff, what little there is. Entering buildings doesn’t require a load screen. It’s probably the only real improvement with the downside of making the framerate slower to compensate for the data caps. You can escape from battles if you don’t feel like wasting time, which is nice.
Uhhhhh…
Eating food has more benefits than just healing. That’s nice…
Oh hey, Virtual-On! That would be nice if this was the Orataro Tangram game. Eww Virtua Fighter. Could’ve had House of the Dead 1 if they wanted to be real generous, or Sega Sonic Arcade. Or Sonic Championship. Or Panzer Dragoon. Or Crazy Taxi. Or Chu Chu Rocket. Virtua Fighter is shit!
That’s… literally all that’s good about this game. How unfortunate. Lets dig in.
The story in this game is an unbelievable bore, even when compared to Zero. Much of this I would attribute to everyone’s names being easy to forget (thanks to nearly all of them starting with a “K” like Kiryu, Kashiwagi, Kaoru, Komaki, Kazuki, Kazama, etc.) but that would be silly. I would guess this has more to do with the fact that the main characters have much less personal connection to it than they did in the previous 2 games. Much of what made Kiwami 1’s story so fascinating was that, yes, the character you played had all the personal stake in it. Especially if you’re coming off of Zero. In Zero, you see Kiryu and Nishiki as these friends who deal with the trials and tribulations of being Yakuza. Zero had a shit story, but they established a few key things that made Kiwami all the better for it. Seeing Kiryu and Nishiki turn into enemies… you feel that shit, especially when they delved into why Nishiki became evil in the first place.
The character you play becomes your gateway to the game’s world. In large part, having a story that they have a personal stake in makes the game’s story much easier to soak in because you’re thinking “yeah, this is MY journey!” It’s why Namco sucks when it comes to character creation, your character is a spectator throughout.
So in Kiwami 2, after 2 games where Kiryu had a personal stake in, he becomes something akin to a spectator. The story involves the Tojo Clan’s war against a Korean Mafia, the Jinweong. None of this involves Kiryu in anyway aside from one small detail that almost feels like they were admitting they made a mistake by not having Kiryu being more involved with the plot. Here’s the problem. The real main character is this detective named Kaori Sayami. She doesn’t get introduced until 2-3 chapters into the game, and if you’re coming off of the last 2 games, this gets real jarring real quick. The game starts off with Kiryu getting roped into a war between the Tojo Clan and the Omi Alliance, a war that’s being instigated by Ryuji Goda, a character I only recognize because he had a machine gun arm in the Zombie game, and looks like a discount Geese Howard on the cover. You’re here thinking that the game is about this gang war that kicks off almost immediately. But AS SOON as Sayami is introduced, the game takes an extended break from the gang war to deal with Sayami, Date from the last game who looks weirdly younger than before, and ANOTHER detective who has a murder boner going on. The game focuses strictly on these detectives to the point that it becomes extremely boring. The game misleads you into the Tojo-Omi war, and then ignores it for several chapters, barely even mentioning it until halfway through the game… before taking yet ANOTHER extended break from it.
Here’s the problem. When the main antagonist of the game is BARELY in the game, you start losing interest. When the opening story of the game (Gang War) feels as though it was hijacked by these brand new characters who had nothing to do with the games that came before, you lose all interest. It doesn’t help that Sayami is a really pushy bitch in the beginning before she’s forced into being a love interest for Kiryu… which is creepy because she’s literally half his age (seriously, she wasn’t even born when Kiryu was a “TEENAGER!”). As was the case in Zero, the Korean Mafia connection doesn’t reach it’s full connection to the Japanese Gang War until the ass end of the game when they start pulling plot details right out of their asses. Oh Terada who was the fifth chairman of the Tojo Clan was actually a Korean Mafia survivor, and we’re supposed to believe Kiryu didn’t remember that detail!? Everyone who isn’t an idiot could’ve figured out Goda and Sayami were both Korean Mafia survivors, but Terada was the biggest asspull I’ve ever seen thus far from this series, and I’m still spinning my head from the “it’s just allergies” thing from Dead Souls.
Speaking of hijacking the plot, there were 2 segments in the game that literally had NOTHING to do with the main plot… period. One segment dealt with the son of the Florist which sounded like a bunch of lecturing about the obligation to be a wage slave, and the other seemed to have been included only to give an explanation as to why Haruka becomes a Japanese Pop Idol later on in the series (I think). These 2 segments could’ve been side quests! You did not have to use them as excuses to pad out an already long game! The first one merely comes off as pretentious, and the second… just exists! Actually, no. There were 4 segments of plot hijacking! The other 2 existed for the same reason they did in Zero! To introduce SHITTY MINIGAMES! Oh lawd, they brought back the pimp game of Cabaret Clubs! The other is an RTS IE Majima Construction! I already own Bladestorm, if I wanted to play an RTS, I’d go to that piece of crap if it didn’t shut off my console randomly! It feels like all the issues Zero had has come back with a vengeance. You do not have to hijack the game and force us to play these damn minigames, having to suffer through more cutscenes that have nothing to do with the actual plot. Shit like this needs to stop! If you want to show off your damn minigames, keep them to sidequests or to things out of the way of the story. Do you know how LONG one segment of Cabaret or Majima Construction battle is!? Funny how the one fun minigame they had for the last 2 games (Pocket Circuit) did NOT hijack the plot, but was FAR MORE ENJOYABLE than these 2 wastes of space, and didn’t take more than 5 minutes to complete.
Sure I may not be invested in the main story, but don’t use THAT as an excuse to make me play anything shittier than the main game. Speaking of which, lets get on that!
One thing that’s instantly noticeable is that the game now runs at 30fps which chaps my ass to no end as it makes the game feel slower overall. Yeah yeah, “dragon engine”, a cheap excuse to cut corners. This dragon engine doesn’t really make the game look all that much better, so all they really had to do was tweek w/e they were using before, and there wouldn’t have been any issues. I’d assume with all the content that was cut out, they’d have more than enough experience to make the game run faster. But w/e, I’m not a programmer so I don’t know how much of a nightmare that is. But tell me, fanboys. What excuse do the programmers have to make Kiryu WALK BY DEFAULT!?
Here’s the thing. Kamurocho and Sotenbori are both pretty big and labrynthian. So naturally, you’re going to want to move fast to get from place to place without too much of a slog. So… having it where you can only walk by default makes the game feel much longer than it should be. But… that’s what they did! So now I have to hold down that fucking X button just to run everywhere, it feels like a chore! You can cheat this by finding some chumps to fight, and then use that to get to places faster since in battle, you run by default, and you’re not constrained in battles like before so you can run for a long period of time before said chumps give up on chasing you. But who the hell wants to do that all the time!? Enemy spawns are plentiful, so it’s not too much of a hassle, but again, you shouldn’t have to do this if you want to get to places faster. This becomes far more irritating when you get to actual missions that require you to jump back and forth between long ass distances like they do in EVERY OPEN WORLD CITY GAME EVER MADE! I don’t know WHY developers do this shit every single time, ugh! Backtracking through an open world city only makes that city tedious to trek through! And considering that Kamurocho is the main setting in every Yakuza game, this shit should NOT be the norm! It just exacerbates the problem of having to walk by default, and not having a faster means of transportation outside of exploiting battles and spending money on taxis… that you have to get to first. Running via holding X is not fun, AND because this mechanic runs on the same logic as sprinting, IE you have invisible stamina, you have to take breaks in between sprinting just to keep going, which is a distinction without difference.
So what about combat? Well folks, they managed to make it completely shit this time around. I would assume the excuse here is that “well they wanted this game to be much closer to the original game, so they removed all the alternate fighting styles, and kept everything strictly to the Dragon Style since that was the original fighting style used by Kiryu in every single game“. Ok, that’s fine, and it certainly makes the grind less of a slog by only focusing on one style. There’s only one problem with that.
IT’S FUCKING SLOW!!!
Kiryu fights as though he has arthritis in his limbs! Idk what it is, even after leveling up all of his battle skills, Kiryu’s attacks often leave him open to be ruined by everyone around him. All of his attacks have obnoxiously long recovery times that are never mitigated by his skill trees. Even the skills that claim to increase his attack speed don’t do anything of worth. So what happens is that you’ll find yourself attacking once or twice, then backing off, then attacking again. The reason being is that enemies often seem to attack you when you are not in any position to dodge or counter them. They also have the curse of attacking you offscreen, and have the new and annoying ability to kick debris in your face OVER AND OVER AGAIN! So you’re constantly having to rely on hit and run tactics in order to do anything substantial, and even then, it might not be enough.
Dodging attacks has been nerfed, and even leveling up his dodging skills barely mitigate this. When dodging attacks means you can only move like… 1cm away from some shit, you have royally fucked up the game! When enemies are aggressive and can attack you when you least expect it, dodging is integral to your survival. So by making dodging shit, you must now rely on guarding attacks, and even THAT is a crapshot. Guarding only works from Kiryu’s front, so you want to make sure no enemies are behind you when you are blocking attacks. Otherwise, you are STILL open for an ass whoopin. The game basically neutered your combat abilities, and there’s no way to mitigate this. You’re left to just mash your way to victory.
The only real silver lining is that all of your attacks do more damage outside of heat actions, meaning battles are shorter if not far more tedious and annoying. You also have a heat mode, but you’re better off conserving that for heat actions and counter attacks which deal twice as much damage. Basically, you have more damaging attacks and heat actions, but ways to AVOID damage have been nerfed significantly. This is the game’s way of telling you how it wants to be played. If you want to win all of your battles, you have to tank shit. Upgrade everything in regards to strength and durability, but don’t bother with anything that increases your ability and technique. I could talk about the five experience currencies you have to grind out, but honestly, it’s so negligible that you’ll be able to level up everything without ever running out of these currencies. It seems like an afterthought.
I’m sure there are a hundred explanations the fans could come up with that would justify this nonsense. “OH IT TAKES MORE STRATEGY NOW, ISN’T THAT GOOD!?” However, the only thing that comes to mind is that people bitched about Kiwami 1 aping everything they loved about Zero, which chaps my ass because that should be something we encourage. If you love a game, you should want that shit to stay the course in future games. Improving Zero’s combat made the combat fucking amazing in my book. But I guess Yakuza fans don’t play Yakuza for the combat. They play for the minigames, sidequests, and whatever other goofy shit they can meme online. Unfortunately for them, the rest of the game’s content doesn’t exist.
The Sidequests are nowhere near as interesting as before, and most of the side material exists to fellate Yakuza Zero, even when it doesn’t make sense. That old purple haired tiger should be dead by now, I don’t care. Majima’s little saga exists to tie up the loose end with his formerly blind love interest (which is, again, the only interesting story in a game where both Kiryu and Majima are playable), and again, the damn cabaret clubs. It seems… out of place to force Kiryu into doing what Majima did in Zero, but w/e. Zero is overrated now so game has to fanservice. The pervy videos are back, except now they’re just another version of those call centers where you have to match up the sentences in the right way, even though all I’m gonna do is demand tits anyway.
Besides that, the sidequests all start to blend together and get repetitive. Everyone seems to have massive money problems. Everyone’s always in debt for one reason or another. Or a guy in a relationship is often scorned by others for various reasons, but they often boil down to “they’re just idiots“. It gets to a point where the game takes a mild feminist undertone when you have female NPC’s that make equally bad decisions, but are treated as poor and unfortunate souls in comparison, while the male NPC’s are derided completely. I guess in Japan, women are expected to make stupid decisions while men are expected to be smarter than the average bear or something. It becomes nauseating after a while. Why is it always the game companies that faced bankruptcy and financial failures in the past that always seem to be the ones that lecture people about handling money and practicing good business!? That shit makes up at least half of the sidequests in the game. Not to mention that for most of them, you’re often having to backtrack long distances to complete them, which… again, goes back to the problem of default walking.
Aside from that, you also have something called “Bouncer Missions” which are basically short stages where you kill everyone in sight. This would be fine if combat wasn’t ass. They brought Mahjong back as well. Yay, that game that’s too hard to play because they expect me to memorize indistinguishable calligraphy pictures. Joy. They took out bug battle because boners are a poor excuse to play guessing games. The crane game still exists, and it still cheats. Dart throwing still exists, and I still couldn’t give 2/5ths of a fuck about dart throwing. I’d rather play the ping pong from Dead Souls. Fuck, that song is still in my head! How’s it go?
“Gotta go! Gotta go! Out of the… time? Until the break of dawn, just keep on dancing!” Idk the lyrics, it was just catchy as hell! Speaking of music… it’s mediocre. They added a lot of crappy J-Rock near the end of the game, and most of the music sounds more appropriate for Dynasty Warriors than it does Yakuza. Infact, I’ve actually seen clips of the original Yakuza 2, and certain scenes had it’s music altered. For one, the scene where Kiryu gets stabbed by a hobo had a nice little jazz tune synced up with all the events happening. In Kiwami 2, they replaced it with this zoomer ass J-Rock shit that would make even the most rational Sonic fans go “Ow the Edge!” I assume Yakuza 2 is supposed to be the darkest, most dramatic game in the series, and if that’s the case, the remake fails to capture it’s essence. The music choices really don’t fit the tone of the game most of the time. Not that it matters since the game doesn’t really leave an impression on you like the previous games did.
Aside from all of that, Kiwami 2 is just… well… a drag. It’s story isn’t engaging, the gameplay is neutered, the side content is depressing and repetitive, and the minigames are just as crappy as the previous ones. The GOOD minigames are nowhere to be found, and the game does everything it can to fellate Zero as much as possible. By far, it’s the worst Yakuza game I’ve ever played. Pretty sure it fails as a remake as well. I’ll say this much. Much as I detest Zero, it did not deter me from playing anymore games in the series. As shit as Kiwami 2 is, I dread the rest of the series… even though 3-5 were merely ported to PS4, though fans seem to be split on those games, and the consensus on 6 is that “shit” has no better name. But considering that so far, I’ve only enjoyed the games that everyone hates, idk. I suppose everyone’s reason for liking Zero is that you had a lot of shit to do. For me, that’s simply not good enough if the game isn’t fun to play. It’s kinda like how Tekken players used to hype up how characters had hundreds of moves even though the vast majority of them simply weren’t good. You’re only ever going to enjoy one or 2 things from these games anyway. The way I see it, the primary engagement one has with these games is the combat, so it needs to be fucking good! Otherwise, it’s going to be a drag no matter how much goofy shit you cram into the game.
Conflicting Views 