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Console: Ps4, Xbox One
Release: 2018
Picking up directly after the events of Kiwami 1, the sequel puts us back in the shoes of Kiryu Kazama; the legendary Dragon of Dojima, as he tries to rebuild an alliance between rivals the Tojo Clan and the Omi.
Just like the original Kiwami, the game is a complete remake of the 2006 ps2 game. Rebuilt from the ground up, Kiwami 2 uses the new 'Dragon Engine' to greatly enhance user playing experience.
The game is all in Japanese, with no dubbing available, just English subtitles. This actually helps keep the experience fresh and engaging.
Events takes place across the fictional cities of Kamurocho and Sotenbori. These cities are packed to the brim of things to do and see. You can freely enter and exit various buildings without any loading screens, and short taxi rides can cut travel time down considerably, meaning the cities really are your playground.
Both cities are full of ways to kill time. You can play various games in some of the buildings such as darts; golf, and a ton of arcade games including Virtua Fighter. These are mostly fun, enjoyable ways to spend some time between objectives.
You can also dine in one of the multiple restaurants on offer. Doing so has a couple of benefits:
- It restores some of your health (how expensive the meal is will determine how much of your health is restored).
- You gain experience points every time you eat (again depending on the meal).
So as you can tell; it's wise to eat different foods regularly. You do have a 'stomach' gauge though, and when this is filled you can't eat anymore until it starts to lower (nice touch Sega 🤣).
You can even hit some of the bars and get drunk! Not only is this amusing; but it actually has some benefits in combat too.
The upgrades and abilities system is beautifully simple. You gain experience from eating, fighting or completing missions, which you can then spend on upgrading whatever you like in any order. You can increase your health; your damage output, or unlock new moves.
Efficient, no frills stuff.
The core gameplay, like in most Yakuza games, consists of fighting various thugs and general bad guys in and around the city. Oh and also tigers. KIRYU FIGHTS TWO FREAKING TIGERS.
Kiryu is a fearsome fighter at the very top of his game here. There are no different fighting styles to switch between like in some of the other games. He gets 1 style only; but its super effective. You still have options in terms of how to approach fights. You can parry, counter, block; throw or just punch and kick. All of these are nice and simple to execute. Most of the items you see around you can be picked up and used as weapons.
Kiryu also has a 'heat' meter which fills by doing damage (it fills quicker while you're drunk- no, seriously🤣). Filling it allows you to use a devastating finishing move using either the environment around you, or a weapon if you're holding one.
Kiryu also has the added luxury of being able to pick up weapons and store them for future use. Make no mistake, weapons make some tricky encounters MUCH simpler; so storing some for a rainy day is a very wise decision.
The Dragon engine's impact on the gameplay is significant. Fights are extremely fluid, especially compared to Kiwami 1 or any of the older games in the series. Kiryu effortlessly dances round his enemies, dealing them severe damage, and it all looks beautiful.
Overall, the combat is slick, fluid and thoroughly enjoyable. AND DID I MENTION KIRYU FIGHTS TWO FREAKING TIGERS!
Visually Kamurocho has never looked better. Vibrant, sharp textures bring the City to life as well as the characters themselves.
The story is gripping. It starts out relatively simply but gradually gets more complex as the game progresses. Kiryu, despite his best intentions, can't seem to escape the Yakuza lifestyle no matter what he does.
The plot does dip a little in the middle of the roughly 16 hour campaign, but the strength of the characters, including returning favourite Majima Goro; pull it through.
Speaking of the strength of the characters- this brings us nicely to the villain of the piece- Ryuji Goda.
What an incredible villain he is. With bags of charisma; Goda cuts an extremely imposing figure throughout the game.
He's portrayed with a real cold hearted menace- you'll find yourself hating him from the very first encounter. The biggest compliment I can pay Goda is that, despite his entire dialogue being in Japanese, his tone of voice and the way that he carries some words is so distinctive that I could almost get the jist of what he was saying, even if the subtitles had been turned off.
He is more than a worthy adversary to Kiryu, and the final encounter is a fitting climax to their rivalry.
As with the others in the series; one of the best things about the game is that you can ignore pretty much all side content and make a beeline for the main plot, its completely up to you. The side content varies in quality, as is usually the case; so whether you choose to put in the extra hours or not, it wont really affect your overall experience.
2 of the main pieces of side content are a cabaret club mini game where you need to use your staff strategically to keep the customers happy; and a top down, tower defense style strategy game where you command a small force of construction workers and have to defend against waves of attackers.
Only Yakuza could get away with such crazy, unique content! The tower defense game is actually pretty fun. When you need to kill some time around the city, give it a shot.
If you're a newcomer to the Yakuza series, I would actually recommend you do NOT start with this game.
The reason? Because this game is SO good, it sets the bar SO high, that the older games that don't have the Dragon engine powering them will be a bit of a disappointment.
Kiwami 2 is an excellently crafted game; with very few flaws. It tells a brilliant story using a range of well written; memorable characters, and pits Kiryu against his toughest opponent yet.
There are hours of fun to be had here and I cannot recommend this game highly enough.
Verdict: 9/10
By @damoroso4
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