And with that, I’ve now finished Yakuza Kiwami! Overall pretty good game, though definitely feels like an expansion of 0 more than its own thing. Story was well paced. Didn’t like the regenerating boss health. Really liked Nishiki as the villain. I would die for Haruka. Enjoyed it!
Comments
It's funny how it kinda feels like they're kicking themselves for killing off Kazama too early, considering how much the next two games love cramming flashback featuring him whenever they can
Nishiki as villain is satisfying bc of 0 but I still think it feels a bit out of left field with 0's context
Uhh...spoilers ahead.
It's the scene where Nishiki can't shoot Kiryu, even with Kiryu telling him to. That's the root of all of it. The moment when Nishiki realizes he's WEAK in a shameful way he can't overcome. Everything in 1 comes from him feeling weak.
It feels like uneven character development bc of 0's much larger focus.
Like it felt like, at any moment, the game would reveal the twist that would explain why Nishiki turned how he did...
And then it kinda didn't?
You're kinda left assuming a lot of stuff
Made me make a turn from "Wait... But why did he become evil tho'?" to "NO FUCKING WONDER HE TURNED EVIL?!?"
The run of 0-K1-K2 makes an excellent trilogy within the series, and both Ks have extra stuff like minigames and side characters that call back to 0.
I played them by release order, but there are some pros to do 0 -> The Kiwamis -> The rest
Mainly, some substories in the Kiwami games follow through on stuff that happened in 0
Like going from two Yakuza 0 switch styling game, to Yakuza 6 styled physics, to the rigid and block happy 3, slowly incrementingly changing in 4 and 5 can be a bit jarring
Majima saga is fine I guess? But the experience really does not impact yakuza 2’s story in any meaningful way