Yakuza, known currently as Like a Dragon, is a fantastic series, and not many games can match the tone, style, and raw emotion every installment offers to players. Due to the length of its entries, its story-heavy nature, and the overall number of Yakuza titles, it’s certainly not the easiest franchise to get into. It can often be quite daunting for new players, even though there are many good entry points, with Yakuza 0 probably being the best one currently. 

As someone introduced to the franchise with Yakuza 0, and having played some of the later works of the Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, the Kiwami games felt like a natural next stop, as they’re the remakes of the first two games. 

Yakuza Kiwami 2 continues the journey of Kiryu Kazuma and this time takes him to Osaka while adding a lot of friends and foes to the character roster. I think anyone familiar with those games probably knows what to anticipate by now, but in any case, the thrill and the drama you expect are certainly still there.

Among its many plotlines, two stand out: the rivalry between Kiryu and the Dragon of Kansai, Goda Ryuji, along with the mystery of the return of a Korean mafia syndicate after two decades. Both are suspenseful stories with many interesting hooks, leading to some incredible scenes and set pieces. The future of both the Tojo Clan and the Omi Alliance, integral entities in the franchise, is also receiving a big focus. While it’s a bit hard to surpass the epic dual story of 0, I feel the overall plot comes close and certainly doesn’t disappoint regarding its grounded moment as well.

Sayama Kaoru, an Osakan detective with an unknown past, is also introduced as a deuteragonist, and a lot of the drama of Kiryu is focused around her. While she’s adequately developed during the course of the game and serves well as a romantic interest for Kiryu as well, the knowledge that she doesn’t have any role after Kiwami 2 is slightly disappointing. 

The main story is a big part of Yakuza games, but I’d be lying if I said that the real draw for me isn’t the side content, and Kiwami 2 has plenty of it. As mentioned, in addition to Kamurocho, you can fully explore the area of Sotenbori as well, and the game has two areas worth of activities. While Kiryu explores these places, all the classic activities are there, whether it’s a night of karaoke and darts, a gambling expedition for poker and mahjong, or a visit to the batting center and the arcade, among others.

There are also some more unique activities to enjoy, like a wacky toilet mini-game and gravure-related games with quick time events, which are intertwined with the more raunchy side of the series. Lastly, there are some more long-form games as well, featuring their own storylines, that tackle completely different genres, like a cabaret management game and a tower defense mini-game, and these are also the ones with the most deep mechanics. 

As someone who strives to experience everything a game has to offer beyond the critical path, and while I appreciate the inclusion of so many different activities and mini-games, as I’ve started to become more familiar with the Yakuza series, Kiwami 2 was a breaking point for me. The side content felt very exasperating, as it shares a lot with Yakuza 0 and the first Kiwami, sometimes with little to no difference. Even some of the more unique stuff has a lot of padding and repetition, like the bouncer missions.

A lot of that can be skipped, and I assume most people will skip them; however, I felt déjà vu doing the side quests as well, which usually had been a nice way to take a break from the more emotionally charged main story and explore some ridiculous short stories and another side of the city. 

The repetition of narrative beats is what essentially soured me the most, even for something meatier like the cabaret mini-game which followed the structure and many of the plots of the one from Yakuza 0. All of that is an unavoidable reality of how economical the series’ cost-cutting is, both a blessing and a curse.

That said, I assume, at least to a certain degree, this is more of a result of Kiwami 2 being a remake of a rather old title, with the developer team trying to expand it with content they already had, while also trying to pay homage to Yakuza 0, which was certainly a big turning point for the series. And it’s a really good remake as well, that certainly manages to get the PS2 title to be on par with the rest of the PS4 entries at the time, while the addition of the Dragon Engine made the exploration smoother compared to Kiwami 1.

The Dragon Engine is also something that greatly affects the combat. It lacked the variety of styles you see in some of the other games of the series sadly, and at times it felt a bit too stiff for my preference, but the expanded destructible environments or how you can fight even inside a shop, are very welcome. The game has a much more nuanced experience system as well, with different stats, and as it’s common with those games, the more you invest in it, the more skills or abilities you get, and the “real” combat is unlocked.

Lastly, one other addition to the game compared to the original is the Majima Saga mode, where you play as the famous Mad Dog of Shimano from the previous entries. While it features a very nice short story, with an emotional payoff for everyone who played Yakuza 0,  the mode is pretty much just tucked in, with barely anything to do, which is a bit of a shame as it very much could be more fleshed out.

Overall, fans of the series are going to love it; it has a very engrossing story and some of the most interesting characters in the series. There are tons of things to do and while burnout from repetition may be a reality, it hugely depends on how many of these games you’ve played and how much you delve into each one. The main story takes about 30 hours, but the actual time you spend with the game can easily balloon to a hundred. 

Despite my gripes, even if it’s not better than Yakuza 0, I very much enjoyed it and I’d highly recommend it, as the Yakuza series is a rare franchise that isn’t afraid to be as silly as it’s serious, and the remake does an excellent job bringing one of Kiryu’s original adventures to more modern standards.