Outerlude 02: Yakuza Kiwami 2

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

The latest chronological release of Kiryu Kazuma’s adventures, Kiwami 2, like its predecessor, is a remake of Yakuza 2. Set a year after the events of Kiwami (or 1), Kiryu finds himself dragged back into the affairs of the Tojo Clan when the clan’s Fifth Chairman is assassinated in front of his eyes, and the stability and the future of the clan is at risk. The clan is in a shambles, with prominent patriarchs either dead from the 10 Billion Yen incident or, like Majima, up and left. The Omi Alliance in Kansai is circling the water, looking to absorb the weakened Tojo Clan. Kiryu’s not about to let that shit happen…

… just as soon as he’s done karaoke/running a cabaret club/getting chased down by an old woman/getting roped into being a voice actor/becoming a model.

There’s a large consensus among fans (as much as there can be) that Kiwami 2 is one of the best Yakuza games (after 0). The storytelling has also taken a HUGE jump from Kiwami, with more complicated and nuanced storylines and characters getting introduced. I think that consensus overhyped me a bit, because I ended up measuring it up to 0 more than I should, and feeling kind of let down as a result. That’s not to say it’s not great! Using the Dragon Engine (shared with 6), Kiwami 2 is gorgeous. Kamurocho and Sotenbori have never looked better, and I’ve seen gifs and screenshots of the game where I had to double-check to make sure they weren’t photographs. The lighting in this game is off the charts, and the models are more detailed and realistic, too. Kiryu moves fluidly and organically through the world, his blazer jacket hem moving in the wind, his pant legs sliding up a bit when he kneels - stunning. He’ll hop over barriers when you’re fucking around, knock into shit and knock it over, and, as I discovered quite without meaning to, he’ll vault over one storey high balconies to land like a ton of bricks in the street.

Those upgrades come at a price, though: more realistic and more fluid means it’s MORE immersion breaking when it doesn’t work quite right, which is at least some of the time. There’s ragdoll physics in fights now, and it’s pretty fuckin goofy. The fighting also feels more real… but then that means I miss dearly the idealized, over the top fighting from the previous games, like it’s harder to do the coolest, sick nastiest shit. And, most damning (for me) … it makes the game take a hit as to how fun it is to watch.

I’m a bitch who loves looking at people’s faces, and where 0 was the absolute SWEET SPOT of realism with a touch of stylization and the facial animations shone like jewels set in velvet, Kiwami 2 nudged them far enough along the realism scale that it is VERY noticable when a scene doesn’t have a Special Touch laid upon it. Listen, I get it - there’s a ton of fuckin scenes in these games, and it’d be nutso to hand-animate them all. When they ARE hand animated, they’re spectacular. Literally amazing. But when they’re not… it’s more readily apparent and looks not as good.

The story as a whole is pretty interesting, and I ESPECIALLY appreciate Dojima Yayoi, the Acting Chairman and Dojima Sohei’s wife, who is rad as mother fuck and she’s respected in the narrative, and Sayama Kaoru, a detective who puts Kiryu under her protective custody, who is who this game is actually about. There’s a wonderful, intimidating antagonist in Goda Ryuji, and he was fun as hell to watch. It gets kiiiiiiind of cheesy and overdone at parts—listen, these genre conventions mean I get to see attractive, cut men whip off their shirts on the regular so I love them, but even they can get pushed too far. I’m up in this bitch and I’m about it, though, so I can’t complain. The nods to the earlier games, as always, melt my heart, and especially the cabaret club side mission is amazing and adorable and I love seeing Yuki again.

AND, last but certainly not least, I want to touch on the bonus, too-short-but-so-good Majima Saga: it’s great and nice and Majima is DROP! DEAD! GORGEOUS! in the Dragon engine. I took a solid five minutes at the beginning to just run around and watch his blazer billow in the wind (different than Kiryu’s!) and admire the shader on his pants (who did that? god did that). It brings closure to his arc from 0, which I can appreciate (even though my girlfriend and I are out here writing fix it fic about it still, for sure). It just confirms one ask of mine, beyond getting Ishin localized for the west: MAJIMA SOLO SPINOFF GAME WHEN.

Next up: Big Dad Energy unleashed in -

See you soon!