Skip to main content

Yakuza Kiwami 2 (2017, Playstation 4) Review


DICKENS GOES GANGSTA


Also for: Windows


A Yakuza game is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get, and yet you do - it's chocolate. The uncertainty is in the flavor. How will our beloved protagonist Kazuma Kiryu develop? Where will the story take us? How funny will the substories be? What mini-games remain? How does the combat and skill trees work this time? And most importantly: Is Yakuza Kiwami 2, the remake of Ryu Ga Gotoku studio's own PS2-classic Yakuza 2, to my taste at all?

The most striking update is the fabulous new engine, the Dragon engine, which was also used to produce Yakuza 6: The Song of Life. Gameplay feels smoother with less loading screens, but above all it looks fantastic. It pushes the PS4 hardware to its limits, and you can almost hear the strain of the graphics processor working.

On a standard PS4 the framerate struggles to keep up, especially on crowded streets. The level of detail is through the roof. As the camera closes in on its subjects you can literally count the pores on their cheeks. Different graphical effects, like soot or sweat, add great detail to their textures.



These may seem like trivial matters, but they boost the immersion factor. For the first time, the city feels like more than just a backdrop to your story. You interact more with it, knocking stuff over as you rush towards the nearest burger joint to heal up and gain some experience. Through the display windows you can see store personnel trying to appease their customers. New alleyways open up, no longer sealed off by invisible walls like they used to be.

We simply see more of the Kamurocho and Sotenbori districts, and can see them in first person mode - all the lights, the bustling streets, the signposts, the shops jam-packed with stuff. When you activate photo mode and try to capture stills of random people, they stop and give you their favorite pose. I've never visited Japan, but after playing Yakuza Kiwami 2, I feel like I have.



The main story is somewhat ridiculous with a straight face. As it picks up one year after previous events, Kiryu has left the Yakuza to raise his adoptive daughter, Haruka. He is still mourning the loss of all his old friends, when the new chairman of his old Tojo clan approaches him asking for advice on how to broker peace with the competing Omi Alliance.

And once again, Kiryu is forced back into "the business" as the chairman gets assassinated in front of his very own eyes. Teaming up with a female cop - an orphan named Sayama - your goal is to figure out who's behind the assassination. It becomes a twisted Dickensian tale of orphans struggling to find their place in this world. And maybe Kiryu might finally find love? 

The story is complex, uneven and not entirely successful all on its own, but totally works when paired with the immersion, combat and neat cutscene direction. Its smaller moments are better than the major twists. It is one of those narratives that is exciting to experience fresh, but makes little sense in hindsight.



During a trip to Sotenbori, we get acquainted with the antagonistic blonde powerhouse Ryuji Goda, who adorns the game cover. As a main villain, he is the best this series has yet produced, with deep resentments after a life of hardships and abandonment. His motivations are clear, yet he is surprisingly honorable, and develops a little as the game progresses. You get the feeling he and Kiryu could have been friends, but the circumstances never allowed it.

Some other side characters are not that well-developed. I might as well come clear on this: I don't like Haruka, Kiryu's uncanny adoptive daughter. I dislike how she is written. She may look like a child, but often behaves as an adult and has sensibilities well beyond her years. It reminds me of that great Kirsten Dunst performance as a 70-year old vampire trapped inside a child's body in the horror movie Interview with the Vampire (1994). Some other characters feel forced into the plot to the point that it overcomplicates matters. Apparently, the writers struggle with finding roles for every recurring character.



Apart from that, I enjoy every single thing about Yakuza Kiwami 2. The more streamlined, martial arts combat mechanic is better than ever. The combat jazz on the soundtrack accentuates the feeling of urban chaos. Kiryu apparently has found a way to combine all fighting styles into one, which makes the fights more fluid and quicker without sacrificing any of the moves. You can use the random encounters to develop your own style, and try it out for real in the boss encounters that spawn at fixed intervals, or in the Coliseum Tournament.

I appreciate the new levelling mechanic as well, which finally makes restaurants a central part of your playthrough. By simply exerting yourself, either by fighting or simply running around, you build up your appetite. When you eat, you gain boatloads of experience in different categories, and by finding out appropriate meal combinations, you boost your XP gain. This makes level grinding less tiresome and more experimental.



This is one of the most addictive games I've played all year. Every mini-game is tweaked or improved upon (except the UFO catcher, which is actually worse), and as alluring as ever. Some new ones include golf, pissing contests and lewd photography. You get sidetracked so much, some sessions of Yakuza Kiwami 2 feel like playing an old Epyx game of sports collections, like Summer Games or California Games. The larger sidequests involve Cabaret Club-managment (imported from Yakuza 0), which is great, and a real time strategy-inspired gang war simulator, which unfortunately is dull.

But that is almost beside the point. In a game already bustling with content, life and activity, there's additional stories to be found, where you get acquainted by the seedy underbelly of city life. These are, I feel, the heart and soul of the Yakuza experience, because they're what makes it totally unique.

Carrying explicit life lessons, they let you experience a slice of life through a totally warped lens. One particular story had me expose a fake exorcist - only to encounter a real ghost in the end. Another had me talk a suicidal man out of taking his own life, only to push him into the arms of a woman who'll make his life hell. Yet another had me introduce a street musician, who writes good songs but can't sing, to a girl with a great voice but no talent for writing music.



A few minutes of Yakuza Kiwami 2 doesn't paint the full picture. You can only get it by playing the entire game, experiencing all of its nuances, quirks and drama. You might look back at it and think: "What the hell was all that about?" And that should be the concluding thought, because it's a crazy ride. At times the main story comes to a halt, which gives you time to naturally delve into the side activities and explore the substories. These come well distributed over the game's running time, keeping the game's steady rhythm intact.

Whereas narrative video games usually incorporate natural pauses that allow you to turn them off and rest, Yakuza Kiwami 2 apparently wants you to spend your downtime in its world as well. And since it is so much fun, why shouldn't you? Everything seems to be a competition in this universe. Resting would only make you lose your edge. Old friendships wither away against the prospect of being number one, and once lost, new alliances can only grow out of business agreements.

That is the harsh lesson taught by Yakuza Kiwami 2. Although they should be best friends, Kiryu and the main villain Ryuji are so much alike they can only be enemies. The diversity of the world has no need of duplicates. Although they might be kindred spirits, they inhabit the same marketspace, and must compete for their right to it. There can be only one.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Wing Commander (1990, DOS) Review

ALL YOUR SPACE ARE BELONG TO KILRATHI

Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear (2016, Windows) Review

NEEDLESS FAN FICTION

Zack Zero (2012, Playstation 3) Review

AVERAGE TO THE MAX

Wolfenstein: The Old Blood (2015, Playstation 4) Review

ONCE MORE INTO THE FRAY

Assassin's Creed: Origins (2017, Playstation 4) Review

MASSIVE TO A FAULT

Assassin's Creed: Syndicate (2015, Playstation 4) Review

THE HIDDEN BLADE OF THE FRANCHISE