3.5/5 ★ – AWasch's review of Yakuza Kiwami.

Upon writing this, I have just finished Yakuza Kiwami, and my thoughts are very mixed. I played this right after Yakuza 0, which I was thoroughly engross in its (almost too) complex story, fun gameplay, and captivating characters. This game definitely delivered on the front of an entertaining story, though not as overwhelmingly complex (which is a good thing to me), and had an amazing villain by centering around Nishikiyama. But the gameplay was a very mixed bag. Pros: -enthralling story -Amazing villain with excellent depth, making the final battle all the more emotional if you’ve played Y0 first -Good characters (love you majima even though they made you into a tonally inconsistent mess) -Still a hefty amount of mini games and side content, though it needs to be said the side content additions were mainly to draw the Y0 crowd back in, it’s still good as hell though. Cons: -The boss fights are some of the most poorly designed boss fights I’ve seen in any game EVER -The addition of a fourth style is cool, but it is completely useless until you can get tiger drop and a few other late-game skills. It’s also really fucking annoying that it’s progression is entirely based on RNG. -The enemies have a ridiculous amount of knockdown, meaning getting ramming into hordes of Yakuza with beast mode and the like is very unsatisfactory feeling