Yakuza Kiwami

Genre: Action-RPG

Players: 1

The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

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Review:

The Yakuza series started out on the PlayStation 2 in 2006 with the series’ first title, simply called Yakuza. This series of Action-RPG games focusing on the criminal underworld of contemporary Tokyo has seen numerous releases in the time since then, including 2017’s Yakuza Kiwami on PlayStation 4, a remake of the first game using gameplay mechanics from prequel Yakuza Zero and adding new story and gameplay elements, with a much-expanded focus on supporting characters Akira Nashikiyama and Goro Majima. Yakuza Kiwami was later ported to PC in 2019, Xbox One in 2020, and then to Nintendo Switch in 2024, the series’ first Western release on a Nintendo platform (both Yakuza and Yakuza 2 had Wii U releases in Japan).

While Yakuza Kiwami is technically set in the open environment of the fictional Kamurocho district of Tokyo, the game takes a considerable amount of time to open up, and its focus remains primarily on its story, and its Action-RPG gameplay, with pretty linear progression until you’re multiple hours into the game.

To its credit, Yakuza’s story is highly engrossing, even if it is a bit too liberal with the way it leaps around in time at the start. Players take the role of series protagonist Kazuma Kiryu, a rising star in his yakuza family on the fast track to be given his own family in the near future (apparently the equivalent of being a “made man” in the mafia). However, after a series of events leads Kazuma to take the blame for the murder of his family head, he spends a decade in prison. Upon being let out, he tries to piece together what happened to his friends and to his yakuza family while he was behind bars, and his reputation as a kin slayer precedes him as he finds himself getting dragged into the current-day conflicts tearing apart the Yakuza.

This story is delivered with style and does a great job of inviting you into this world with its sometimes strange and volatile characters. While much of Yakuza Kiwami strives for realism, its plot and characters are sometimes outright cartoonish, such as the aforementioned Goro Majima, an eccentric family head who fancies himself your rival, repeatedly challenging you to fights throughout the course of the game, seemingly for no reason other than that he delights in the idea of fighting you. Still, encounters like this and other absurd plot developments definitely feel “videogamey”, the top-notch Japanese-language voice acting and the exquisite graphics help to keep this game grounded.

Speaking of the graphics, Yakuza Kiwami is absolutely gorgeous, with absolutely amazing detail in its environments and characters. Granted, in the seven years since its initial release, it has aged somewhat – facial textures in unimportant NPC characters are blurry and indistinct, and there’s a lot of aliasing going on here. It’s clear that this is a graphical downgrade from other platforms. And yet, Yakuza Kiwami is still a graphical marvel, and along with most of the game’s spoken dialogue being voiced, this absolutely justifies the game’s massive 23GB file size on your memory card.

Kamurocho is a wonderland of neon signs, shops filled with wares, and night clubs bearing posters of girls to entice passersby inside. It is extremely rare to see a videogame environment so lovingly-crafted, with tons of detail to pour over everything, making the place look absolutely alive. What’s more, puddles of water on the ground ripple gently and reflect the world above, and the street full of people includes those just walking through, venue employees eagerly trying to get people to peruse their wares, and locals hanging around, chatting, or at times looking for a fight.

Speaking of fighting, Yakuza Kiwami’s main gameplay has players mostly fighting with fists against one or multiple enemies. Players can swap between four fighting styles, which can be upgraded through the course of the game via RPG-style mechanics. Combat is probably my least favorite part of Yakuza Kiwami – maybe I just “don’t get it” yet, but different enemies often react differently to your attacks in a way that makes it difficult to play in a way that’s consistent.

Some enemies are staggered by your attacks, some aren’t, and some are only staggered some of the time. Sometimes grabbing an enemy will let you get in a few hits before they break free, sometimes it will result in them immediately breaking free and getting a few hits in themselves. Plus, tougher enemies repeatedly refill their health bar when their health gets low, making things even more tedious. And which fighting style you should use seems largely arbitrary. It got to the point where I felt like I was enjoying this game quite a lot up until someone ran up to me to fight me, which I’d grudgingly have to do to get back to the stuff I actually wanted to do.

Because of this, I found Yakuza Kiwami to be wildly uneven. The parts of it that are good are so very good, with a world that is a feast for the eyes and ears, and a story that, while occasionally goofy, nevertheless does a wonderful job drawing you into the drama of the struggles of the various yakuza clans. On the other hand, the inconsistent combat is really frustrating, making me groan with annoyance every time my journey through this world is interrupted by some punk wanting a piece of me. Plus, the game’s extreme linearity early on keeps players from fully exploring the game’s detailed world. If you can put up with these issues, then I definitely recommend Yakuza Kiwami, as this game’s strengths outweigh its weaknesses.

tl;dr – Yakuza Kiwami is an Action-RPG focusing on the criminal underworld of contemporary Tokyo, with an extremely detailed world that begs to be explored, and an excellent story with some excellent twists and turns. Unfortunately, the inconsistent combat and an extremely linear early game hinder this otherwise excellent experience. Still, if you can put up with its flaws, I still think this game is absolutely worth playing. It’s a mixed bag, but that mix is mostly very good.

Grade: B+

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The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

Yakuza Kiwami

Genre: Action-RPG

Players: 1

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Review:

The Nintendo Switch 2 is slowly building up its library of games in the Yakuza series, with 2025 bringing the console a new Director’s Cut of Yakuza 0, as well as ports of Yakuza Kiwami and Yakuza Kiwami 2, and in the case of Yakuza Kiwami, this is a game we already had on Nintendo Switch. This isn’t a Nintendo Switch 2 Edition, however, players who have the digital version of the game in their Nintendo Switch library will get a discount on the Nintendo Switch 2 version, bringing it down from $30 to $10.

I should note that even though the Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 versions of the games are different versions (again, this isn’t a Nintendo Switch 2 Edition game), there is an option to transfer file save data from the Nintendo Switch version of the game to the Nintendo Switch 2 version. However, this transfer is only one-way – you can’t transfer data from the Nintendo Switch 2 version back to the original Nintendo Switch version.

The Nintendo Switch 2 release of the game of course advertises performance improvements, but more than that you also get… additional language options here! Specifically, text language support for French, Italian, German, Spanish, Latin American Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, and Russian. While I’m sure this may mean a lot to those of us who don’t speak English… well, I speak English, so I’m going to move on to the graphics and performance.

There’s a very minor improvement in loading times – loading the game up takes 15 seconds on Nintendo Switch and only 11 on Nintendo Switch 2, and otherwise loading times seemed pretty comparable. Mostly the improvements you’re looking at here are to framerate and resolution.

In this case, both are improved dramatically, with smooth framerates and much nicer resolution that really makes the game look worlds better. While the game looked great on Nintendo Switch, this definitely looks more like the way the game was meant to be played all along.

In fact, it’s so much of an improvement that it starts to make it easier to see the flaws in the game – this is, after all, a 8 year-old release of a 19 year-old game. You’ll see some textures look blurry, there’s pop-in in places, and while the character models still look great, it’s now easier to see the places where textures or polygons were used maybe a bit more sparingly than they might be used in a modern game. Just to be clear, these are not new issues, it’s just much easier to notice them now that the resolution has been bumped up to more modern standards.

That said, this is still a game that looks amazing, with some incredible detail and wonderful character designs, and this is absolutely the best way to play this game on a Nintendo platform. If you’re looking to play the first game in the Yakuza series, this is a fine way to do so.

tl;dr – Yakuza Kiwami is an Action-RPG focusing on the criminal underworld of contemporary Tokyo, with an extremely detailed world that begs to be explored, and an excellent story with some excellent twists and turns. Unfortunately, the inconsistent combat and an extremely linear early game hinder this otherwise excellent experience. Still, if you can put up with its flaws, I still think this game is absolutely worth playing. It’s a mixed bag, but that mix is mostly very good.

Grade: B+

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