After many, many years of barely showing up in the Nintendo ecosystem, SEGA’s Yakuza/Like A Dragon series is looking to make up for lost time as quickly as possible. A little over a year ago, Yakuza Kiwami made a solid but somewhat flawed debut on the original Nintendo Switch. At the launch of the Nintendo Switch 2, Yakuza 0 Director’s Cut arrived in style. Scant months later, we’ve now got Nintendo Switch 2 ports of Yakuza Kiwami and Yakuza Kiwami 2. As you might expect, the former takes care of pretty much all of the performance issues seen in the Switch version of Kiwami. As for the latter? Let’s dig into that.
Yakuza Kiwami 2 is a remake of the 2006 PlayStation 2 game Yakuza 2, which itself was an interesting game in many regards. It came out on the PlayStation 2 after the launch of the PlayStation 3 in Japan, and didn’t receive a localization until 2008. The original game had been a big hit for SEGA in Japan, but despite a fair bit of effort being put into its localization, it failed to catch on in Western markets. This, along with the timing of the console generation transition, might be why the sequel received such a late, low-key release outside of Japan.
Inside Japan, Yakuza 2 was a huge hit. It essentially clinched the future of the series, though none of the games that followed would ever reach its sales heights in Japan. Even as the franchise was secure in Asian markets, Yakuza couldn’t seem to catch a break in the West until the 2015 release of Yakuza 0 on PlayStation 4. It was easy enough to catch the new Western fanbase up on the PlayStation 3 entries in the series, as they all ran on the same engine as Yakuza 0 and were more easily ported to newer platforms. The first two games, however, were a bigger problem. Even if SEGA were to bring over the PlayStation 3 HD reissues of those games, Yakuza and its first sequel came from a very different era of the franchise.
One thing some players might not know is that Yakuza 0 was actually a PlayStation 3 game at its core. The development team was working on a new engine for its first proper next-generation Yakuza game, Yakuza 6: The Song of Life, but with the time it would take to complete that, there was an opportunity to remake the original game using Yakuza 0’s engine. Like Yakuza 0, Yakuza Kiwami launched simultaneously on the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 in Japan. For Western players, this was the chance to get up to speed on Kazuma Kiryu’s original adventure. It went over well, and naturally, that led to Yakuza 2 in 2017 also getting the remake treatment, this time using Yakuza 6’s next-generation engine.
Part of the purpose of that long preamble is to say that, unlike Yakuza Kiwami or even Yakuza 0 Director’s Cut, Yakuza Kiwami 2 is a game designed with PlayStation 4 as its base spec rather than PlayStation 3. That results in a couple of things. First, everything looks a lot nicer. The world is more detailed, models are a little fancier, and geometry is more complex. Second, the performance here is worse than Yakuza 0 Director’s Cut and what you’ll see in the Switch 2 version of Yakuza Kiwami. It’s not unplayable or anything, but you’ll see things chug when you swing the camera around in busy locations. The game, fortunately, runs well in the places where that matters most, the combat scenes. But it’s something to keep in mind, and perhaps gives us some idea of what to expect from future Switch 2 ports of Yakuza games using this engine.
As to the game itself, this is my first time playing Yakuza Kiwami 2. I’ve often cited Yakuza 2 as one of my favorite games in the series, mostly coming down to the enthralling story and improved gameplay over the rather stiff original. It’s a confident sequel, and had it been the last game, it would have wrapped things up in a satisfying way. Of course, we know now that Kazuma Kiryu’s story was far from over here. Kiwami 2 does some rewrites with the future of its characters and world in mind, and while some of them chafe a little, that’s mainly down to my stubborn nostalgia for the original Yakuza 2. All the same highlights are here, with the memorable rivalry between Kiryu and Goda, the well-written relationship of Kiryu and Sayama, and enough twists to make your head spin.
Yakuza Kiwami 2 adds an extra story that puts some focus on series breakout character Majima Goro. In the original Yakuza 2, Majima’s part was quite small, albeit significant. While that has been expanded somewhat in the main story of Kiwami 2, the new Majima Saga scenario bridges the gap between Kiwami and Kiwami 2, giving the Mad Dog a lot more screen time. It’s another way this game brings this second adventure more in step with the modern games and what players expect from them, and while I don’t feel like it was an essential story to tell, it’s not something I’d throw out of bed for eating crackers either.
Perhaps the more important way that Kiwami 2 adjusts Yakuza 2 for modern perceptions is in its gameplay. Many of the systems are different in this game than we’ve seen in Yakuza 0 Director’s Cut and Yakuza Kiwami, but the actual fighting is just as fluid and satisfying as any other modern Yakuza game. Similarly, the side activities, quality of life features, options, and settings are all at the level you would expect them to be. There’s plenty to do across both locations present in this game, and Kiwami 2 is set up for you to enjoy all of that to the maximum. You can even pop into the nearest Club SEGA and play Virtua Fighter 2 and Virtual-On. Hey, is that the first time Virtua Fighter has been playable on Nintendo hardware? I think it is!
As usual for a Yakuza game, half of the fun of Yakuza Kiwami 2 comes from discovering and completing its many side stories. Some of them are touching, some of them are funny, and some of them are just plain bizarre. I think the main plot in Yakuza Kiwami 2 is one of the best in the whole run, but you’ll get just as much enjoyment out of learning about the various problems of the people around you and helping them resolve them. This remake makes it easy to find those side stories and track your progress on them, and that’s a very welcome thing.
While this is a review of Yakuza Kiwami 2 first and foremost, I do want to quickly touch on the Switch 2 version of Yakuza Kiwami that is launching alongside it. I don’t have too much to say about it other than the fact that it runs very well and is a marked improvement over the version we saw on the original Switch. Picking up these two games in the provided bundle is the way to go if you haven’t played either, as you’ll likely want to play that first game before going into the second one. You don’t have to, mind you. There’s a recap of the events of the first game you can view in Kiwami 2, after all. But trust me, you’ll want to experience all of that first-hand if possible. The Switch 2 port of the first Kiwami ensures you can do that in style.
Having now played Yakuza Kiwami 2 via this port, I can say that there are things I like more about this remake and things I feel were handled better in the original Yakuza 2. For better or worse, Kiwami 2 can come off a bit obligatory at times. There are some changes in the story that help it fit the overall series, but come at a cost to this game’s own stand-alone narrative. Six of one, half-dozen of the other. It’s the version of the story we have on Switch 2, and so it will do. The gameplay improvements are all great, too. The technical performance of this port is a little dicier than I’d hoped, but about what I expected. Within tolerances for me, at least.
Yakuza Kiwami 2 might be the least of the three Yakuza games now available on the Switch 2, but it still punches well for its weight class. If you’ve enjoyed any of the other action-focused Yakuza romps, you’ll want to saddle up for this one as well. Some slight performance issues hamper the experience a little, though not to the degree that it spoils the game. It’s a very capable port of the game, and the fact that it’s hitting the platform along with an excellent version of Yakuza Kiwami is just icing on the cake.
Version Tested: Nintendo Switch 2
Review copy provided by SEGA
