People are going to be coming to Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties with varying levels of familiarity with the series, and I think that is going to be pretty important for this one. This is the third in the Kiwami series of remakes, whose broad purpose appears to be, for better or worse, bringing earlier games in the Yakuza franchise more in line with the modern entries. The original game here, Yakuza 3, first released on the PlayStation 3 back in 2009, with a controversial localization following in 2010 and a 2018 PlayStation 4 remaster that ultimately made its way to various other platforms. This Nintendo Switch 2 version of Yakuza Kiwami 3 is the first time this story has been available on any Nintendo platform, and that is probably its main saving grace.
This remake has a lot of potential sparks around it, though if you’re someone who has only been experiencing the Yakuza series via releases on Nintendo consoles, you might not pick up on a lot of it or even care. Well, there’s one casting choice that frankly sucks due to the actor’s history of problematic behavior, but for the most part the things about Yakuza Kiwami 3 that are likely to rankle most are probably only going to be picked up on by those who have played the original game. Yakuza 3 itself has a somewhat mixed reputation due to pacing issues, some irritating aspects of the combat, and some elements of the story. Yakuza Kiwami 3 seems to be trying to address some of that, though many of its changes feel less about responding to feedback on the original and more about dragging a 2009 entry into the 2026 context of the franchise in a very ramshackle way.
Following the events of Yakuza Kiwami 2, Kazuma Kiryu is ready for his happily ever after with Kaoru Sayama and his adopted daughter Haruka. Wait, what’s that? Yakuza 2 sold really well and we need to extend the series indefinitely? Scratch that happy ending. Sayama and Kiryu have to part ways for reasons, but Kiryu is off to sunny Okinawa with Haruka to run an orphanage and stay out of the underworld life for good. Sadly, fate has a different route in mind for him. Various forces are making plans that could shake Japan itself, and most of them are contingent on getting their hands on the land Kiryu’s orphanage is built on. Thus, Kiryu must complete a series of mini-games drawn from classic Three Stooges shorts to earn the money to keep it running. Okay, no. That’s a lie. Kiryu is going to punch people. He’s going to punch them a lot. This will probably solve the problem.
As someone who appreciated the original Yakuza 3 and remembers its unusual flow quite well, Yakuza Kiwami 3’s changes are often jarring. The Yakuza series has always had a little silliness to it, perhaps to offset the darkness and drama, but there’s no question that it got sillier over time. Yakuza 3 was still early days, with only a touch of absurdity here and there. Yakuza Kiwami 3 is fully up to the modern standard of the series in many ways, with tons of goofy scenarios, mini-games, and weird characters added in. You won’t even get so far as coming back from your first trip into town before you’re thrown into a rather substantial, mandatory event where Kiryu joins what is initially an all-female biker gang. It’s entertaining but it really has trouble finding its place here.
A lot of characters look and sound very different due to recasting, some fairly critical story events have had their results altered to fit in with the goals of later games in the series, an entirely new (and somewhat silly) fighting style has been added, the way leveling up works has been changed, and there are some new spaces you’ll be visiting often. A number of sub-stories have been straight-up removed, and the way Kiryu interacts with the kids at his orphanage has been dramatically altered as well. The bones of Yakuza 3 are here, at least in terms of the main plot, and there are some familiar sights and events. But really and truly, this might as well be considered an entirely new game, which I suppose is the way these Kiwami games tend to go. I had to get over this feeling with Yakuza Kiwami and Yakuza Kiwami 2 as well.
If you can take it as a new Yakuza game covering the same events as Yakuza 3, it’s a decent entry if only just. It does all the things most of these games have been doing for a long time now. Punchy combat, interesting spaces to explore, amusing sub-stories to pursue, and a ton of mini-games and collectibles to keep you sidetracked for hours on end. A person could stick to the main quest line and finish it in a reasonable amount of time, of course. But much like the question of how many licks it takes to the center of a Tootsie Pop, the world will never know. No one can resist the siren’s call of going golfing, helping kids with their homework, singing karaoke, playing Game Gear games, collecting mobile phone friends, growing vegetables, sewing, or doing any of the many other distractions scattered along the path.
A lot of the mini-game stuff here is lifted from other games in the series, and sometimes very clumsily. At times I found myself asking what the heck any of this had to do with Yakuza 3, and why things that actually did fit in got cut in favor of jamming in a hodgepodge of things from more distinctive efforts. This even extends to the combat, where Kiryu’s main fighting style is an unholy union of moves drawn from a number of other combat systems. One really does get the sense that this release was assembled from bits and bobs for whatever reason, but you’re certainly given a large checklist of tasks to dig into.
Those side diversions might prove important in light of how the story flows in Kiwami 3. The main plot of Yakuza 3 has always been all over the place. Lots of heart, but it often seemed confused at what kind of story it wanted to be. It’s even worse here as it’s constantly interrupted by new barely-related nonsense, and certain important dramatic beats have had their impact reduced for the sake of the greater narrative. Some of these changes are really not going to sit well with those who know the original story, and I think to a great extent the plot of this game has been sacrificed to line up pieces for later on. There are some interesting twists, as usual, but it’s a clear step down from the previous two games. It mainly gets by on its character work and a strong antagonist.
Speaking of, that antagonist gets his own apin-off tale in this release. That would be the Dark Ties part of the title, which presents a separate tale showing some of Mine’s backstory. It certainly adds some variety to the overall package, and while I would hardly call this an essential or even fully welcome addition to the story, it’s an entertaining enough extra. I’d go so far as to say that the combat here is better than what you’ll see in Kiryu’s half of the game, in fact. The structure of the thing is hit or miss, though. The story itself is fairly short, and the other parts of Dark Ties are doing their best to stretch out some very thin soup. Some of this stuff is incredibly grindy and feels like padding, but I could see some people getting into it. It’s something, I suppose.
Back when I reviewed Yakuza Kiwami 2, I suggested that it was perhaps indicative of the performance we could expect from future Yakuza games on the Nintendo Switch 2. Well, I was mostly right. Yakuza Kiwami 3 actually seems to run better than that game most of the time, though you can spot it slipping up a little in some of the larger gang battles. Outside of pure performance, this release is graphically all over the place. You can tell some parts of the PlayStation 3 original have been brought forward while others have not, and it creates a weird mismatch between the old stuff and the new stuff. The newly recasted characters stick out a lot, since they had to have fully new animations done for their faces and end up a lot more expressive than other characters as a result. Fans of the original will also likely notice that the lighting in most scenes is significantly worse here in Kiwami 3. It doesn’t look outright bad, but there’s a real… cheapness to it at times, similar to what we saw in Kiwami 2.
My personal feeling is that Yakuza 3 didn’t really need to be remade, particularly in this manner. There was a perfectly good remaster of the original game that could have been ported and maybe given a little extra polish. But I understand that simply reissuing the older games might not be in line with the current vision for the series. With that in mind, I do wish a little more oomph was put into making Yakuza Kiwami 3 feel like a more cohesive experience. This mish-mash of things from other Yakuza games is probably going to go over well enough with Nintendo-exclusive players who have only played a few games in the series, but I question if this is really the take on Yakuza 3 that Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio wants in the canon. It’s fun! It’s full of stuff! So why does it often feel so darned empty?
Version Tested: Nintendo Switch 2
Review Copy Provided by SEGA
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