Yakuza Kiwami 2

a truly great sequal that improves on basically everyhting that the first game did from the story to the combat to the side quests. if you like the yakuza series this is a must play.

Another Yakuza game, and... well, if you played one of those, you kinda know what to expect. Fun minigames, over the top plot, good fighting.

This is a weird remake: it changes some things, add others, and doesn't change things the other remake did: As an example, it doesn't use the Style Change system 0 and Kiwami use, instead focusing only on Kiryu's default style. That said, this makes sense for the plot and the fighting itself is good, so it's not that huge of a loss, in my opinion. That said, it also adds some cool things, like bringing back the Cabaret Club minigame, and adding a RTS system with the Clan minigame. Those are pretty fun, if a bit grindy at times.

The plot itself is... ok. A bit over dramatic, with some weird turns. Two of the new characters - Ryuji and Sayama - are some of the strongest in the series, and leave a huge impression here. Unfortunately, the series mostly forgot they existed, with the exception of a couple callbacks on specific games, but still, they are really, really good here.

I know a few people who consider this one of the strongest games in the series, and, while for me it's just middle of the way, I can see why.

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☑ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS

---{ Gameplay }---
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't

---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf

---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma

---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☑ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☐ Old Fashioned
☑ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data

---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☑ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding

---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☑ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life

---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☑ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond

---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

---{ Bugs }---
☑ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☑ 8
☐ 9
☐ 10

It's good, especially the story. Some new minigames are kind of fun, except Mahjong.

This game just kinda sucks, the combat was completely reworked in a bad way and enemies just spam attacks that you cant block they removed multiple quicksteps and weaving so there's no other option, so you end up talking tons and damage and constantly burn through your healing items.

5/10

A solid follow up to Yakuza Kiwami 1. If there is a downside, it is how clunky Yakuza 3 feels after this. While 0 and now 3 are showing signs of sometimes dragging on a bit - or at least, having certain story segments that didn't really grab me - Yakuza Kiwami 2 seems a consistent, solid and fun experience.

king of the cabaret clubs
majima construction
man babies

what else could you need?
10/10

The gameplay is fun but the ending is... mid as hell, pulled outta someone's ass

Yeah it was good...... The story was so good and the final chapter was fucking great. So glad that it did not exist many gun bosses. The bosses was shit in kiwawi 1 because many had a fucking gun. Glad they fixed that in kiwawi 2. Majima's construction was great as well i do love the work quote: “If you wanna work, welcome aboard! If you wanna rest, get the fuck out!”

Probably the best Yakuza I've played so far! It has the best story for sure and the gameplay feels smooth. With plenty of side content and plenty of fun secrets to uncover this game is a blast! I also appreciate the inclusion of certain cheat items for minigames, like Mahjong etc. It made 100% this much easier!

Absolute banger, mini games were hella addicting. Just wished some of the skills weren't locked behind a lot of end game stuff.

The most beautiful rendition of Kamurocho and Sotenbori so far. Combat is clunky compared to 0 and Kiwami 1 but it grows on you over time.

This game might as well be called Yakuza 0-2. It's that good (story excluded).

All the varied substories, minigames, the two areas to explore and roam around again, the two major business-like activities, the Majima saga and the far less tedious combat, mixed with the new fun physics-based engine upgrades really made this a great, feature-rich Yakuza experience.

In all the aspects where Kiwami 1 offered a rather inferior overall package compared to 0, Kiwami 2 absolutely delivered in almost all categories. Particularly the combat system is a huge step up, in my opinion. For the first time, combat was actually fun. Almost no frustration or the feeling of being bombarded by bullcrap enemy attacks you can do nothing about. From street battles to even most boss battles. While the loss of different styles to switch to might be seen as a downside; the new singular combat style strikes a good balance and really opens up the more abilities you unlock later on. It might feel a little lacking early in the game, though.

As for the final few bosses, they were rather disappointing, sadly. Ryuji in particular was a total pushover on normal difficulty. Your first fight early in the game against him was a much bigger challenge in comparison; which should never be the case. And those men in black might as well have come straight out of Kiwami 1. Absolutely terribly designed.

The only major letdown was the execution of the story; especially towards the end. It just kind of derailed at some point into something bigger than it had to be, making the sum of it all seem kind of nonsensical in the end. Ultimately, you can easily forgive that one hiccup since the rest of the package is so compelling anyway.

So much content to freely do, and the story does well to keep you on your toes. Graphics are really nice too. After playing previous Yakuza games I got use to the cut scenes because I personally enjoyed the story, also the combat mechanics were fun enough to keep me hooked on it. Sprinkled across the map is mini games that are also enjoyable too. Highly recommend!

I'm playing all of the Yakuza games in chronological order starting with Yakuza 0. I just finished Kiwami 2 and I have to say this has been the most peak game in the series so far. The characters, the story, Ryuji Goda, this game is so peak.

Became a fan of the series. Great story and bgm. Kiwami 2 is another great game from the series. Will definitely play the rest of the games from the series. Side quest and Sub Stories are extremely fun to play. Will highly recommend this game to every one who are into story based games

I saw a lot of people (mostly on reddit and twitter so take that as you will) saying that this is a bad remake or a bad yakuza game or whatever but completely ignore any of that if you see it. This game is the best and I have yet to even finish it. The more I continue to play the more it offers. The improved combat, the hilarious ragdoll physics, the equally hilarious substories, the cabaret club mode returning, a new tower defense mode WITH MAJIMA, and a very intriguing story (I would say more about it but I'm only on chapter 5 from doing most of the side stuff). Peak. But fuck mahjong and the Against All Odds substory tho its ass.

This game is in a weird spot for me. Both the story and the gameplay go up and down in terms of quality. The story fleshes out its characters more than 1/Kiwami did, and has a good overarching plot, but it also has a lot of "filler" sections, setting you on several wild goose chases to progress the narrative. Gameplay-wise, very good minigames and fun combat system, but the combat is VERY easy compared to the other two games. I never dropped below half health on my Legend playthrough.

Overall, fun game, but be prepared for a massive difficulty drop once you start eating at enough restaurants.

Yakuza Kiwami 2 is a gorgeous mess of a video game. As a remake of the original Yakuza 2, Kiwami does a decent job as a "demo" for what's to come with Yakuza 6 and the dragon engine. The graphics make the cities feel even more alive than ever, and the combat is both satisfying and super fun. Rag dolls always make a game better. And while the narrative might come off as sub-par for this series at times, it is an experience worth having. You also get to play as Majima for a lil so it is automatically a goated game.

if your playing this you have played previous up to here. i miss the yakuza 0 engine but you get used to this. still a good story and continuation. would recommend everyone play this entire series

not a fan of the combat, overall quality feels a lot cheaper than Kiwami 1, and thats saying something. The music is very generic for yakuza standards. The Majima saga was nice but sorta lame. Not worth it if you played og games. If you havent, I'd try to play the PS2 game instead of Kiwami. Visuals are great and the story is a very crazy romp. I love those parts but the story is the exact same as the original, so you might as well play that one

Another Great remake of the original series. Combat feels so clean and versatile, story is great and substories also delivered. But that green filter is almost too noticable sometimes. But putting that aside, great game would recommend.

Great story
Great graphics
Great side quests
Great ending in the series
Great grinding w/ Majima
Hope there will be Kiwami for 3-5

This formula works great, a little cheesy and jingweon mafia makes no sense, maybe too rushed at the end, still, way better than Kiwami. The comeback of the cabaret storyline and Makoto make the game.

A nice sequel that expands and take back some of the stuff Kiwami 1 did

Story-wise, this is a more complex and lore filled tale that puts Kyriu against some serious foes, but i feel the combat isn't as varied as 0 and K1, the style system is gone, because that wasn't in any of the original Yakuza games, the gameplay is fun, but you don't have the same level of depth.
Substories are great tho, and the Majima Construction and Four Shine stories are lenghty, hilarious and are brimming with japanese cameos.

Yakuza doesn't miss (i'll see if that stays true on the third one)

8/10

First thing I did outside of main story was destroy a office space

For me, this felt like the perfect followup to 0 and Kiwami 1. It has surprise returning characters and numerous callbacks to the previous games, which pay off in spades if you have played both. The cabaret club finale was probably my favorite story moment due to a certain reunion between characters, which I won't spoil. The mini-game selection is still fantastic; both Cabaret Grand Prix and Majima Construction deserve a shoutout for being addicting as hell. The main story definitely meanders at points, but has strong character arcs throughout and a powerful finale. Also, the quality of the sub stories has improved from Kiwami 1 and is much closer to the level of 0. The new combat system takes some getting used to, but it's incredibly satisfying once you get the hang of it.

Even though I think 0 is an overall stronger entry, Kiwami 2 is doing so much right in terms of it's presentation and world building that it feels just as good, if not better in certain places.

Playing on hard.
This by far has the worst early game combat ive ever played so far out of any of the yakuza games, its so slow and janky its worse than Kiwami, this game has me missing the previous game and making me appreciate just how much more competent it is and makes me regret that i played Zero first because its downhill from there.
Cool story sure ! but when the game is 70% combat oriented it is undeniable that this game is absolutely the worst thing to come out from RGG. Fuck this games combat, i cannot stand how absolutely dogshit and limited it is. A step down in almost every way except graphics and story. The saving grace so far for this game is that and the mini games. I cannot wait to never play this game again.

Juego todo bello, ni lo he terminado, pero esta bello. Que podas ir a ver viejas son puntos plus, pero Majima me pone como loquita.

I stuck around for 60 hours. made 150 mio with the carbaret club, just to sank 30 mio in the construction minigame. However I still couldn't beat the last map on majima construction. This game is so addicting. omg. Gravure studio was kinda weird experience as a woman... O_o but well I guess that is also part of the adventure, too. I enjoy the ride and hope there will be more ryuu ga gotuku games in the future. :D i just love kamurochou... so much nostalgia!!

Everything besides combat is tight
but honestly Yakuza without good combat lost its charm

Based on my first experience, I quite liked the combat system and the new GUI, compared to yakuza games older than kiwami 2 I really see this game as a big upgrade over them, so this is officially my favorite kiryu-saga based yakuza games of all time.

100% in ~50-70 hours

Kiwami 2 is much easier to 100% than previous titles except for a few excessively boring achievements (Ron/Tsumo 30 times, bouncer missions, batting cages for 2 skill books). Massive upgrade in graphics from previous entries, but there are a couple of strange bugs if you are running above 120 fps. Lastly, combat in Kiwami 2 focuses on weapon usage instead of styles which feels like a downgrade from Kiwami.

​This series is always on sale and so far every entry has been great! Absolutely recommend.

Another amazing Yakuza game. Never fails to amuse and engage my sense of humour. Great title to unwind with / get stuck into at your own pace <3

Great Story and holy damn the fact that you can rag doll some poor guy into oblivion is hilarious and yet again another banger of a soundtrack

Another great game in the Yakuza Saga!

Shame the took out the combat styles but the combat is not bad, simpler and smoother.

Lots of content (as the first one) but with a Majima Side stories. Yes Majima is cool and fun!

Story is crazy, story is fun, story gets to you.

Sides missions can be great and fun, some are meh. But there are lots of them and lots of side activities!

Enjoy it!

I now realize I never reviewed this title. It's fun, uses the Dragon Engine which is fun to mess with, leveling is straight forward, and the story is frankly ridiculous and the most batshit insane one in the mainline series that I've experienced so far. My only gripe is that the combat doesn't feel as in depth/refined as titles such as 0, 4, and 5, but that's to be expected. Judgment and especially Lost Judgment really show what can be done with the combat.

meh

a very good game, even better then yakuza kiwami 1 in part of graphics. recommend!

Dope game! ...it's Yakuza. Needs to be a movie/series ..but a better production than the one that's currently out.

i've definitely become addicted to these yakuza games - an absolute hoot!!!! my only complaint (if it counts) is that there was no bowling alley in this game, which i loved in the earlier yakuza. technically, not one problem ie. no crashes etc. BRILLIANT!!!!! i plan to get through all the yakuza games and i'm loving every minute of it!!

Another fantastic game in the Yakuza series, I really enjoyed the story !

Alright. This marks game 4 in my quest to play and beat all the yakuza games. So this means more echoing what I said in previous reviews. Let's get it out of the way. I love the story, Gameplay, And characters. I have to say this might be one of my favorite battle style. I maxed out all my attack, health, heat, and defense. This was a really fun time to me because it's one of those games that starts off hard but as you level up more it becomes much easier. All I even beat all the majima chapters after I was done with the main story. What can I say except It was so fun I wanted more even if it was only 2 or 3 chapters extra. If you have not played Kiwami 2 I say please do this was just as fun as Yakuza 0 to me so with that. I give it a solid 10/10 def would come back to this game. If ya want to hear a downside from me then....I guess there is a mahjong side story and I was ass at it. So I don't like that but that really is just more of a skill issue on my end lol.

A good sequel to the "beginner's trilogy" with a new game engine and graphics. Kiryu faces the consequences of his actions from Kiwami 1 as the Omni Alliance move in to wipe the weakened Tojo Clan off the map of Japan.

All food and merchant stores can now be entered/exited seamlessly without a loading screen, and your inventory system is now expanded with a item cap of 10 for each consumable.

However, some sacrifices were made such as the change in combat (no more 3/4 styles, eg. Rush, Brawler, Beast, Dragon), you now only have 1 set style, but with 3 weapon slots. Without Beast Mode, you can no longer smash enemies with a motorcycle--and are limited to bicycles only. This combat style for Kiryu also feels weapon-centric and "Y" finisher orientated compared to K1, where I 48/48'ed my Dragon Style and really sweated against Majima. Boss fights are easier (and hence simpler compared to the previous games--more beginner friendly).

BUG: Groups of enemies refuse to attack you sometimes making Tiger Drop hard to trigger.

SPOILERS/GRIPES. Plot wise, the tension was good up to the point of the Osaka Castle evil villain lair reveal, and then it went downhill from there. 3 business were attacked by only 5 dudes and this was a sign that "the war" had begun. By the final chapter, the "war" in the streets lacked the population/crowdedness that was seen in Sontenbori's streets/bridge area.

Only Kiryu and the enemy are on the streets. No NPCs such as fleeing civilians. No Tojo/Omni/Jingweon Mafia members fighting each other or lying wounded on the streets, despite Daigo leading 300 men to defend the city. The city felt very empty for a "war". Even Majima's construction site was deserted.

By the time of the final showdown with Ryuji, we are interrupted by multiple fakeouts & evil villain monologues by people who have been absent throughout the main plot, and've only seen their faces once or twice--killing the mood. Overall, as discussions on Kiwami 2 agree, K2 ranks at the bottom of plots, with Yakuza 0 in 1st, and Kiwami 1 in the middle.

Overall, if you are a fan of the series, this game is still worth the story on sale.

Side note; this game also had no Pocket Racer Circuit. XD
Side note 2; will be playing the Majima Saga regardless, clan creator/RTS minigame was fun.

Livestream VOD (FINALE):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcDYovVwRbo

Just finished 100% this. Peak. Not the best combat in the series but definitely the only one I'd bother doing 100%. Mahjong is fun, Just be ready to cry at the RNG.

Yakuza Kiwami 2 is a remake of the original Yakuza 2 from PS2. As many of the newer Yakuza/Like a Dragon fans that started with 0, I went logical route of going through chronological order of the games themselves. Unlike Kiwami 1 though, I actually had time away from powerful enough PC or console to play newer games, so I had time to acknowledge myself with OG Yakuza 1 and 2, so that colours my impression of Kiwami 2 a lot.

The main difference in the technical stuff. The game runs on a (relatively) new Dragon Engine, that allows for seamless transitions between locations and fights, as well as a whole new physics engine that, in theory, provides a whole new sense of life-like experiences for the series. In practice the physics freakout all the time and every combatant in a fight flies around like a ragdoll, which gives unintentional hilarity to the fights even if it's some kind of life or death situation going, so I hope you can suspend your disbelieve when Kiryu tries to protect Kamurocho from Omi invasion but flies around after a single hit from a pipe.

In short, it's still Yakuza, so it's still really good. In the larger context of the series as a whole, things a little more complicated.

So compared to Y0 and K1, there is definetely a downgrade in combat. Kiryu has only one fighting style, that serves kind of like amalgamation of 4 fighting styles from previous games. Considering that OG Y1 to Y2 was a big step up in terms of gameplay, that is kind of hard to accept.
Additions and removals are also might be hit or miss compared to the OG Y2, replacing cabaret club conversations and club management from Y2 to cabaret club management mingame from Y0 is a great move, but it feels like more of fanservice to Y0 fans, while forgetting about OG fans. Of course I'm getting mad about this more on the veterans of the series behalf, but I think Marietta could've got at leeast a shout-out or something.
I didn't care for bouncer missions and clan creator. Dividing each bouncer mission into 3 different difficulty levels makes it more boring than it has to be. And running around searching for the new construction employees is a huge chore, and you get some of the best employees from scouting and regular missions anyway, and there is mo reason to change your line-up of employees, unlike cabret management. like even after they had Clan Creator in Y6, this one still feels undercooked somehow. But I didn't play Y6 yet, so what do I know, maybe it's better there.
Minigames are improvement in some ways and downgrade in others. Toylets are broken and can go to hell for forcing me to limit FPS to 30. Gambling minigames are reduced to only card based ones. And also there is only 2 classic arcade games. I get that we probably wouldn't get VF5 in 2006 (even though there are still placeholder posters in arcades for it), but could we at least get like Outrun or something? And while there is quite a few Karaoke songs, why we get whole 2 versions of goddamn x3 Shine, while we could get, I don't know, freaking Bakamitai or Judgement from Y0 if we're going to service their fans? Or any of the other female lead songs like Rouge of Love or Heartbreak Mermaid? At least both versions are easy enough though and the hardest karaoke song this time is the one I actually enjoyed (seriously "ring" goes kind of hard)
Also, the entire Kansai district was cut from the Kiwami 2. I was expecting RGG team to expand on it, but considering we are building on the bones of Y6, I guess they had rework some stuff into Sotenbori. It's not that big of a deal, saves some time going from one taxi to another, but at the same time kind of a bummer we didn't get Shinseicho in Dragon engine.

Going back to the gameplay in general, I didn't like the leveling system at all. Spreading experience into 5 diffrent attributes makes for unnecessary confusion and way too much work for essentially the same end result, if we rather had traditional leveling system.
The Extreme Heat Mode is pretty cool, all action games should have some equivalent of Devil Trigger because it's just cool, and destroying bosses with a single rush combo is funny.

Some substories got cut or changed for the Kiwami compared to OG Y2. Unlike K1, that dragged out some of it's substories, I think changes in K2 are for the better. Most of them are made to be completed in a single chapter and don't require too much going back and forth. I think it's overall more good than bad.

The story so far for me is weaker than both Y1/K1 and especially Y0. Ryuji Goda is a great antagonist and side characters really hold their own, but in terms the conspirace behind the scenes and who's the real puppet master behind it all reaches comical levels at the end. i think the story would've benefited from either dropping some of the story threads to be introduced in alter games, or just cut down on filler, that, to be honest, is very prevalent in this game. But still Kiryu shines as a protagonist in this game the most. In Y0 he was easily outshined by Majima and in Y1/K1 the writers were still trying to nail down what makes this guy so great, but Y2/K2 made Kiryu one of my favourite action game protagonists ever.

Ther is also the addition of Majima saga, which shows what our Mad Dog was doing after the events of Y1 going into Y2. It's cute, although gutted Mad Dog style from Y0 is not satisfying at all and makes fights a chore to get through. Still, it's more Majima, and we always use more Majima in our life. Also, only one karaoke song, RGG really? No 24-Hour Cinderella? Majima would be dissapointed.

But yeah, like I said, this is still Yakuza, it's still great and offers way more value than any other AAA game these days. It's not even the worst entry point in the series either. Going from K1 to K2 you might be slightly dissapointed, going from OG Y2 to K2 you might unintentionally compare the two and prefer OG. But it's still a game i spent 100+ hours in on single save file, trying to complete it. And also Kiryu and Ryuji are cool, and you want to be cool with them, so there is that.

need to online for few hours to make a review for this game.
I already finished the game week ago, good thing is this game doesn't have denuvo.

I haven't tried Y6 the first one that using dragon engine, I beat the game in order. I beat Y0, YK1,YK2 & YLAD and currently i'm doing Y3. But yeah Dragon engine is cool for this game and YLAD it makes me wanna explore Kamurocho every crane and nook, also finishing every substories. The story pace is good, the dev build almost solid relation between Kiryu & Kaoru almost like they did with Majima & Makoto, they deserve good ending, Hopefully RGG makes a final good story about Kiryu & Kaoru. Majima also become playable through side story called Majima Saga, it's just very small portion compare with Y0. It's conclude the continuation Majima & Makoto stories from Y0, it's very small portion with such big emotional damage if you love Majima story from Y0.

I kinda wished that RGG remake Y3,Y4&Y5 in dragon engine or kiwami engine and make better improvement like adding story that makes the continuation between previous more relevant.

guys you do not have to spend 12 hours playing mahjong for that 1 side quest you can find a peerless tile from komeki do not spend 12 hours playing mahjong its pretty much impossible without the tile. You will thank me later

i can shove poles up peoples no-no holes... 10/10 would do it again, Peak Game.

The writing is really, really bad (at least towards the end). Kiryu's character doesn't make sense in consideration of what he has been through, and everything feels very contrived. There's the trope of characters (to whom we have little previous exposure) coming out and saying everything bad that happened was all according to their plan, as well as forced, unnecessary romance which ruins a character who could have just been a strong female protagonist. The gameplay is a lot worse than the previous games. However, some of the characters are enjoyable (Date, Kawara, Majima, Daigo), but even the main antagonist did not get enough screen time and so his character isn't very developed.
Despite this, I'll play the rest of the games.

Edit: Finished the Majima chapters, they were more enjoyable than the main story.