XBOX REVIEW | Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties

I knew about the Yakuza franchise’s existence, but it wasn’t until it was released on Xbox and Xbox Game Pass that I started playing it. I instantly fell in love with the franchise, thanks to the fantastic Yakuza 0, and proceeded to play the entire main franchise through Xbox Game Pass, later buying and playing through Yakuza: Like a Dragon. I bought Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased his Name, Judgement, and Lost Judgement. I only started Judgement recently, and I still have to play through all of these. You can see that I really got into the franchise, so it’s no surprise I was excited for Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties. Without further ado, let’s get into it.

Things I liked!

• A quick reminder | When you start playing, you’ll have the option to interact with the graves of characters that died in Yakuza Kiwami and Yakuza Kiwami 2. When you do so, you can choose to watch a cutscene of about 20 minutes each, which summarises what happened in both games. This is a good and optional way to remind old players, and to quickly get new players up to speed on what happened before this entry.
  
• Stuffed with content | Despite some cut content from the original, which I’ll get into later, there is no shortage of content in Yakuza Kiwami 3. Apart from the main story, there are 31 substories, which are usually pretty short, sometimes quirky and funny as well.
  
  – There is an entire orphanage management system with many different mechanics, such as 6 different cooking minigames, planting, fishing, catching bugs, sewing, helping kids with their homework, and playing a different kind of Reversi called Dragon Reversi with them. There’s a Daddy Ranking for Kiryu and a market ranking for your orphanage. Each kid has their own separate relationship link, except for Haruka, letting you get close to them individually.
  
  – A new dojo, with a new sensei, is present in this remake, where you can complete challenges for points, rank up, and unlock new abilities for the new fighting style present in this remake: the Ryukyu Style, which consists of fighting with 8 Okinawan weapons.
  
  – You get to command a gang of not-so-baddies, the Haisai Girls, formed mainly by women who fight other gangs, but obey traffic laws and don’t act like other gangs. Coincidentally, their leader is the daughter of Kiryu’s Ryukyu sensei. You help them grow, defend other women from other gangs, level up each of them individually, manage your teams, go into Turf battles to conquer more territory and recruit more people, among other activities.
  
  – More minigames present in the original and in other games of the series return, as well as more being added, such as: Mahjong, UFO catcher machines, Darts, Karaoke, Bowling, Pool, Shogi, the Batting Center, and Golf; Japanese games such as: Cee-lo, Cho-han, Koi-koi and Oicho-kabu, Casino games like Baccarat, Blackjack, Poker and Roulette; and a variety of old SEGA arcade games, and Game Gear games that can be bought or acquired through different methods. At last, there’s the Print Club, which is essentially a photo booth where you choose a background and pose for a picture either alone or with company.
  
  – The Coliseum returns, thanks to Majima deciding to reopen it. There seems to be only nine fights available this time, and it doesn’t look like it’s as varied as it was in Yakuza Kiwami 2.
  
  – Kiryu gets a new phone from a company called Lalala Mobile, and it can be customised and used to connect to other Lalala Mobile users, granting rewards for doing so. It’s also used for taking pictures and collecting little boxes, scattered throughout Okinawa and Kamurocho by the company, that contain a variety of rewards inside them.
  
  – You can hunt down ex-yakuza members who formed a gang called Reapers. They are standing around town and give you money when defeated.
  
  – If you’ve played Y3 Remastered, you probably remember raffles, and photo challenges from other games in the series. These are back, and give you either regular rewards for your garden, your baddies or special ones, that can be high-value items, new baddies, CDs with a lot of different songs on them, and many others.

• Fists-blazing | Kiryu is as much inclined to use his fists as he has ever been, with the return of the Dragon of Dojima fighting style, which will feel very familiar to returning players, as this is basically the default Kiryu fighting style in the series, letting him grab enemies and objects along with many other different moves. As previously mentioned, there’s a new fighting style called the Ryukyu Style, where you use Nunchakus, a Sai and a shield, an Eiku, and a Surujin, among other weapons. You’re capable of hitting a large group of enemies with some of these, as well as focus damage on a single target with others, stun weaker enemies with one of them, break enemy guards more easily with your bare fists, exclusively in this fighting style, and make enemies bleed with a weapon. It has been a little while since I’ve played Y3R, so I do not remember how you levelled up before, but you can level up by using money and challenge points in this version, with most skills being exclusive to a fighting style, while others affect both of them. You’ve seen the enemies present in this game before, the ruffians, Yakuza thugs, Chinese Mafia thugs, Black Monday agents, and CIA operatives. This remake doesn’t try to change them, as it doesn’t need to, and I wasn’t disappointed by this in the slightest.

• The sounds of Kamurocho and Okinawa | The soundtrack seems to be a mix of old songs and new ones that sound familiar to what we’ve heard in Yakuza: Like a Dragon. There are plenty of decent-sounding songs in this soundtrack, but I wouldn’t say it’s the peak of the franchise in this aspect. While we’re talking about soundtracks, I have to talk about the CDs you can find or buy, because these can be played while roaming around Okinawa or Kamurocho, and range from Japanese artists to other SEGA games soundtracks like Persona 3 Reload, RAIDOU, Metaphor Re:Fantazio, and even Angry Birds. Kamurocho has its usual city buzz that it has always had; it’s clearly reused, considering I’ve heard the same noises in Judgement very recently, but it’s part of the charm of it.

• Dark Ties | Mine’s story was certainly a nice addition. Seeing how he started in the underworld of the Yakuza, how he used Kanda, and ended up learning a valuable lesson from Daigo, whom he later became a deep admirer of, was a nice change of pace. Dark Ties also offers side content of its own. One of them had you help people around town and complete objectives from your “completion list” to improve Kanda’s reputation, earning money and cutscenes showing Mine and Kanda talking and getting to know each other a little better. The other big side content present is divided into two: one having you explore dungeons, much like in Yakuza: Like a Dragon, defeating enemies, recruiting helpers, looting chests for upgrades and weapons exclusive to this mode, and defeating bosses, all with a timer running in the background and the possibility of losing it all if you ever get defeated; while the other one consists of 1v1 fights, each round having three fights, this also has a timer, and the quicker you defeat your opponents, the better your ranking.

Mixed & disliked!

• This doesn’t look quite right | While it’s undeniable that this is a step up from the original Yakuza 3 or Yakuza 3 Remastered graphically, there are a few questionable aspects here. The environment and overall characters all look pretty good, but there seems to be a filter that makes things look a bit washed out at times. I mostly noticed this while exploring Kamurocho and in a specific cutscene at the orphanage. Sometimes it’s too dark, while at other times it’s too bright, and I don’t think this has anything to do with how I set up my HDR configurations. Some character models look a bit too similar to the Y3 Remastered one, making them not feel as realistic as others. Other character models were changed to completely different-looking people, along with at least one voice actor, which I didn’t necessarily hate, but I felt like it didn’t add anything to this version, only pissing off some fans of the originals. I also felt like YK3 doesn’t look as good as some other RGG Studios games, like Judgement does, but I believe this is a product of reusing a lot of assets and not properly upgrading them, and the engine being considerably old at this point.

• Cut content | Despite all of the returning minigames and content from the original and from other titles, as well as new content, YK3 still suffers from the cut content issue. I guess it being bad depends on who you ask, but it was astonishing to see that around 70 substories were removed from the original. Some were better than others, but I don’t exactly feel happy about it. Dating was also completely removed in this remake, so you’ll no longer interact with any hostesses or have a relationship with any of them.
  
• More questionable changes | While I can’t go into details on the ending, it’s likely that you know they made a significant change in the ending of the game, one that would impact the story significantly if a Kiwami version of Yakuza 4 were made.
  I really feel like they shouldn’t have changed that, as the fanbase wasn’t happy about it in the slightest. I do see what they were trying to do, but I disapprove of this decision firmly and hope that they don’t do more of these questionable changes.

How long did I play the game before publishing the review? 22 hours
How long to beat the story? 19-22 hours
How many Achievements did I earn before publishing? 31/61 – 484g/1000g
How long to achieve 1000G | 40-50 hours
You’ll love this game if you like these | Yakuza 3 Remastered, Yakuza Kiwami, Yakuza Kiwami 2

CONCLUSION

Score: 76/100

The substories and main story were what made me keep playing Yakuza 3 Remastered, as after playing Yakuza Kiwami 2, the gameplay felt somewhat like a slog to me.
Yakuza Kiwami 3 changed both of these reasons in ways that I mostly disapprove of, plus the character changes, but it made the gameplay considerably better, and added a lot of side content that was enjoyable, so it balanced it out. Mine’s story is also a nice addition. In short, Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties is a decent game for both newcomers and returning players, but I’d advise the former to play the original before this version.