What can be said about Yakuza that hasn’t been said before? It’s an incredibly popular series (even getting its own channel on our Patreon-exclusive Discord), and is on nearly every platform now. It’s spawned an Amazon Prime TV show, and despite getting a new lease of life on Nintendo’s shiny new handheld, I’d still bet money that most of the people considering buying Yakuza Kiwami on Switch 2 have already completed the game elsewhere before. And hey, I don’t blame them. I’m more than guilty of double dipping so I can replay a game on a handheld, and the good news is that the Switch 2 edition delivers.
Without wanting to teach all the grandmas out there to suck eggs, Yakuza Kiwami puts you in the dapper white suit and red shirt of Kazuma Kiryu, a rock hard footsoldier in the Dojima family who’s taken the fall for a crime he didn’t commit. Despite a bit of meandering at times, this first entry to the series (excluding prequel Yakuza 0) tells a compelling story, and between the twists, turns, politics, backstabbing, brotherhood and balls-to-the-wall action, you’ll be glued to your seat for the entirety of its runtime. It’s a game that uses chapters effectively, often ending on a small cliffhanger or raising questions you immediately want the answers for, and you’ll find it difficult to tear yourself away at these points.
As a member of a highly mobilised, large scale criminal organisation, it won’t surprise you to learn that Kiryu knows his way around a fight. It’s a good thing too, as his fists seem to be the main way he interacts with anyone in the game that isn’t directly related to the plot. Combat is very similar to Yakuza 0, and feels much like a brawler that has you stringing together combos and picking up whatever makeshift weapons you can find to smack the crap out whichever unlucky bastard decided to start a fight with you. You get 3 different combat styles to switch between at will: the quick-footed Rush, the heavy hitting Beast and Brawler, which sits halfway between the two, plus the Dragon style which Kiryu has to re-learn following his stint in the slammer. Switching between the styles is the best part of the combat, and I’d often find myself switching between them, especially to Beast mode for the power fantasy of flinging everything and everyone in the room around.
While there’s nothing wrong with the combat, I did find it gets old quite quickly and that’s partially down to the way in which Yakuza Kiwami is structured. Despite the compelling story, for large chunks of the game you’re essentially just running to and fro between the same few areas, seeing how the story plays out and usually punching your way through some perilous and dramatic scenario. The combat starts to grate after a while, especially due to some frustrations with the mechanics. Getting knocked down means you need to spam buttons for a few seconds in order to get back up again, and certain enemies, particularly bosses, can take a bit too long to whittle down. I found myself fairly early on avoiding all non-story related combat scenarios as I simply wanted to spend more time immersed in the story and less time in fights. While I’ve not got extensive experience with the series, I found the structure of Yakuza Kiwami to be a step backwards from Yakuza 0, which may be a byproduct of it originally being a PS2 game.
Performance-wise, the Switch 2 versions seem to be on a par with the other versions I’ve played, and if you’re a handheld gamer then this will likely be your ideal way to play. Yakuza Kiwami ran very smoothly, and while I’m not an expert in these things, it seemed like 60fps to me and I had no complaints. Visuals are crisp, and the Switch 2 screen does a great job of showing off the contrast between the dark Kamurocho night and the sea of neon lights that fills it.
For newcomers to the series, I’d personally start with the Switch 2 version of Yakuza 0, which is also a better game overall. If you’ve already played that though and are looking for your next fix then Yakuza Kiwami for Switch 2 is a great port of a good game, and the perfect place to continue Kiryu’s odyssey. And for those thinking about double dipping to play on handheld, then I assume you skipped to the paragraph above and have already bought the game, so enjoy!
