![]() ![]() ![]() As a westerner who’s largely ignorant to the rules of mahjong and shoji, I also very much appreciated the inclusion of poker and blackjack as alternative ways to earn cash (or indeed, lose it) in the casino areas.There are also regular Yakuza staples such as arcade games (in this case, Virtua Fighter 2 and Virtual-On), batting cages, karaoke, indoor golf, and more. While there have been some concessions made in order to rebuild Yakuza 2 with the Dragon Engine, like the absence of bowling and pool mini-games and the complete removal of the Shinseicho area from the original game, in their place are more fleshed-out versions of the cabaret club management from Yakuza 0 and the clan creator mode from Yakuza 6, and the latter of which has morphed from a fairly uninspired RTS into a more strategically deep tower defense game. “There’s also noticeably more to do in Yakuza Kiwami 2 than there is in Yakuza 6. ![]() Yakuza Kiwami 2’s brawling feels much less rote than the one-note procession of beatdowns found in Yakuza 6 as a result. ![]() Elsewhere, helping a janitor trapped in a public bathroom grants you access to a filthy toilet plunger to choke out your combatants in the nastiest way possible, while a busker in Sotonbori can lob you an acoustic guitar to bludgeon bad guys with. For example, if you become a regular at the ramen restaurant in Kamarucho then eventually you befriend the chef subsequently, when you get into a dust up in the neighbourhood he’ll be standing by to hand you a bowl of scaldingly hot broth to shove into a street punk’s face. But in Yakuza Kiwami 2 I found extra incentive to track down each and every quest giver on the map because a number of them unlocked region-specific Heat moves that further freshened up the fighting. Speaking of hitting the pavement, seeking out side stories in the back streets of Yakuza games is always worthwhile because at best you’re rewarded with unique items, and at worst you walk away laughing at the unexpected left turns they invariably take. Unlike dropped cash and consumables that persist on the street after a group of enemies have been dispatched, any weapons you don’t pick up in the middle of an encounter just evaporate the moment the last goon hits the pavement, which seems unnecessarily inconvenient. I did find it somewhat odd that you can only pick up and stash weapons during a fight, though. While you still don’t have the switchable fighting stances of Yakuza 0 and Yakuza Kiwami, you do at least have the option of equipping weapons such as swords, tasers, and flamethrowers, all of which you can either buy from arms dealers or pick up and stash when enemies drop them during a scrap.Combined with a greater selection of violent Heat meter-fuelled special moves, the inclusion of weapons makes for far more dynamic brawling, whether you’re cutting a bloody swathe through a crowd with a butcher’s knife or using a bowling ball to knock enemies asunder like fleshy 10 pins. This does mean that Yakuza Kiwami 2 also inherits the comparatively limited fighting system of Yakuza 6, but there are a few notable upgrades from that starting point that bring some much-needed spice to the action. Not only does the Dragon Engine allow for Kamarucho and Sotonbori locales that more closely match to their real-life Tokyo and Osaka inspirations, but it enables Yakuza Kiwami 2 to incorporate other valuable quality-of-life enhancements introduced in Yakuza 6 such as seamless transitions between interiors and exteriors, and in and out of combat encounters, which keeps the action enjoyably free-flowing. I’d also beaten up a baby nursery full of full grown men clad in diapers, struck flirtatious poses for a snap-happy photographer who was wearing nothing but a Speedo and a smile, and drank can after can of vending machine coffee in order to make my bladder full enough to beat the high score in the interactive urinal-based minigame.Yes, Yakuza Kiwami 2 adheres to the established series recipe that takes a meaty slab of brutality and bastes it with silly sauce, and with an enhanced version of the Dragon Engine from Yakuza 6 under the hood, it delivers an experience overall that’s second only to Yakuza 0, at least since the series hit the PlayStation 4.Īs far as remakes go, Yakuza Kiwami 2 is a more significant step up up from Yakuza 2 than 2017’s Yakuza Kiwami was from the original. By the time the credits had rolled on Yakuza Kiwami 2 I’d uncovered a plot to detonate a series of explosives around Tokyo, climbed my way through the ranks of an underground fight club buried in the bowels of a construction site, and partnered with a number of businesses in Osaka in an effort to boost my burgeoning cabaret club management career. ![]()
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