Yakuza Kiwami 3 is Creatively Bankrupt

Article at a glance:

• This is not a review. I paid full price for this game, and when you charge $60, you don’t get the luxury of soft criticism.
• Yakuza Kiwami 3 fails at the one job a remake is supposed to do: modernize and improve the original. Instead, it cuts content, adds filler, and somehow feels worse.
• It isn’t just the game, it’s also the business decisions around it. Delisting the remaster, stupid bundling tactics, and charging more for less is just tiring at this point.

Sega. You released NG+ as a PAID DLC for Infinite Wealth, we took it. You released a worse version of Yakuza 0 while delisting the original Y0, we took it. Yakuza Kiwami 3, though, is where many other people and I are likely going to draw the line. Because saying “Yakuza Kiwami 3 has problems” is like saying Chernobyl had a slight overheating concern. And NO, I am not exaggerating. Even putting aside the controversial recasting with Kagawa, this game just leaves a poor taste in my mouth, no matter how I look at it!

No, this is not a formal review. I don’t receive games for free. I pay for them. And when a company asks for $60, I expect something that respects my time and money.

So what is this? This is me explaining why Yakuza Kiwami 3 has some very serious problems. If you still want it after hearing me out, that’s your money, your call. Fair? Let’s talk.

The Many Problems of Yakuza Kiwami 3…

Let me ask you this: what is a remake supposed to do? A remake is supposed to be a ground-up recreation of a game that not only improves upon graphics but also aims to modernize gameplay and streamline the narrative as needed. Think all the Resident Evil remakes or, more recently, the Oblivion remake. Yakuza Kiwami 3 thoroughly fails that. Yakuza Kiwami 3 hacks away most of the side content from the original game, only to add in filler content that is somehow worse than what they took away.

What do I mean? Well, Kiwami 3 has 31 substories compared to Y3R’s 100 or so. Mind you, the number of substories was already cut down in Y3R compared to the original Y3. Were some of those side stories just plain bloat? Yeah, they were, but even then, 31 out of 100 is a bit too much. Especially because they took away some of the fan-favorite substories like Cafe Alps. What did we gain in exchange for losing all these substories? A bunch of new minigames from the modern entries in the series and Dark Ties.

And oh my god, Dark Ties is another can of worms. The Dark Ties campaign features Mine helping a sexual offender rebuild his reputation after serving his sentence. What are you doing, RGG? As if casting someone like Kagawa with some disgusting accusations in real-life was not enough, you had to include this, too, huh??

All you had to do was take Y3R, make the combat feel better, and upgrade the graphics a little, and yet you failed at doing even that. Y3R was a mess, a lot of issues people associate with Y3 such as “Blockuza” arise because of Y3R, but you somehow made a game that makes people MISS Y3R! Kiwami 3 doesn’t even look that much better because they didn’t bother redoing the cutscenes, yeah, all the cutscenes are the same as the PS3 version except for the ending, and well, the new ending is pretty bad too, now, isn’t it?

Sega… Will you ever learn?

And the worst part about all this is that they delisted Y3R from Steam and other stores for THIS!! They are charging 60$ for what is by all means a completely different game, and you cannot buy the original game anymore because of THIS! The only way to buy Y3R now is as a part of a 130$ bundle, which comes with the highly controversial Y0 Director’s Cut. Yeah, you cannot buy the original Y0 at all now. OH YEAH, and the bundle WILL NOT be discounted at all if you already own some of the games in it! THANK YOU, SEGA.

That is all for now

You know, when I reviewed Code Vein II, I was just disappointed in that game; it could’ve been so much better, but it is what it is. Yakuza Kiwami 3, though, actively leaves a bad taste in my mouth with its million problems. All this just to milk on that sweet, sweet nostalgia some more. Sega’s baffling business decisions DO NOT help the case of Yakuza Kiwami 3 at all. It really pains me to see the slow decline of RGG. At this point, I won’t be surprised if they start selling some of the cut substories from Kiwami 3 as DLC later on.

If you still want to get the game after hearing all this, more power to you. Just remember what kind of company you are giving money to. But yeah, let me know what you guys think in the comments. I have said what I wanted to, and I will take my leave here. See ya.

If you want to hear something positive after all this, check out my thoughts on Nioh 3 here.