You have a big boss battle with him early on, then he’s basically gone until the third act when the crap starts hitting the fan. Despite Goda being billed as “Dark Kiryu” and sharing space with the protagonist on the game’s box art and promotional material, he basically drops out of the plot halfway through.
#YAKUZA 2 GAME SERIES#
It is also where the series started leaning in to its more audacious forms of spectacle, such as a set piece where Kiryu has a fistfight with a bunch of tigers like it’s no big deal.īut while these elements are great in theory, they aren’t exactly treated with care. There’s even a love interest subplot where Kiryu teams up with a hardboiled police detective named Sayama, adding an entertaining dynamic not seen in other installments.
The shadiness of the criminal underworld escalates from internal affairs to unstable power plays and the threat of complete open conflict. It progresses Kiryu’s character and motivations a man losing his family and sense of identity growing to rebuild a surrogate family and reaffirm his sense of self. The entire plot feels like a natural progression of scale from the first game. Goda isn’t the only thing that is great in concept. And in the mind of this volatile man, there can only be one Dragon in the criminal underworld. An entitled, egotistic, selfish and ferociously bullheaded gangster framed as a dark opposite to Kiryu’s more reserved, stoic, and sympathetic demeanor. What makes Yakuza Kiwami 2 stand out is major villain Ryuji Goda, the Dragon of Kansai. This isn’t to criticize the game, just an observation that despite the changes in characters, locations, and motivations, the series has a distinct formula. What follows is an admittedly convoluted conspiracy plot that Kiryu has to unravel and stop before the fighting threatens to destroy his life and his home. But things take a turn for the worst when the head of the Tojo Clan is assassinated, and an internal coup within the Omi Alliance comes to a head. He is called in by the Tojo Clan to broker peace with another major group, the Omi Alliance, in order to prevent a massive crime war. Losing his spiritual, brother, sister, and father figure in the fallout from an elaborate plan that left his organization, the Tojo Clan, financially crippled.īut things are never simple for the infamous Dragon of Dojima. Kazuma Kiryu is doing what he can to look after his surrogate daughter Haruka while also coming to terms with the chaos of what happened. Yakuza Kiwami 2’s plot picks up one year after the events of the first game. Even when what it adds doesn’t really amount to much. While I can’t compare this remake to the original game, I can declare that Yakuza Kiwami 2 is still the gritty Japanese-crime-drama-meets-audacious-interactive-tourism experience the franchise is known for. Finally, it must toe a line that any remake of a ten-year old experience must walk, making quality of life improvements while keeping the spirit of the experience intact.
It also has to be an improvement over the last canonical entry in the series, Yakuza 6. It has to serve as a remake of the original Yakuza 2, a beloved fan favorite. Yakuza Kiwami 2 has a lot of expectations weighing on it.
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