Kiwami 3 was a game I was rooting for in a lot of ways. I wanted a form of Yakuza 3 that could've improved upon the issues the original had. I did not get that form of Yakuza 3. I would've been better off burning 100 bucks instead of buying this from a key reseller.
I will not be talking much about the recastings since it's been talked to death but to put it bluntly, the characters are visually and audibly more boring (especially the Elephant in the room. Either boring, or sounding like a chain smoking duck anyway.)
[h1]STORY[/h1]
The story in Kiwami 3 remains mostly the same, but with poorly added in scenes that completely kill the pacing (especially Chapters 2 and 4) which somehow ends up being worse than the original. They managed to cut a lot of scenes focused on character development and added a bunch of scenes that ultimately end up being pointless and could only exist to pad out the runtime. I don't think we needed the 27 Chura Bar scenes or the 3rd cutscene focused on how Kagazaki is being hunted by the Snake Flower Triad at the expense of the Fighting Viper arc. A LOT of beloved substories from the original were cut, or condensed down and made way more formulaic by the series' standards (the ice cream substory is a good example, we can't have a substory be short and sweet we GOTTA have the mother be an absolute creep because it's so funny!!!) Then we have the ending, which has been changed for no good reason much like a lot of the changes in this game and totally ♥♥♥♥♥ up a core plot point of Yakuza 4, and what makes that worse is there are no plans on making a Kiwami 4 from RGG (or more likely whatever studios it'd be outsourced to) and the original has been largely delisted for the most part, only being available on GOG and the series bundle. Good luck if you want to go from this game to 4, apologies if you'll be scratching your head for a good portion of it as you'll be confused to what's going on.
[h1]GAMEPLAY[/h1]
The gameplay continues the trend of the last few brawler entries, that is to say downwards. The Dragon style seen in this game is an awkward blend between the DE version (6 onwards) and the original version while also adding a pointless 5th rush combo that you forget is even there. The Ryukyu style is there just so the game can have two fighting styles, not exactly a fan of locking away Kiryu's abilities to use weapons behind a whole fighting style that doesn't add much substance. Not only is juggling still extremely nerfed from it's previous iterations, but now having the enemy bump into a wall or anything of that sort will end the juggling prematurely. Much like Pirate Yakuza, this game features the magnetism and the decreased focus in Heat Actions which I hate, even if the Heat Actions are done better here which is still a massive step down from earlier entries. Combat overall is just not that satisfying to do, especially with how unbalanced in your favour it gets when upgraded further like with the previous Gaidens and Kiwami 2.
[h1]MUSIC[/h1]
Not much to write home about honestly. The remixes ranges from "pretty decent" to "remix you'd hear in an old AVGN video" (that is to say, the original song but made into a rock cover) with the occasional crime like removing Clay Doll On The Cradle. The songs in the game didn't make a memorable impression on me (much like with Pirate Yakuza actually) unlike the original. Doesn't feel like a whole lot was going on here especially with how they're cool with reusing boss themes from previous games even when in the original they got new versions.
[h1]PRESENTATION[/h1]
There's a lot of places that just lack polish. Weakened facial animations, the Millenium Tower sightline being significantly lowered, night time looking unnatural, the gameplay filter completely disappearing in cutscenes, bosses are just completely silent during their intros, etc. There's also weird stuff like how Kiryu will wear his Okinawa outfit when fighting Joji Kazama but then suddenly changes back into his Kamurocho suit (which is just the Onomichi outfit from Yakuza 6) or Lau Ka Long's shoe knife missing during his fight's QTE despite the fact the camera and Kiryu STILL focuses on his shoe. Things like that add up and really give the impression this was a game that wasn't given the time it needed or deserved which it definitely wasn't. The fact there isn't even a list for Heat Actions to tell you how to use them in the game like what previous entries had is proof enough.
[h1]DARK TIES[/h1]
A lot of stuff I've said above is still prevalent here. It's insane that this got a big marketing push when it's about the same length as the Kaito Files with just a little bit more side content. Mine's fighting style is okay, a bit lackluster with a repackaged version of Extreme Heat but otherwise inoffensive. Kanda Damage Control is essentially just a rebranded Akame Network from TMWEHN which honestly scratches the surface of how many things in this game is just something reused and rebranded from the previous 4 or 5 entries which not even the other Kiwamis did as heavily as this. The story doesn't have a whole lot going on up until the end with one of the worst retcons I've ever seen, up there with Yakuza 0: Director's Cuts retcons.
[h1]CONCLUSION[/h1]
My complaints here are just the tip of the iceberg with why I don't like this game. I really wanted to give this a chance but there's so much that I can't bring myself to like it. It's a game that doesn't feel like it came from a place of love but to fill a slot in a release gap, a slap to the face of a flawed classic that barely tries to improve upon said flaws. I feel that this is plenty of proof that the yearly installment formula RGG has been running on for the past 20 years is becoming less and less sustainable and I think many would agree it'd be for the best of this franchise if there were more gaps. Otherwise, if this is the direction the series is going I'm scared to see where it'll end up next. [b]I implore anyone to TRY to grab a copy of the original game instead through any means necessary, I promise you'll end up having a better time than with this.[/b]
