Yakuza Kiwami (Legacy)

(BEAT ON XBOX NOT ON STEAM, THAT'S WHY HOURS DON'T MAKE SENSE) TLDR: Good Game (very minor spoilers) While the game plays differently from the PS2 original, I think Yakuza Kiwami is a step up from Yakuza 0 and Yakuza on the PS2, the combat is really fun, All the fighting styles play even better than they did in 0. Receiving new moves and tweaks to make them exciting again, they removed the heat gauge determining the speed of your combos, which was one of my main issues with Yakuza 0. The combo potential is great, it gives you so many fun moves and heat actions to put together to beat your opponents. The bosses in this game have the new mechanic where they heal during the middle of the fight, their aura matching one of your fighting styles, this gets explained to you in the tutorial. But the moves that counter this healing are taken away from you due to story reasons, which is frustrating to the player. You have to unlock the abilities again. While it does take a while to complete Kiryu's skill tree. I overall think its worth it for how fun the combat is. The music in this game is really good as well, featuring remixes of songs seen in the original game from the PS2, the karaoke songs are fun as well. They did remove songs from the PS2 game, but the remaster put those songs back into the game. The story is almost 1 to 1 with the original, being a crime drama about the man we all know so well, Kazuma Kiryu. The themes hit well, the characters are entertaining. Its a really good story that will gets you invested in Kazuma Kiryu for years to come. The game adds in more story beats to flesh out the main villain, these additions are great. You can really understand his motivations more than you could originally. I do wish though they fleshed out a certain other character. They added a mission in the beginning, which was a little unnecessary but I understood why they added it. There's a minor change they did to make the side content to make more sense which is the only story change I can say I dislike. The side content isn't as good as 0, lacking the disco minigame, minigames besides that are pretty much the same as 0. Pocket Circuit returns, but that plays about the same. Mesuking is the new minigame, which is similar to rock paper scissors, it's alright. Fun to do if you'd like a break from the main story. The substories aren’t very good compared to earlier and later games. Most of them coming down to Kazuma Kiryu getting scammed in some way. They tend not to have many memorable characters compared to yakuza 0. This game has a lot of funny moments due to the new Majima Everywhere system, you'll have fun seeing Majima try to help Kiryu become stronger. The Climax battles are back from Yakuza 0, They aren't as unfair as 0, but they can still pose quite the challenge. Examples being challenges where you have to beat fights with a certain style. Or beat several bosses in a row. These are a fun thing you can do if you really want more Yakuza Kiwami. Overall, Yakuza Kiwami is a great game, fixing issues 0 had, people call this game Yakuza 0.5, but I think that's a great thing. After all, who doesn't want a better Yakuza 0?