With a pretty damn short dev cycle of around 11 months, RGG got off lucky by having the groundwork of the original Yakuza laid out for them. Even still, making a sequel to be bigger and better than the original Yakuza, a game that was both made on a pretty huge scale, and had a massive budget, would still be a hefty feat. But goddamn, did they deliver.

Sure enough, Yakuza 2 manages to be bigger than its predecessor in just about every way, even if it's due to a lot of the groundwork with both combat and the overworld being laid out from the 2005 original. The vibes of Kamurocho, as well as the new Sotenbori and brief trip to Shinseicho are as on point as ever, as they were in the original. The combat's taken a massive jump, with a few essential moves from Yakuza 1 being unlocked from the start; a really cool and handy feature! There's also a lot less lock-on related issues, and small but appreciated quality of life improvements like weapons taking up their own slots on the inventory, and the ability to send an item back to the hideout if you collect something with a full inventory. There's a few new moves, some insane new Heat Moves, the good stuff. It's everything a good sequel should be, and that especially extends to the OST, and the story.

While the OST is something I'd need to give a few more listens to, mostly so I know track names and can hear them better over the sounds of punching and weapons, the music of the game was absolutely fantastic. From regular battles in the streets, to the major bosses closing off the chapters, just about every battle track had me gripping my controller, locked into the moment and only served to hype me up to kick ass. The good shit, definitely going to have it on the Spotify playlist for a bit.

And man, that story. Between expanding upon Kiryu as a character, both on his own and with his relationships with the extended cast of both returning and new cast members alike, to the much grander scope it goes onto take with Japan and Korea going to blows. Ryuji has gotta be one of the sickest rivals I've seen in a game in some time; basically the closest this series would have to a Vergil, if I had to guess. Sayama was a great female lead to tag along with Kiryu, with the pair getting a ton of both heartfelt and somber moments throughout. And Daigo was a chad who I wish got more screentime, but I'm pretty sure he shows up later throughout the series, so hell yeah. But without giving too much away, one of the best things Yakuza 2 manages to do is absolutely throttle the players with twists, especially by the end of the title. From the cold opening covering the Jingweon Massacre, all the way through to the climax, it's sincere, heartfelt, dramatic, hype, everything I look for in a great story.

And all in all? Yakuza 2's just about everything I look for in a great game. Long as it took me to complete, thanks mostly to work kicking my ass, I had an absolute blast with it from start to finish. It's one of those cases where I'm basically bordering on giving the game a flat 10/10, so consider my 9/10 subject to change. Might be my favourite of the series thus far, at least until I replay 0 at some point later down the line, though it's really the DMC3 VS 5 sort of toss up, where I could go back and forth. Excellent game regardless of any internal debate, sure glad I didn't play that whack ass remake as my first experience with the game!

--INCOMPLETE--

I got majorly fucked over and lost over 9 hours of gameplay. I'm gonna get back to it eventually, but, for now I'll just write my review and leave it.
Yeah, it's good. Like really good. The combat feels nice, just moving around feels so much more fun. You get to go to Sotenbori but also Kamurocho which is awesome. I really like this thing yakuza does of reusing the same map, idk, it makes me feel at home. Not a huuuge fan of Kaoru but she and Kiriyu are kind of cute. I wish haruka was in it more, but than again maybe she is BECAUSE I COULDNT FINISH IT

This is overall an improvement of Yakzua 1. The story was really good as I feel it had a lot more emotional weight to it as well as some crazy twists and characters like Ryuji Goda and Kaoru Sayama are just amazing. The fact they also made Sotenbori and Shinseicho for this game is Pretty cool. I swear that the combat actually got some tweaks and feels like a smoother experience as well as the bosses actually feeling like bosses and not just regular enemies with more health. The ost slaps and not to mention how great that ending was. Overall, like Yakzua 1, I prefer the original over it's Kiwami remake (It doesn't have that stupid green filter over the game)

I actually got kinda burnt out with all the side content (something I didn't think would happen after playing the first game) and decided the best way to get myself forward was just to watch a playthrough of the last 6-ish hours.
It's definitely a perfect sequel, it's bigger and better in almost every way, but it still feels too close to the first game in a lot of ways that prevent it from hitting the same charm for me. I think that's why I ultimately burnt, it felt more like I'd taken a year's break from Yakuza 1 and then jumped back in right where I'd left off, instead of starting a fully new game, even regardless of the fact that there's a timeskip and new things are happening. It's still great, undeniably a lot of fun and the side content is really engaging, but I can't help but wonder how they could've pushed it further. At the very least, it's got me excited to play Y3 knowing how it mixes things up for the new console gen.

The other half of Ryuu Ga Gotoku 1&2 HD Edition, and holy shit was it ever worth it. Yakuza 2 is everything a sequel should strive to be. It makes everything better without making the formula unrecognizable: Bigger world, more sidequests, bigger story with tighter plotting and better pacing, music is more kick-ass, presentation is much more intuitive, and the combat is way more fluid. Also, found out that the Japanese title for Yakuza translates to "Like a Dragon," or "As Does a Dragon," which is very appropriately badass 8) . For reference, I played through on hard mode, did 66% of the sidequests, and beat it in 36.5 hours.

The combat as been made much more fluid. Yakuza 1 compared to this game has a much heavier, weighty feel to it. Kiryuu moves much more quickly and snaps around to new enemies much more quickly than in the first game, allowing for a much greater nuance than in the first game. You keep a decent portion of the moves from the first game, but not all of them (and sadly not the recovery move from being knocked down, which is now a level 10 skill assigned to a different button ;_;). Finishers have also been improved immensely. Where the finishers you had to grab people for were very unclear where you could do them in the first game, now everywhere you can do them is highlighted on your radar, and holy shit is it worth it. They're crazy brutal looking, and the feedback on the controller vibrations really makes it even better. From back-dropping people onto the top of a park bench to launching them off of a bridge, finishers have never been so much fun. Combat is even better than the first one (somehow).

Storytelling is also very much improved. The first Yakuza felt very much like it had a bunch of good ideas pushed into a kind of short story. It was very unfocused, and while I liked the main rival/villain, I never felt very committed to him. Yakuza 2 solves that problem with a solid A and B plotline structure. I had doubts about it at some points, but it handles it all very well by the end. The story also focuses on characters who the player really cares about. Haruka isn't in this too much, which I'm okay with because she was in the whole damn first game, but we even get a stronger female lead in the role of Sayama, which is a very nice change from the first game. We also get a lot more of Majima, whom is one of my favorites, and adds some much needed comic relief and zaniness to the otherwise quite serious story. I really don't wanna spoil much, but I will say that the plot this time around feels much more like a crime drama serial, where major plot twists and revelations are happening all the way up until the very end. The last few chapters are freaking crazy, but nothing was ever totally ripping through obvious plotholes.

The presentation is much improved from the first game as well. You have a much larger pause menu from which you can check just about every collectible and markable thing you could possibly come across so far. You can't get super in-detail info about present quests you're on, but it gives you far better information in the blurb you get. There are no longer permanently missable locker keys anymore as well (mostly)! My only complaint is that one of the two very large cabaret club-related sidequests can be permanently fucked up if you don't know what you're doing, which can make you lose the last locker key, which is a bit of a ball-ache XP. Also, inventory management via item boxes is still awful and needs to be made more convenient.

Rambling about Localization and Other Misc Themes:
There are a few strange localization issues I've come accross, in reading up about the games a little. For one, the orphanage Haruka (and for that matter Kazuma) grew up at is "Morning Glory" in the West, but it's Himawari (Sunflower) in the East. Another strange thing is that all of the big cat enemies have names in the Japanese version, but not in the West.

Speaking of the big cats, holy shit are they crazy to fight. Not just from a perspective of it being silly, but how inhumanly strong it canonically makes Kiryuu. Assuming these tigers are adult Siberian tiger males, they're probably around 700 pounds. An adult tiger can run at speeds of up to 30 to 40 miles an hour. Kiryuu can not just stop one, but make it fly backwards with a punch when it leaps at him. That basically means that Kiryuu's punches can be the equivalent of being hit by a small car on the freeway x3. This game upped the silliness factor to almost Bond-movie-esque at times, and I loved every minute of it.

Also, it's annoying as fuck that a lot of key locations have their names changed between regions. I read about these things like "Shangri La" or "The River Styx" and there are for certain nothing of those names in the Japanese games. Nevermind ridiculous name changes like how Sai the Hanaya is just totally renamed Kage until the 4th game.


Verdict: Very Recommended. Even if Yakuza 1 wasn't really doing it for you, Yakuza 2 is a fantastic update which just might. It makes absolutely everything bigger and better designed, and is everything a sequel should strive to be. Yakuza 2 gave me a lot of vibes of "this is an entry that no sequel will be able to top," so we'll see if that holds up I suppose x3

"a real man ought to be a little stupid", indeed. yakuza 2 follows up on the previous game in a lot of very ambitious ways, but it shoots itself in the foot just as frequently as it triumphs. the combat is more nuanced than in yakuza, but the game is more willing to throw overly tanky encounters at you (seriously, 6 fucking health bars on hayashi?). the story is more complex than in yakuza, but it also has a tone problem, jumping back and forth between a very moving and understated detective story and absurdly overblown, often illogical setpieces. the biggest issue i have with yakuza 2, however, is that it feels very blatantly padded, often giving the player long stretches without clear direction and expecting you to simply accidentally run into the next stage of the plot. there's times when this works, such as the investigative storyline in shinseicho, but much of the time it's used to highlight storylines that don't provide much more to the game than most of the substories. that's not to say 2 is without it's merits at all though, ryuji goda ends up being a very fun antagonist as a strong foil to kiryu. he may deal primarily in aura and atmosphere, but i'll be damned if that aura isn't a strong one. sayama is also a very well-realized character and this game is much more willing to provide quiet, poignant character-building moments because of her presence in the story. the substories here are much more varied and interesting than in 1; you still have your classic "kiryu gets scammed then beats up some guys" stories, but you also get pretty fun and absurd stuff added around them too. it's a shame that the overall package doesn't feel very cohesive, because yakuza 2's strongest moments intrigue me a lot more than anything in 1, but the payoff just isn't really there and it feels like it wants to divert course all the time.

I recently finished the first ’Yakuza’ game and it immediately shot itself up there as one of my favorite titles on the PlayStation 2. Due to this, I was fairly quick at picking up the sequel and giving it a try and I’ll admit, I came out disappointed. ’Yakuza 2’ embodies the style of my least favorite type of sequels that feel more like big expansion packs rather than a new numbered entry. Take ’Resident Evil 3: Nemesis’ and ’Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne’ as some other examples. I mean hell, just look at the first ’Yakuzas’ box art then the seconds and it already plays the same melody, but with different notes. This doesn’t make ’Yakuza 2’ a bad game or anything like that, but I felt a lot of my enjoyment that came out of it felt shallow because it was pretty much exactly like how it was in the first game from specific story beats to reusing the whole same open world from the first title.

To speak more in depth about this, I don’t think reusing content is always a horrible thing, but I feel ’Yakuza 2’ pushes it a bit too far. A majority of the game, you spend your time in Kamurocho, the same city in the first entry. I feel the issue that comes out of this is that it is exactly the same. From the layout of the city to very minimal details such as the noise of the crowds being identical to the previous title. This goes on into pretty much every aspect of Kamurocho. I wouldn’t mind if they reused the location, but added new touches to give it a unique flavor similar to how Bright Falls feels distinct, yet similar in both of the ’Alan Wake’ games. The problem for me here is how Kamurocho doesn’t feel any bit new, it is entirely reused from the original ’Yakuza’ which is super lame. Some aspects are changed such as Purgatory and a bar you used to go to having a different name, but I would’ve liked a bit more than that. There are a few new towns you’ll explore throughout the game which are cool, but they are noticeably smaller in size and don’t have an as interesting design to them as they are just a few square blocks without many alleyways or unique parts to them.

The combat is the same from the first title with some quality of life improvements. It’s much snappier and reactive than the previous game letting you quick turn into punching an enemy behind you. This helps the lock on feel not as busted although it still has its annoying moments. There’s a few new combos and heat mode attacks which are fun to experiment with. The heat mode does feel more generous this time around in how slow it can take to disappear, but this was helpful since enemies have a ton more health this time around. Some normal enemies can have more than one health bar and the major bosses can go up to three. It wants to test your endurance more and I appreciate that. I also felt much more of an incentive to dodge and block since some attacks can do an extreme amount of damage that is better to avoid than tanking. There is also a much stronger emphasis on quick time events this time around. I don’t mind QTEs usually, but the ones here require an especially fast reaction which I just didn’t have. This was annoying, but not too intrusive for my enjoyment. I do find the upgrading to be inconvenient because near the final upgrades you have to hold down the button for like fifteen seconds for a new skill and I wish it would give you the option to automatically use all your points to receive the upgrade.

The most significant and focused aspect of ’Yakuza 2’ is by far its story. I didn’t know how they were going to continue the plot of the first game since the ending was as concluding as it gets, but the setup here is fine. The strongest aspect is the characters and thank god for that because some of the big story beats and plot twists are immensely derivative or simply not that good. Through some parts of the plot, you pretty much get thrown into the same situation that you already went through in the first game. The most notable example of this being the huge tournament fight in Purgatory, but then you get hit with this one two punch of it ending with fighting Majima. I don’t want to do all this again. If I were looking for that I would well… play the previous title! The parts of the plot twists I dislike the most are actually in the ending. I won’t spoil as to what they are, but they hit you with like three fucking twists within a twenty minute time spam as well as a cliffhanger they didn’t even commit to as they show what happened after the credits. The issues I have do weigh down the story for me, but I still enjoyed it for the most part. The main antagonist, Ryuji Goda, is especially amazing although could use a little more screen time. The thing that makes him stick out to me is how he engages with Kiryu. He obviously has a high level of respect for him and he shows it. It creates an interesting dynamic between them that I loved. Alongside Kiryu for almost this entire journey is Sayama who is also a solid character. ’Yakuza 2’ decides to push into a silly direction more than the first game which is welcome. A lot of the first titles goofiness was unintentional due to the english dub, but ’Yakuza 2’ is much more purposely frivolous. I find myself having a preference towards the first game’s story, but ’Yakuza 2’ is a decent follow up which alone is worth experiencing if you were a fan of the previous game.

The presentation and sound design is all relatively the same to the first entry. The new soundtrack is pretty great though and the game still looks pretty, but that is expected. So much of it being exact makes it harder to compliment here because the last title already showed us this a while ago. It seems the pausing between camera transitions is faster this time around though which is a nice improvement, but there’s not much else to comment on besides that since I would just be repeating what I said about the previous game.

It may be annoying how much I hammer in about how much is the same, but it was frustrating to do all these things all over again. In a sequel, my desire is to get a completely new game that takes the mechanics from the previous entry and improve upon it entirely such as ’Resident Evil 2’. I also enjoy a sequel that feels like it reinvents itself to make a different experience as a whole similar to ’Alan Wake II’, but I can not get around sequels like this. They are so unfulfilling and forgettable to me because so much of what I loved was done the exact same way previously. It gives me no incentive to really care when all I think about is how I could be playing the first game instead. That’s what I mean by an “expansion pack sequel”. If this is your type of thing and you prefer a faithful to tradition experience then you will love ’Yakuza 2’ and I highly recommend it, but for others like me, I don’t. The game is enjoyable either way around, but it all feels so damn artificial that I can’t help, but feel underwhelmed.

A peak in the PS2 library. Combat's refined and the edges are sanded off so that things really start to glide comfortably without alot of the irky-jerkness that made Kiryu feel stiff in the first game. Incredible writing that's better than the first, incredible performances from the original cast, allowing you to finally get swept away in Takaya Kuroda's complete command over this character alongside everyone else batting a 1,000, and the presentation is still breathtaking to this day. Kamurocho looks stunning and some of the fight locales are holy-shit-this-was-a-PS2-game? jawdropping. Kiryu comes into his own fully as a character and Ryuji Goda is that dude. It's a pretty flawless game aside from having less interesting substories compared to the first in my opinion, I just wish it saw more wide release in the states beyond being on the fucking Wii U of all things

Yakuza 2 beautifully parallels the first game and explores the legacy Kiryu left behind in a different light. Its leads are faced with the expectation of peeling past the layers of fear and doubt of their lived experiences and coming to terms with the truth.

The experience is laced with gorgeous cinematic shots and muted lighting, characteristic PS2 bloom and depth of field effects. The soundtrack is grimier and angstier than the original and punches up the combat. Kiryu has the fastest combo speed in the entire franchise here.

Yakuza 2, above all else, shows the value in confiding in emotional growth and living true to yourself. Kiryu and Ryuji will shape their own legends in the yakuza, accepting their mistakes and acknowledging who they are, even if their lives can be taken by a scattered moment of betrayal and violence.

2 reinforces the virtuous and aspirational masculinity of the franchise in a simple phrase from Ryuji: a real man oughta be a little stupid.