Not a full review that I usually do on this site, but I just wanted to say after beating four Like A Dragon action games (Lost Judgement, Ishin, 0, and Kiwami 2) its kind of aggravating how close they get to a genuinely great combat system yet they continue to make frustrating or baffling decisions that prevent it from living its full potential. Namely the enemy and especially boss design. Everytime a enemy breaks out of my combos and immediately counter attacks, or perform a attack so fast its impossible to react to, or have absurd invulnerability frames from dodges that should really only apply to the player, or just decide to ignore your grabs; it turns my enjoyment into annoyance. Yes there's more to these games then combat, but it's undeniable that combat is the bread and butter gameplay system of Like A Dragon. I don't know, I love these systems more in concept then execution.
Kiwami 2 ain't no exception and I even went out of my way to fight the four secret bosses only available after clearing every side quest, and they just fell into the same trappings. A lot of them turn into exploiting heat actions as they were safe and consistent, since a few of these bosses could take half my health from dodging my jab. A jab, as in the quickest attack in my moveset. This is the exception, but it's still no less sloppy how hard you get punished for utilizing a tool that tests when a opponent is vulnerable or not. And even then, they can break put of your combos anyway at seemingly random.

That's all I have to say, and at least this was on sale for $5. Regardless of the other things I liked and disliked about this title, that is a hell of a bargain for how big these games are.

Reviewed on May 10, 2024


2 Comments


12 days ago

This is the game that made me whip my controller at the wall when i was 17 because of the Haruka golf quest. The controller was never the same, and neither was i

12 days ago

@moschidae Oh that one, yeah I just said "screw it" since I already beat the Amon clan by the time I got to it. It's insane how, not only you can make just a single mistake out of ten shots, but that the ball can land in between the bingo spots and count as a miss. Like A Dragon sure loves to make players play every minigame for completion whether they like it or not, though at least gambling has those cheat items.