Breath of fresh air after Kiwami 1 and a game I truly enjoyed. It has a bunch of quirks though. Not massive ones, but there are enough to pull the game down a little for me.
The first thing I noticed with the new engine were the convenient changes to the gameplay. Being able to enter buildings without a loading screen opened up a lot of smaller places that no one bothered to make a separate room for before. Inventory management is easier with less restrictions. Everything in general is just snappier whether you are talking to someone or going through menus. The changes to the food system were great. Eating at restaurants is now an important part of leveling up and not something I only did for roleplay or the completion list (although they criminally lowered the rewards you get for some other places which sometimes feels odd).
I quite enjoyed the story as well. It's maybe a little convoluted, but the overall vibe felt like this gritty police / mafia drama which I really enjoyed. It's also extremely emotional at moments which is always a bonus. The only really negative thing I can say, is that at times it felt a bit too padded. There's a few chapters that felt more like side story material, and since they happen near the mid way point and the end it really dragged down the pacing for these sections.
Speaking of actual side stories though I am very happy that Kiwami 2 returned to the wacky nature of what I saw in Yakuza 0. There is so much fun stuff to see! I saw a lot of parallels to Yakuza 0 in general here. We have two 'bigger' minigames again with actual storylines to follow; Cabaret Club makes a return continuing the actual storyline from 0 and there are a lot of narrative ties in Sotenbori in general.
The biggest thing that would make or break peoples experience with this game is probably the combat. It's quite a big change and not everyone is obviously going to like it. I'm somewhere in the middle. I don't dislike the new style, but at the same time I do feel like it's missing some precision. Everyone sort of feels like a drunk person flailing around trying to catch anything that gets in their way. This creates some very comedic moments combined with the ragdolls in the engine, but as I went on it started feeling less and less satisfying. The game is also incredibly easy for the most part which creates some conflicting emotions in me. I've never been a die hard action combat fan, so being stun locked by bosses and 80% of my punches being blocked was incredibly frustrating at times in the earlier games. That being said this time around it was less about surviving and more about seeing how quickly it is possible to delete someone from existence. This can be fun, but it likely won't be for a lengthy playthrough. Especially as we don't have multiple styles now so you are essentially just doing the same moves over and over.
The first thing I noticed with the new engine were the convenient changes to the gameplay. Being able to enter buildings without a loading screen opened up a lot of smaller places that no one bothered to make a separate room for before. Inventory management is easier with less restrictions. Everything in general is just snappier whether you are talking to someone or going through menus. The changes to the food system were great. Eating at restaurants is now an important part of leveling up and not something I only did for roleplay or the completion list (although they criminally lowered the rewards you get for some other places which sometimes feels odd).
I quite enjoyed the story as well. It's maybe a little convoluted, but the overall vibe felt like this gritty police / mafia drama which I really enjoyed. It's also extremely emotional at moments which is always a bonus. The only really negative thing I can say, is that at times it felt a bit too padded. There's a few chapters that felt more like side story material, and since they happen near the mid way point and the end it really dragged down the pacing for these sections.
Speaking of actual side stories though I am very happy that Kiwami 2 returned to the wacky nature of what I saw in Yakuza 0. There is so much fun stuff to see! I saw a lot of parallels to Yakuza 0 in general here. We have two 'bigger' minigames again with actual storylines to follow; Cabaret Club makes a return continuing the actual storyline from 0 and there are a lot of narrative ties in Sotenbori in general.
The biggest thing that would make or break peoples experience with this game is probably the combat. It's quite a big change and not everyone is obviously going to like it. I'm somewhere in the middle. I don't dislike the new style, but at the same time I do feel like it's missing some precision. Everyone sort of feels like a drunk person flailing around trying to catch anything that gets in their way. This creates some very comedic moments combined with the ragdolls in the engine, but as I went on it started feeling less and less satisfying. The game is also incredibly easy for the most part which creates some conflicting emotions in me. I've never been a die hard action combat fan, so being stun locked by bosses and 80% of my punches being blocked was incredibly frustrating at times in the earlier games. That being said this time around it was less about surviving and more about seeing how quickly it is possible to delete someone from existence. This can be fun, but it likely won't be for a lengthy playthrough. Especially as we don't have multiple styles now so you are essentially just doing the same moves over and over.