i've been told that kiwami has better presentation and more depth in combat. that's fine, but i haven't played it, so speaking purely only on the quality of this game, i give it a recommendation on the virtue of it being such a novelty. it took the idea of criminality and fleshing out a city and went in a completely left field direction. you're getting so much character here that you just don't get with other games of the same era like GTA, at least in terms of themes and humanity. i went into this game with a lot of baggage surrounding the yakuza series and generally having preconceptions of what to expect, but i would have never expected this game to have me in tears by the end.

it's a diamond in the rough, really. there's so much ambition in this game considering how easy it is to miss content and world-building if you just go from point a to point b, as i suspect a lot of gamers at the time did. this is exactly the type of game you should play if you love finding underrated games on the PS2's wide-net of a catalogue. or, if you're totally fine with braindead gameplay complemented by a great soundtrack (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvpitlhQjTQ + https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFIc0Ncte5w + https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7xncw2gTz4 + https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tI9HTIrxys + https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgxMNbXhxPg)

anyway, kazuma kiryu hmu i can help you fuck the pain away and fucking a dilf has always been on my to-do list.