i liked this game. but it makes me feel very weird.

i get the choice to not have as much of previous characters since this is (well, was) kiryus last big thing where he's the main focus, but man it just does not sit well with me to have so many of the franchises characters completely shelved due to that. the new characters that were introduced are fine, they're silly goofy guys, but they don't have the same intrigue as akiyama and saejima and majima or daigo or anyone like that. and i don't mean that as a totally negative thing, those characters have been built up for multiple games to have that intrigue and screen presence that make them enjoyable to see. and yes akiyama is there but he has literally 5 scenes in the entire game, i don't think it counts. but yeah, i think my issues with the story are mostly just with that, the rest of it is just whatever, i mean there's the obvious "well why doesn't kiryu just go to the florist this game would be like an hour long" and that's fair, but i don't usually hold it against a certain piece of media for having that particular kind of plot issue like that, you can make up any number of reasons for that in response, idk

as for the combat, i mean this game is basically just kiwami 2 with a different story, so i didn't think it was bad, i liked it, i will say that the physics were definitely very underdeveloped and don't feel amazing and big guys don't feel very enjoyable to fight but other than that i don't have really any issues. i will say that extreme heat mode feels fucking awesome to use and i hope that i see it again in man who erased his name, kiryu is the strongest guy in the yakuza universe, i think it's perfectly acceptable to oneshot minibosses with one combo. oh yeah, as for the health bar change, i feel very neutral on it, fights don't drag out, but some feel a little undercooked because of it. like someya should realistically be a 4-5 minute fight, but isn't. joon-gi han should realistically be a 4-5 minute fight, but isn't. in spite of that, i still enjoyed them, i would have just liked them to be a bit longer.

soundtrack for this game was pretty okay, not on the level of 0 or 7 but definitely good enough to keep the energy going.

side content was good enough to make me want to do more of it and actively seek it out, so that's cool. a lot of super interesting ideas in them and also wacky goofy stuff that made me smiley face

yeah idk, people really dislike this game but i think it's pretty good and was worth playing, def overhated. man who erased his name next.

What an amazing game.
Just finished getting the platinum, and I'm glad most of the side content was fun enough to actually do. Not that much filler, which is rare for open world games.

Great story in a great campaign. This shit surprised me several times and kept me guessing til the very end, even til after the credits. Loved all the characters in this, they made MJ one of my favorite characters in this game, after being the worst in the first game. The villains were fun, even though 1 maybe overstayed their welcome.

The gameplay is as crazy as ever, you get a lot more toys to play with this time, across 2 Spider-Men to boot. None of the combat encounters ever bored me.

Flying/webbing around the city was as fun as ever, with the wing suit and wind tunnels adding a whole layer to traversal.

My one big gripe with this game and why I almost dropped it to a 9 is the amount of bugs I encountered. While some were funny, a couple were soft locks that required either going to the last checkpoint or reset the ps5. I never lost more than a couple of minutes of progress so I choose not to drop it to a 9. Hopefully these are patched out soon. Other than that the performance was great in both 60 and 120fps modes.

Overall this is now my 2023 GOTY. It was worth the wait.