This game was of course the stepping stone for the following games, but that's just it for me.
It has fantastic music and great aesthetic. My issue with this game is it's story and gameplay. Story wise the pacing is all over the place with a lot of uninteresting filler added to pad out the game, the writing itself is alright and really shines towards the end. Gameplay wise this is a mess, Tartarus mixed with the fatigue feature is a nightmare I'm glad future games removed this for much more interesting dungeons and no fatigue.

This review will mostly cover the added content without trying to spoil it!
This version of Persona 4 fixed all my issues I had with the original, with additional content including new animated cutscenes, new social links, a new story line, new music, a new dungeon, and a great effort of rebalancing the game, This is the definitive way to experience one of the best JRPGs ever released.
Touching upon the new content itself, the new social links are the best and worst thing added. Giving the player time with one of my favorite characters and introducing a new character that is one of my least favorite, regardless of my thoughts on their social links themselves, both add to the story extremely well overall, alongside the added month this works great together.
The new dungeon is horrendous if you don't figure out the trick to understand it which is why I can't give this game a perfect score.
This is definitely still after all this time my favorite game, with nothing coming close to giving me that feeling I get while playing this game.

This one’s fine, I guess.

I do understand why older fans probably don’t like the Kiwami games. Certain moods aren’t carried over when you compare cutscenes, whether through presentation or sound choice. Sotenbori in the Dragon Engine (an engine I’m also mixed on in general) has to be made with the intent to reuse that version of the city for the next ten years of Yakuza games. That means they don’t have the time or the interest in capturing the original Yakuza 2’s noir vibe. I understand that from a production standpoint. Still a bummer.

But also, I just really did not enjoy this story. For how much Ryuji Goda was hyped up, other games have just done… better antagonists since then. Kaoru starts as a strong new addition to the cast before rapidly losing her speak. And beyond that, there’s only so many “Secret Korean Mafia” plot twists this game can handle before you really have to sit back and go. Goddamn. What’s going on there.

But on the other hand, I still played 70 hours of it, so Yakuza is still working it’s charms on me.

literally soul vs. soulless. every single bit of the original's presentation has been crushed into some sloppy paste. whatever it can't recycle from yakuza 6 is recycled from yakuza 0 and then recycled from the PS2 game, and everything else that's actually original is horrifically unpolished even by this series' standards.

if slapping PS2 animations on 2017 models, gutting set pieces, substituting Norihiko Hibino's score (MGS2 and 3 composer) for dull song loops, and awkwardly crowbarring in uninteresting side content into the main story is your idea of a good remake then you should probably be put out back and shot