An interesting game with a top tier story for the franchise, a unique atmosphere and setting, and mostly fun fanservice seeing familiar faces in new roles, though it is held back by just ok gameplay and combat.
Visually, this is a Kiwami-style remake of the original Ishin. It generally looks great, and it's cool to contrast it with the Dragon Engine and other HD versions of these characters (I prefer K2 Ryuji's face to Saigo's, but Izo >>> K1 Nishiki). There's also a dog at one point that references the original Yakuza and looks like it was ripped straight from the PS2. Nitpicking aside though, it's a treat to see, especially with some of the older characters who haven't gotten the HD treatment prior to this, like Hijikata/Mine. But for actual feel and gameplay, this is more along the lines of the HD remasters. There's a little bit of touching up, like tiny shops not having loading zones, but when it takes 20 years to pick up a sparkly object on the ground, it feels like I'm back in Yakuza 5.
The gameplay still mostly has its feet in that era too. It's got a bit of QoL, like being able to hit enemies on the ground (even though you don't lean over like in DE, you just kind of hit the air above them), and fancier looking health bars (though only 1 for bosses is lame). Overall though, it leaves some to be desired. It's clear that weapon based styles were an experiment for the series and they're... alright. There was something off about the balance between rush combos, finishers, and heat actions in these styles that made combat feel a lot more monotonous than usual, and the midgame seemed to have extremely health-spongy enemies that contributed to that feeling. For reference, I played on hard and crafted what seemed like somewhat overpowered weapons for that point in the game. Bosses, on the other hand, basically fell over, usually so fast that I forgot they even had wacky special powers.
And that's the elephant in the room when talking about this game's combat: the trooper cards. Before release, this was the thing I was most apprehensive about, and in hindsight, I think I was right. They weren't immensely distracting, but they felt like an immersion breaking band-aid for the slightly too stale combat, and I think overall they were a negative. They gave a much, much weaker but similar taste of "oh yeah, ugh" that comes when you fight a boss in LAD and have to use that game's JRPG combat: it just kind of gets in the way from how it feels like the fight should play out. The quality of some of the cutscenes makes it feel like it's prepping you for some cinematic clash that you'd find in Ghost of Tsushima, but then you remember you're playing a PS3 Yakuza game. Which again, is still pretty fun, but there's just a little bit of mismatch there. It feels like there's several ideas for combat that get mashed together in this game. Is this a serious samurai story with matching combat? It is a normal Yakuza brawler that happens to have swords and guns? Is it a wacky super power simulator with crazy effects? Is it, as the remake oddly seems to try and highlight, a stylish action game with ranks for every fight? I don't know, but it tries to be all of those and doesn't really nail any of them. It's like they tried to apply the unique balance of serious and silly tones of the Yakuza series to the combat itself, but it didn't really work for me. Also, spamming square on Gunman with a high fire rate gun like Vortex is so silly, and any fire sword basically stunlocks single targets, including bosses. The bandit leader in battle dungeons was also the worst fight I've ever done in an RGG game.
Moving on to more positive notes: the story and characters! As the entry from between 5 and 0, I was very curious to see which side this game would fall on: 5's mess of a main plot and finale, or 0's much tighter and more emotional story? I'm happy to say it was much closer to 0 than 5 here. I kept waiting for some ridiculous twists in the last few chapters, and while there was plenty of crazy stuff, it was all totally acceptable and well put together (vague spoiler warning: besides the last 10 minutes before the credits, lmao). On the character side, this was the other thing I was apprehensive about before release: the recasts. On this point, I'll concede that it pretty much worked out. The only character that I really wish hadn't been replaced was Todo (Baba -> Zhao), not because Zhao was bad, but I just think Baba seems like a much better fit and I would've liked that performance more. Every other recast was totally fine at worst (Yamazaki, Takeda), and great at best (Kondo, Oryo). The returning cast was generally very good too; it was fun to see the old faces in new roles and didn't feel too gimmicky to me in the slightest aside from maybe maintaining some old character quirks or accents. Hijikata/Mine in particular stood out as a great character who I didn't care for as much in his original role, but had much more room to breathe here and really grew on me. Even others like Kondo and Takechi had me liking them more than counterparts. (More vague minor spoilers:) It's also crazy that this is legitimately the game where Kiryu/Majima get the most time to shine as an actual pair. Overall, I really enjoyed the story, though in the middle I wasn't as sure about that and the slightly darker tone compared to Yakuza wasn't 100% hitting, but it pulled me back by the end.
Other minor notes:
The new remix of Affected Fight was really cool to see, and Fly got the same treatment which was nice, but then they just reused Pledge of Demon, which was weird considering how much effort was put into getting Kuze into this game in the first place.
The glossary is a perfect idea for this game for international audiences, and I was impressed at the foresight... for about 3 minutes, until it didn't have a definition for goshi. Then I realized it was literally only place names, which is probably the least useful thing it could have done. It was funny to be 25 hours in and see it still prompting me to check on where Tosa is in modern Japan though. No text log was also a slight miss.
This was a fun entry in the series that I'm glad worldwide fans now get to check out, and while the changes made for the remake are a bit of a mixed bag, it's still a good experience. Definitely worth playing for the story and characters, an interesting time period and place to explore, and at least judging the weapon styles and combat for yourself.
Visually, this is a Kiwami-style remake of the original Ishin. It generally looks great, and it's cool to contrast it with the Dragon Engine and other HD versions of these characters (I prefer K2 Ryuji's face to Saigo's, but Izo >>> K1 Nishiki). There's also a dog at one point that references the original Yakuza and looks like it was ripped straight from the PS2. Nitpicking aside though, it's a treat to see, especially with some of the older characters who haven't gotten the HD treatment prior to this, like Hijikata/Mine. But for actual feel and gameplay, this is more along the lines of the HD remasters. There's a little bit of touching up, like tiny shops not having loading zones, but when it takes 20 years to pick up a sparkly object on the ground, it feels like I'm back in Yakuza 5.
The gameplay still mostly has its feet in that era too. It's got a bit of QoL, like being able to hit enemies on the ground (even though you don't lean over like in DE, you just kind of hit the air above them), and fancier looking health bars (though only 1 for bosses is lame). Overall though, it leaves some to be desired. It's clear that weapon based styles were an experiment for the series and they're... alright. There was something off about the balance between rush combos, finishers, and heat actions in these styles that made combat feel a lot more monotonous than usual, and the midgame seemed to have extremely health-spongy enemies that contributed to that feeling. For reference, I played on hard and crafted what seemed like somewhat overpowered weapons for that point in the game. Bosses, on the other hand, basically fell over, usually so fast that I forgot they even had wacky special powers.
And that's the elephant in the room when talking about this game's combat: the trooper cards. Before release, this was the thing I was most apprehensive about, and in hindsight, I think I was right. They weren't immensely distracting, but they felt like an immersion breaking band-aid for the slightly too stale combat, and I think overall they were a negative. They gave a much, much weaker but similar taste of "oh yeah, ugh" that comes when you fight a boss in LAD and have to use that game's JRPG combat: it just kind of gets in the way from how it feels like the fight should play out. The quality of some of the cutscenes makes it feel like it's prepping you for some cinematic clash that you'd find in Ghost of Tsushima, but then you remember you're playing a PS3 Yakuza game. Which again, is still pretty fun, but there's just a little bit of mismatch there. It feels like there's several ideas for combat that get mashed together in this game. Is this a serious samurai story with matching combat? It is a normal Yakuza brawler that happens to have swords and guns? Is it a wacky super power simulator with crazy effects? Is it, as the remake oddly seems to try and highlight, a stylish action game with ranks for every fight? I don't know, but it tries to be all of those and doesn't really nail any of them. It's like they tried to apply the unique balance of serious and silly tones of the Yakuza series to the combat itself, but it didn't really work for me. Also, spamming square on Gunman with a high fire rate gun like Vortex is so silly, and any fire sword basically stunlocks single targets, including bosses. The bandit leader in battle dungeons was also the worst fight I've ever done in an RGG game.
Moving on to more positive notes: the story and characters! As the entry from between 5 and 0, I was very curious to see which side this game would fall on: 5's mess of a main plot and finale, or 0's much tighter and more emotional story? I'm happy to say it was much closer to 0 than 5 here. I kept waiting for some ridiculous twists in the last few chapters, and while there was plenty of crazy stuff, it was all totally acceptable and well put together (vague spoiler warning: besides the last 10 minutes before the credits, lmao). On the character side, this was the other thing I was apprehensive about before release: the recasts. On this point, I'll concede that it pretty much worked out. The only character that I really wish hadn't been replaced was Todo (Baba -> Zhao), not because Zhao was bad, but I just think Baba seems like a much better fit and I would've liked that performance more. Every other recast was totally fine at worst (Yamazaki, Takeda), and great at best (Kondo, Oryo). The returning cast was generally very good too; it was fun to see the old faces in new roles and didn't feel too gimmicky to me in the slightest aside from maybe maintaining some old character quirks or accents. Hijikata/Mine in particular stood out as a great character who I didn't care for as much in his original role, but had much more room to breathe here and really grew on me. Even others like Kondo and Takechi had me liking them more than counterparts. (More vague minor spoilers:) It's also crazy that this is legitimately the game where Kiryu/Majima get the most time to shine as an actual pair. Overall, I really enjoyed the story, though in the middle I wasn't as sure about that and the slightly darker tone compared to Yakuza wasn't 100% hitting, but it pulled me back by the end.
Other minor notes:
The new remix of Affected Fight was really cool to see, and Fly got the same treatment which was nice, but then they just reused Pledge of Demon, which was weird considering how much effort was put into getting Kuze into this game in the first place.
The glossary is a perfect idea for this game for international audiences, and I was impressed at the foresight... for about 3 minutes, until it didn't have a definition for goshi. Then I realized it was literally only place names, which is probably the least useful thing it could have done. It was funny to be 25 hours in and see it still prompting me to check on where Tosa is in modern Japan though. No text log was also a slight miss.
This was a fun entry in the series that I'm glad worldwide fans now get to check out, and while the changes made for the remake are a bit of a mixed bag, it's still a good experience. Definitely worth playing for the story and characters, an interesting time period and place to explore, and at least judging the weapon styles and combat for yourself.