My Yakuza marathon continues with Kiwami 2. I quite liked this one.
The new engine, I believe it's called the Dragon Engine, is great. The game looks and feels great. The new combat felt much more satisfying to me, every punch had it's impact. It is a much simpler system though, far less upgrades, less combos, less special moves. It got pretty repetitive after a while. In that regard 0 and Kiwami are better, offering robust skill trees and different battle styles. One more thing I appreciate about Kiwami 2's combat is the lack of stagger after getting shot. The armed enemies were much more bearable here.
So while the game looks great and the combat feels great, one downside of the engine is the accursed 30 FPS cap. The bane of the 8th generation. Going from the silky smooth 0 and Kiwami, that was a major disappointment. I'm the annoying kind of guy who really cares about getting his 60 FPS.
The story is mediocre. Filled with plot-twist, conspiracies stacked upon conspiracies, secret Koreans left and right. Some threads got too little attention in my opinion. I have heard that the later games are even more convoluted and bloated, so that's gonna be tough. There are characters I do like here, there are some kinda emotional moments, but it's not as strong as in the previous two games, and Kiwami was already siginificantly worse than 0.
Gonna take a short break from Yakuza to play through Penny's Big Breakaway now. Then it's time for Yakuza 3 or "blockuza" as it seems to be named by the community.
The new engine, I believe it's called the Dragon Engine, is great. The game looks and feels great. The new combat felt much more satisfying to me, every punch had it's impact. It is a much simpler system though, far less upgrades, less combos, less special moves. It got pretty repetitive after a while. In that regard 0 and Kiwami are better, offering robust skill trees and different battle styles. One more thing I appreciate about Kiwami 2's combat is the lack of stagger after getting shot. The armed enemies were much more bearable here.
So while the game looks great and the combat feels great, one downside of the engine is the accursed 30 FPS cap. The bane of the 8th generation. Going from the silky smooth 0 and Kiwami, that was a major disappointment. I'm the annoying kind of guy who really cares about getting his 60 FPS.
The story is mediocre. Filled with plot-twist, conspiracies stacked upon conspiracies, secret Koreans left and right. Some threads got too little attention in my opinion. I have heard that the later games are even more convoluted and bloated, so that's gonna be tough. There are characters I do like here, there are some kinda emotional moments, but it's not as strong as in the previous two games, and Kiwami was already siginificantly worse than 0.
Gonna take a short break from Yakuza to play through Penny's Big Breakaway now. Then it's time for Yakuza 3 or "blockuza" as it seems to be named by the community.