Monday, December 4, 2023

Yakuza 1 Kiwami - Review

 Genre: Adventure/action.
Developer/publisher: Sega
Platform: PS4/pc.
Official Site: N/A
Release date: 29-8-2017.
 
I decided to continue working on my backlog and decided its back to yakuza
to follow the adventures of Kiryu-chan! I casually added Y1&2 kiwami to my backlog
from a psn sale after finishing Y0, since I thought why not? why should I not
try to make my way through the mountain of yakuza games? however I won't be doing
a marathon and will go through it when I think the time is right to visit Kamurocho again.

Since I don't like brawlers I played on easy from the start with gore set to mild
hmmm? seems this is becoming a tradition! Also most of my screenshots
are funny things from sub stories or Majima in general.

Pro's
- Good for an ''origin story'' of the first ever Yakuza game but not much else.
- Majima is annoying but also a delight.
- Plenty of optional content like minigames and substories.
- Combat was good, I actually used brawler stance more in this game compared to Y0.

Con's
- Why the hell did certain substories explain main plot threads? like hello
mainstory is there for a reason???
- Game has story markers but also randomly stops using them in the middle of it all.
- Pretty short compared to Y0.

This review isn't really spoiler free as I did kind of sum up the game in my final thoughts
so you're warned! the rest is just rambles and my experience of the game!

Sadly while I was a little excited to start following Kiryu's saga for real
this game has not aged well at all. I literally spend an hour in the prologue
trying to find some stupid npc cuz they decided to remove the story marker
and said npc not spawning till you speak to some bystander. Reeeeee~~
Even then the experience was like oh no it can't get worse can it? YES IT CAN quite literally
cuz every once in a while the game throws some BS at the player in an attempt to break the mold.
Like in chapter 3 for example...  anyway seems like not many people actually played through
this game on ps4 since the story trophies were listed as rare except for the first one.
Not like I will 100% this, since then its no longer fun and just a chore. >_>

Anyway I pressed on, I learned from my n00b mistake! Basically the story here is
Kiryu-chan takes the fall for something and gets jailed for 10 years. WEW~ but I already
knew this fact thanks to the credits of y0 AHEM now to find out the rest. >_>
Also while I loved Majima in Y0 he was just kind of annoying in this game...
like he wants to fight Kiryu-chan, OK. But he was super intrusive aaaaa~ leave me alone!
Majima will chase Kiryu and butt into battles he is like MAJIMA'S EVERYWHERE.
 I do kind of recommend trying to win the first time you fight him cuz if you do
you get like 100 points to spend on your skill tree which is enough to get some good stuff
and decent upgrades across the board especially the ones not needing much points.
Honestly while Majima was annoying I also thought he was a bro cuz he literally helped
Kiryu to get back in shape but idk other than that he was a pretty one-note crazy weirdo.
Also without all this the game would actually be pretty bland, so instead we got
nottu dissu shittu againu~~ but its all good fun since Majima's a lovable idiot.

Combat was actually good though and maybe I am getting used to it after 3 RGG games.
Atleast the hp bar couldn't break so that is always a plus! Majima used to be my fav
 but he was a tad annoying with having to be everywhere wanting to kiss Kiryu's ass.
Beast stance was useful early on and part of the reason why I kicked Majima's
arse when Kiryu just got out of jail. Sadly its not really that good later on
and thought Brawler stance was actually better this time and used it more than Y0.
Dragon stance is only good if you do all of Komaki's training and beat up Majima A LOT...
still I thought Brawler was just too good in this game so it was my main by the end.
Rush stance? what was that? very few enemies it was useful against.
Don't worry I still love him! its just yea... sometimes I am like no and try to do a U turn
if I spot Majima but  even then at times the game says no and I can't avoid him.

Oh well moving on I guess overall the story was just okay? its interesting but felt like it was
lacking something so it wasn't on Yakuza 0's level, it was still nice to see where any of it was going
so it wasn't completely bad? hmm... I suppose even if this game was a lot shorter
than Y0 it still had some impact that made me go maaaan... and not want to continue
the story but just do minigames or substories instead. I especially felt this way after chapter 10.
SUS traffic cone is SUSpicious...
 
Minigames are a plenty and I guess this time I found a real addiction and its called pocket circuit!
what do you mean its been an hour since I entered that building?! whoops.
Sadly once I left and progressed the story I found no real reason to get back to it
but I could? haha just kidding perhaps Kiryu now lives in the building.
 
I actually liked this one... cuz it wasn't like the othersTM.
 Substories are there but they didn't grab my attention that much compared to Y0
still there were a few funny/good ones, I lost count at how many times Kiryu almost got scammed.
Never forget f-cup lady... shady lady or hand reader guy smh.
Bump and scam stood out to me but only cuz the whole thing was dumb as heck.
and maybe cuz there was more than one occurence. My favorite was Bad-Ass-Dads!
Some guys never learn cuz there were like what 5 instances of bump&scam.
I didn't like the substory related to pocket circuit though but that was mostly because
Kiryu was supposed to know some of them and since this was like the first game
in the series I ain't following nor did I remember anything like that from y0 aaaaand
they also did the thing were they constantly talk about things and I am sitting here like ok
and I didn't connect at all so I just did other substories instead! but once again most
of them were just trying to scam Kiryu or other people, very creative RGG.
Sigh....


Final thoughts?
Kiryu adopts a daughter the game.
I actually liked the story this time! and while there was a mystery it idk felt kinda flat
 in the delivery. The story also is much shorter and was able to finish it in 20ish hours
with some side stories here and there. This game didn't age well and they would often
take away the story marker whenever Kiryu had to go fetch something to continue
like its some substory and this happened more than once which was highly annoying.
Also going from A to b and then back to A is real fun and this sort
of quest progression kinda killed it along with ommiting the marker at times.
Sure I can memorize the general layout of Kamurocho but I can't remember everything
apparently it was too hard to put more markers to identify other buildings like the hospital.
I mean imagine having to stop playing during certain segments then you come back
and its like uh yea now what? atleast the game does hint you if you idle but at times
it was like searching for a needle in a haystack. Thank god for Cyricz's guide.
I don't remember having that sort of trouble in Y0,judgment or Ishin...
I can still recommend this game if you want to check out the first ever Yakuza game 
and want to enjoy the Kiryu saga chronologically but yea don't expect too much.

So hmm... I don't think this game was that bad but it has some annoyances that shows its age
as this game was original on the PS2, with that in mind I think my complaints are valid.
Also I could hardly remember some story beats other than got jailed etc, meeting up
with Haruka, treating the dog then her getting kidnapped like twice? busting into
chinaland while learning the truth of ''Mizuki'' and a bunch of people kicking
the bucket in the process  of it all while also adopting a daughter.
 Oh no... did I just sum up the whole game? Damn...
I did laugh at one thing in the ending cuz it just sends me into orbit at simply the thought
of the villains finding out what is inside the locket.๐Ÿ˜‚๐Ÿ˜‚๐Ÿ˜‚

Substories itself were OK but like really 10 years in the joint makes you a prime target for getting
scammed I guess? it actually got so old that I was like oh boy here we go again!
some were good others were meh there is no inbetween. I liked the ones that were voiced
it felt like they actually added a lot to the situation but its sad they're shoved to the side.
Also in some sub event Majima gets shot, falls into the water and Kiryu just dips
this game was so inconsistent at times or perhaps Kiryu just doesn't care about Majima
who is just seen walking around later, so I was like:

Honestly it felt like I breezed through the game compared to Y0 which took me 30ish hours
if I hadn't bothered with substories in this game I would have been done in 15ish hours.
Yes its that short. I will say that I started to like Kiryu a lot more with this game than in Y0
so if I ever play another Yakuza game its because I wanna see what happens next & for the substories.
You know I think on its own this game is pretty OK, like if they never made another yakuza game
atleast the end had a nice feel to it despite a lot of shit happening in this game which is why
I am going to pause my advance on Yakuza mountain for a little while so kiryu can
hold hands with his newly adopted daughter.

For the price I got it for which was like 5$ I think its more than fair considering all the
optional stuff on the side but when I really think about it, most of it seems pretty standard.
What's next? maybe a game that is a little longer? or that has more meat to it?
nvm I could just go play Yakuza 2 Kiwami... haha.

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