This is the first time that the U.S. has really ever seen the Kiwami effect on the series. Kiwami 1-3 is a divisive series as a whole, but we saw this for the first time with THIS game.
I'm going to be comparing this to the original 3 up to the point where I last played the original, which was the infamous infodump, so I'm not really going to be talking too much on the story until I actually beat both that game and this. However, we first need to address the elephant in the room here. Hamazaki.
I don't really understand the recast here. They take someone who already defies every single stereotype you can think of at first glance, and recast him with someone who is more likely to play Kanda than anyone else in the cast, to say the very least. And his admission is actually VERY recent, so the fact that RGG would hire someone that not only Kiryu, but MAJIMA would absolutely be disgusted by is so tone-deaf to what the characters in the series really stand for. Hamazaki is supposed to be a man who looks like a brute, but is very, VERY cunning. Like if Kashiwagi looked like a pro wrestler, only he wasn't as cool and more cold and calculating. It's an odd recast for sure, and not a very good one at that. When I update this review by the end of the story, I'll say more on this.
As for the game itself, it's not a 1:1 remake of Yakuza 3. For once, there's a markedly HUGE amount of differences outside of the main story that actually make this game so different, and I can see the reason behind it: Yakuza 3 is the weakest mainline entry in the series. It was the 2nd game in the 7th generation of consoles, coming JUST after Kenzan!, and it was very rough around the edges. There was a good sense of fundamentals in the original 3, but because of them working on new hardware,
Let's start with the combat comparison.
The Dragon of Dojima's iconic fighting style is, for once, in full swing. This is a huge step up from Kiwami 2, which opted to just reuse Kiryu's fighting style from Yakuza 6, a game in which Kiryu himself is in his 50s, and only really in shape because people keep trying to beat the ♥♥♥♥ out of him. This not only offers a more direct comparison with OG 3's version of the style, but also, how much the style could have evolved, thanks to all the experience and mechanics RGG knows they can implement, which culminates in our new combat system.
The system itself is a bit strange, but better put together than it was in Pirate Yakuza. The single heat bar returns, but it fills up MUCH faster than in Pirate Yakuza. Furthermore, we have what essentially boils down to a Dragon Install style mechanic for Kiryu, as he can enter an extreme mode that, in a step up from Kiwami 2, doesn't reward mashing. In both Dragon and Ryukyu style, you can actually finish combo strings that lead into throws, and those throws can actually damage enemies in the way, which really gives the cathartic feeling of satisfaction of taking down a bunch of guys at once, which Extreme Heat mode from Kiwami 2 and Yakuza 6 DISTINCTLY lack.
I also remember the fighting style being rough but familiar in 3. It was definitely the Dragon style we've all grown accustomed to, albeit with a few missing abilities thanks to Kiryu not really practicing his signature techniques between games, apart from 7 to Infinite Wealth. The growth of the style was tedious, however, and required plenty of grinding, mostly done through the vast amount of substories(a point I will touch on later).
Playing the Dragon Style in this game, though, is... actually EXTREMELY refreshing. While there are a LOT of mechanics from the Gaiden games tacked onto it(as well as a system from Yakuza 5), it actually doesn't feel bad to play Dragon style in this game. In an attempt to create the true ultimate Dragon style, I think RGG somewhat succeeded in this, because I love the dynamic from going from basic combos to finishers. Triple Finishers make a return from The Man Who Erased His Name, and I won't lie, it kinda fits, all things considered. It's an extension of Kiryu's standard combat tree, and it allows the player to really go ham. It took me a while to get used to it, but when I got the hang of it, I realized they actually did kinda try on it. They clearly got a look at the best parts of what makes Dragon style so much fun in most Yakuza games, and actually put some of those together here for arguably one of the better combat experiences for the Dragon, because I feel POWERFUL when I'm beating down an enemy one-on-one.
But that's also the biggest drawback to this style now. Because it was so focused on raw damage, while Dragon style has some decent crowd control tools, Dragon style became the style of duels, one-on-one drag-out fistfights against tough opponents. This was also an issue in OG 3, which they resolved then by having Kiryu be able to stock weapons.
But the solution to that for Kiwami 3 was, in a bid to bring back Gaiden-style style switches, an entire weapon-based fighting style that doesn't quite feel as good as Dragon, but it has merits of its own. Ryukyu style gives Kiryu a series of weapons that he can switch between at the press of a button*. With a multitude of different weapons at his disposal, Kiryu can break through the defenses of a crowd and actually really thin the numbers if he's surrounded by a lot of enemies, which actually helped me a lot in the second fight against Kanda. It's got a bit of a learning curve since unlike Agent in Kiryu's last game, he can't grab, and the combo tree looks more like a bunch of lines than a true combo tree. But Kiryu is able to somewhat flow between these weapons depending on the situation. For example, you can use his standard weak attack, flow into a guard break if necessary, and follow up with tonfas to leave an opponent open.
However, Kiryu's best crowd control tool is easily the Y(hold) string, which allows him to attack at range and hit multiple opponents at once, which is his snappiest button hold tool and the easiest to get the hang of outside of the base combos.
Overall, Ryukyu style feels somewhat haphazardly put together rather than being totally fluid, but the fundamentals are there, and if this style comes back for him in the next game in the series of events following Kiwami 3, perhaps they can at least polish this style and add a bit more to it, and make it fluid enough to be as ferocious to crowds as the Dragon style is towards single opponents.
The substories though, are... ehhhh. I like the Haisai Girls, personally, but I can see why a lot of people don't. It's a huge departure from what Kiwami 1-2 did with mostly recreating substories. And because this is a not small amount of side content, RGG thought it best to get rid of a TON of the substories, even ones that would actually fit better in the modern era due to how Kiryu is as a person.
And they remove a bit of depth from the newly written substories that are supposed to replace them. But I think this is antithetical to why the substories are so magical in this series. In Yakuza, you do substories if you need a break but still want progression, if you're a casual fan of the series. The substories allow Kiryu to break out of his role as the hardhitting stoic man we all know him as, and it actually allows us to get to know who Kiryu is in his day-to-day life, how he reacts to things, how he's always the first to help and the first to comfort a stranger who can be going through any number of things. But even with their attempts to keep it, the substories feel more shallow compared to most of the other games. It sucks.
Overall, at the point where I'm at(Chapter 8), Kiwami 3 doesn't exactly replace the original 3 by any means. It's just as divisive as the original, with questionable recasting, a flawed combat system that's so close to being perfect that it's infuriating, and shallow side content apart from a huge side story for Kiryu. It's a lot like PSO2 NGS. It's a beautiful, shallow puddle.
