There are some memories attached to the PS2 release of Yakuza 2 in which I emulated the game 10 years ago. It was also one of the first game I ever recall using emulation on PC for, at least the first batch of games. When this remake was announced, I thought it was never going to come to the west or at least this back before Yakuza 0 really took off in the west and now the series gets active releases in both Japan and North America. I've fallen out of the series but I bought this remake a couple of years ago on a sale and I felt like revisiting the story of Yakuza 2 again. I do remember how back before 0 really took off in popularity, at least in terms of writing, this was considered the pinnacle of the series or 5 was. I was baffled at how this was considered to be well written.
This leads to story and Yakuza 2's story is one of the biggest mixed bags, I have ever experienced. Not even sure if I can outright call it "bad" since after all I got to the end of the game and rolled credits. I am well aware that the series is known for being "dumb" and "doesn't take itself seriously" but that doesn't mean you can do whatever you want and still have any form of crediblity. There still needs to be some consistency and logic to follow or you might as well call scribbling with crayons a "story" too.
The best way of describing Yakuza's narrative is like hanging around with a person who has crazy mood swings and has bizarre episodes. There is a lot of interesting and entertaining moments but there is a lot of "what the hell" or "why" moments to go along with it. At times, Yakuza 2 can feel like Metal Gear Solid 2 but more so the zany and wacky aspects of the latter and less of the meta commentary on society and sequel culture.
The very existence of Yakuza 2 contradicts the ending of the first game where Nishki, Shintaro and Yumi's deaths never meant much in the grand scheme of things or even guarenteed Kiryu and Haruka having a happy life with their scarifices.
With that said, the story of this sequel for the most part is fun in the moment. It is carried by arguably it's main antagonist Ryuji Gohda. He's a very fun, entertaining and charismatic villain the kind of character you'd expect in an action film. He doesn't have an overwhelming amount of screen time but when he does show up, he makes an impression like early game where he raids a meeting with the Tojo and Omi and kidnaps leader of the latter. His manly sense of honor prevents him from too one note and predictable.
The character of Sayama, I sort of get what RGG was trying to do with her in that she's supposed to be a female cop who inspires fear in gangsters. The idea I got was that deep down she never really wanted to be a cop but just used the police force as an excuse to find out about her past but she tends to either too useless or helps out in ways that can feel bizarre and unearned. Examples of the former being shot by a sniper in Sotenbori and then fainting when enterting Kamurocho after regaining conciousness. The latter is when it turns out she was part of a cyber crime unit the whole time with no hints of her being good with computers or shooting fake Kazuki because he was unaware and not because she was a geniunely good shot.
Then from Chapter 12 onwards and especially the final Chapter, it just amps the stupidity up to 11 almost to the point where I wonder if there is has any crediblity left especially with how the character of Terada is a heel-face revolving door and I'm not even sure who's side he was even on the whole time and he was supposed to be just a face in the first game with no hints of being possibly being a heel. There was also a deus ex machina where Majima, this whole time had a camera system not even Florist knew of.
There is also a fare share of filler here and there and you will know because the dialogue in the text boxes aren't voiced.
There are some scenes are appreciate more now like teenage Kazuma tring to help out Kazama but by helping him, the former made things worse. My personal favorite is that Majima knew Terada wasn't the "good man" that he sold himself as.
I'm talking about story so much because if you choose to just do story quests much of the game is cutscenes all though the story to gameplay ratio is mostly solid here. After a lengthy cutscenes 9 times out of 10 there will be a gameplay section that will last just as long depending on skill level. The bosses can last pretty long more on that latter. However due to them taking so much abuse, it does make getting that lengthy story cutscene feel like a geniune reward.
It will mainly the exploration of cities and combat. I did like buying various foods at resturants to get more stat points and to heal up without using a cosumable. The skill tree is mostly stat based and by the end, the stat tree will be mostly upgraded.
Then there is combat which is "fine". This is in the Dragon Engine, the one used for Yakuza 6. It's not amazing but it gets the job done. Weapons are fun to use and it's mainly about crowd control. The wonky grab button and physics are the biggest enemies since one hit can send Kazuma flying across the arena.
The biggest enemy against bosses where the hurdles is trying to have Kazuma realign where he is facing the enemy after doing a combo on his opponent and then they quickly dash out of his line of sight. Let go of lock on and then lock on again. There is also how much abuse bosses can take before getting staggered when powered up in "Heat Mode" form with only charge attacks being able to hurt them but then they can run up hit and then stagger you.
What cancels this out is how much money the player can accumlate just by fighting in random battles so items can cheese much of the encounters on top buying food at restaurants like I mentioned earlier.
There is decent progression of getting new moves, heat attacks and getting higher stats. It gets easier the more it goes on. I got so much money that I bought weapons and items and the final fight was over fast. This was the opposite in the PS2 game since you didn't get nearly as much money in abundance as well as weapons and items to plow through the late game mobs with ease. The only time I died was getting attacked by rocket launcher enemies who blindsighted me and killed me in 2-3 hits.
You also get a save point, abilties to organize items and buy new ones after the elevator fight in Chapter 16 too. This section was much easier than the PS2 original game.
Overall, Kiwami 2 is a decent remake. There are those who are critical of Kiwami 2 itself but it's a fine enough of version if you want to experience the story of Yakuza 2 for the first time and has enough new ideas of it's own and are executed decently enough from a gameplay standpoint that it won't feel like you are going through the motions when wanting to revisit it after a while. Not the best remake you ever play but definitely a middle ground one.
No comments:
Post a Comment