Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties Review – Delivering a Win
SEGA has kept its Yakuza franchise in the spotlight throughout the years, and the latest entry to get a remake is coming up for release this week. Featuring not only a remake of Yakuza 3, but also a brand-new adventure starring Yoshitaka Mine, developer Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio promises tons of content. Read our Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties review to see if this two-in-one remake is yet another hit in the making.
For those wary of story spoilers, don’t fret, this review is spoiler-free, so there are no major story beats that get discussed.
Two Games, One Price
Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties come with two games for the price of one. This is true no matter which version of the game you purchase, as the Deluxe Edition simply includes some cosmetic items as well as a BGM CD set of songs to play on the in-game phone. This means you’ll experience the exact same stories no matter which version of the game you choose to purchase. This is a completely single-player experience, as Yakuza 3 was before it. The only DLC available is that which the Deluxe version unlocks. There’s no real fear of missing out if you opt to save yourself some money and purchase the base game, which is a good thing if you’re trying to stretch your gaming budget.
Both games are available from the outset, and you can freely swap between which game you’re playing by choosing them from the title screen. Both games run on the Dragon Engine and run identically. Your mileage may vary depending on your hardware, of course, but on my ASUS TUF F17 laptop equipped with a 13th-gen i7 and an RTX 4070 8GB, a frame rate of 120 fps could be achieved on the highest settings, with DLSS 2x Frame Generation and Reflex+Boost turned on. Combat in this game doesn’t require too precise timing, so any extra input lag introduced by these features being turned on wasn’t really noticeable, at least not on the Normal difficulty level. The Dragon Engine runs things very well, and the graphics impress, especially compared to the original.
Peace Never Lasts
Yakuza Kiwami 3 sees the return of Kazuma Kiryu, this time in charge of the Morning Glory, an orphanage he has taken control of now that the conflict with the Omi Alliance has concluded. He has given up the reins of the Tojo clan and entrusted its future to Daigo Dojima, and now lives a peaceful life in Okinawa. Of course, no peace can last wherever Kiryu finds himself, and before he knows it, he’s thrust into the middle of a conflict that quickly grows beyond the walls of a simple orphanage. Dark Ties, meanwhile, allows the player the opportunity to play as Yoshitaka Mine and follow his downfall as a successful startup CEO who began his illustrious Yakuza story, which is shown in Yakuza 3.
No matter which way you slice it, Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties offers incredible value for the price of one game. The original Yakuza 3 took most completionist players around 100 hours to obtain the 100% clear rate, and the level of detail evident in Yakuza Kiwami 3 likely equates to a slightly streamlined play time to get the same result. Regardless, you can count on completing the main campaign in around 20 hours with average deviations for side quests. Indeed, you can tack on dozens of hours simply raising your relationship with each kid at the Morning Glory, and attempting to raise Kiryu’s Daddy Rank by sewing, growing crops, and more activities that have none of the violence but all of the intensity that the regular missions are known for.
Substories Galore
There are, as usual, plenty of those to go around, in either Yakuza Kiwami 3 or Dark Ties. There are over a hundred substories, as they are called, ranging from simple fetch quests to multi-scenario stories that reveal themselves over time. Dark Ties also features something called the Kanda Charisma Project: Mine has taken it upon himself to improve his mentor Tsuyoshi Kanda’s public profile, and to achieve that, he’ll perform Good Deeds, take on Helping the Little People quests, and rack up stats in Damage Control Challenges. These help to progress the story, but they also extend this game’s run time, as some of the Damage Control Challenges invite you to play a lot of the side activities.
Upgrading each main character is done through a straightforward tree, spending money and/or points to improve their stats, as well as unlocking new combo options or special moves that you can perform in certain contexts. Both characters have two fighting styles. Kiryu has access to an upgraded style using the original as a base: Dragon of Dojima: Kiwami Style. It boasts the highest number of attack techniques in the entire series. While you start out with a decent move set, by the time you’ve unlocked every ability, Kiryu will have a truly impressive repertoire of moves to keep his enemies struggling. His other, new Ryukyu style is no slouch, either. It is weapons-based and features eight different types to master. It almost feels like cheating with how devastating some of these weapons can be, but then the enemy also occasionally uses weapons, so all’s fair in Yakuza war. Dark Ties, meanwhile, has Mine using shoot-boxing, which is a flashy combat style that relies on picking holes in the opponent’s defense. Getting airborne by kicking off of one enemy, to then attack mid-air is a key mechanic to master, as the technique is great at crowd control, and Mine seems to always attract several enemies at once. Mine’s other option is a rechargeable Dark Awakening mode. This is an overcharge mode, where Mine is surrounded by an ominous red aura and becomes quite overpowered. If you’ve stored up enough of a charge of the ability, you can hold the activation button for a bit and deal double the damage for the same amount of time. This is especially useful against boss characters, who usually also produce an intense aura that must be beaten into submission before their main health bar will start to deplete.
Lots of Distractions
Outside of fighting, both games offer the usual array of side activities to participate in, most of which offer fun distractions if you want to take in the city life or get away from the drama for a while. There are plenty of restaurants to eat at, with different menus per location, bars to get drunk at, convenience stores to stock up on healing and boosting items, batting cages, bowling alleys, mahjong leagues, and, of course, arcades. While the game generally ran well, inexplicably, some side games such as bowling had some frame rate issues. In the arcades, you’ll find completely playable video games from SEGA’s extensive library of classic games, all the way up to Dreamcast-era games. There’s also a full-fledged Game Gear emulator, with a full dozen carts to find – though the game does give you perhaps half of them very early on in either game. I have to admit, though, many of these games are really showing their age. Some of them run so slowly, like Sonic & Tails, that it might be a struggle to play through one in its entirety. Still, this emulator supports save states, so maybe it’s something you just play one level at a time in between advancing Kiryu’s or Mine’s story.
One bigger feature is missing this time around: Revelations from the original Yakuza 3. This mode involved a bunch of over-the-top scenarios for Kiryu to unlock new abilities. Remaking all of those scenes was perhaps too daunting of a task to be deemed worth the effort, and they were left out in the remake. It’s not a dealbreaker, just something for fans of the original to be aware of. A couple of minigames have been replaced with those in most other, more modern Yakuza releases, as mentioned.
Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties is the complete package. You get not one, but two fully-contained campaigns, with all the violence and drama you’d expect in any Yakuza story. Having both games unlocked from the start is great for anyone who’s played the original Yakuza 3 and just wants to get to all of the new stuff, though any players new to Yakuza 3 will probably want to play Yakuza Kiwami 3 first to get more familiar with the story. Playing either game is guaranteed to be a good time.
Pros
- Two games in one!
- New moves are fun to learn
- Plenty of sidequests
- Runs well, with great graphics to boot
Cons
- Some side quests have inconsistent performance
- Revelations replaced with a skill tree
Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties was provided by the publisher. You can read MP1st’s review and scoring policy right here.
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