Yakuza Kiwami 2 was an absolute banger. So cool to finally see the dragon engine in action after finishing two 40+ hour games in the series. Kamurocho and Sotenbori are a dazzling sight to behold in the new engine. So far on my Yakuza journey, I liked the combat and gameplay in this one the most, it also brings back the Cabaret minigame which I absolutely love (no pocket circuit racing though).

My one criticism on Kiwami 2 is that of the games I've played in the series, this one had the weakest writing. While this game series has pulled off super complicated plots before, I felt like this one was overly complicated for the sake of complication. It had enough twists to make M Night Shyamalan embarrassed, to where it started reminding me of the SNL "Dear Sister" sketch. Don't even get me started on the heroification of a racist cop character. It still had epic moments and great masculine one liners, but overall it was meh. There was definitely a good story in there somewhere, but it got lost in the weeds. Looking forward to Yakuza 3!