Recent reviews by Pakundo

In just about every way this is a good sequel, and stands as an iconic game all on its own. The one thing to note is that there is definitely a lesser focus on stealth and investigation missions, but the game more than made up for it in much needed variety. Great music, great atmosphere, a charismatic lead... It's all here.

• I get that it's a bit of a wild ride of nostalgia, belonging, friendship and finding a sense of self all wrapped up with some pretty good choices of music.
  
• I don't really get some of things that were supposed to be cool. Like, I know what they are, I just don't necessarily connect with them. Some delinquency is cool, but constantly drinking... Maybe not so much? Probably a cultural divide.
  
• I get that it's a really well produced piece of media I'd liken the most to a sort of interactive movie, the kind you go for to immerse yourself in the kind of feelings it wants to evoke in you. Think musicals or theatre pieces.
  
• I don't really get the overwhelmingly positive critical reception the game got, mostly because I couldn't connect too deeply with what the game was showing me, so on occasion I simply noticed the game for what it was and also for it wasn't.
  
• I kinda, somehow, get a bit of the overwhelmingly positive critical reception the game got. The things the game does do, the vibes it creates and the scenes it set are all of a particularly high quality. It's all well paced and engages your attention throughout with eye-catching visuals and a well curated soundtrack. If you let yourself go and follow along with the game's ride into the night... You'll find it hard to let go at the end.

Put simply, this is a well produced and finely directed 200 minute interactive movie with a variety of minigames in-between that will... sigh... REALLY make you feel like a music-loving delinquent teenager that's about to leave everything and everyone behind, with all the nostalgia trips and "one last time" rides that go along with it.
Makes for a decent movie night, at least.

Repetitive as hell and not overly fleshed out, but it has the atmosphere and feel that no other game in the franchise could match.

So, uh...
SHOULD we have connected?

Perhaps the true delivery was the porter friends we made along the way...

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It's been mostly accepted by the RGG community that a newcomer to the franchise could reasonably jump in with Yakuza 0 (a prequel game made after Yakuza 5 and Ishin, actually), continue with Kiwami 1 and 2 before moving on to the remastered versions of Yakuza 3, 4 and 5, and so on and so forth.
While Kiwami 3 largely recreates the story presented in Yakuza 3, it has some noticeable departures, big and small:

Combat moves were remixed, slimmed down and shuffled around. The main combat moveset has been oddly remixed with its previous iteration's moves and had many of its heat moves removed. Perhaps a simplification meant to ease inexperienced players in, but veteran fans are aware of just how much these mechanics can be reused between titles, and many of them yearn for their continued presence in future games. Fortunately the modding scene for Yakuza games has some decent solutions for this. I'll note that I myself have used such a mod for the playthrough of this game - it has restored many removed moveset features and added some extras on top.
Admittedly, I found the new weapon-centric moveset of the game to be a welcome simplification/addition that made me want to use weapons as opposed to ignoring them.

Speaking of weapons as a mechanic and focal point for some side content...

A large amount of side content has been cut. Unlike with the previous Kiwami games, much of the side content has not been re-adapted, but rather was not included to begin with. Most of Yakuza 3's substories and several major minigames were not included. While both Kiwami 1 and 2 have instances of replacement content, the significance and amount of non-replaced-but-simply-cut content in Kiwami 3 is notable - hostess clubs are not included, some parts of the main story were truncated and/or re-imagined as side content, major substories were not remade, an entire side story that serves as the game's "bounty hunting" mechanic has been slimmed down and changed, etc.
Mind you, I don't believe every change, slimming down or removal negatively impacted the overall experience. The game's pacing has certainly benefited from it, and going through the game's side content alongside the main story does not feel as much of a chore as the original Yakuza 3 did at the time.

The main story lost some parts of it and gained a few extra scenes and battles. Some significant portions of the main story that helped flesh out a major hub in the game have been mostly cut down entirely, with some parts relegated to a primary side story. Conversely, there have been some added scenes and battles that helped flesh out some characters while giving others much needed impact on the overall game experience, such as antagonist characters getting additional conflict scenes with the player... Or other antagonists. Basically a rounding out of some rough edges from the original game. Your mileage may very, but I found the additions to have been decent, whereas the cut parts of the story were somewhat disappointing.

The ending of the game has been changed. I will make an effort to avoid spoilers in this review, but it's important to note that community response to said change has been... Mixed, to put it lightly. While the implications of the changes to the ending of the game are largely unknown, at least one (recast) character has had their fate changed in such a way as to possibly conflict with their appearance in a future title.
Other than the controversial changes to content, story beats and the game's ending, there are more glaring issues:

Sub-standard quality control. During the pre-release period there have been several sections of the game that appeared to either be unfinished or simply under-budgeted in a remarkably unusual way. Some of them were fixed, others remain as-is as of the time of writing this review. It should be noted that the overall impact on the game experience was not very significant for my personal playthrough, though your mileage may vary.

The elephant in the room. An actor for a recasted character in the game has been accused of sexually assaulting a hostess club staff member, and while a resulting lawsuit has been settled it has been claimed that the actor has not actually apologized to said staff member, nor does it appear as though the actor was particularly remorseful about the harm he has allegedly caused. Upon the announcement of the game, vocal elements of the fanbase started a hashtag movement calling for the removal of the actor from the game. The developer studio appears to have completely ignored this movement, and at times has made an effort to mute its presence on its media channels where applicable. While it's uncertain what long-term effects this movement may have on the franchise, it can be said that it has casted a shadow on the game in the pre-launch and post-launch period.
It's decent. Not as long as Infinite Wealth, but rather somewhere between that and a Gaiden game RGG8 Gaiden (Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii). It plays pretty well and lives up to some of the standards of modern RGG games. Frankly, this is probably the section where I have the least to say, because it's certainly not a game I'd recommend for a newcomer to the franchise, so anyone playing this game should mostly already know what they're getting into.
Kiwami 3 is, possibly, two different games... Depending on your point of view (it also includes the Dark Ties mini-Gaiden game with it, but that's not what I meant):

1. A remake that offers a modern take and some new perspectives on a previously-told story. The major side story tied to a particularly cozy hub in the game offers many heartwarming moments that can resonate with long-time fans of the series, and some of the characters that were added surrounding it give some main story moments additional emotional weight. Additionally, the added scenes (and entire mini-Gaiden game) that focus on the game's antagonist help fill in some gaps and properly (re?) solidify character motivations and actions.

2. A new branch in the timeline that will evolve into an alternate future. Fans of the series theorize that the changes to the game's ending may be significant enough that, coupled with some choice words from the series' executive producer, the future of the RGG franchise may include games that aren't simply remakes of games that came after Yakuza 3, but rather all-new reimaginings that genuinely go in different directions. It's... Possible? Who knows, at this point.
The game is pretty good, sometimes. Not the best, has some questionable design choices and a few baffling plot changes. I rate it Six-Seven out of Ten.

Runs like ♥♥♥♥ on a very high spec PC...
...And it won't even load me in a match.

Base mechanics turned out to be way better than I'd expected, not bad for an anime game.

Still the fun single player FPS game I remember it to be. Looks great, too!

It took me way too many years to realize you're literally playing the Predator in this game.