I planned on writing this review after experiencing most if not all content within both Yakuza Kiwami 3 and Dark Ties. Unfortunately I already seen and experienced what's necessary with both games. As a long time fan of the Yakuza franchise, started with Yakuza 0 in February 2020 with it arriving to Xbox Game Pass and being hooked enough to play and purchase EVERY new port and release and having multiple copies of certain games; I cannot recommend Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties in the slightest. Why you may ask? What's so different about this release in particular? Well, this game has reduced, rewritten, and replaced the former Yakuza 3 Remastered despite how different both experiences truly are. I unfortunately pre ordered through a legal third party storefront so I could not refund my purchase.

Starting off with Yakuza Kiwami 3: This game isn't BAD in the slightest. It does play like a typical Yakuza game with some new minigames and combat features. I will say the combat is far from the series' peak (Lost Judgment), but it's still fun and different. The new content that's present is quite fun. The problem is, there's not a lot of new content present. The game content size from the original has been SEVERELY reduced, in fact you could argue 40% of the game is just gone. The original has 100 substories present and Kiwami 3 only has 31. I understand removing some substories as some of the original ones just kinda stink but NOT OVER 70 PERCENT OF THEM. Some of the 31 substories are brand new so the 31 is somewhat misleading. Around 25% of the original content survived. Isn't this a remake of the original Yakuza 3? Yes but actually no. The ending of the original Yakuza 3 has been entirely rewritten and retconned a major timeline event which completely derails the future games in the timeline. In fact, the director Yokoyama wants to rewrite the timeline and retcon character deaths as if nothing ever happened to them in the original timeline. It's ultimately pathetic that this is in the cards because it's the biggest issue that arose from video game remake culture. Not only that, the recasts of the characters are a slap in the face as the characters feel LESS alive and you have a real life sex criminal as one of the villain characters. The casting team at RGG Studios triple downed on Kagawa's inclusion in the game by saying him being a creep in real life makes him a perfect match for the game. Just think about that for two seconds and you'll see how insane that really is. The cherry on top, this game has denuvo stuttering and lower performance compared to previous games. From Pirate Yakuza to this, Okinawa runs around 40fps lower despite it being the same graphical quality.

Now going on to Dark Ties. This is one of the main reasons why I was excited for this game's release as I'm a huge fan of Mine. This game is the single worst piece of content in the entire franchise by a large margin. It was advertised as a whole new game and the story only runs 3.5 hours. Almost half of that runtime is padded by forced side content. Is the story even good at least? I mean nothing really happens for the most part until the end. ALL of the character development writing was focused on Mine and Daigo but the short runtime of the game means there's ZERO story arcs or buildup so the final moment of the game feels incredibly undeserved. Kanda is a major character in this short story and he's WAY more unlikeable in this game compared to the original story because he has zero personality and is awful to listen to since he's obviously a terrible person. You just hear TOO much from him. The combat gameplay for Mine is simplistic but really fun and smooth. Problem is, there's a lack of gear present in this game so every enemy you encounter are damage sponges which makes it so unfun to play. The rougelite minigame seems pretty cool but I haven't really gotten to the meat and potatoes of the mode. The ending to this game is so insulting that it left a terrible taste in my mouth and spits on the writing of Mine.

Verdict: So what do I think about the package overall? I do not think Yakuza Kiwami 3 is a bad video game at all. Dark Ties on the other hand is an abomination. If Dark Ties never existed, the whole package significantly improves. Please do not buy this game and buy the original Yakuza 3 on GOG as that's still available and not delisted. This game must fail in order for the franchise to be saved because the current trajectory is to waste time making "remakes" instead of making brand new high quality experiences with minimal flaws that we used to usually get from this dev team. There's so much more wrong with Kiwami 3 that I didn't get to but I said enough on the matter.

Kiwami 3: 7/10
Dark Ties: 4.5/10
Overall: 6/10