What I did in the game: Training List: 322/322. Abilities: 100%. LaLaLa Lovelies: 100/100. Reapers: 36/36. Foto Rally: 60/60. Substories: 31/31. Morning Glory story completed. Amon Riders beaten.
The One Picture I have taken: Pause menu on Training List section.
I can't believe it, but here's a fourth Yakuza game completion in not even 2 months. And this time, it's not even me catching up, it's the latest game (remake) in the series. I'm 100% done with Yakuza Kiwami 3, and like all previous games, it was another amazing ride. Before we start, I would like to say that I never played Yakuza 3 before, so I can't really compare my experience with it, only with 0 and the previous 2 Kiwami games. And while it doesnt reach the greatness of 0 (but at this point, what game could), it might just reach the top between all 3 Kiwami if only because of the incredible amount of side contents. I've read that it losts a TONS of substories, with only 31, and yeah, I admit it's quite low. But it more than make up for it with everything else.
The mini-games this time around is almost like a best of everything that came before it. Pool, dart, bowling, golf, baseball. Everything from the previous games is here. Then as far Sega games go, you have 6 different Arcade games, with weird ones I've never heard about, like a 3D Fantasy Beat 'em up with leveling mechanic or even a Crazy Taxi clone but with an ambulance. You also have 12 Game Gear games, and there's many good titles here like Streets of Rage and GG Shinobi. There never was so much retro Sega content in a Yakuza game before. You also have a big focus on your phone to get access to many of the side contents, like battling all the Reapers, a Photo Rally or trying to max out everyone friendship with the LaLaLa Loveland app. You can even create your own playlist of music to play while you're in town, which includes many Yakuza classics (like all the Disco songs from 0), but also others Sega series. And while there's your usual Sonic songs, there's also some deep cuts like Rhythm Thief, Rent-a-Hero or Phantasy Star Online 2. As for the 2 management sims this time around, they're also amazing. One is taking care of the orphanage (which is a major part of the story). And the other is leading your own Biker Gang in an all-out war against a rival gang, complete with characters recruitment and leveling your team up to LV50. Both of these make the experience a bliss. And while at first, I was affraid that there was no completion list, it just has been moved to the Training List. You have all your standard ones here, like eating at every restaurants, completing every mini-games, collecting everything. But this time around, it gives you training points that you can use to learn more skills.
So as far as completion stuff goes, Yakuza Kiwami 3 is really amazing. Though I feel that there's some steps back compared to previous games. I feel that the battles have been streamlined to a fault. You have 2 styles, your standard Dragon of Dojima, and the new Ryukyu Style, which basically replace the weapons you had in previous games. Because this time around, you don't equip anything on your character. There's no weapon or gear to buy anywhere (in fact, money in this game quickly become quite useless). Even your Skills Trees is pretty straight forward. The only thing that can help you boost Kiryu is customizing your phone whith key chains, antena and your screen picture. I can't compare with how 3 originally played, but after the 3 previous games, it felt really limiting. Also, while at first I was really captivated by the story of Kiryu new life at the orphanage in Okinawa, the second half was moving way too quickly, and I didnt felt as much of an impact as before. I feel that the main villain was not introduced really well and he never really had time to grow. It was still satisfying, but I feel they could have done more here. Though, this might just be a problem with the original too, and it may be why they added a brand new second game in this package, which focus entirely on this villain, so the problem might not even be one. As for performance, it runned fine on Switch 2, but it's obviously not a PS5 or an high-end PC. It ran pretty much like Kiwami 2, which was also using the Dragon Engine. So 30 FPS most of the time (except for some mini-games which get boosted to 60), and with some drop during the big Bad Boy Dragon (the biker gang) wars because of how much stuff is happening on screen (we're talking Musou levels sometimes).
Fortunately, these drawbacks didnt killed my enjoyment of the game, since the way I'm always playing Yakuza games so far is 90% side-content, and 10% just going through the story. I'm really playing it like it's a life sim (like Shenmue back then), and checking off everything from the in-game completion list while just living my life in the city, even more here with Okinawa, which is so beautiful to explore. So if you only play Yakuza for the Story and don't do much side-contents, it might be a let down a little. But if you enjoy Yakuza for the whole package, this is another win for the series (After 4 games I've completed 100% so quickly, I don't even feel burned out, which is a testament on how they are all gaming masterpiece). And it's not even over, I still have to do the second game included in the package called Dark Ties. At the time of this writing, I have not played it yet, so I don't know what to expect in term of scope. If it will be another big game, or just a small story like Majima Saga in Kiwami 2. I'm off to try that...
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