Yakuza Kiwami 3 Review - Dragon Daddy
It seems that Kiwami 3, the latest Yakuza remake, hasn’t made everybody happy for a number of reasons – casting choices, new content, cut content – in essence, a game that doesn’t successfully capture every aspect of the original. Yakuza 3 was famed for having much of its Japanese-culture-centric side content excised in the Western PS3 release, the later PS4 remaster reinstating some, but not quite all. It begs the question, is Kiwami 3 the definitive version of this experience, or just another attempt that doesn’t quite hit the mark?
Despite being a huge fan of the series and its many spin-offs, Yakuza 3 is the one that got away, I’ve even spent time on Dead Souls. I sincerely have no memory of ever playing it, despite recalling a vague interest based on the Australian Gamer review posted at release – it was an expensive game, and I was broke. A few years later, 2011’s Yakuza 4 drew me into the seedy streets of Kamurocho while 2017’s 0 cemented my love of the franchise. Suffice to say, Kiwami 3 is Yakuza 3 as far as this reviewer is concerned – I can’t be upset that an experience I’ve never had has been altered, and while I don’t agree with some of the ethics around certain inclusions or excisions, I can only report on my time with the game. And boy, does it feel great to be making my way around Okinawa and Kamurocho as the Dragon of Dojima again.
Following the explosive ending of Kiwami 2, Kiryu has taken up the mantle of the Morning Glory orphanage in Okinawa, leaving his past as the Fourth Chairman of the Tojo Clan well behind him. Of course, Kiryu is a trouble magnet like no other, and it isn’t long before his idyllic existence as the father figure in a house by the shore is threatened by crooked politics from both the underworld and the ruling class alike. Some nefarious individuals have their sights on the land the orphanage is situated on, and there’s no chance Kiryu is going to stand by and let orphans be evicted. Within the first hour of play my face had lit up like Theater Square, because revisiting this world and these characters feels like going home as the series has spun further out and away from the familiar. Admittedly a slow burn start, it takes a good five or more hours before Kiwami 3 is done funnelling the player through side content and tutorials. Much like Michael Corelone in The Godfather Part III, just when I thought I was out of Kamurocho, they pulled me back in. Having lapsed on my play of Infinite Wealth (I swear, I’ll get back to it!) I’m still enjoying the novelty of sunnier Yakuza climes so Okinawa felt like a breath of fresh air compared to Kamurocho and Sotenbori, much like it must have in 2009.
RGG Studio seem to have figured out the real secret to keeping me hooked on Yakuza titles are the baller minigames, which Okinawa has in spades. Quite literally too, given one of them involves sowing and harvesting crops. The first introduced is Bad Boy Dragon, a musou-like that’s easy to get absorbed in and structured so you will need to get back to the main story at certain junctures. The story of Tsubasa and the Heisei Girls trying to stop their town being steamrolled by a larger biker gang obviously parallels Kiryu’s fight against the powers that be trying to push him and the orphans out of Morning Glory, growing in scope as the A story of Yakuza 3 makes its way back to Tokyo. But to be clear, it’s playing second fiddle to the main draw – Dadzuma Kiryu.
Daddy minigames? Get your mind out of the gutter, this is an honest to goodness Dadding-sim! Focusing on domesticity with a ‘slice of life’ feel, this collection of minigames and activities is surprisingly motivating made all the better by getting to see Kiryu in this setting. Yakuza isn’t afraid to be emotive or emotional and this element really drives that, as Kiryu throws himself into sewing, cooking, farming and homework. Like many of the best lifesims, it that thrives on the timed aspect of growing vegetables and feeding livestock, bouncing back to sew another item or help out with some more homework before checking if there’s now enough produce on hand to make someone’s dream dinner. It might be up there with the Real Estate and Hostess mini-games from Yakuza 0 as my favourite side gig in the series. Oh, you want more about the actual stuff that makes up Kiwami 3?
For starters, it boasts a fairly tight combat system, giving Kiryu two stances to choose from; Okinawan martial art Ryukyu, focusing on use of weapons, and his standard ‘Dragon’ style. Once unlocked, I spent almost all of my time in Ryukyu stance, finding its versatility incredibly useful for dispatching random goons on the street as well as hordes of foes in the Bad Dragon battles or breaking the non-stop blocking – enemies in Kiwami 3 absolutely love to block and drag combat out, something Rykyu feels like a direct answer to. While breaking blocks is incredibly useful, even better is the way it can both stun and cause a bleed damage effect which can clear up enemies on low health regularly. While combat abilities can be upgraded with points gained from combat, Kiryu’s stats are linked to his bank balance – specifically, players will need deep pockets to boost their health and attack power to the highest levels, something that keeps encounters relatively balanced in difficulty.
Substories are back with a few fun nods to past and future titles, but on the whole they have a more basic feel to them than later entries in the series, as well as there being far fewer. More often than not it’s a dialogue setup>combat>dialogue resolution loop, something that was more acceptable in the PlayStation 2 and 3 generations but feels incredibly dated in 2026. In fact, even with the improvements to visuals, framerate and combat, a lot of Kiwami 3 feels past it’s ‘best before’. This is an aspect I wrestle with, because while it’s entirely possible that RGG Studio could have brought Kiwami 3 more in-line with later entries, one detrimental aspect to remakes and remasters going too far in that direction is that it can have a knock-on effect of making subsequent entries feel dated. Based on recent statements from RGG Studio, neither Yakuza 4, 5 nor 6 will be receiving the Kiwami treatment. And honestly, I think Yakuza 3 is a logical end point for these releases, as the PS4 remasters of 4 and 5 ensured those games still hold up quite well. If holding Kiwami 3 back keeps Yakuza 4 and 5 more palatable, that’s a trade-off I can make peace with.
It wouldn’t be Yakuza without at least one truly reprehensible villain you love to hate, and Kanda wins hands down for me this game. In some ways, it makes him a weaker antagonist overall, as the very best Yakuza nemesis always have at least one redeeming quality, but Kanda comes up very short. On the other hand, beating the piss out of him is one of the highlights of Kiwami 3. Rounding out the Y3K package is Dark Ties – a micro campaign with four chapters designed to provide more background and context to Yoshitaka Mine, exploring the seedier underbelly of the Yakuza lifestyle that doesn’t involve someone who would turn their back on their crime family to raise orphans. But it unfortunately does involve working closely with Kanda and operating as his PR agency, which is a process that definitely gives the ‘ick’, even if it is meant as a criticism of the politico publicity process. When seen as a bonus for returning players of the original, for someone like myself diving in fresh to this story it’s best left to the end, or at least very near to the end of the main story in Kiwami 3 as it does rely on being introduced to Kanda and Mine before further developing their relationship with one another and the wider Yakuza storyline.
As the most glaring omission amongst my Yakuza experiences, I was glad to be able to go back to this particular point in the story, even if I’ll now need to revisit Yakuza 4-6 to make the most of it. With RGG Studio suggesting this will be the last Kiwami outing, it’s a bittersweet moment and perhaps a nod to the diminishing returns between later generational hardware. Is it my favourite Yakuza title? I’m not quite sure anything will ever knock Yakuza 0 off that pedestal, but I’m happy for RGG Studio to keep trying.
Yakuza 3 Kiwami was reviewed on a PlayStation 5 console using code kindly supplied by the publisher.
