Typical Yakuza game but in samurai times. Biggest issue being the artificial length of all the substories that really aren't all that interesting, and inability to skip a lot of dialogue. You can easily beat the game if you only do the main story, and it's not even that long if you ignore substories.

All in all, an okay game but bad for a Yakuza game.

Every Yakuza game after the original creator left (so after Yakuza 6) is ♥♥♥♥♥♥ in some way or the other: unneeded padding, grind-grind-grind, HP sponges for bosses etc.
But still I was going to review this game positively as at least it had an okayish story (as it is a remake of an older game) and normal combat system instead of a god awful turn-based atrocity that we had in LAD/Infinite Wealth.

But then came the final chapter and ruined everything. It was not only awful from story perspective - very stupid and illogical - but also it was a gamedesigners' fiasco. No interesting situations - only waves after waves of uninteresting enemies. 10 gun holders and 2 miniguns - do you think it's a problem? Not really, as they will politely wait 30 seconds before shooting. But the crux of the gamedesign problems is a literal samurai giant. He has the 3x height of Kiryu, wields a club which mostly can not be blocked and throws darts which will paralyze you for 10 seconds. Oh, forgot to mention - you can't use Heat actions on him. Good luck!

What a disgrace...
Just play any of the Y0-Y6 games, they are way-way-way better.

Very disappointed. Controls are awful. The combat system is worthy of a ps2.

THE STORY IS GOOD. Graphics are good as well. I would recommend it otherwise

Tldr: The gameplay sucks ass cheeks

This game would be good if it came out around 2015-ish. As a REMAKE in 2023, its ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ DOGWATER. Camera is ass, movement is clunky asf, damage scaling is really bad ESPECIALLY if you play brawler style. After certain chapters the enemy will scale as in damage and health, for styles like swordsman, your damage is mostly based off your sword stat but for brawler... its basically nothing so you'll only deal 10 damage throughout the game WHILE THE BASIC ENEMIES HAVE UPWARDS 700 HP LATE GAME. Lets talk about the bosses, every single boss fight has the same approach, dodge behind them, slash a few times and dodge away, thats literally it. I guess it has its limitations since its a sword based combat system compared to the usual beat them up fist fights games that the yakuza games have.

The first Yakuza game that i absolutely hate. Struggling to even finish the story. Plot is boring and confusing. The grind you need to earn money and craft weapons to level up is NOT WORTH the effort. I can see why this game was forgotten by everyone

play the substory

samurai'ing all over everyone is pretty fun

This is an action RPG game, which will take you on the samurai path of seeking justice.

The game pictures Japan in the last years of the shogun era, just before the Meiji Restoration. The ronin from the lower caste - Sakamoto Ryoma - is in pursuit for a better future for his homeland. He reunites with his mentor and childhood friend in the loyalist party, which has plans to overthrow the local ruler. Naturally, the plan goes awry and our hero ends up in exile with the quest of searching for justice and revenge.

Overall the story is quite interesting with many twists. It is often unclear who is our friend and who is an enemy. Many tough social questions have been pictured, like human rights, social equality and abuse of power. There are several touching moments, but there are also many naive cliches. Basically it is a story about a noble knight, who fights evil with honor and virtue.

There are many carefully designed cutscenes, which make the telling cinematographic.

As expected the main gameplay consists of battles with the numerous enemies.
Ryoma uses both a sword (katana) and a gun (revolver) in the fight. This creates a good selection of moves and possibilities in combat.

Alas the gunfight has been implemented in a very unrealistic way. Our character fires a revolver like a machine gun, landing shots in rapid succession without any necessity to reload the ammo. Even modern side-arms do not provide such possibility, while we are talking about the first half of the 19th century here. Despite being stupid, this also upsets the game balance, as we can often shoot all the enemies from a distance with ease.

It would be more correct if the shots were strictly limited and required a long reload. This would force the player to use ammo strategically. Like fire only on the distant enemy, then switch to close combat. The “Corsairs” series did better with combining sword fighting with guns in my opinion.

Nevertheless, the fights are dynamic, interesting and challenging, making playing quite enjoyable overall.

There are 4 combat styles, which can be switched anytime during the battle:
- brawler - uses bare hands only, it's the weakest style, but some quests can be resolved only with it.
- swordsman - uses katana in two-hand mode dealing the massive damage in close combat.
- gunman - uses revolver only to fire shots in quick succession, eliminating enemy from afar.
- winddancer - combines katana with revolver in synergy moves which affects several opponents but deals a limited damage.

At some point we gain access to the battle squad assembling. But our comrades do not participate in battles directly, instead they provide special moves, which can be activated at will with a cooldown. This particular mechanic feels like magic: heal your wounds, increase damage, strike lightning in your opponents and so on. It creates a nice diversity in the battle, but it is stupidly justified: we travel with 4 soldiers, which are completely invisible, unable to land a hit on the enemy, but powers us up with super moves. How?

The battles provide enough diversity from fighting hordes of enemies to challenging one-on-one duels.

Most of the time the game provides us a free roam: we can move around the city as we pleased, visiting ryotei and shops, talking with people, fighting goons on the streets and so on.

There are plenty of side quests. Some are interesting, like helping a man to decipher a letter written in an uncommon dialect. Some are boring, like cleaning up the same cat 5 times over. Alas, the side quests rarely provide any solid reward in the end. For example: here we sponsor a sumo fighter, so he can prepare for the match, but once he reaches the top - we gain nothing in return.

There are many different minigames: fishing, singing, cooking, farming - the list goes on. We can also manage our own residence (villa).

All this creates a nice diversity for the main gameplay. There is always something to do in the city.

Still there are many inconsistencies, which spoil the impression. I have already mentioned rapid-firing guns and invisible fighting comrades. But there is yet another thing in battles, which creates a dissonance. The fights are usually performed with deadly weapons: razor-sharp swords and guns, which is supplemented with the appropriate animations showing enemies pierced with a sword or shot in the head. But once the battle is over our opponents often simply rise and go, apologizing along the way. How? I would say the game is utterly a failure in terms of depicting samurai fights.

We can not purchase decent equipment in the shop - only the basic one. In order to get a good weapon, we need to upgrade a basic one in the smithy. This is also quite stupid.

The graphics are nice. The characters have been rendered in high details: the movement animations and facial expressions appear natural. The environment is less impressive, but still decent.

The game has a good optimisation, but it comes with relatively small locations, which require separated loading. Still everything is running smoothly without any long waits.

Much effort has been spent on music. In particular the karaoke songs are very enjoyable.
Alas, only Japanese voicing is available, which is a pity.

Total rating 7/10.
Overall the game is quite interesting and enjoyable, but many things spoil the impression.

I hate this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game. It's the worst remake out of any Kiwami game, since they fundamentally broken the game in order to sell these stupid trooper cards with celebrities, it has the worst kombat, even worse than Kiwami 2 and 6, because again, they changed how things work, making 3 out of 4 styles useless pretty much until the endgame, the nusic is nice, but reused themes stick out like a sour thumb, recasts for the story are really terrible, It's just pandering the Yakuza 0 and 7 fans, while making the feel of the story worse. Bosses are outright terrible, there is almost no way for these fights to be fun, not with this downgraded combat from OG ishin(which I did play on my PS3 and I bloody loved the combat there), and not with these superamored-turningaround-supersayian bosses that are just not fun in any way.

The grind is still bad, even worse here.

And the story

Is actually quite good, minus the recasts and terrible boss fights that take you out of the experience.

This is the worst RGG product I've played, and I bloody love this series.

Please, make a good kiwami game for once, or at least port the original.

very good