Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties Review

Found family vs The Family.

They said it couldn’t (or wouldn’t) be done, but the mad lads did it anyway! After the brilliant Kiwami remakes of Yakuza 1 and 2, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio have circled back to breathe new life into another of the early Yakuza and Like a Dragon titles with Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties, a remixed and expanded version of the PS3 original from 2010.

After the explosive ending to Yakuza Kiwami 2, this newest title finds former yakuza member Kiryu Kazuma retired from the life and living peacefully in Okinawa, raising his adopted daughter Haruka and running the Morning Glory orphanage – mirroring the way his own father figure raised him. As is always the case for Kiryu, events transpire to once again draw him into the orbit of the yakuza as the land containing the orphanage becomes a target for competing political factions.

With his new livelihood at stake, Kiryu is forced to step into the spotlight once more and find a way to protect his new home… along with a lot of side diversions along the way. As with the previous Kiwami titles, Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties does more than just give the original title an HD coat of paint. A number of the successful diversions from more recent Like A Dragon games have been folded into this new version of the game, packing every corner of the relatively small world map with new things to do.

Starting with his new home base in Okinawa, Kiryu has a whole orphanage to run – there’s kids to bond with, food to grow and prepare, pets to care for, sewing to be done, homework to help with, spear fishing, bug catching… not to mention an entire commerce minigame where you can sell your produce to raise money and bond with the local community. All of this feeds into increasing Kiryu’s Daddy Rank (yes, really) and cooking increasingly more complex meals for the kids to improve their lives at Morning Glory.

It’s a lot of different minigames packed into a very compact area for the orphanage, so it’s a great spot to lose yourself in checking things off a to-do list in between the heavier beats of the story – and raising money and skill points to unlock all of Kiryu’s cool abilities. While it’s not essential to max out your Daddy Rank in order to complete Kiwami 3, but the overall experience is full of character moments for the kids in Kiryu’s care, and really drives home why he’s doing so much to hold this life together.

There’s still plenty of other things to distract him from this central mission, though; in his time in the Okinawan town of Ryukyu, Kiryu’s also picked up a new weapon-focused fighting style based on local teachings. The Yakuza series’ usual achievement checklist – a laundry list of bonuses for enjoying the many, many things to do in these games – here become part of your training with Miya-san at the Ryukyu dojo, with each promotion exam requiring you to earn a certain number of points for completing tasks on the list before unlocking a unique new combat skill.

You’ll also meet the daughter of the dojo’s teacher, Tsubasa, who heads up Kiwami 3’s other major side mission: recruiting Baddies for Ryukyu’s all-female biker gang, the Haisai Girls in Bad Boy Dragon. In the spirit of inclusivity, Kiryu joins this girl gang to help them expand their ranks and defend against an encroaching gang from Tokyo. Moving around Ryukyu and Kamurocho, you’ll find far too many women being harassed by groups of bikers – beat the snot out of said bikers, and these women will unanimously choose to join the gang and fight back.

This all plays out through a variety of street brawls, base-capture challenges with squads of your baddies, and all-out showdowns against dozens of enemy bikers. As the latest spin on the Clan Creator mini-game, it’s a fun new twist on the mechanic with a pretty sweet story underpinning the whole thing. Kitting out the various squads of your gang and seeing your home base slowly fill up with members and ridiculous weaponry is a real joy, and a great showcase for plenty of classic series side characters as well.

Alongside these diversions and plenty of others, Yakuza Kiwami 3 also adds a second story campaign, similar to the Majima Saga of Kiwami 2. The new Dark Ties side story follows Yoshitaka Mine, a shrewd businessman turned yakuza and a major antagonist of Kiwami 3. This shorter companion story covers Mine’s shift into the underworld, and has the player running around Kamurocho trying to improve your boss Kanda-san’s (very correct) poor public image, mostly by running fetch quests and beating the hell out of the city’s various lowlifes. Dark Ties also gives Mine an entirely unique combat style, far more savage and ruthless than Kiryu in taking down his foes. It’s a fun, but short bonus taste of this world as seen from a different angle, best enjoyed as dessert after finishing the main campaign.

All in all, Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties shows Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios’ ongoing dedication to making this series accessible to fans old and new alike. Kiwami 3 is a very different game to the original Yakuza 3, but much like Dragon Quest VII Reimagined, this is a fresh take on a classic that isn’t trying to replace the original – just tune a version of it that’s more welcoming to modern gamers, while adding expansions to the original for returning series fans.

While the main story does feel a bit shorter compared to the other Kiwami games, the sheer volume of “stuff to do” in the world more than balances that out. By the time you’ve cleared the main story, bested the Coliseum, completed every bizarre sub-story, completed the photo rally, fought every beatdown target, unlocked every costume item AND forged a deep, emotional connection with every child in your care? You’ll wonder why Kiryu ever left the life behind.

Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties heads to Windows PC via Steam, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, PS5, and Switch 2 on 12 February.

Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties was reviewed using a promotional code on PS5, as provided by the publisher. Click here to learn more about Stevivor’s scoring scale.