Yakuza Kiwami was the first Yakuza game for me, and it served as what I'd call a very rough introduction in retrospect. Though I enjoyed experiencing Kiryu's story, I found it was the only thing keeping me going through the game, as the weak combat felt more like a slog than something I looked forward to.
Kiwami's combat, simply put, feels awful. Standard enemies will often get KO'd in a single combo or two and offer no variety besides what weapon they're currently holding. Bosses are slugfests with oversized health pools - even with fully upgraded damage late game, bosses take forever to take out. You're effectively encouraged to keep your inventory completely full of healing items so you can refill your health during boss fights, which you'll likely often need. Your health doesn't fill between fights, so you'll need to frequently stop and find restaraunts to eat food at.
One curious part of Kiwami is that although you have no kind of lock-on as the player, enemies absolutely have this ability. If you dodge a move during one of their combos, in most instances, enemies will magically swing on a dime as they complete their punch. As for you, the input buffer can't be interrupted often times, so if you try to cancel a punch by dodging once you've buffered it, no good! Punch the air for another three seconds. Blocking works better, but since Kiryu doesn't change direction while holding his block, enemies can dodge behind you and then starting hitting you.
The worst part in boss fights are how many moves will knock you down. The final boss gauntlet, as well as many boss fights that featured guns, were the worst offenders of this - gunshots immediately knock you down and often have little windup to allow you to dodge them (as well as no indicators to inform you that someone is aiming the gun at you). Some of the late game fights had me feel like I was spending half of it on the floor.
Kiwami's story is entertaining, though there's a lot of sections where you're doing very video-game-y tasks of fetching item A to give to someone to get B to give to someone to get C.... At the least, many of the characters that Yakuza introduces aren't throwaways - many of the supporting cast members are terrifically written and have more importance to the story than what you immediately need from them, which I appreciated.
The conclusion to Kiwami's story is dramatic, and relatively satisfying. There are some story elements that are a little dramatic for the sake of drama - Kazuma confessing the truth about Kiryu's parents isn't explored in the game, even though that would give much-needed characterization to Kiryu - and, Yumi's amnesia feels like a pointless story element given how quickly she recovers from it.
Speaking of, Kiryu seriously lacks much character in the series. He often comes off as a blank slate plus some badass one liners - the only character he really has is his love for Yumi and the desire to protect her daughter, Haruka. It would've been nice to see more of the bond between Kiryu and the side cast of characters like Date in lowkey moments. Kiryu barely even has anything to say about how much the world has changed in the ten years he was in prison, aside from some lines about cell phones!
Overall, Yakuza Kiwami was a fine game for the 15 hours I spent with it, but it didn't particularly leave me wanting more, though I may try Yakuza 0 in the future. I'd give Yakuza Kiwami a 5/10 - it's not a bad game, but I can't say that I'd really recommend it overall. The story is largely carried by the terrific voice acting and strong visuals that keep your interest from scene to scene - everything in between is an afterthought.
