Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties (2026)

This is a hard one to judge. The original Yakuza 3 was the first Yakuza game I encountered so it holds a special place in my heart but it’s also easily my least favorite game in the whole series. The combat was better in that one than in the original versions of 1/2 but it was still pretty rough and the story has always been boring at best and actively irritating at worst (I simply can’t care that much about orphans and real estate deals). Kiwami 3 fixes the combat issues from the original—this is the best the Dragon Engine has ever felt to me—but it can’t do much about the lackluster story and what it does change, it changes for the worse. The reskins are distracting and completely unnecessary, with the Rikiya one being borderline fine—the original always kinda looked like an early 2000s Adam Sandler—and the Hamazaki being a downgrade in every conceivable way, from the shitty casting decision to the character design going from unique and intimidating to just some fucking guy that’s shorter and less imposing than literally everybody else. So all that being said, why did I still give this such a high rating? I mean, it’s fucking fun. The new minigames are fun, the Dark Ties add-on gives even more depth to one of the better villains in the series, and I just plain enjoyed playing it. I doubt they’ll make Kiwami versions of 4/5 (especially with that wild swing at the end) but I’ll still come back. They’d have to try harder than this to lose me.