Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties Reviews

Was having a lot of fun until I got to chapter 4, which seems to be the case for most people who play Yakuza 3. Now, I don't know if this was in the original because I never played it, however being forced into doing side content just to progress the main story is terrible game design. And since this is a remake, it's even more unforgivable that they kept it in, as this was Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio's & Saga’s chance to fix it, if this awful game design was in the original. I actually, most likely, would have liked the Baddies missions had they not been forced down my throat as a mandatory objective that you have to do just to keep playing the game. And I won’t lie, there is a small part of me that thinks being forced to do this awful content may just be the thing to stop me from coming back to this game, and not just moving on to Yakuza 4. Overall, I picked Yakuza Kiwami 3 up for $50 something dollars CAD. And I still overpayed. It's simply not worth anything more than $30 bucks max, and even then, I wouldn't be happy about it. Update - Post beating the game: I still stand by everything stated above. In fact, I'd like to thank Scorpivan for posting their save on Nexus that skips the forced Gal Gang crap. I'm sure there is some rule about posting links, so I won’t be posting a direct link, but you should easily be able to find the save file by googling Yakuza Kiwami 3 Gal Gang Skip. Having beat the game now I can comfortably say that I enjoyed the story up until the end. I won't spoil anything, other than the fact that the ending is absolutely dog ♥♥♥♥♥ and makes very little sense due to terrible character writing. Now then, I've heard that there were “unnecessary changes” made to the story that aren’t in the original. I obviously still haven’t played the original because Saga has made that unjustifiably difficult, however I cannot stress enough how much I genuinely did love the story, again up until the end. Mostly the story around Morning Glory and Kiryu being a surrogate father. All this said, under zero circumstances is Yakuza Kiwami 3 worth it’s price tag. The greed that has been displayed by either RGG Studios, and or Saga is so f u c king distasteful that it will cause them more problems in the future should they pull this kind of stunt again. I personally made an exception this time around because I’ve wanted to play Yakuza 3 for a while, but I will not be making that exception again. Should RGGS or Sage continue to allow their greed to steer the ship, I, for one, will not buy another product from them. And I would be hard pressed not to believe that others wouldn’t do the same. However, for the time being, the coast seems clear. I’ll most likely buy the remaining games in the series before they have a chance to ruin those as well.

Great game! I played very little of the original Yakuza 3 because it bugged out. I understand that a lot of content was cut out. But the game has a lot of content anyways, specially with Dark Ties in it. It is true that Dark Ties is really short compared to the main game. And I got to admit that I wasn't as invested as in the main game, but hey, it's there if you want to enjoy more Yakuza 3. I had a blast with the gameplay, combat, story, minigames, all the content available and optional stuff. For me it's a big yes, can't wait to play other Yakuza games!

I loved it! I have to say that I haven't played the original though, so I can't complain about differences, changes or missing scenes. Personally I found the new combat style pretty fun, and the story good. Definitely not better than previous games, but still very enjoyable. And the best part for me was Dark Ties. Which is technically not part of yakuza 3 itself I guess.. but I loved Mine so much!! And the Dark Ties ending made me tear up ngl. I love Mine and Daigo <3 Great game, at least if you don't know anything about the og. I'd like to play that one in the future, and it might change my opinion, but who knows.

It's ok at best. The combat is definitively better than the original (although, it would be a bummer if it was as bad as the original), but it feels greatly dumbed down, even compared to more recent RGG releases like Gaiden. It reaches a point where it becomes almost effortless to control Kiryu, compared to the original where you needed to actually understand Kiryu's limitations in combat and play around them. This is good if you're not used to the Yakuza series, but if you're a fan of the franchise, you might get bored of just button mashing your way through combat (something that was unthinkable in it's predecessor). The story feels more shallow, and the fact that the game almost constantly stops you halfway through to talk about some extra side content and completely break the flow of the plot only makes it worse. This was released in 2026, so there's absolutely 0 excuse to do something like that aside from stretching out the time it takes for you to beat it. A bunch of cool side content got cut out from the original to be replaced with the morning glory and biker mini-games (which are ok at best). Also, a lot of substories that were somewhat interesting in the original (Murder At Café Alps, the hostess mini-game, The Seven Mysteries of Ryukyu, and so on and so forth) got completely cut out from this remake. The character recasts were completely unnecessary imo, the biggest offender being Rikiya's face being completely changed for no reason whatsoever in this remake, which makes his role on the plot feel much more shallow (alongside other cutscenes with him that got cut out), and most importantly: his personality doesn't match his face at all. It's as if you replaced Kiryu's face with Jackie Chan's, with no explanation. If you're here just to play the game for the gameplay only, then it's going to be fine. But if you're like me, and want to re-experience the original (substories, original characters remastered, and story), then you're not going to be able to do that in this remake.

Wow what massive let down. I really tried to like this game since yakuza is my favourite franchise, but this one is just not it. For the PROS: graphics is better than the og (ofcourse), you can customize your looks, the dark ties expansion is better than i thought (atleast better than the majima in yk2), you can actually interact with your kids in morning glory which is pretty fun (felt more alive and like a dad). more fights available through out the city. bowling For the CONS: they cut al lot of stuff from the original, they changed some of the faces for no reason (and one of em is accused of S.A), they added a new fighting style that are only useful in only 2 situations, the main style feels weird (like theyre trying so hard to be different and failed), so much forced side content to do before progressing to the main game it genuinely burn me out (it felt like a lazy way to extend the main story length), the dynamic intro is the weakest in the series (except the final boos), the boss fight system in general is weird and the ending is just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ridiculous. Overall im super dissapointed with how this game is. I just wish they put more effort and making things that are criticized the better instead of adding unnecessary changes and useless stuff. Its a 3.5/10 but i added a few mods that improves this game's flaw. but even then its still 5/10 at best

Feels a bit of downgrade compared to Kiwami 2, though it's decent nonetheless with all those new reworks. Dark ties main story is the best part of it.

It's a good game, but a disrespectful remake. The removal of several scenes from the story is just unnecessary. They thought it was cool to remove the scenes with the kids just because they added the Orphanage side story, why not just keep them in, they served the story well. The retcons are abysmal, not only they made it so it ♥♥♥♥♥ up a major character arc for Hamazaki in Yakuza 4, the death retcons are just nonsensical. I know this is the Yakuza franchise but my suspension of disbelief can only go so far. How would you have me believe a person can survive a 25 floor free-fall by hitting a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bush? A ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ BUSH. Not to mention it ruins Mine's whole character arc as well, amazing. The retcons have been a problem ever since we saw HIM in Yakuza 7 and here it has finally culminated into something truly unacceptable. Oh and they didn't even TRY to explain Lau Ka Long's retcon, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ just gets shot in the head and appears in Yakuza 7, cool. Who writes this ♥♥♥♥ man? Have some damn respect for the narrative.

I feel robbed after the game froze at the ending credits and no way to save the game during finale...

Finally 100%'d this, so I feel like I can give an honest review. ---- Kiwami 3 - 6/10 Dark Ties - 8/10 ---- Its a fun game to play. Coming from playing the remastered Yakuza 3 in the last year, it helped it beat the blockuza allegations, but honestly what gets me with these games is the depth of the storytelling and the emotion it purveys. This game had some artistic changes to really make a LOT of the heavy blows of this story feel not so bad, and went pretty far to change some outcomes. I didn't like all the things they changed, but I really liked some bits. The most enjoyable part of this game wasn't Kiwami 3, because it felt like a dolled up what if with a new cast, and forced interactions. It was 1000% Dark Ties, which you can only appreciate because of Kiwami 3. The amount of fresh new content here was really nice to see. You get to be the dark horse Mine, finally learn more about his backstory and see the world through his eyes. What a good time, with great minigames to focus on between Hell and trying to make Kanda's reputation not completely ♥♥♥♥. Some really funny moments here and there, but man that story made me love Daigo and Mine that much more as characters. Glad I spent the time to 100%, came at a time where I wasn't doing well with my health and had really nothing better to do. Made that time enjoyable, but wouldn't recommend it to everyone. Hard to come off the high of YK2, might not be where I wanted the story to go but this is a good story to continue nonetheless.

dont play this garbage, try playing yakuza 3 remastered instead. Rapist actor + retcon + filler cause no story sucks