Girl Gangs, Fight Clubs, And Chicken Curry: Yakuza Kiwami 3 + Dark Ties Will Keep Gamers Entertained For A While

The Yakuza series has been a mainstay of modern gaming, debuting over twenty years ago and delivering on the promise of the concept multiple times over. Along the way, the series has endured both as a rival to the Grand Theft Auto franchise while also maintaining its own identity, an absurdist bent bleeding through the gritty crime drama that adds some over-the-top fun. This is all a long-winded intro for Yakuza Kiwami 3 + Dark Ties, an incredibly fun and deceptively expansive experience that I got to try out at a recent Sega event in Los Angeles.

During the demo, players were given a taste of the storylines that will drive both games, along with a handful of different minor missions and minigames to challenge themselves with. You can try to achieve peak Dad status by taking care of the orphanage as Kiryu or working to increase a gangster’s reputation as Mine, all while finding plenty of fun distractions like karaoke, mahjong, or bowling. However, two of the modes quickly came to define my experience: Kiryu’s role as the chairman for a girl gang caught in a turf war and Mine’s exploration of a Squid Game-esque underground fighting ring, both of which are good enough to justify their own games.

Wage Your Own Gang War In Yakuza Kiwami

The expansive scale of Yakuza Kiwami 3 + Dark Ties is just as impressively deep as any other entry in the series, and the attention paid to even the goofiest of side missions makes this a must-play game for fans and rookies alike. While the game sets up plenty of narrative tension for Kiryu that’s worth diving into (as well as enough cute cooking and sewing minigames to achieve peak Daddy rankings), I quickly fell in love with the girl gang mission and shifted focus to that mode. On paper, the girl gang mode isn’t too dissimilar from the pirate crew battles that players took on in Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, complete with massive battles involving upwards of a hundred unique brawlers of varying styles of wackiness. However, there’s a real sense of charm to the subplot in Kiryu’s storyline, playing off a lingering dynamic from earlier titles and having Kiryu take a proactive role in the local gang scene without losing sight of his character arc as a father figure and mentor to a younger generation.

As players roam the city of Okinawa, they can step into gang fights to protect people being pushed around, intimidated, and abused by a Tokyo-based group seeking to make inroads across Japan. This sets off plenty of minor combat encounters, with the young women who make up your gang growing in strength and skill alongside you. As the mode continues, players can recruit more people to their cause and eventually take the fight to the gangsters head-on, leading to a dedicated combat mode where you ride into battle on a motorcycle and lead a charge against the other gangs.

It’s a blast, a simple and straightforward mode that quickly becomes engrossing for its underdog story and charming characters. It’s also a mode that highlights just how strong the combat in Yakuza Kiwami 3 is, with a fluidity of movement and a reliance on ever-changing battlefields, benefiting a willingness to go big and bombastic with your strategies. The gameplay remains as quick to learn and fun to master as previous entries, with an emphasis on dishing out massive combos, deploying well-timed counters, and generally wrecking any criminal foolish enough to get in your way. I could have played a whole game that was just the girl gang mode, and it was only scratching the surface of what else is going on in the dual release.

The Underground Fight Clubs In Dark Tides Are Worth An Entire Game

Effectively two games in one, the main plot and various side missions of Mine’s criminal rise in Dark Tides feature plenty of engaging missions — but none of them draw my attention quite like the mysterious underground fight club. Set up as a means of earning some quick cash, Mine’s clear contempt for the wealthy audience of the death matches gives the mode a harsh edge that perfectly encapsulates the character. Taking part in the system to benefit from it (and potentially upend it), Mine can work his way through solo cage fights or fight through an army of people in a rogue-like dungeon crawler.

It is in this mode that Mine can likewise have a plethora of allies, who join him in battle and bring their own edge to the adventure. Similar to the girl gang story, is a fitting and fun side story for the noble Kiryu, and it feels consistent with his story and character. Mine’s descent into the fighting pits is brutal, harsh, and engrossingly grim. The result is a side-plot that could carry an entire game, that feels like a great showcase for the narrative elements and the action gameplay, and that fits perfectly into the exaggerated and wild world of Yakuza.

Mine proves to be a grimmer character throughout, with a story that purposefully pushes the boundaries of acceptable morality for a protagonist. What makes it all work is the strength of the game design, the colorful depth of the game’s city, and the charm of the central characters. The result is a Yakuza game that is terrific. There’s so much to discover in Yakuza Kiwami 3 + Dark Ties that I was never going to find and try everything during the length of the demo event. However, I found plenty in the time allotted to make me very excited to get my hands on the full game.