Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties presents the Like a Dragon franchise at an interesting crossroads. Now that the series has achieved a degree of mainstream recognition and success that its original fans likely never would have believed possible, it has the opportunity to invest in shiny remakes and expansions to bring older titles to new players in between the release of newer mainline entries. With so many eyes now laser-focused on RGG Studios, though, the stewards of the Like a Dragon Games are also in less of a position to demand that their decisions be given the benefit of the doubt. Let's say, for instance, that they decide to give the Kiwami treatment to one of the most divisive titles of the original run of Yakuza games. It should be a total slam-dunk, right? Well, the recent release of Yakuza 0 Director's Cut has demonstrated that sometimes RGG's tinkering can actually make their beloved classics worse, what with the needless story bloat and frankly stupid narrative retcons that now taint the only way to experience the game if you didn't already own a copy of the untouched original. Still, it's not like the studio would then go out of their way to recast a fairly important character with an actor whose radioactive reputation for cruel, sexist antics stand in stark opposition to everything Kiryu and the Like a Dragon games stand for—oh, wait, nevermind, that's exactly what happened.

The point is, the prospect of a new Yakuza Kiwami game no longer means that we're getting a mostly unreserved refinement of a well-loved but poorly-aged older game. With Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties, we now must try to balance out how much the remake's shiny new additions outweigh its major stumbling blocks. I have bad news for you all, and I have good news. The bad news is that those stumbling blocks are still impossible to ignore. The good news is that, overall, I do still think that Yakuza Kiwami 3 worthy entry in the Like a Dragon saga.

I want to get the game's biggest flaws out of the way, first, both because they are mercifully localized to a few boneheaded missteps that don't ruin the entirety of what Yakuza Kiwami 3 is trying to do, and because they're the issues that returning fans of the original will be the most curious about. Yes, recasting Teruyuki Kagawa to play Hamazaki sucks, though the choice speaks less to the quality of this particular video game than it does to how ridiculous it is that Japanese society is so willing to overlook the flagrant sexual misconduct of men in power while bringing the merciless hammer of the law down on guys who just do some drugs in their personal lives. Also, if you got mad at the flippant way that Yakuza 0 reversed major character deaths in an apparent effort to set up developments for as-of-yet unreleased future stories and remakes? Well, all I can say without blatantly spoiling things is that I recommend bracing yourselves for some of Yakuza Kiwami 3's more egregious plot twists.

Finally, while I'll get more into the “Dark Ties” campaign below, I think it has been a bit misleading of SEGA to market Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties as a bundle of “separate games” (to quote the title's listing on the Nintendo Store as of this writing). Dark Ties is, at best, an expanded set of DLC missions that would only even begin to approach the scope of a full Yakuza title if you tackled every last scrap of the fetch-quests and roguelite mini-game with a completionist's zeal. Even The Man Who Erased His Name was a much more substantial experience, since it only took me about three hours to roll credits on Dark Ties.

Okay, there you have all of the major issues that rubbed me the wrong way with Yakuza Kiwami 3. What I'd like to spend the rest of this review arguing is the case for Yakuza Kiwami 3's success, because I do think that it succeeds at polishing up Yakuza 3 in many very meaningful ways. I really wish that SEGA was not insisting on delisting the original remastered port of 3 in favor of prioritizing this game, because I don't like the idea of Kiwami 3 outright replacing and burying its progenitor. That said, for the majority of new fans and even returning players, I imagine that Kiwami 3 is the game that most folks will prefer in 2026.

For one, the combat is much improved over Yakuza 3, provided that you enjoy the Kiwami games' fast and fluid approach to beat-'em-up violence over the older game's more technical and measured style. While the original game's imbalance and overly defensive combat were never as unplayable as some fans might have suggested, I'd be hard pressed to argue that ”Blockuza” 3 was terribly fun to trudge through in its initial iteration. In Kiwami 3, Kiryu feels as strong and capable as he has in past Kiwami games, and the excellent new “Ryuku” style excellently complements his classic “Dragon of Dojima” mode with moves that emphasize switching up various Okinawan weapons and countering opponents for satisfying parries. When you combine this robust moveset with a simple but satisfying new upgrade system, you have a game that gives what I feel is a more appropriate balance of friction vs. fun.

The graphics are also, overall, quite solid, especially on the Switch 2. The upgraded Switch 2 port of Kiwami and the Yakuza 0 Director's Cut proved that RGG Studio has been adapting quite well to Nintendo's new hardware, and that trend continues here. While the game obviously isn't as impressive as its counterparts on PC, PS5, or Xbox Series X, the Switch 2 port still holds its own quite well in both docked and handheld mode. Outside of some minor aliasing hiccups, the only real issue I had with the game's presentation was in the wonky lighting that has plagued all of the modern Like a Dragon games across all platforms. Thankfully, the especially egregious instances of lighting going haywire in certain areas of the map seem to have been addressed by the game's most recent patch.

I am also a fan of the new major side-activities that RGG Studio has embedded into Kiryu's journey. The most robust game-within-a-game comes from the new Family Time substories and minigames that Kiryu can participate in to deepen his relationships with the orphans at Morning Glory. This mode bundles in some old favorites like the quiz compilations and the cooking challenges with new modes like sewing and bug-catching to provide Kiryu with all sorts of ways to unlock sub-stories for each of his kids, raise funds for his orphanage, and bolster community ties around Okinawa. The addition of the fashion collectables and outfit-swapping components that we saw back in Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii helps to flesh out Kiryu's personal life in fun and silly ways.

I absolutely loved this side of Kiwami 3, and it's why I don't mind the fact that the old hostess management game hasn't returned for this remake. We've already gotten better versions of that gameplay in titles like Yakuza 0, and Kiryu's quest to become the Ultimate Daddy gives 3 a more unique and personal flavor. To be perfectly honest, outside of how effective Mine is as a foil to Kiryu, I've never been very enamored with the story of Yakuza 3. While the boots-on-the-ground melodrama in Kiwami 3 is much the same in terms of content and presentation, additions like the Morning Glory expansions have helped this version of Yakuza 3 stand on its own compared to its more popular siblings.

The other major addition to Kiwami 3's pool of content comes in the form of Kiryu helping to lead a motley crew of do-gooder biker-gals to become the top dogs amongst Japan's outlandish armies of goofy gangs. I enjoyed this side story too, though it doesn't feel quite as fleshed out as it could be. It basically mimics all of the battle-oriented elements of Majima's adventures in the land of pirates without any of the fun exploration and ship-based exploits. In short, the whole mode boils down to collecting some powerful gang members and fighting in dozens-upon-dozens of Dynasty Warriors-esque battles against hordes of disposable mooks. While I would have appreciated more variety and creativity in its implementation, it's still great fun to mentor the Hasai Girls and steer them to victory against their leather-clad rivals.

Then there is Dark Ties, the brand-new storyline that lets players experience Yoshitaka Mine's rise to the top of the yakuza elite, which leads to him crossing paths with Kiryu in the main game. Like I said up top, the main problem with Dark Ties is that it is surprisingly insubstantial for something that apparently deserves top billing in the remake's title. If you're just interested in the story, the whole package is short enough to finish in the span of just a few hours, and while there is some decent storytelling to be seen, it mostly comes in the final moments of the short campaign.

For most of Dark Ties, you will be running around Kamurocho as Mine doing earrings and PR-work for Tsuyoshi Kanda. While I am impressed that Dark Ties managed to add a modicum of depth and pathos to Mine's partnership with one of Like a Dragon's most unrepentant douchebags, being Kanda's errand-boy does not make for the most compelling of plots. It is not without its charm, though.

To Dark Ties' credit, though, actually playing Mine is pretty fun. His fighting style comes with appropriately edgy “Chained Heart” heat actions and a more acrobatic moveset that reminded me of my favorite Yakuza protagonist from the pre-Ichiban games, Shun Akiyama. I could even see myself spending more time completing the various challenges associated with the roguelite-style dungeons that Mine gets to brawl through as one of his main side-quests. All of this is not enough to make Dark Ties the complete campaign package that some fans might have been expecting, but it's a solid bonus feature to help justify the price of admission for anyone already familiar enough with what Yakuza 3 has to offer.

As expected for an already divisive original game with an already controversial reputation ahead of its proper launch, Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties is not an unqualified smash hit. Even if you were to disregard the optics of its casting choices and the sour taste left by insisting on questionable retcons and then delisting the original games, a remake of Yakuza 3 was never going to make for a perfect Like a Dragon title. Despite its imperfections, though, I had a great time returning to this weird and ridiculous work to chill with the Dragon of Dojima and beat up some bad guys. In the end, I'd say that Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties ends up improving on the original experience enough to make it well worth the time of anyone who wants to check out this early chapter of Kazuma Kiryu's sprawling life story.