Quality compared to zero

[UlvenFenrir]

Zero being my first entry into the series and spending about 200 hours on the platinum i took a long break before going for kiwami and its great to be back, i was itching more crazy brawling. However, i cant help but notice how low the quality is compared to zero in terms of facial animations and generally just the cutscenes. I know its a remake of the original ps2 version but it doesnt look nearly as good as zero did which is a shame imo. Any reason for this?

[PooPooBlast]

Actually I thought that the graphics and visual fidelity were upgraded and I noticed there were more reflections on the streets to give it this "neo" look. 

 

And also the combat felt better in Kiwami especially the dragon of Dojima. 

 

But I agree that it felt lower in quality than 0. But one thing you need to remember and as you mentioned is that Kiwami is based on the first game and there's not a whole lot you can change vs zero which is built from the ground-up and came out between 5 and 6 I believe so not only did they have some experience on how to make a good game by then but also the lore was well developed by the time they reached 0. 

 

To me I like to treat it as one long continuous series. Just like the GoE series. I don't exactly have a favourite per se because each contribute to kratos' story. 

 

If you're interested, you can read more about my thoughts here which I made a while back

 

 

[cckerberos]

I can't say I thought it looked noticeably worse than 0. Re: the cutscenes, they're literaly shot-for-shot remakes of the ones from the PS2 game. So maybe that's it?

 

 

[Winkuru]

Like Poopoo said it does show that team has gotten better at making good narrative over the years. In terms of story and directing Kiwami is really weak compared to Zero. It has some good moments here and there but overall it's really weak and it's even weaker for those that skip zero because then it has even less impact.

 

I'm hoping that Kiwami 2 doesn't fall this flat because otherwise i'm going to regret not jumping to six.

[KatsuroMakoto]

On 13-10-2018 at 11:48 AM, Winkuru said:

Like Poopoo said it does show that team has gotten better at making good narrative over the years. In terms of story and directing Kiwami is really weak compared to Zero. It has some good moments here and there but overall it's really weak and it's even weaker for those that skip zero because then it has even less impact.

 

I'm hoping that Kiwami 2 doesn't fall this flat because otherwise i'm going to regret not jumping to six.

Kiwami 2 is like Zero in terms of quality, Kiwami 1 is -just- a remake

[Happy]

Kiwami 1 uses the same cutscenes as the original PS2 game, it merely updates the models which is why facial animations look so bad. The game is extremely low budget so there’s also a generally lower level of polish throughout the entire game.

[PooPooBlast]

On 13/10/2018 at 5:48 AM, Winkuru said:

I'm hoping that Kiwami 2 doesn't fall this flat because otherwise i'm going to regret not jumping to six.

 

2 hours ago, KatsuroMakoto said:

Kiwami 2 is like Zero in terms of quality, Kiwami 1 is -just- a remake

I can confidently say that Yakuza Kiwami 2 is a better one than Kiwami although there are some aspects or things that I enjoyed more in Kiwami 1.(i.e the combat) 

 

But to me 0 is still the undisputed king. There wasn't a single moment in that one where I was a little bored. And the story is just something that's going to be incredibly hard to be beat. I just need to finish the last mission in Kiwami 2 and so far it was better than the first but it's just a little below 0

 

Then again we're comparing a giant game with 2 characters vs a game with one character only and that's about half the length. I forgot to mention that I didn't play Majima's saga yet so there's still some story left and so I suppose it's a little premature to decide right now. 

 

Honestly they're all fantastic. Doesn't matter what they do so long as the narrative remains focused and I can just treat all the games in the series as one long game. 

 

Game on! ?

Edited November 10, 2018 by PooPooBlast

[Einigkeit]

Having only played the PS4 releases thus far, I'd rank them like this: 0 > K2 > K1

 

Like PooPooBlast said, 0 is clearly a modern game in every respect, while the remakes definitely show their roots, mostly to their detriment. I watched a let's play of the first thirty minutes of Yakuza 2 and it's almost exactly the same as K2, minus the constant area transitions and tank controls (man, I'm glad the industry moved away from that control scheme). If you have any interest in the series at all, power through K1 and come back to K2 later; it's a much better game.

[Winkuru]

I did finish the second game whileback and it definitely was better than kiwami in all regards. I also agree that Zero has better story but Kiwami 2's story is good after it finally starts to get rolling. Sadly though the ending was kinda stupid but it doesn't ruin the game.

 

Some of the substories were real gems in Kiwami 2.

Edited November 11, 2018 by Winkuru