如果您玩Yakuza 0首先，Kiwami的开场就更难

The announcement that we would be holding a
Like A Dragon week
here at TheGamer celebrating all things
Yakuza
excited me for different reasons than it did everyone else. Until that reveal was made, I hadn’t played a single second of the games. However, I had been meaning to, and a week at work celebrating the series finally forced my hand. What I didn’t realize at that moment was the tough decision lying ahead.

Turns out, unlike most video game series, playing Yakuza isn’t as simple as playing the first game first and then working your way through. You can do that and kick things off with Kiwami, or you can start with
Yakuza 0
, a prequel to the first game that was released ten years later. After being pitched on both as viable starting points by various long-time Yakuza fans, I settled on starting with Yakuza 0. Now I’ve played a little bit of Kiwami, I’m very glad I did.

The first few hours of Kiwami hit hard. However, I can’t imagine them hitting nearly as hard for people who don’t know what happens in Yakuza 0. In fact, there are moments during Kiwami’s opening chapters that would mean absolutely nothing to people who don’t know what Kiryu went through during the late 1980s. So much so that I can’t believe the original game’s release predates Yakuza 0’s by an entire decade.

One of the first big things that happens in Kiwami is the death of Sohei Dojima. The patriarch of the Dojima Family, a key player in the Tojo Clan, and a core character in Yakuza 0. The first time you see him in Kiwami, he’s dead on the floor of his office. I’m no doctor, and even though my time with Kiwami is a long way from being done, I’m assuming Dojima is gone for good. Had I not played Yakuza 0, that plot point would have meant very little to me.

However, with the prequel fresh in my memory, Kiryu bursting into a room to find Dojima dead on the floor is a very big deal. The balance of power in the Tojo Clan is about to shift. Someone who seemed untouchable in Yakuza 0 has died within minutes of the next game. I’m already shaken, my jaw on the floor, and I’ve not even gotten to who’s holding the gun.

It’s Nishikiyama. Poor little Nishiki. Kiryu’s best friend – nay, brother – throughout Yakuza 0 and in the years since. Effectively a sidekick to The Dragon of Dojima until now, but here he is, responsible for the death of one of the most powerful men in Kamurocho. Without prior knowledge of who Nishiki is, the type of person he has been up until now, that he was capable of killing Dojima just wouldn’t hit nearly as hard.

Nor would Kiryu taking the rap for him. The relationship between Kiryu and Nishiki is one of the best things about Yakuza 0. Nishiki driving Kiryu out into the countryside so he can shoot him and spare him the torture at the hands of the Yakuza that might await, but Nishiki breaking down because he can’t bring himself to pull the trigger, is one of the most impactful moments I’ve ever experienced in a video game. Nishiki stood by Kiryu as he fought to clear his name, and in Kiwami, Kiryu repays him by serving ten years in prison in his place.

Knowing the kind of person Nishiki is makes the character arc that follows in Kiwami so much harder to swallow too. I gasped when he slapped Reina, and then gasped again when the game jumped forward ten years to show Nishiki as the head of his own Tojo Clan subsidiary, clearly not the same man he was throughout Yakuza 0. A major player now, and I hope the old Nishiki hasn’t been left behind for good. Again, something I wouldn’t have felt without that connection to Yakuza 0’s Nishiki.

I’ve got more hope for glimmers of the old Nishiki shining through than I do for the old Goro Majima, though. The only moment in Yakuza 0 that hit me harder than Nishiki’s inability to kill Kiryu was the realization that even after all they’d been through, Makoto knew nothing about Majima. Not even his name or what he looked like due to her visual impairment and Majima drastically changing up his look at the end of the prequel.

Majima is introduced at the start of Kiwami as the Mad Dog. Someone who has risen through the ranks of the Yakuza for being a little wild and unhinged. But it’s the torment he went through in Yakuza 0 that made him that way. Without the prequel, Majima is just some zany guy who keeps appearing because he loves beating you up. There are no layers to his character and no deeper meaning to what made him the way that he is in the first place.

Even Kamurocho itself, the fictional borough of Tokyo in which most of the Yakuza games take place, feels different. No series reuses the same map quite like Yakuza does. The feeling I got when I returned to it in Kiwami, noticing what had changed in the years that passed since Yakuza 0 is one of many reasons why I’m glad I played the prequel first.

I’m also well aware that even though I’m lagging behind when it comes to Yakuza – and that there will likely be three more games by the time I get to Infinite Wealth – I’m in a privileged position. Long-time fans didn’t have the option of starting with Yakuza 0. They were already five games deep by the time RGG decided to explain what happened to Kiryu and Majima before Kiwami.

That also explains why so many Yakuza fans think playing the games in release order is the right way to do things. Not just because that’s how they experienced the ongoing Yakuza story, but because they can see the advantages in leaving it until you’ve played five other games. There will have been countless references in Yakuza 0 that went right over my head because I didn’t play Yakuzas 1-5 first. Also, just like I would have been with Kiwami if I hadn’t played Yakuza 0, I’m sure I’d have been thinking ‘How would I have understood this?’ during Yakuza 0’s opening beats had I sided with those who tried to convince me that playing Kiwami first was the right way to go. That said, if you’ve not played any Yakuza games and read this regardless of the spoiler warning, you should definitely play Yakuza 0 first.

Next

Will There Ever Come A Time To Leave Kamurocho Behind?

Yakuza’s iconic setting has changed so much over the past two decades.