Welcome to another entry in our “Can you 100%?” series, where we take a look at some of the games that we have personally 100 %ed and tell you what it’ll take if you were to do the same. A little while ago, we talked about “Yakuza 0” and told you what it’d take to complete that game, so let’s take a step ahead and move on to the next entry or continuation of the series and see what it will take to 100% the next entry of the series, “Yakuza Kiwami.” If you were able to achieve 100% in “Yakuza 0,” then it’s fair to say that you can do it for any other “Yakuza” games as these games are not hard per se but long, grindy, laborious at times and will test your patience, but that’s about it. The achievement lists themselves are similar for all of these games, with only a handful of achievements differing and the rest being exactly the same.
The Game
“Yakuza Kiwami” is a remake of the original “Yakuza” game that came out all the way back in 2005. Everything in the game, from its gameplay to the world to the combat to the visuals, and all else in between, has been remade from the ground up for modern-day while preserving and re-telling the original story as it was. Some scenes have been added to flesh out the story even more, and there have been massive changes and additions made to the gameplay, like the addition of the four fighting styles that were introduced with “Yakuza 0.” “Yakuza Kiwami” can be summarized as “Yakuza 0 but less” as it builds on the same foundation as that game, and if you want a more detailed analysis, then feel free to check out our review for the game here on our website.
Achievement Structure
Structurally, it’s the same as “Yakuza 0,” with no achievements being particularly difficult (don’t get me wrong, some are hard but not extremely so) but requiring a lot of time investment. The game has 55 achievements that you can unlock, and as I stated at the beginning if you can get “Yakuza 0” done, then you can get any “Yakuza” game done. Here, there’s only one achievement that will give you a hard time, but the rest will either come organically or as you keep playing the game, with some RNG here and there, of course. Let’s take a look at the achievement list and see for ourselves now, shall we?
The Story’s Achievements
As always, let’s start with the easy achievements and the ones that will unlock as you progress through the story. The first achievement that you’ll unlock is called “When You Don’t Pay Your Debts,” which will come once you complete the opening/tutorial section of the game. The game afterwards is divided into 12 chapters plus the finale, completing each of which will net you an achievement.
“Things Will Never Be The Same” for completing Chapter 1.
“Turmoil In The Tojo Clan” for completing Chapter 2.
“Funeral For The Old Ways” for completing Chapter 3.
“Mother and Child” for completing Chapter 4.
“The Price of Life” for completing Chapter 5.
“Sins of the Father” for completing Chapter 6.
“The Dragon and the Koi” for completing Chapter 7.
“Puppet Masters” for completing Chapter 8.
“A Man’s Conviction” for completing Chapter 9.
“The Dragon Roars” for completing Chapter 10.
“Ashes To Ashes” for completing Chapter 11.
“Legends Never Die” for compelling Chapter 12.
And finally, “Thank you!” for completing the finale.
These 14 achievements take care of the story stuff, and while there are other achievements that are easy, we’ll be talking about them in their own sections. However, in this game, we also have a handful of achievements that unlock once you complete their corresponding sub-stories, so allow me to note them down for you as well.
“You’ll Only Get Burned” unlocks for completing the sub-story, The Prize of an F-Cup.
“That’s A Man!” unlocks for completing the sub-story, “My baby’s a showgirl.”
“Sonic Right Hook” unlocks for completing the sub-story “Bet on a Champ.”
“An Answer Owed” unlocks for completing the sub-story, “Wife of a Yakuza.”
“Kidney Stones” unlocks for completing the sub-story, “A doctor’s duty.”
“A Bad Business” unlocks by completing the sub-story, The Fake Mizuki’s Truth.
Finally, “She’s Worth It!?” unlocks after completing the sub-story, Man on a Leap.
Then you also have your achievements tied to completing all the sub-stories. “Tell Me A Story” unlocks after completing ten sub-stories. “Hero of the Story” unlocks after completing 30 sub-stories, and “Story of My Life” unlocks all sub-stories.
With all of these out of the way, your quest for the main story and sub-stories is over, with all achievements unlocked for them.
The Majima Everywhere Achievements
“Yakuza Kiwami” also introduced a new mechanic to its gameplay with the Majima Everywhere system. After the introduction, Majima will appear at random out of nowhere and fight you, and that is the Majima Everywhere system in a nutshell. You need to fight him and get to SSS rank not only to unlock a bunch of achievements but also because taking part in this system is the only way to unlock skills from the Dragon of Dojima skill tree. Let’s take a look at the Majima Everywhere system, all of which are pretty self-explanatory and will unlock gradually as you rank up-
“Kiryu-Chan!” unlocks, getting chased by Majima.
“Let’s Fight!” unlocks when Thug Majima forces his way into a fight.
“Swing for the Fences!” unlocks when Slugger Majima forces his way into a fight.
“Break It Down” unlocks when Breaker Majima forces his way into a fight.
“Are Ya Havin’ Fun Yet?” unlocks when Mad Dog of Shimano Majima forces his way into a fight.
“Majima From Above” unlocks when Majima ambushes you from above.
“Majima From Below” unlocks when Majima ambushes you from below.
“Majima From Below” unlocks when Majima ambushes you from a manhole.
“Goromi The Hostess” unlocks meeting Goromi.
“Majima On The Beat” unlocks meeting Officer Majima.
“Majima of the End” unlocks the meeting with Zombie Majima.
“It’s Not Over Yet!” unlocks for reaching rank B in Majima everywhere.
And finally, “The Dragon of Dojima Returns!” for unlocking all Majima Everywhere abilities, aka the Dragon of Dojima skill tree. There is one more achievement that isn’t tied to the Majima Everywhere system, but you must go through and unlock it to get all the Dragon of Dojima skills. “Komaki Style Master” unlocks after completing all training for the Komaki style, which is needed to unlock all the skills in the Dragon of Dojima skill tree.
Majima! Majima! Majima! After fighting Majima countless times, getting ambushed by him, and so on and so forth, you’ll finally have completed this unique, interesting, and fun system and unlocked all of the achievements on offer here. On to the next section!
The Minigames/Miscellaneous/Grindy Achievements
Just like every other Yakuza game, “Yakuza Kiwami” has plenty of minigames and activities that you can get lost in, and these come with their own achievements. For starters, “What a Player” unlocks the ability to play all minigames at once. There are 21 minigames, and you just have to start and end each one once, and this achievement will be yours.
“The Strongest Fighter” unlocks after beating all Colosseum tournaments in Purgatory. “The Dragon of the Pocket Circuit Reborn!” unlocks for winning all Pocket Circuit races. “Throne Of The MesuKing!” unlocks for beating all opponents in MesuKing.
“Yui The Hostess” unlocks after maxing out your bond with Yui and completing her sub-story. In the same way, “Rina The Hostess” unlocks upon maxing out your bond with Rina and completing her sub-story. There are two more achievements tied to the hostess, which are “Can I Call You?” which unlocks for successfully going on a date with a hostess, and “Sexy Ron,” which unlocks for playing a game of Mahjong with a hostess when on a date.
“Hand in Hand” unlocks for walking a kilometer during a premium adventure while holding Haruka’s hand, which is boring.
The heading for this section also mentions the grindy achievements, and you’ll see why now. “Take Back Those Ten Years!” unlocks for acquiring any ten skills from the soul, technique, and body skill trees, and “Master Of Body And Soul” unlocks for acquiring all soul, technique, and body skills. This will naturally take some time, as you’ll need a lot of XP to unlock all the skills. Now, just like every “Yakuza” game, there are two achievements for completing the “complete list,” aka doing everything literally exactly as the game wants you to do. “Half The Battle” unlocks after completing 50% of the completion list, and “Perfectionist” unlocks after completing 100% of the completion list. If you know “Yakuza,” then you know what to expect from these, but truth be told, the requirements here are not too bad, especially if you are coming from “Yakuza 0.” Patience, time, some skill, and a lot of RNG will get you through these. Getting all of this done is where the majority of your playtime will go, and once all of this is done, all we have left to unlock are the hardest achievements that this game has to offer.
The Hard Achievements
“Yakuza” games usually have challenging achievements and not particularly hard ones, but a couple of achievements here in “Yakuza Kiwami” can only be defined as pain. For starters, you have your usual achievement for beating the game on Legend difficulty, which unlocks “Dragon of Legend.” It’s not that easy here because of one mission. There’s a car chase during Chapter 9, which is painfully difficult on Legend difficulty. The chase itself wouldn’t be a problem, but since during your Legend playthrough, if you die, you have to relearn your previous save, this one condition makes this achievement a pain as the chase takes place during the end of the mission, but there are no save points throughout the chapter. This means if you die during the chase(which you will, a lot), you’ll have to restart the whole chapter. Have patience with this and try to learn the chase as best as you can is all I have to say for this achievement. Everything else about the Legend playthrough is easy, but this one part can make or break the run for you.
Next up, we have “Amon Defeated,” which, as the name suggests and is the case for every Yakuza game, unlocks by beating Amon. The Amon fight will unlock when you beat all the sub-stories, and these fights are always stacked against you and are unreasonably difficult. I won’t say this is the hardest challenge, but the fact that you have to fight him here twice, once he uses Kiryu’s moves and then he uses Majima’s moves, combined with the fact that he hits like a truck and his attack speeds go up as his health goes down, makes this a fight that you’ll have to attempt a couple of times at least to get through.
“Death by Climax” unlocks for beating all climax battles just like “Yakuza 0,” and I had a ton of fun doing these, but I must admit, the climax battles here are significantly harder than they were in “Yakuza 0,” in my opinion. Patience and perseverance are your friends here, and you can overcome this challenge if you keep trying.
Then you have “Mister Master,” which simply asks you to get an EX rank on Haruka’s request. You can ask Haruka to come and walk the streets of Kamurocho with you at certain points during the story and at any time during the Premium adventure. When she’s with you, she’ll have tons of requests for you to fulfill, most of which are really simple, like ordering a dish at a restaurant or buying Haruka some items. Then she’ll ask you to get certain scores in minigames or win certain amounts in gambling games. Overall, this isn’t too crazy. All of that changes, however, for the last four requests, which are painful. Getting 950 points in OTOMETAL, My life in karaoke, winning at the pool on Expert, and so on—these four requests are straight-up hellspawn and are the only reason this achievement belongs here in this section. There is a cheese or glitch that you can find online that will help you skip these four requests in particular, but if you do them naturally, then good luck!
Once all of this is done, you’ll unlock “KIWAMI,” which is for unlocking every single achievement in the game. Congratulations on your 100% on “Yakuza Kiwami.”
Final Thoughts
I’ll be honest and say that “Yakuza Kiwami” was the least fun I had 100% with a “Yakuza” game. Truth be told, I find this game to be the weakest “Yakuza” game I have played in general. That does not mean that the game is bad, far from it; it’s fantastic and is oftentimes a joy to complete and is far easier when compared to “Yakuza 0,” but there’s something about it that just doesn’t gel with me. Should you go for completion on this game?
The answer depends on how much you care. If you are like me and like 100 %ing almost every AAA and indie title, especially a series of titles, then yes, you should 100% “Yakuza Kiwami,” and while there is some challenge here, it’s not too hard to get done. On the other hand, if this is your first “Yakuza” game or the first game that you wish to 100%, then I’d say skip this one and focus on “Yakuza 0,” “Yakuza Kiwami 2,” “Yakuza Like A Dragon,” and so on, as they are far more fun to get a 100% on than this one.
The score below is not for the game itself but for its completion and is a mixture of difficulty, skill, and time consumption.
3.5/10
50-80 hours.
See more: ‘Yakuza 0’ Achievements, Explained: Can You Achieve 100% In The Game?
