What once was a humble beat-em-up series with a surprisingly nuanced story on the beloved PlayStation 2 has found its way to every conceivable platform known to man. Yakuza Kiwami now, too, joins that list as it hits Nintendo’s aging hybrid console. Originally released back in 2017, built on the foundation of Yakuza 0, Yakuza Kiwami gave players a full remake of the 2006 original for the PlayStation 4, Xbox, PC and even the PlayStation 3 in Asian territories.
With such a broad spectrum of platforms, I was curious and hopeful to see just how Yakuza Kiwami would translate on the Nintendo Switch. I’ll just cut straight to the chase: Yakuza Kiwami on the Nintendo Switch is one of the worst ways to experience the game. Saying that, however, if you’ve never played a Yakuza title and are a casual player who only has access to a Nintendo Switch, then, in truth, Yakuza Kiwami is more than enjoyable.
Exploring the overworld and combat usually keeps the game at around its target of 30FPS. Still, high-density areas with NPCs and background effects will cause a noticeable stutter, making exploring the neon-soaked streets of Kamurocho a mixed bag. Thankfully, transitioning to combat sequences generally improves things and stabilizes the framerate, although it is still a far cry from a rock-solid experience overall.
“I’ll just cut straight to the chase: Yakuza Kiwami on the Nintendo Switch is one of the worst ways to experience the game.”
Outside of a slightly unstable framerate, Yakuza Kimwai on Nintendo Switch exhibits considerable pop-in. Running through Kamurocho will often cause NPCs to transition between lower-quality LODs, particularly in the face area, which can be somewhat distracting, highlighting the age of the Nintendo Switch hardware. At the very least, the faces of essential characters seem to feature much higher-quality meshes and look reasonably close to their PlayStation 4 counterparts.
Background detail is also rather blurry and heavily aliased, which during nighttime sequences isn’t too bad, almost adding to the glowy aesthetic of the light-polluted streets. Still, the same can’t be said during the day, when things look much worse overall. It might sound like I’m being harsh on Yakuza Kiwami, but for a seven-year-old game, the latest port feels too late to arrive on the Switch. Yakuza Kiwami could have been an impressive port when the Nintendo Switch was still new, but now only serves to show its aging hardware and lack of parity with even older consoles.
“If you’ve never played a Yakuza title and are a casual player who only has access to a Nintendo Switch, then, in truth, Yakuza Kiwami is more than enjoyable.”
Despite everything mentioned above, actually playing Yakuza Kiwami on the Nintendo Switch, after a while, can be a fun experience once you adjust to the framerate; the trade-off for a portable experience is not bad (unless, of course, you have a Steam Deck or the like).
Although not as good as Yakuza 0, which absolutely deserves to grace Nintendo hardware in the future, Yakuza Kiwami is a good enough way to get your toes wet in the ever-expanding beat-em-up series. With whatever will eventually supersede the Nintendo Switch in the near future, it is more than likely legacy Switch games will be compatible with the new hardware, meaning, despite a lacklustre port, the future for Yakuza Kiwami on Nintendo hardware may still have room to improve.
