Blackjack Amulet Yakuza Kiwami 2

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TL;DR - if you are not interested in an in-depth overview of what was wrong with the game and how it was fixed, just follow the link to check out a concise changelog and grab SilentPatch for Yakuza Kiwami 2:
Upon downloading, all you need to do is to extract the archive to game’s directory and that’s it!

Yakuza Kiwami 2 lands on Microsoft’s console with all the pulpy plotline, bacchanalian nightlife, and pugnaciousness of the PlayStation 4 and PC iteration. Performance is nearly uniform with the PS4 version. Mirroring the type of sophisticated business strategy ordered by a shrewd syndicate boss, SEGA’s Yakuza franchise is moving in several simultaneous directions. Two years ago, the. I forgot the name of the item off the top of my head. Anyway if you eat/drink 2 or 3 of these, your alcohol level should go to zero. Just drink only one after you're full on alcohol. Alternatively repeatedly going in and out of any place to enter the load screen also worked for me on Yakuza 5. Drink, step outside, step inside, Drink, Rinse. Yakuza Kiwami 2 is IMO a fun game. Remake of Yakuza 2, released on PS4 in December 2017 and ported to PC by QLOC in May 2019 was met with overwhelmingly positive reception and is the first Yakuza game running on a new Dragon Engine which was ported to PC. Yakuza Kiwami 2 lands on Microsoft’s console with all the pulpy plotline, bacchanalian nightlife, and pugnaciousness of the PlayStation 4 and PC iteration. Performance is nearly uniform with the PS4 version. Yakuza Kiwami 2 Platform: Xbox One, previously on PlayStation 4, PC. Το Yakuza Kiwami 2, όπως πιθανότατα έχετε ήδη αντιληφθεί από τον τίτλο, αποτελεί και αυτό remake του παιχνιδιού που κυκλοφόρησε σε PS2 στα τέλη του 2008 στις δυτικές αγορές, μόνο που αυτή τη φορά υπάρχει.

Yakuza Kiwami 2 is IMO a fun game. Remake of Yakuza 2, released on PS4 in December 2017 and ported to PC by QLOC in May 2019 was met with overwhelmingly positive receptionand is the first Yakuza game running on a new Dragon Engine which was ported to PC. It is speculated that this is one of the reasons this port was not outsourced to Lab42,unlike the PC ports of Yakuza 0 and Yakuza Kiwami.

I have covered my adventures with Yakuza 0 lighting more or less a year ago. Both Yakuza Kiwami and Kiwami 2launched without issues as jarring as this, so at the first glance it looked like I could play this game without thinking about bugs and theoretizing fixes (for once).However, once again as soon as I say something like this, karma makes sure to prove me wrong.

I obviously would not be writing this post if the port was free of issues. It does have some, most notably performance issues on relatively recent hardware and several not-so-annoyingFPS issues. While fixing the former (especially without source code access) is likely an extremely challenging task, some of the FPS cap issues could be addressed relatively easily.That said, known issues like exaggerated physics presumably fall into the same bucket of difficulty as performance optimizations – but thankfully not all problems are this complex.

All games have bugs, however, and I usually don’t run in circles trying to fix them all. For this game, my “tipping point” was a thing so absurd so it would be a crime not tomention it. That thing was a… peeing minigame called Toylets¹. 😑

When Yakuza Kiwami 2 launched on Steam, one of the highlights of this release were uncapped framerates, compared to the PS4 version which runs at 30 FPS (with the exception of arcade gameswhich run at 60 FPS). This was mostly fine, however it was quickly identified that playing at over 60 FPS (either due to disabled vertical sync or due to a high refresh rate monitor)alters physics (in a non-breaking way, so it doesn’t cause any major side effects other than the fact it looks hilarious during fights) and breaks several minigames – UFO Catcherwas completely unplayable (same as in Yakuza 0 and Yakuza Kiwami), and so were the arcade games.

Patch quickly followed, in which QLOC changed the following to improve the situation:

• “Framelimit” option has been added to Graphics Options, allowing users to select between 30/60/120/Unlimited.
• Most minigames have been forcibly limited to 60 FPS. However, if user opted to limit the game to 30 FPS, all minigames will be limited to 30 FPS too.

Good changes? Technically yes, but in practice not quite. While a forced cap is a good solution to this problem (it is imperative to know that arcade games and Toylets minigameare actually using emulated and/or original code, so limiting them instead of “fixing them” to handle arbitrary framerates is preferable for the sake of accuracy with original products!),problems slipped by. There are three major issues with these changes:

1. Users complained that setting a FPS cap broke frame pacing and introduced uneven framerates. Indeed, my own tests showed that this option results in very inaccurate limiting.In the worst case, limiting the game to 120 FPS resulted in it never rendering at more than 115 FPS!
2. As mentioned earlier, arcade games ran at 60 FPS on PS4. After this patch, users can limit them to 30 FPS on PC, which again breaks them! Issues do not seem to be critical,but they are here either way.
3. Toylets minigame was still unplayable, because it was designed to run at 30 FPS! If users wanted to play it the way it was intended, they had to go through a ritualof going to Graphics Options, setting FPS limit to 30, playing the minigame, then going back… It’s doable, but should not be needed.

Let’s go through these issues in order and see how they could have been prevented.

Broken frame pacing

Since frame pacing is generally as good as it gets when FPS cap is set to Unlimited, but breaks pretty badly when 30/60/120 is selected, a newly added FPS limiter is an obvious candidate.Locating it in the executable did not take long, and that’s how it looks in pseudocode:

Can you spot the issue? It’s right here, called sleep(1).

It is well known that sleeping functions in Windows are relatively relaxed about imposed sleep durations.Depending on numerous factors like OS load and priority of other threads in the same process, it’s not unrealistic to expect a “1 millisecond” sleep to take more than15 milliseconds!

With that in mind, issues in this code should be easily visible – it expects sleep to take exactly 1ms, since it is called even when there is only 1000μs left for the deadline.In the worst case, frame limiter may “oversleep” by several milliseconds!Sounds familiar? Indeed, Bully’s FPS limiter had a nearly identical bug.

What is the best fix here? I personally think busy looping is actually preferable here – while it does use more CPU, it allows for perfectly accurate limiting.Burning the CPU is probably less bad than it sounds, especially nowadays when you rarely see processors with less than 4 threads. On top of that, it is not unrealistic toexpect the overhead of putting the thread to sleep to be more wasteful than letting the CPU spin – especially withMeltdown mitigations in place.

SilentPatch solves frame pacing issues by not allowing the FPS limiter to put the thread to sleep. Success!

Minigames FPS caps

Looking at the official changelog, we can learn that the following minigames have been capped to 60 FPS:

*Please note that FPS is locked to 60FPS in the minigames below:Batting Center, BlackJack, Darts, Koi Koi, Mahjong, Oichokabu, Poker, ToyLets, Virtual Fighter 2/2.1, Virtual-On, UFO Catcher and Karaoke.

Why so many minigames?? After all, not a single person complained about minigames like Karaoke, Darts or Poker being broken!Honestly, that’s something I am not able to answer with absolute certainty, but I have a possible theory:

In Yakuza 0 and Yakuza Kiwami, all these minigames were indeed broken at high framerates, so I can imagine that in Kiwami 2 after the developers learned about arcade gamesand UFO Catcher being similarly broken, they decided to pre-emptively limit those minigames just how Lab42 did. The strongest argument towards this theory is thatQLOC did not limit games introduced in Kiwami 2 – so batting is locked to 60 FPS, but golf is not, even though realistically speaking if they were to have anysignificant physics issues, both games should have been similarly broken =)

Aside from minigames being needlessly limited, Toylets is obviously still broken – it should have been limited to 30, not 60 FPS. It’s an easy change with the waythis FPS limiter was written, as each game requests a specific maximum framerate instead of it being an on/off toggle. For this reason, I assume it was just a genuine oversight.However, thanks to this it makes for a very, very simple fix.

Do note I said minigames request a maximum framerate, as opposed to forcing it. This may be preferable for UFO Catcher, but is a bad idea for arcade games.In order to improve the situation, it should have been possible to opt for either behaviour.

SilentPatch solves those issues by doing the following:

• Capping Toylets to fixed 30 FPS.
• Introducing a new FPS limiting mode for minigames, where a specified framerate is forced instead of treated as an upper bound. Arcade games have been set to use this mode,so they run at 60 FPS regardless of the FPS cap set by the user.
• Reverting FPS caps for the other minigames, returning them to how they were day 1.

For those interested,full source code of the patch has been published on GitHub, so it can be freely used as a point of reference:

1. I could not believe it, but this game is a real thing in Japan. ↩

Yakuza Kiwami 2 lands on Microsoft’s console with all the pulpy plotline, bacchanalian nightlife, and pugnaciousness of the PlayStation 4 and PC iteration. Performance is nearly uniform with the PS4 version.

Mirroring the type of sophisticated business strategy ordered by a shrewd syndicate boss, SEGA’s Yakuza franchise is moving in several simultaneous directions. Two years ago, the Yakuza 6: The Song of Life crooned a swan song for longstanding protagonist Kazuma Kiryu, establishing an indistinct future for the series. Conversely, 2017’s Yakuza 0 shifted the storyline all the way back to 1988, offering a prequel that revealed salient events that would shape Kiryu, as well as his Tojo Clan nii-san, Goro Majima. The title was followed up by Yakuza Kiwami, which picked up after the prologue, reenacting the events of the very first Yakuza game.

Unlike most straightforward remasters, Kiwami provided a comprehensive overhaul. A new engine exhibited higher resolutions, more detailed texturing, and an improved framerate, permitting Kamurocho to better resemble its real-life counterpart, Kabukichō. The game’s fighting system incorporated some of the improvements of Yakuza 6, while plot was both polished and expanded. With the release of Yakuza Kiwami 2 for Xbox One, SEGA’s development team extends another impressive revision, this time thoroughly modernizing 2008’s Yakuza 2. Although a few notable elements were left on the cutting room floor, largely the remake is an indispensable experience for franchise fans. Hopefully, this means that’s we’ll see the Xbox One release of Yakuza 6 sometime before the November release of Like a Dragon.

When the Chips are Down

Like many classic tragedies, Kiwami 2 opens amidst a chaotic and pessimistic context. One year after the events of Kiwami, the Tojo Clan is collapsing, drawing the attention of the Omi Family, a rival Osaka-based syndicate. When the Tojo chairman, a former head of the Omi clan, is assassinated, tensions are escalated ever higher, promoting Kiryu to head to the Kansai region in hopes of reaching a peaceful solution before a devastating gang war erupts.

The original Yakuza 2 was notable for truly refining the incorporation of secondary characters, an attribute inherited by Kiwami 2. While antagonist Ryuji Goda intermittently recedes from the game’s narrative, he’s an undeniably powerful rival. While the standpoints are essentially oppositional, there’s mutual respect between the two adversaries, which makes their interactions deliciously pulpy. Similarly, Osaka Police Department Detective Kaoru Sayama showcases a remarkable female lead, who is unflinchingly tough but gradually reveals a caring side to her personality. Considering the ubiquity of one-dimensional depiction of media, Kaoru truly contributes to Kiwami 2’s success. Her Kansai dialect is an absolute delight, capturing the melody and directness often associated with the region.

A Slightly Muted Majima

Marketing has highlighted the inclusion of Majima’s playable side story in Kiwami 2. These bits are outwardly satisfying, with The Mad Dog of Shimano’s style exemplifying the speed and unpredictability of the raucous character. Since Yakuza 2 was released stateside in 2008, Majima’s presence has proliferated through memes and animated gifs, so it’s satisfying to see the trio of chapters divulge his behind-the-scenes actions and how they foreshadowed latter events. But the side story also feels restrained, since Majima doesn’t level up, gain new skills, or even equip any items.

The elimination of the Shinseicho area, as well a few mini-games like pool and bowling might initially seem upsetting. But in their place, the team has doubled-down on key inclusions. The Cabaret Club management from Yakuza 0 has been expanded here, which will be comforting to fans who remember the removal of similar content when the third game of the series was localized. Essentially, this is a full-fledged hostess bar sim, you’ll assign girls to specific tables, assist with problems, and generally cultivate your staff as you complete against other clubs. It’s surprisingly involved and is distracting enough to make your temporality halt the progress on story missions.

Recreations Pull You in a Multitude of Different Directions

Similarly, the Clan Creator component from The Song of Life has you stepping into the foreman role again, as you assist Majima with his Kamurocho Hill’s construction efforts. This time out it’s a bit more focused, moving closer to tower defense convention as you place nine valiant employees to protect the site from throngs of invaders and even some famous New Japan Pro Wrestling personalities. Both the Cabaret Club and Clan Creator have been streamlined, bringing them more in line with the excitement of the Yakuza series famous mini-games.

Of course, Kiwami 2 is chockfull of the playful adaptations drawn from everyday life. The showstoppers this time are recreations of Cyber Troopers Virtual-On and Virtua Fighter 2, bringing two of SEGA’s mid-nineties favorites for you to enjoy. While fans of athletic-tests will appreciate the battling cages and indoor golf, those who’s rather leisurely pad their wallets can opt for blackjack, poker, mahjong, shogi, koi-koi, or oicho-kabu, the latter being the pastime where the word “Yakuza” comes from. Much like real-life Japan, entertainment choices abound, creating an irresistible temptation that’s all too easy to get sucked into.

Bringing the Heat (Move)

Although these recreations prove persuasive, Kiwami 2 is truly about Kiryu pummeling jerks. Here, the game opts for the pared down pugilism of Yakuza 6, rather than the multiple stances offered in Yakuza 0 and the first Kiwami. And again, while that might seem like a shortcoming, the decision proved prudent, as Kiwami 2’s focus is using a myriad of different weapons. From everyday objects like bikes, wire cutters, and irons to dedicated arms like shotguns and tazers, Kiryu is adept at delivering the hurt in a multitude of different ways. Pleasingly, he can ever stockpile any tools encounters during a fight. But you’ll be puzzled why the arms instantly vanish when the brawl concludes.

Undoubtedly, the most satisfaction steams after steadily building your meter and triggering a Heat Move. Often resourcefully using environmental objects, these slow-motion exhibitions of punishment are rather rousing the first few times they are shown. Fortunately, Kiwami 2 adds variety through the incorporation of Ally Heat Actions. Assist the local ramen chef in his endeavors and the next time you get into a dust-up outside his noodle stand he might offer to fling a vessel of simmering ramen skyward, extending the possibility for shio-based alley-oop. Fortunately, that’s one example and you’ll still be discovering new ones when you pas the twenty-hour mark. Largely, nuances like this help to keep frequent combat fresh.

Bossing You Around

Expectedly, they are boss battles, which require a much more meticulousness than fighting subordinate street trash. It’s here that difficulty spike can impede Kiwami 2’s flow, occasionally forcing a few retries. Equipping the right weapons and defenses can assist here as can a bit of goon-grinding to boost your health and power levels. But the side-quests to earn these kinds of supplements are typically so amusing and quirky, that beefing up Kiryu rarely feel tedious. When you do lose, you won’t be able to blame unresponsiveness. The standard Xbox One might demonstrate a few minor flutters from the game’s 30 frame-per-second output, but these are so minor, they might no be noticed. Those wanting a locked framerate may want to play Kiwami 2 on the Xbox One X, which performs flawlessly.

Much like Kiryu facing a group of low-level hoodlums, Yakuza Kiwami 2 shows no sign of a slowing momentum. Both the Dragon of Dojima and the latest entry flaunt a few new tricks, offering a rock-solid remake of the 2008 game. While this isn’t the best entry point for the franchise (Yakuza 0 and the original Kiwami are requisite free), it’s one that is destined to please Western fans who have recently discovered this celebrated series.

Yakuza Kiwami 2 was played on Xbox One with review code provided by the publisher.

Review Overview

Summary : Look past the internet posts about missing content. Yes, Yakuza Kiwami 2 lacks a few, largely expendable elements from the original game. But for every omission, the game delivers two-fold, contributing a wealth of additions and some worthwhile changes.

Blackjack Amulet Yakuza Kiwami 2 Trophies