Yakuza Kiwami 2 Review: The Triumphant Return of the Dragon

My wild ride with the wonderfully bizarre world of the Yakuza series continues with Kiwami 2, a remake of the second game in the franchise. While Kiwami 1 was fairly disappointing, both in a narrative and gameplay sense, Kiwami 2 has the benefits of a much better script and has significant gameplay improvements due to …

The Narrative Fetch Quest Problem

After playing through Yakuza Kiwami 1, and finding it fairly disappointing, I started thinking about why I enjoyed the story of Yakuza 0 so much more than that of its sequel. Among other things, one of the problems with Yiwami was its pacing, an issue brought to the forefront by video game contrivance which I'll …

A Silent Voice Review – Bullying and Redemption

Kids are cruel, and there is no shortage of depictions of this cruelty in the world of film. The annals of cinema is littered with bullying heels, and under-aged villains who ridicule the protagonist for their perceived differences. Whether it's this year’s realist Eighth Grade, the bountiful Hughes-esque teen-comedies of the 80s, or the hyperbolic …