TL;DR: A smooth 60fps Switch 2 port of Yakuza Kiwami that plays great handheld, keeps the soul of the series intact, and proves Kiryu belongs everywhere—even in your backpack.

I can tell you exactly when Yakuza Kiwami clicked for me on Nintendo Switch 2. It wasn’t during a dramatic cutscene, or a boss fight drenched in melodrama, or even one of Kiryu’s face-shattering Heat Actions. It was when I realized I’d been sitting cross-legged on my couch for an hour, Switch 2 in my hands, completely forgetting that this was a port, a remake, or a game I’ve already beaten before. Kamurochō had swallowed me whole again. Same city. Same Dragon. New context. Same magic.

This is Yakuza Kiwami landing on Nintendo Switch 2, and instead of feeling like a novelty or a victory lap, it feels weirdly… correct. Like this is where it was always headed.

I’ve lived with this game across generations. I played it on PS4 back when Kiwami felt like Sega’s apology letter to fans who stuck with the series through its awkward adolescence. I remember admiring how it cleaned up the bones of the original Yakuza without sanding off its rough edges. So firing it up on Switch 2, nearly a decade later, wasn’t about rediscovery. It was about friction. I wanted to know what would break.

Almost nothing does.

From a technical standpoint, this port is quietly impressive. The game runs at a locked 60fps and targets 1080p, whether docked or handheld, and it does so with an ease that makes you forget you’re playing on a Nintendo system that used to wheeze through open-world games. Street brawls stay fluid. Heat Actions don’t hitch. Even during chaotic multi-enemy scraps, the performance holds firm. There’s a confidence here that suggests Sega knew exactly what they were doing with Switch 2’s hardware.

Is it the prettiest thing you’ll see this year? Absolutely not. Kiwami still wears its PS3-era skeleton under a PS4 polish. But Kamurochō has never been about raw fidelity. It’s about vibe. Neon bleeding into puddles. Cigarette smoke curling through alleyways. That grimy, late-night energy that makes the city feel like it’s watching you back. Switch 2 captures that atmosphere just fine. One early cutscene looked a little softer than I expected, but it stood out precisely because the rest of the presentation is so consistent.

Controls are where I expected compromise and found none. Playing with Joy-Con 2s feels immediately natural. Combos flow cleanly, movement is responsive, and swapping between Kiryu’s fighting styles never feels awkward. Brawler still feels like home. Rush still turns every fight into a caffeine-fueled blur. Beast still answers the question “what if this man used a motorcycle as punctuation?”

The combat remains gloriously uncomplicated. Yakuza Kiwami isn’t interested in turning you into a lab monster memorizing frame data. It wants you to feel powerful. It wants you to feel dangerous. And it succeeds by keeping things readable, punchy, and absurdly satisfying. Charging Heat and detonating it on an unlucky thug never stops feeling good, even after dozens of hours.

Then there’s Majima.

Majima Everywhere is still as unhinged as ever, and still walks the fine line between brilliant and exhausting. Goro Majima’s obsession with Kiryu remains one of the series’ great running jokes, and his willingness to ambush you in disguises ranging from “police officer” to “human traffic cone” is comedy gold. The problem, as always, is volume. Unlocking everything tied to the Dragon style demands an almost aggressive number of encounters, and there were moments where I felt less like a rival and more like Majima’s emotional support punching bag.

That said, I wouldn’t want this system gone. It’s too weird. Too Yakuza. It embodies the series’ refusal to take itself seriously even while telling a deeply sincere story.

And that story still hits.

Kiryu’s return from prison, the unraveling of the Tojo Clan, the mystery of the missing ten billion yen, and the slow tragedy of Nishiki’s transformation all land with the same weight they always did. Kiwami’s narrative has pacing hiccups and the occasional errand-shaped speed bump, but its emotional spine is strong. It knows when to be quiet. It knows when to let a stare linger. It trusts its characters enough to let them breathe.

The substories remain the secret sauce. These little detours into the bizarre, the heartfelt, and the downright stupid are what give Kamurochō its soul. Some are funny. Some are touching. Some exist purely to remind you that this city is deeply, profoundly strange. Playing them on a handheld somehow makes them feel even more intimate, like you’ve stumbled into someone else’s life while killing time on a train.

What ultimately makes this version special isn’t raw performance or convenience alone. It’s how naturally Yakuza Kiwami fits into the Switch 2 lifestyle. Quick suspend-resume. Short load times. The ability to chip away at the city in handheld mode or sink into it docked on a big screen. This isn’t just a good port. It’s a comfortable one.

Yes, it shows its age. Yes, it’s not flexing next-gen muscles. But Kiwami doesn’t need spectacle to work. It needs rhythm, personality, and heart. Switch 2 delivers all three.

Verdict

Yakuza Kiwami on Nintendo Switch 2 is a confident, polished port of one of the series’ most important games. It runs smoothly, plays beautifully in handheld mode, and preserves everything that makes Kiryu’s origin story special. It’s not flashy, but it doesn’t need to be. This is Kamurochō, intact and portable, and that’s more than enough.