I\u2019ve played and reviewed<\/a> pretty much<\/a> every <\/span>Yakuza<\/span><\/i> game since <\/span>Yakuza 0<\/span><\/i><\/a> here at MonsterVine, but it\u2019s been a good while since I revisited <\/span>Yakuza Kiwami <\/span><\/i>and my favorite title in the series, <\/span>Yakuza Kiwami 2<\/span><\/i>. Just recently, both games received PS5 and Xbox Series X\/S upgrades that promise to run at 60 fps with 4K resolution, so I decided to hop in and see how different they are and whether they\u2019re worth grabbing \u2013 especially for people who played the originals.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s worth noting that <\/span>Yakuza Kiwami<\/span><\/i>\u2019s updated release costs $20 on its own and $2 for those who owned the original release digitally before December 8, 2025, while <\/span>Yakuza Kiwami 2 <\/span><\/i>provides a free upgrade for existing digital owners. As such, it\u2019s not a major expense for those who already own the games, but <\/span>Kiwami<\/span><\/i> costs money nonetheless.<\/span><\/p>\n Credit: SEGA<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Both games run noticeably better in these upgraded versions, hitting the promised 60 fps and 4K display. I found fights to be far smoother in both, and while I ran into minor stutters while revisiting the PS4 versions of these games, I had no such issues in the same spots in the updated releases. I found it to be a consistently smoother experience that certainly felt much more at home on a current-gen console than the now-dubbed \u201cLegacy\u201d versions do at this point. The colors are a bit stronger, and it\u2019s the slightest bit easier to see small details on the character models and in the environments. Things like hair strands and stubble look more defined and realistic, and everything \u201cpops\u201d out a bit more, for lack of a better term.<\/span><\/p>\n We made a comparison video on YouTube<\/a> for both games below so that you can see the differences between versions for yourself:<\/span><\/p>\n![\"Yakuza](\"https:\/\/monstervine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/yakuza-640x360.png\")
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