Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.
Even in Kiryu's Darkest Hour, there are always laughs to be had. This is Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, after all.
Main Story
- After the tutorial fight, Joryu, in typical fashion, uppercuts a guy so hard he flat-out breaks a nearby Cool Car, to the owner's chagrin. His nonchalance about it is the icing on the cake. Even better, the guy STAYS THERE for the rest of the cutscene.
- When Joryu refuses to remove his sunglasses before entering the arena, he's given another alternative, courtesy of Shishido. The present in mind? A pink luchador mask with fuzzy ears!
- When Kiryu is receiving the Firefly, a lone yakuza passes by and tosses a cigarette butt on the floor. The old lady running the place doesn't take kindly to this, and immediately decides to demonstrate the exploding gadget on him. The result is the litterbug ending up with a cartoonishly-blackened face.
- After Tsuruno pays the Daidoji 50 billion yen for Kiryu, Hanawa makes a remark about Kiryu either being really good, or Watase is an idiot. Tsuruno tells him to shut up, asking if anyone told Hanawa that he talks too much. After saying how he doesn't see why anyone should, cue Yoshimura telling him that nobody's saying it directly to his face. Hanawa's little "Oh..." after mentioning how absurd that is sells it.
- When Kiryu has to escape the Castle after Nishitani catches onto him and Tsuruno, Tsuruno tells Kiryu to hit him so that he can act like they're not affiliated. Kiryu obliges, hitting him mid-sentence, causing Tsuruno to complain that he wasn't ready.
- Part-way through the story Kiryu comes up with a plan to lure Nishitani III out of the Castle and asks Tsuruno to get him as much money as he can. His plan? Blow it all (30 million yen to be exact) on one big night out on the town to rub it in Nishitani III's face that he's not afraid of the most deranged man in the Omi Alliance.
- One of Kiryu's stops is the pawn shop so he can buy some new clothes. The owners reaction when he slams down a huge stack of 10000 yen notes on the counter is priceless, doubly so when Tsuruno gives in and decides he wants some new duds too. Even better? You actually get the formal suit on Tsuruno's dime for Kiryu to wear.
- And to top it all off, the straw that breaks the camel's back for Nishitani is a picture Kiryu sends him of himself, surrounded by beautiful women on Nishitani's ship, toasting to the camera with a shit-eating grin. At his most depressing stage in his life, Kiryu drops the stoicism he's known for and shamelessly trolls Nishitani.
- During the raid on the Kijin Clan Headquarters, a crowd of mooks barge in to beat the stuffing out of Shishido and Joryu... only for the latter to casually pull out a cigarette for a smoke, with the former offering a light. Then you look closely and realize he offhandedly tossed a Firefly without even facing the mooks at all. Just business as usual, except for Shishido's reaction.Shishido: Heh. Brutal.
- Kiryu still believes that he can become unrecognizable if he changes his name and suit (at least he wore glasses this time). Naturally, every yakuza with half a brain immediately figures out his Paper-Thin Disguise and calls him out on it. His solution? Just keep correcting them that he is Joryu, and they have him confused. He then carries on behaving exactly like Kiryu. The kicker? It actually starts working a bit, simply because Kiryu's constant corrections annoy people so much they just give up and call him Joryu. In the finale, Watase lampshades it to hell, and Kiryu still defends it:Watase: None of it ever made any goddamn sense, did it? The Dragon of Dojima died, but no one saw the body? Who'd be dumb enough to fall for that shit?Kiryu: It fooled everybody but you.
- On the topic of Watase, it can be kind of hard to take him seriously in the lead-up to the Omi Alliance Feast when he's wearing an outfit that's a one-to-one replica of Peter Griffin himself!
- During the scene of the dissolution of the Omi Alliance and Tojo Clan, everything plays out exactly the same as in Yakuza: Like a Dragon except it turns out that Tsuruno was there the whole time. He was just off-stage during Kiryu's Dynamic Entry, and complains about him hogging the spotlight.
Substories
- Oh, yes - being that the majority of the game is set in Sotenbori, who better to make a comeback than Etsuko the Obatarian? And yes, Joryu very fondly remembers his encounter with her back in Kiwami 2... and it ends about as well (for Etsuko, at least) as you'd expect it to.
- Kiryu and Kaito meet each other in the "End the Destruction" substory, and due to a misunderstanding, naturally fight not five minutes after the fact. Afterward, Kaito ends up calling Joryu a gorilla, to which he wryly retorts by asking if Kaito's bothered to look at a mirror.
- Considering how Kaito is more or less a Moveset Clone of Kiryu's Brawler style (and bears more than a passing resemblance to him on top of that), this is perhaps the most surreal Mirror Boss to have ever graced the series by far.
- One Homeless Guy sums up the two very accurately:Homeless Guy: Listen, I've been around the block a time or two, and I'll tell ya somethin'— you two are the most gorilla-ass motherfuckers I ever seen.
- Pocket Circuit once again returns and Kiryu, even at the lowest point in his life, is still brimming with enthusiasm for one of his favorite pastimes.
- And this time around, if he loses a race, he puts on a Stepford Smiler clap for the winner — and then turns around and immediately scowls and curses to himself in seething fury (pictured above) as a severe Sore Loser.
- The Collection Sidequest of gathering the golden balls is basically nothing more than an excuse for the game to make as many "balls" puns as humanly possible.
- Once all seven have been collected and given to Shen-san, Kiryu can choose to have a wish granted. One of them is for "sexy panties". Choosing any of these options will have Shen-san flat-out refuse, saying that this isn't an anime and that he's not a god. Just an old man gathering up his balls. Of you choose the "sexy panties" option however, he does give you his golden undies, which can be sold for ¥1.5 million. As a bonus, that's actually more than the ¥1 million you get for actually wishing for money.
- Like in the Business Management minigame, Joryu can have folks from all walks of life flanking him in this game's coliseum. Ranging from familiar faces like Gary "Buster" Holmes, Kamiyama, the Tojo Clan Sixth Chairman himself (albeit as DLC), and even the REM Rams from the Seagull Cinema minigame! As an added cherry on the sundae, said REM Ram (or Sheep Man as he's called here) uses Andre Richardson's moveset and is one of the strongest fighters you can recruit!
- The Minamida Grand Prix has some chuckles:
- The M-IWM (Tsuneo Iwami) is represented by his glasses. As if him being considered to be a "Little Baby" by Kiryu wasn't enough, the sheer audacity that Iwami is simply represented by his glasses is baffling and comedic.
- The M-NSK (Akira Nishikiyama) is represented by the front face of his PS2 model
, a minor meme in the Like A Dragon fandom.
Gameplay
- On a conceptual level, Agent style is hilarious. Kiryu using Roger Moore-era Bond Gadgets to dispatch thugs is pretty funny, and his arsenal includes explosive cigarettes and rocket shoes! He still didn't kill anyone despite this.
- Nothing's funnier than filling up the entire screen with drones and watching as they tear apart crowds and even bosses with relative ease... or just charging through them with the Serpent like you're the Juggernaut, for that matter.
- Said explosive cigarettes, dubbed the Firefly have a slight drawback in that there's no user error protection, meaning it's completely possible to accidentally blow yourself up if you're not careful.
- The Spider gadget is particularly made for the Dragon Engine, as seeing poor mooks getting captured then tossed around like ragdolls is a sight to behold.
- There's even an achievement for dumping a mook in the Sotenbori river with the Spider, as a bit of dev acknowledgement for a player's propensity for using the ragdoll physics in the Dragon Engine games to toss mooks into the river in Kiwami 2.
- If you finish Kei's hostess minigame, you get the achievement named "Kei's Husbando".
