Yakuza Kiwami 2 Substories Guide - How to Start

I've just got the 1000g in Yakuza Kiwami on X Box One X, after completing my legendary difficulty playthrough and finally finishing the game.
It was fun, for me the highlights were the battle through the apartment building in chapter 11, the funeral level, the fight on and next to the ship in chapter 12, and overall the story; one of the best story's I've ever played through in a game.
Things I didn't love so much would be Majima continuing to pop out everywhere even after I've maxed out my Majima everywhere rank; the frequency of random encounters; the cheapness of the AI during some battles and mini games; mahjong; the Otometal karaoke song and the car chase on legendary. Everything else was a blast, so much fun.
The world was dense, colourful and alive, the story was dramatic, emotional, logical and gripping. The Substory's were goofy, fun and a nice change of pace to the heaviness of the main story's plot.
The combat was fast, exciting and varied, Dragon style had to be my number one choice, it felt awesome mastering Tiger Drop to wreck opponents.
The achievements were fun to pursue, and although some were tough the majority of them felt achievable with enough effort; although asking me to get 250 on the Otometal karaoke song was unfair. It honestly felt like a complete brick wall to my progress, and although I did it I still feel like they should have only asked for 200.
Asking for 250 felt a little spiteful to the player, ultimately I don't suppose it matters since it wasn't enough to stop me beating the game and getting every achievement.
Overall I had a blast playing this game, good times. I can't wait to start the next one. Got the platinum for Zero, 1000g for Kiwami, and beat Yakuza 3 back on PS3. Next up is Kiwami 2, I can't wait. I love this series.
Though not quite yet, I think I'm going to need a few weeks away from Majima; not sure I'm ready to let him back into my life yet. I need a break lol.
Thanks Sega.
Happy gaming guys.

I've been playing Yakuza Kiwami right after finishing 0 and while I don't think its as strong of a title as its predecessor, I've been really enjoying it thus far. My favorite part of the game is Majima and his shenanigans. However, ever since chapter 3, he took a break smoking near the park when I hit rank E with a full bar.
My problem is that I've made it to Chapter 11, and Majima is STILL taking a break. No new lines of dialogue when I interact with him either. No E-mails from his bois, no pop-up signaling that he's back in action, there's just nothing. I've tried playing a variety of minigames and completing as many substories as I can to try and make him restart but nothing helps. He's just standing there, smoking, seemingly forever. Any solutions ?

So technically it isn't Yakuza, buuuuuuut it is made by the same people with a very similar style to the Yakuza series, and it features many of the Yakuza series voice actors if you play the Japanese dub, aaannndd there's a flair for it on this sub (obviously the most important criteria I know) so therefore, I'm reviewing it. Also, it'll be a change of pace from the bombardment of Yakuza 7 stuff (which I can't wait for release date please RGG studios)
So before we start, quick note. I don't know much about FOTNS. I haven't watched the show or read any of the manga, a majority of my knowledge comes from various miscellaneous clips on Youtube that looked kinda cool (some of which were, indeed, that one meme). Therefore, if anything I say is a bit inaccurate, or if anything is brought up in more depth in other forms of media, feel free to correct me. That being said, let's get started.
So first off, story. It's super simple, and I liked it for that. The motivation for our main protagonist, Kenshiro, is that he wants his girl back. Simple as simple gets. To achieve this, he heads towards the city of miracles- Eden- and the story unfurls from there. I was engaged with the story, in most part thanks to how likeable Ken was. Basically, for the uninitiated, he's an enormous hunk of masculine energy who gets his way by poking people until they explode in hilariously graphic ways, all while mumbling to himself with his absurdly gravely, masculine voice. Which is a clever way to quickly segue to this games dub.
So I played with the English dub, and this was for two reasons. One, it felt a bit weird to have Kiryu's VA talking over, well, not Kiryu (although I am planning a second playthrough using the Kiryu skin using the Japanese VA) and two, the English sub was honestly fine. Everyone's got a slightly goofy, toned up to 11 voice, but it works for the exaggerated feel of the source material. Xsana is super delicate yet has that commanding tone when necessary, Kenshiro is just DEEP, Lyra is seductive to hell and back, Jagre... is Jagre.
Alright back to the story. Again, I liked it, but there were a couple of problems when it came to advancing the story. Especially in the second half, so many sections just involve you wandering around talking to people. Two example stick out as really bad design. Firstly, chapter 8, when you're looking for Jagi. You go to these places, with Rei tagging along with you (quick side note, Ken and Rei were super cool and I wish there was more of their bromance) investigating where to find Jagi. You're told THREE TIMES to go back and wait for time to pass while Rei sits there twiddling his huge thumbs. What is the point? it became ridiculously tedious. Another awful section was chapter ten. You have to go and find the Sage of the Desert in order to track down the Army of Ruin. Let's bullet point how this goes...

• You go to look for the sage south of Eden. It's blocked. You go back to Eden.
• Bat gives you a rock smasher thingy on the front of your car to get through, but it needs repairs, so you drive back to where the path is blocked to pick up a bunch of shit that isn't challenging or engaging in the slightest. And then you drive back again...
• You fix the thing. And then you drive back again...
• You finally get to the Sage. He tells you he has no idea, but people in Eden might. Are you fucking kidding me? all of that just for another dull 'go and talk to people' section?!

It's a textbook example of AGL's- artificial game lengtheners; the only purpose of which is to drag the game out because it'd be too short otherwise.
Last point on story, the ending. It was pretty great. There were a lot of pretty surprising twists, although not all of them had satisfying conclusions. Basically, it turns out that Jagre and Lyra were working with Targa, the big baddy at this point, in order to get into Sphere City (which was a really cool location, btw). Targa has his own plans (world domination muhahahahahahahaha) but he gets Jagre and Lyra in his side with the prospect of revenge against Nadai, because Nadai killed Jagre and Lyra's parents years ago to protect the secret of Sphere City. Targa eventually asks Jagre to kill Xsana, but he can't because this big doofus developed a little crush on her, and he can't pull the trigger. Targa shoots Jagre, then Lyra, and then Nadai, basically his whole world domination plan unfurls and he's duped them all. It was an engaging scene, if anything because Targa's VA fucking killed it as the suave, flamboyant villain. It was a treat to watch him finally unleash his true potential.
So to talk about the bits that didn't make much sense, we have to get to the very ending. Ken beats Targa, the nukes go off but Sphere City's dome closes and shields the blast, presumably killing Ken and Yuria (whose reunion was super sweet, and it was nice to see Ken actually be tender for once). And then the post credits happened, and questions need to be asked.

1. So Jagre and Xsana seem to get together, or are at least super close friends (c'mon don't do my boy like that). How? I guess Jagre taking the bullet for her was meant to be super heroic and stuff, but he's conspired against your entire civilisation, and threatened to kill your father. Seems a bit of a stretch, but oh well.
2. Ken and Yuria get saved when Nadai pushes them into the Chamber of Miracles, saving them from the nukes. How do the nukes not obliterate everything in Sphere City? It's made a point that Sphere City powers Eden, and provides tons of clean water, how the hell do 6 super powered nukes going off not affect this?
3. The big one. So Yuria wakes up and delivers the cardinal sin of storytelling- "it was all a dream". I refuse to believe this is true, so here's some rationalising. She was knocked out during the explosion, Ken carried her out, drove her away, and she woke up dazed and confused. That's my head-canon at least. Ken's got a big ol' crate of fresh fruit he's delivering to that little town from the start (I believe) which also leads me to believe that Ken stopped off in Eden to grab some supplies, presumably out of good will for, y'know, not letting a nuclear holocaust happen again. If it actually turns out, either through the manga or anime, that this really was a dream, I'm going to be very sad.

So that's the story done with, let's move on to this game's strongest suit- combat. The combat might be some of the best the series has to offer, both dragon engine or otherwise. The main differences compared to Yakuza are that instead of building heat, you build up the 7 stars to charge up burst mode, this games equivalent to the EX heat mode of Yakuza 6, Kiwami 2, and Judgment. Secret techniques (heat moves, basically) don't use any type of resource and can be used indefinitely, assuming you've filled the parameters. Finally, after hitting enemies enough, you place them in Meridian shock, allowing you to do big damage (or insta-kill basic dudes), stun enemies, and unleash secret techniques. These factors allow the combat to maintain a distance from the usual Yakuza combat, while still feeling familiar to fans of the series.
Another big change is the sense of verticality in this game, which I'd argue is it's strongest feature. Being able to juggle enemies, and most importantly bosses, is unbelievably satisfying and can lead to some badass combos, especially when combined with some really fluid dodge cancels.
Buuuuttt, it is RGG studios. Combat isn't perfect, and there are some gripes I had with it. Firstly, big enemies. Not the giant dudes you fight in the coliseum, but the guys usually wielding some big hammer or something. They're not fun at all. No juggling, no nice combos, just walls you have to force your way through which slow down the pacing of the combat to a crawl. And they appear in almost every random encounter in Eden. Next, burst mode. Burst mode allows you to jump super high and do special attacks, ranging from AOE's to more direct hits. The tracking on these direct hits is, well, hit or miss (mostly miss). They're super inconsistent to land, and even when locked on you end up flying past people and wasting valuable burst mode time. Finally, hard knock-downs. This is when you have to mash X to stand up from taking damage. There's so damn many in this game, especially in huge group fights that it becomes kinda laborious. Even with the skill to recover quickly from them, that's only if you get knocked flying away, and not counting various other instances (like when Ken kinda pirouettes and lands face first).
OK, last but not least, side content. It was great! There was a surprising amount of variety compared to the Yakuza series, with some old favourites tossed in for good measure. Baseball is now replaced by swatting away motorcycle driving bandits, which is great. Karaoke is replaced by a rhythm mini game at the clinic, which is pretty goofy and fun. You get to be a barkeep, which works two fold. Not only do you get to learn more about the citizens of Eden, but you get to unlock more items from shops by serving shopkeepers, which is an engaging and satisfying way of earning goodies. The coliseum is back, and you can re-match reskinned bosses, which is super cool. The cabaret is back, but rather than just rinse and repeating the same (although admittedly stellar formula) of Yakuza 0 and Kiwami 2, they mix things up a bit, with only 4 tables, an ability for 2 hostesses per table, a greater emphasis on special abilities, and cleaning up trouble, it was a refreshing take on a really fun mini game.
Substories really played on what makes Yakuza's, especially Kiryu's, substories so great. Ken is a badass, he hits things, they explode. So when you take this character and put them into various quirky situations, it makes for enjoyable side content that really develops Ken's character. Sometimes he's a slightly awkward goof, sometimes he's put in tender and emotional situations, sometimes he's playing hide and seek with random kids. Of course, some substories do fall into the category of 'something went wrong, punch dudes, problem solved' but for the most part, they were enjoyable.
Now, not all of it was perfect. I wasn't at all bothered by racing, mostly because the car physics in this game are, to put it politely, fucking horrendous. This criticism is two-fold, not only for the car physics, but by extension the exploration of the wasteland, and why it wasn't very fun. The car physics are dreadful, if you bounce off of any sloped surface you jerk around, turning is so slippery it makes GTA IV look tame, boosting over a hilly surface, I kid you not, has the same physics as fucking Big Rigs Over the Road Racing (and if you don't understand what I'm referring too ,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCW1QaOH1Y8 ,enjoy) By that I mean, you don't actually bounce around the hills, you just stick to them awkwardly and it looks dreadful. If I have to compare your game to BIG RIGS OVER THE ROAD RACING you've fucked it up majorly. Therefore, when you're forced to drive around the wasteland for various menial tasks, it leaves a real sour taste in your mouth. I really didn't enjoy these sections at all.
And I think that about does it. Overall, a great game with a simple yet engaging story, satisfying combat and great time wasters, that is only occasionally let down by tedious, janky gameplay sections. As always, if you made it this far (without skipping to the end) well done. I swear these get longer each time...

This isn’t exactly what I would call a guide but its just how I did it. If you play crazy like I do, I hope this helps. Going to be TLTR but if you’re curious feel free to read. Otherwise don’t because its just how I did it, can’t exactly call it a guide X’D
I play it on Hard Difficulty like I do in every game and I have the habit of finishing everything in one playthrough instead of going to Premium Adventures to finish up. So I cleared it with equipment and weapons that you can obtain as you play and not the special weapons in Premium Adventures, which all of the guides I see for the Amon Missions do.
I finished it all in Chapter 14 and what you must have is definitely Extreme Heat Mode because it grants you invincibility for as long as your Heat lasts. Then have your Boost Heat Action skill Maxed, Heat Gauge Maxed, and other Stats at preferably 160-180 at least (thats what I had when I did it) but of course if you have it Maxed thats recommended. Also, remember to go to Kamiyama and buy the Weapon Mastery Scroll, Weapon Mastery grants you infinite use of your weapons as long as you sheath and unsheath before they break. Extremely useful. Before I go into each one I will take alcohol as well, a bottle of kakubin or sake to make it easier to fill up your heat.
Equipments I used:
Sacred Wood Armor (not the replica) from Sex Starves Samurai Bouncer Mission
Heavenly Beasts Bracelet - unfortunately I don’t remember which Substory I got it from, but it was one where you get other bracelets as well
Payback Ring - this I recommend you to get if you can, obtained from the coliseum
Weapons I used:
Get every type of weapons, each with different types of Heat Actions. These will make a huge difference when dealing with the Amon Brothers. Each time you used a weapon Heat on the Amons, switch and repeat until they die. Try not to repeat the same heat actions on them because they become immune to it after once. I had 11 different weapon heat actions when I did mine. Also, one of the most useful heat actions is during Extreme Heat Mode, land your triangle kick attack heat action. It deals a lot of damage to them.
Demon Blade Muramasa - When you complete A Noxious Smell bouncer mission, you’ll get the Kiwami Demon Blade. Immediately break it and get it repaired, this is a very strong weapon as it has a base damage of 96 and its attacks cannot be blocked. I used this weapon for all of the Amon missions as it helps clear crowds and bosses very quickly with its normal attack damage.
Iron Spear - If you have this, bring it along. It can help you clear crowds with its O button attack which helps sometimes.
Rocket Launcher is optional, I brought it in for the fun of it cause it just blows small crowds away each shot and with the Weapon Mastery skill I could do this as much as I want lol
Between a Rock Hard and Place (all difficulties)
For this I went in straightaway with the Muramasa and cut down every one, first part fat tanky boys, watch for their jumping slam. The next part I used the iron spear to fill up my gauge and takedown the mobs, prioritize the 2 bosses first because with heat actions they go down very quickly. Then the final Amon part with 3 bosses including Amon, I immediately went into Extreme Heat Mode and prioritized the 2 gunners at the end, they can kill you without you realizing on Legend mode. Leave the 2 fat ones to fill your heat when it runs out, cause you will need it with the amount of heat actions you’ll use. 3 slashes with the Muramasa will immediately fill it to the max, least for me it did. Normal took me couple of tries, Hard took me once, and Legend I had to do it around 4-5 because I messed up at the end with the gunners.
Eternal Twilight
This one I honest believe is the easiest one, the enemies are well spreadout and I made use of the signboards for crowd clearing as it does a lot of damage. The ninjas in the first part weren’t too much of an issue because the Ninja boss general dies in 3-4 heat actions, and you can cut him down very easily with Muramasa. He dodges a lot but once you land a hit, he is gone. Watch for the spearman, they deal the most on Legend in this part. The next part you come across a crowd with 2 bosses, as always Extreme Heat Mode and Heat actions for the bosses, then after they are dealt with I used the signboards, spear and Muramasa to deal with the remaining mobs. After that, it gets easier, one boss easy to take down with Heat, and couple of signboards to deal with the crowd. When you reach Jiro, he only has 2 fat boys with him. I went straight into Extreme Heat Mode and continuously slashing him with Muramasa after using my Heat Actions to take him down, or you can try to throw him off the bridge for less hassle. This only took me one try for each difficulty.
Pandemonium
This one is the most annoying because of the army you need to deal with but once you clear its Normal, you receive the War God Talisman which will help you a lot with the Auto Heat Recharge meaning you can constantly go into Extreme Heat Mode. I made use of the Rocket Launcher and the Spear a lot to clear the crowd because their health in the starting parts are quite low and easy to takedown. In Legend, the first part mobs are easy to deal with as well with AoE attacks but try not to get hit as much as possible by running away from the crowd and once they are crowded in one spot on the map swing your spear or use the launcher, thats what I did. After clearing a wave or two, they get tankier and gunners will appear. My first go I went down here because I didn’t pay attention to the gunners, so I prioritized them after and repeated the same as I did for the rest. When the crowd got smaller, I used Muramasa for everyone else.
After that comes the hardest parts, Amon waves. The main issue I found was trying to aim my heat actions on the Amons because the crowds stick onto you like glue and I end up hitting the wrong person sometimes. So what I did was go crazy, always stay in Extreme Heat Mode whenever you can and charge it up the moment it runs out, and ran stright into the crowds towards Amon and used every Heat Action I could. After Kazuya, Jiro appears and he was the easiest but also trickiest to deal with. Easy because he is always away behind from the crowds which makes him easy to hit, tricky because of his submachine gun that could kill you without realizing out of Extreme Heat Mode. Make use of the sign wall thing and run around when you need to use the mobs to charge up and avoid his shots. Once you get back into Extreme Heat Mode, go straight for him and take him down.
If you take Kazuya and/or Jiro down fast enough, you’ll have some time before each of the Amons appear giving you time to clear some of the crowds and charge up your heat. I immediately go out of Extreme Heat once the Amons are down to quickly recharge, and most of the time my health is on 1 HP thanks to Extreme Heat Mode so if you end up in that situation, its normal I would say. Honestly the most stressful and thrilling experience I’ll ever get in Yakuza. Sango is only hard because he moves fast and sticks on to you when I had to fill up my Heat, otherwise he isn’t much of an issue as long as you don’t get hit by the rockets.
Once you have the War God Talisman, you will feel a huge weight lifted off your shoulders, for me it did, because I didn’t have to worry about running out of Extreme Mode anymore. Muramasa is your best friend, its my best friend for all of these Amon missions. Because a lot of times I had to stay in front of them to cut them down once my Heat Actions are out and they are near death. This took me 7-8 times on normal, 4 times on Hard and 4-5 times on Legend. Completing all these Amon missions took me about 2-4 hours straight, cause I spent a lot of time.... screaming and raging.
Well if you read all the way I hope you found it interesting/helpful if you want to use it as tips.