There’s been some great news, and I’m here to share it with you. Yakuza Kiwami 3 (and its bonus add-in game, Dark Ties) is prepping for its February release by doling out info about some of the new features RGG Studio is baking into the game. There are new minigames, a new market, something called “Drink Links,” and various good deeds for Kazuma Kiryu and Yoshitaka Mine to get involved in.
Absolutely none of which is the great news I mentioned. The great news is that one of the new features is called “Daddy Rank,” which means I get to write the words Daddy Rank like a hundred times in this article and no one can reasonably stop me [it’s true, we can’t – Ed.]. Daddy Rank.
What’s Daddy Rank? You might think it’s something that Kiryu has maxed out just, like, intrinsically, but it is in fact “a rank that represents Kiryu’s growth as a caretaker” at the orphanage he runs in Kiwami 3, like the real bastard organised criminal he is.
“Lacking experience in housekeeping, Kiryu will improve his skills and learn a wider range of recipes, cooking dishes that kids request to unlock heartwarming new stories.” You won’t get this kind of action in GTA 6.
As much as I enjoy saying Daddy Rank, all of the Kiryu-focused features Sega announced today pertain to his role as caretaker at the Morning Glory orphanage, which is pretty sweet. There are new minigames—sewing, competitive bug-catching, cooking, “homework,” that kind of thing—and a market at which to sell the products of your labours. Again, this is a game about crime.
As for Dark Ties, it sounds like Mine will spend most of his time doing PR for Tsuyoshi Kanda, either through (what sound like) Yakuza-style side-stories you’re already familiar with, to the aforementioned Drink Links, where it sounds like Kanda will take you to a brothel so you can… hang out in the waiting room. Your efforts will raise Kanda’s image in the eyes of the public, from its starting point of “Actually trash” to its highest rank of “Actually god.” Quoth Sega, you may even end up “changing him as a person.”
But I’m mostly just excited to say Daddy Rank a load more times.
