Maverick saved up 99 Toughness Infinities before starting Legend Difficulty instead of looking up the answer to this question first.
The Short Answer
Yakuza Kiwami’s Legend Difficulty is not that much more difficult than even the normal difficulty. Enemies are not THAT much harder and you can use consumables to circumvent the downside of no continues. The shootout scene is very frustrating, however, especially since you need to restart the whole chapter if you lose. You may want to bookmark our tips for that part.
The (Slightly) Longer Answer
You unlock Legend Difficulty by completing the game on another difficulty. After this, you’ll have the option to either start from that save or start fresh. Starting fresh means you will lose all money, items and techniques, while continuing from your save well… doesn’t.
Let’s briefly discuss both options.
Continuing on Legend Difficulty From an Existing Save
Since you get to keep all your techniques, passive stats and items, you’ll have a fairly easy time here with some preparation. You can even stock up on some consumables from the casino. Toughness Infinity is overkill, so I would go for the cheaper Staminan Royale. This gives you an “oh shit” button, which is handy since you need to reload if you lose. No continues on Legend Difficulty!
Enemies are roughly 2 chapters ahead of their normal mode counterparts. That means you’ll have a chapter 13 Kiryu taking on chapter 3 enemies near the start. Because of this, you’ll cruise through the early chapters. Enemies start to sting a bit around chapter 6 and start to feel comparable to endgame normal mode around chapter 10. Nothing that is too hard to handle, at least until you get to the shootout (see later).
For an even smoother time, you can take on the Climax Battles before starting Legend Difficulty. This will allow you to pick up the War God Talisman from Bob Utsunomiya (the clown) in your New Game+. Equipping the War God Talisman continuously regenerates your Heat.
Starting Legend Difficulty From a Fresh Save
Similar to starting Legend Difficulty from an existing save, enemies will start with around chapter 3 strength. This time, however, your Kiryu will have chapter 1 stats. To top it off, you have no items and no means to gather them. This ironically makes the earlier chapters of Legend the trickier ones (again, until the shootout).
Still, with your experience from your first playthrough, you should be fine. Just make sure to save regularly, since losing means game over with no option to continue (but reloads are allowed). You’re the type of player who enjoys a challenge or you would not be considering starting Legend from scratch. Players of that caliber can handle enemies of Legend Difficulty without too much trouble.
Why Does the Shootout Cause That Many Issues in Legend Difficulty?
Because both Kiryu and Date’s car are a lot squishier on Legend difficulty. Maxing out Kiryu’s stats does not even help, so there’s not even a difference between starting from scratch and an existing save.
To top it all off, losing it means starting the chapter all over again. Travel cutscenes, scenery cutscenes, restaurant cutscene, storming Lau Ka Long’s base, Lau Ka Long’s cutscene, driving cutscenes and only then the actual shootout. The only small part you can skip by loading the autosave rather than your latest manual save is talking to Date in the park at the very end of the previous chapter.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that the shootout scene has halted some players’ progress towards Platinuming Yakuza Kiwami. If you already struggled with this part on Normal, you may want to think twice about starting Legend. If you did okay on Normal mode, then you’ll also be okay on Legend. You’ll need a lot of patience, however, as it’s likely it will take you quite a few tries. This is a good time to remind you once more that we have a tips section for this part.