It never ceases to amaze me how big this series got.
My familiarity with Yakuza/Like a Dragon began back in like 2010/2011 when I got Yakuza 4 for $10 from a Walmart Black Friday sale (I have no idea what my random small town Walmart was doing selling Yakuza 4 but I digress). It's in the middle of Kiryu's story so there was a lot I didn't understand, but I fell in love basically immediately. The soap opera drama, the beautiful cutscenes, and that immersion! The tourism porn drew me in immediately, and like 12 years later it hasn't let go.
But the Yakuza series was different then. After I played 4, I played 3 and Dead Souls, and I was one of a small but vocal group of fans who was asking for Yakuza 5 -- the largest game in the series yet -- to come West. I wanted it so bad I considered learning Japanese for it.
Yakuza 5 did come west on PS3, but it was digital only, 3 years late (I believe late 2015), and only happened because Sony helped foot the bill if I remember right. It made me very happy, even though now I think Yakuza 5 is maybe my least favorite in the series.
A year or two after that, Yakuza 0 came out and the world was ready for Kiryu Kazuma. Since then, Yakuza has grown to the point where it is probably SEGA's biggest game franchise, it's getting full English voice acting (not that I'm using it, lol), and it has even switched its English series name to Like a Dragon -- the series' name overseas.
It got so big that we now have Like a Dragon: Ishin!, a new gen remaster of the 2014 PS3/PS4 game that was Japan only. It got localized, a few tweaks, and a fresh coat of paint, and now we're playing it.
Playing it now, I see why it was never localized. It's a LaD-style retelling of a specific time in 19th century Japan. It uses real historical characters to tell a story that doesn't really explain what all the terminology means and the intricacies between the military and imperial government in Japan from a century and a half ago.
It's a little confusing at first, but if you pay attention and use the glossary, it's not too hard to get caught up by the halfway point in the game or even earlier. The story is excellent, touching on themes of Japanese nationalism and the human cost to one's politically-motivated actions, and a few of the beats are high points for the series.
The combat is weird and took some getting used to, but I grew to like it as well. As opposed to the fists-and-bikes style of old Yakuza games, this one has you swinging swords and shooting guns in a handful of different combat styles. Once you unlock the skill tree and do some of the side content to expand your arsenal, the game gives a lot back.
Speaking of, the exploration and side content is great. Yakuza open world immersion at its finest, and despite some great drama I think this might be one of the funnier one of these I've played. If you want to walk around and chill out, you can do it; if you want to feed a sumo or race chickens, you can do it; if you want to befriend a worker at a brothel with some of the strangest minigames I've seen yet, hey, it's there. And of course, if you want to exploit a major side mode for 10 hours in order to get all the resources you'll ever need, you can do that too. All the beats are here.
So yeah, it's top tier Yakuza (I need to learn to start saying Like a Dragon, oh well). It's pretty easy on Normal and fairly annoying on hard, so I just kept it on Normal. I never went after Amon before, I may do that here.
Anyway I think this series is my favorite game ever.
My familiarity with Yakuza/Like a Dragon began back in like 2010/2011 when I got Yakuza 4 for $10 from a Walmart Black Friday sale (I have no idea what my random small town Walmart was doing selling Yakuza 4 but I digress). It's in the middle of Kiryu's story so there was a lot I didn't understand, but I fell in love basically immediately. The soap opera drama, the beautiful cutscenes, and that immersion! The tourism porn drew me in immediately, and like 12 years later it hasn't let go.
But the Yakuza series was different then. After I played 4, I played 3 and Dead Souls, and I was one of a small but vocal group of fans who was asking for Yakuza 5 -- the largest game in the series yet -- to come West. I wanted it so bad I considered learning Japanese for it.
Yakuza 5 did come west on PS3, but it was digital only, 3 years late (I believe late 2015), and only happened because Sony helped foot the bill if I remember right. It made me very happy, even though now I think Yakuza 5 is maybe my least favorite in the series.
A year or two after that, Yakuza 0 came out and the world was ready for Kiryu Kazuma. Since then, Yakuza has grown to the point where it is probably SEGA's biggest game franchise, it's getting full English voice acting (not that I'm using it, lol), and it has even switched its English series name to Like a Dragon -- the series' name overseas.
It got so big that we now have Like a Dragon: Ishin!, a new gen remaster of the 2014 PS3/PS4 game that was Japan only. It got localized, a few tweaks, and a fresh coat of paint, and now we're playing it.
Playing it now, I see why it was never localized. It's a LaD-style retelling of a specific time in 19th century Japan. It uses real historical characters to tell a story that doesn't really explain what all the terminology means and the intricacies between the military and imperial government in Japan from a century and a half ago.
It's a little confusing at first, but if you pay attention and use the glossary, it's not too hard to get caught up by the halfway point in the game or even earlier. The story is excellent, touching on themes of Japanese nationalism and the human cost to one's politically-motivated actions, and a few of the beats are high points for the series.
The combat is weird and took some getting used to, but I grew to like it as well. As opposed to the fists-and-bikes style of old Yakuza games, this one has you swinging swords and shooting guns in a handful of different combat styles. Once you unlock the skill tree and do some of the side content to expand your arsenal, the game gives a lot back.
Speaking of, the exploration and side content is great. Yakuza open world immersion at its finest, and despite some great drama I think this might be one of the funnier one of these I've played. If you want to walk around and chill out, you can do it; if you want to feed a sumo or race chickens, you can do it; if you want to befriend a worker at a brothel with some of the strangest minigames I've seen yet, hey, it's there. And of course, if you want to exploit a major side mode for 10 hours in order to get all the resources you'll ever need, you can do that too. All the beats are here.
So yeah, it's top tier Yakuza (I need to learn to start saying Like a Dragon, oh well). It's pretty easy on Normal and fairly annoying on hard, so I just kept it on Normal. I never went after Amon before, I may do that here.
Anyway I think this series is my favorite game ever.
Finished in 2023
Let me just start by saying that I very much enjoyed this game. I’m very glad they decided on a western release. Honestly a great stand-alone game and one of the more fulfilling endings in the franchise.
However the grind in this game is anything but fun. Having played through the series i’m used to quite a bit of it but this game takes the cake. The substories weren’t as memorable as the ones in the main series either. I felt like both of these take away from the overall rating. Settling for 3,5 stars now.
Let me just start by saying that I very much enjoyed this game. I’m very glad they decided on a western release. Honestly a great stand-alone game and one of the more fulfilling endings in the franchise.
However the grind in this game is anything but fun. Having played through the series i’m used to quite a bit of it but this game takes the cake. The substories weren’t as memorable as the ones in the main series either. I felt like both of these take away from the overall rating. Settling for 3,5 stars now.
I’m not even gonna lie, I was so hyped for this game, but I really think overall this was such a mid experience. It literally took me like 45 hours (chapter 10) to realize that this game wasn’t fun.
There were some really awesome moments and it was so sweet seeing old faces like Mine and Nishiki again but that alone isn’t enough to make up for how annoying the combat was and how boring the story was…
Also man oh man changing some important character models to people from Yakuza 0 and 7 was such a lame move. This game made me feel sour towards the series for some reason… which is awful because I LOVE this franchise. I think it’s just because I went in with high expectations… but I hope my love will explode (in the good way) again once I play Lost Judgment, and hopefully whenever Yakuza Gaiden and Yakuza 8 come out.
Also hearing “For Whose Sake” in the game made me cry real bad
There were some really awesome moments and it was so sweet seeing old faces like Mine and Nishiki again but that alone isn’t enough to make up for how annoying the combat was and how boring the story was…
Also man oh man changing some important character models to people from Yakuza 0 and 7 was such a lame move. This game made me feel sour towards the series for some reason… which is awful because I LOVE this franchise. I think it’s just because I went in with high expectations… but I hope my love will explode (in the good way) again once I play Lost Judgment, and hopefully whenever Yakuza Gaiden and Yakuza 8 come out.
Also hearing “For Whose Sake” in the game made me cry real bad
Old Gold
First, Ishin (Known in Japan as Ishin Kiwami) is a remake of an exclusive game to Japan released at the end of the PS3 life cycle and the start of the PS4. It's still a PS3 game in it's DNA nonetheless. This new release aimed both to be released in the west and gave the original a new coat of paint, while still retaining the everything from the original game and adding some extra content.
Personally, I only played little of the original game since it's in Japanese. Tried to find a guide that translated the text to english like I did in Kenzan. No luck, only the cutscenes were translated. A year after, a sort of remake was announced in a State of Play presentation. I was really happy that day.
Having said this let's start with Ishin itself. The first thing it struck to me were the return of familiar faces, literally. The original Ishin for PS3 as far as I know used a mix of new face models for the occasion and fairly old model from past games, specially Yakuza 5. The decision to face swap the character was odd, but a welcome one and most of the characters that were changed do fit the personality of the original, but unlike the Yakuza 0 cast they don't shine as bright. It is more remarkable knowing in the original those characters didn't flesh out much of them to begin with, only serving for the one purpose they were given. This feeling made me expect something way more of them, but it didn't deliver at their full potential. It's like trying to fit something, but it doesn't because it's too big.
The story itself is interesting, while not being something wildly different from past games. In fact, the main premise of changing our identity to hide our past and search for an impostor of ours is directly taken from Kenzan. It has major pacing problems towards the end making it oddly enough longer that it has any rights to be. For example, the town were Ishin takes place gets burned to ashes just to be rebuilded in a couple of days. It was cool for a setpiece, but it didn't had any major consequences whatsoever. Liked the decision of Okita (Majima) as an ally rather than a rival and some of the characters of the shinsengumi, either allies or foes. If you ever played a Yakuza game, either Y1 or Y7 you'll now how things will roll throughout the story. While playing I was trying to spot a differences in some characters to see how they differ from their original counterparts. Kiryu now kills people for example, so they are not totally the same characters as before and that was refreshing to see.
I didn't like much of what of the gameplay offered me. We have 4 styles to play: Swordman, Gunman, Wild Dancer and Brawler. In a sword battle you won't be throwing hands like crazy making Brawler pretty useless because of it's minimun range capabilities. Wild Dancer and Swordplay were the most useful ones to level up and combat. The light RPG system is what ruined the combat for me, is the difference that makes this game easier or harder outside of the difficulty you selected in the menu screen. It trades the mostly skill based combat of past games with something much more approcheable. While there is still skill necessary to tackle the bosses in this game, normal battles against a group of enemies are either more harder than it needs to be or easier thanks to the Wild Dancer. Mainly because the enemies don't lost their stability as often as past games and are prone to make those combats much more of a headache that has any rights to be. Wild Dancer Style is perfect for this since it's fast, covers a lot of space and while it doesn't do much damage is perfect for crowd control. Braindead easy, or overly hard. Boss battles are great in my opinion while using the Swordman style, it is the optimal way to beat them. They are a good fun challenge to tackle.
The Trooper Cards is an addition that I didn't mind throughout the game. It was simply there and forced more than anything. It could've served to alliviate the pain that is getting through the dungeons and meaningless task, but they are present in the main adventure. Wish they weren't or at least be optional, they take a decent portion of the screen and do very little to shake up the gameplay itself.
Alongside the RPG elements there is crafting. Never really used it outside upgrading some of my equipment since crafting weapons is expensive and you're required to have really specific materials, found mostly in dungeons. Bosses in this game throw some weapons; from sword to guns that are really powerful and do an exaggerated amount of damage, for free. I'd say crafting more than anything, is optional content.
Side content, as any RGG game is prevelant and very extensive. The Substories, a farming-type minigame, dungeons to gather material, the trooper card system and lots of extra content to be completed. It's been a tradition at this point so I'm not totally crazy about it and is something that rather than be surprised it's there, is something that I was expecting. The Dungeons are really big, well dungeons that help gathering materials for the blacksmith to create better equipment. But as I said, it would be hard to convince someone to do these dungeons if the rewards ain't that big for the time wasted on them. They are really long, or at least the one I tried. If crafting isn't so effective then why would you do the dungeons at the end of the day. Something like an arena full of enemies and a boss at the end would have worked way better to level up the character. Lastly we have "Another Life" with Haruka. This time she isn't a major character that directly affects the story unlike past games or Kenzan and is only relegated here. There are a couple of exclusive minigames in her house like cooking and farming. Decent time killers.
Exploration is big and inmerssive in this game. Like Kenzan you can go on narrow paths with very close camera angles that are nothing but nature, it's refreshing to escape from the big crowded Kyoto once in a while. Kyoto itself is really big and a bit hard to navigate. At first I didn't knew where Haruka's home on the map was since you can only go on boat and I totally forgot that, oops.
As for my experience, I did play this game on Hard since in my personal opinion Yakuza games are fairly easy as long as you have medicines equiped. But I found this game to be fairly challenging and the difficulty curve was well adjusted. From Chapter 10 to the final chapter there is a big spike in difficulty, some long battles felt like I was running towards the end of the game by how spectacular and difficult they were, the very last stage felt underwhealming because of it.
Technically speaking the game looks great overall and everything runs at stable 60fps but the cutscenes. Going from a 60fps gameplay to the CGI cutscenes running at 30fps was jarring but once I got use to it I didn't really mind the change. As much as it looks good it uses Unreal Engine 4, and the textures takes sometime to load. It's most notable on cutscenes and close-ups. The menu has really slow animations, in fact the sound that is used while pressing a button is faster than the transition itself. Selct Inventory > Exit the Inventory Screen, pressed B a total of 4 times and the menu was still loading, you can test it yourself. It might had to do with animations more than anything, the old games had faster and snappy ones.
It is a fun time at the end of the day like any Yakuza game. I'd recommend this game to the fans of the series either are sick of Kamurocho or want can't wait for Kenzan to be localized.
First, Ishin (Known in Japan as Ishin Kiwami) is a remake of an exclusive game to Japan released at the end of the PS3 life cycle and the start of the PS4. It's still a PS3 game in it's DNA nonetheless. This new release aimed both to be released in the west and gave the original a new coat of paint, while still retaining the everything from the original game and adding some extra content.
Personally, I only played little of the original game since it's in Japanese. Tried to find a guide that translated the text to english like I did in Kenzan. No luck, only the cutscenes were translated. A year after, a sort of remake was announced in a State of Play presentation. I was really happy that day.
Having said this let's start with Ishin itself. The first thing it struck to me were the return of familiar faces, literally. The original Ishin for PS3 as far as I know used a mix of new face models for the occasion and fairly old model from past games, specially Yakuza 5. The decision to face swap the character was odd, but a welcome one and most of the characters that were changed do fit the personality of the original, but unlike the Yakuza 0 cast they don't shine as bright. It is more remarkable knowing in the original those characters didn't flesh out much of them to begin with, only serving for the one purpose they were given. This feeling made me expect something way more of them, but it didn't deliver at their full potential. It's like trying to fit something, but it doesn't because it's too big.
The story itself is interesting, while not being something wildly different from past games. In fact, the main premise of changing our identity to hide our past and search for an impostor of ours is directly taken from Kenzan. It has major pacing problems towards the end making it oddly enough longer that it has any rights to be. For example, the town were Ishin takes place gets burned to ashes just to be rebuilded in a couple of days. It was cool for a setpiece, but it didn't had any major consequences whatsoever. Liked the decision of Okita (Majima) as an ally rather than a rival and some of the characters of the shinsengumi, either allies or foes. If you ever played a Yakuza game, either Y1 or Y7 you'll now how things will roll throughout the story. While playing I was trying to spot a differences in some characters to see how they differ from their original counterparts. Kiryu now kills people for example, so they are not totally the same characters as before and that was refreshing to see.
I didn't like much of what of the gameplay offered me. We have 4 styles to play: Swordman, Gunman, Wild Dancer and Brawler. In a sword battle you won't be throwing hands like crazy making Brawler pretty useless because of it's minimun range capabilities. Wild Dancer and Swordplay were the most useful ones to level up and combat. The light RPG system is what ruined the combat for me, is the difference that makes this game easier or harder outside of the difficulty you selected in the menu screen. It trades the mostly skill based combat of past games with something much more approcheable. While there is still skill necessary to tackle the bosses in this game, normal battles against a group of enemies are either more harder than it needs to be or easier thanks to the Wild Dancer. Mainly because the enemies don't lost their stability as often as past games and are prone to make those combats much more of a headache that has any rights to be. Wild Dancer Style is perfect for this since it's fast, covers a lot of space and while it doesn't do much damage is perfect for crowd control. Braindead easy, or overly hard. Boss battles are great in my opinion while using the Swordman style, it is the optimal way to beat them. They are a good fun challenge to tackle.
The Trooper Cards is an addition that I didn't mind throughout the game. It was simply there and forced more than anything. It could've served to alliviate the pain that is getting through the dungeons and meaningless task, but they are present in the main adventure. Wish they weren't or at least be optional, they take a decent portion of the screen and do very little to shake up the gameplay itself.
Alongside the RPG elements there is crafting. Never really used it outside upgrading some of my equipment since crafting weapons is expensive and you're required to have really specific materials, found mostly in dungeons. Bosses in this game throw some weapons; from sword to guns that are really powerful and do an exaggerated amount of damage, for free. I'd say crafting more than anything, is optional content.
Side content, as any RGG game is prevelant and very extensive. The Substories, a farming-type minigame, dungeons to gather material, the trooper card system and lots of extra content to be completed. It's been a tradition at this point so I'm not totally crazy about it and is something that rather than be surprised it's there, is something that I was expecting. The Dungeons are really big, well dungeons that help gathering materials for the blacksmith to create better equipment. But as I said, it would be hard to convince someone to do these dungeons if the rewards ain't that big for the time wasted on them. They are really long, or at least the one I tried. If crafting isn't so effective then why would you do the dungeons at the end of the day. Something like an arena full of enemies and a boss at the end would have worked way better to level up the character. Lastly we have "Another Life" with Haruka. This time she isn't a major character that directly affects the story unlike past games or Kenzan and is only relegated here. There are a couple of exclusive minigames in her house like cooking and farming. Decent time killers.
Exploration is big and inmerssive in this game. Like Kenzan you can go on narrow paths with very close camera angles that are nothing but nature, it's refreshing to escape from the big crowded Kyoto once in a while. Kyoto itself is really big and a bit hard to navigate. At first I didn't knew where Haruka's home on the map was since you can only go on boat and I totally forgot that, oops.
As for my experience, I did play this game on Hard since in my personal opinion Yakuza games are fairly easy as long as you have medicines equiped. But I found this game to be fairly challenging and the difficulty curve was well adjusted. From Chapter 10 to the final chapter there is a big spike in difficulty, some long battles felt like I was running towards the end of the game by how spectacular and difficult they were, the very last stage felt underwhealming because of it.
Technically speaking the game looks great overall and everything runs at stable 60fps but the cutscenes. Going from a 60fps gameplay to the CGI cutscenes running at 30fps was jarring but once I got use to it I didn't really mind the change. As much as it looks good it uses Unreal Engine 4, and the textures takes sometime to load. It's most notable on cutscenes and close-ups. The menu has really slow animations, in fact the sound that is used while pressing a button is faster than the transition itself. Selct Inventory > Exit the Inventory Screen, pressed B a total of 4 times and the menu was still loading, you can test it yourself. It might had to do with animations more than anything, the old games had faster and snappy ones.
It is a fun time at the end of the day like any Yakuza game. I'd recommend this game to the fans of the series either are sick of Kamurocho or want can't wait for Kenzan to be localized.
Glad this finally came to the west after so many years. I loved it at the beginning and slowly got bored of it but then the story picked up again at the end. Loved seeing characters like Mine and Ryuji return. The combat is very fun but extremely unbalanced with some styles being OP and others being useless and doing no damage. The game is also very grindy, I think I had to grind more in this than in 7 which I did not expect going into it. Overall, a fun but flawed experience which can get boring at times due to the poor pacing, but is worth seeing it through the end.
This game is like among us but Yakuza.
Another great yakuza title! It's just more of the same and I like it that way, the main difference in this game is the setting which reminds me of those Simpsons episodes where they tell a story, and each of the characters in the story is represented by Simpsons characters even though it's a totally different setting, this game does the same but in the 1800s of Japan.
Another big difference in this game is that it's mostly just melee focused since your main weapon is a katana with no durability effect on it, they cannot break. They also give you a gun and the ability to play with the classic brawl weaponless controls though it is not really recommended in this game.
Overall I think this is the most fun I've had with a Yakuza game combat system, but I also think this game is the toughest. In the late game, I've experienced a lot of really annoying enemies which really drain your health, and the same for the bosses they really love stunning you and spamming combos at you and I think it can get fairly frustrating, I've never really had an issue with Yakuza difficulty in any game other than Ishin and 3.
I have not bothered with the 100% completion because it's always a drag in yakuza games but from what I've seen it seems like it has the most fun side content of all Yakuza games, maybe not as fun as 0 though.
Same ups and same downs as usual, it's another yakuza game!
Yakuza games always have moments where they really dump a lot of information at you and it's honestly boring and overwhelming I always thought of this as a flaw but it might just be me not being patient enough. I never really took yakuza games story that seriously so sometimes being forced to listen to discussions about clans, family, and a bunch of Japanese names which I always have trouble remembering I think it can get a bit boring, but that's a personal feeling, not a negative point.
Samurai Ondo is the best karaoke song.
Another great yakuza title! It's just more of the same and I like it that way, the main difference in this game is the setting which reminds me of those Simpsons episodes where they tell a story, and each of the characters in the story is represented by Simpsons characters even though it's a totally different setting, this game does the same but in the 1800s of Japan.
Another big difference in this game is that it's mostly just melee focused since your main weapon is a katana with no durability effect on it, they cannot break. They also give you a gun and the ability to play with the classic brawl weaponless controls though it is not really recommended in this game.
Overall I think this is the most fun I've had with a Yakuza game combat system, but I also think this game is the toughest. In the late game, I've experienced a lot of really annoying enemies which really drain your health, and the same for the bosses they really love stunning you and spamming combos at you and I think it can get fairly frustrating, I've never really had an issue with Yakuza difficulty in any game other than Ishin and 3.
I have not bothered with the 100% completion because it's always a drag in yakuza games but from what I've seen it seems like it has the most fun side content of all Yakuza games, maybe not as fun as 0 though.
Same ups and same downs as usual, it's another yakuza game!
Yakuza games always have moments where they really dump a lot of information at you and it's honestly boring and overwhelming I always thought of this as a flaw but it might just be me not being patient enough. I never really took yakuza games story that seriously so sometimes being forced to listen to discussions about clans, family, and a bunch of Japanese names which I always have trouble remembering I think it can get a bit boring, but that's a personal feeling, not a negative point.
Samurai Ondo is the best karaoke song.
Having UE4 visuals with janky ass PS3 RGG enemy design is a lil funny
While I understand why people didn't like this game (lots of hype is nigh impossible to live up to), I personally really enjoyed it!
I had a lot of fun with all the fighting styles (even brawler...which I tried my best to utilize despite the damage output being equivalent to a feather gently floating into your bullet proof shoulder) and since I never played the original, I don't care that wild dancer used to be better lol
I do lament baba not being around anymore, as well as some of the unique combat themes being swapped out but overall I had a loooooot of fun with the character swaps. Ryoma is.... hoo.... you thought kiryu was attractive? Hoo buddy.
Okita too...........
Anyways. I did a fair amount of history catch up on the late Edo period in preparation for this game and I must say, it was a lot of fun catching all the ways RGGS did their research and how they played with history to make certain choices that a specific historical figure made still fit into the "canon" personality of the character. Neat stuff. They didn't play as fast and loose with the history as they did with Kenzan (which is a whole other can of worms) but they still had fun with it and that I greatly respect.
Also, this game had Samurai Ondo, Majima's best karaoke song (made all the better with Kiryu's dry interjections).
あー！思い出した！骸街や〜（さっき言っただろう）lives rent free in my head, I tell you
I had a lot of fun with all the fighting styles (even brawler...which I tried my best to utilize despite the damage output being equivalent to a feather gently floating into your bullet proof shoulder) and since I never played the original, I don't care that wild dancer used to be better lol
I do lament baba not being around anymore, as well as some of the unique combat themes being swapped out but overall I had a loooooot of fun with the character swaps. Ryoma is.... hoo.... you thought kiryu was attractive? Hoo buddy.
Okita too...........
Anyways. I did a fair amount of history catch up on the late Edo period in preparation for this game and I must say, it was a lot of fun catching all the ways RGGS did their research and how they played with history to make certain choices that a specific historical figure made still fit into the "canon" personality of the character. Neat stuff. They didn't play as fast and loose with the history as they did with Kenzan (which is a whole other can of worms) but they still had fun with it and that I greatly respect.
Also, this game had Samurai Ondo, Majima's best karaoke song (made all the better with Kiryu's dry interjections).
あー！思い出した！骸街や〜（さっき言っただろう）lives rent free in my head, I tell you
i accidentally 100%'d this game
the crafting system was pretty damn painful im not gonna lie
the combat got repetitive after a while but it was still fun
i honestly found the story quite nice and the way it felt like a theater screenplay was damn cool
i also love the setting of the game, but certain areas of the game were quite empty for whatever reason
the crafting system was pretty damn painful im not gonna lie
the combat got repetitive after a while but it was still fun
i honestly found the story quite nice and the way it felt like a theater screenplay was damn cool
i also love the setting of the game, but certain areas of the game were quite empty for whatever reason
Mi objetivo en la vida es ser Ikumatsu para que Katsura Kogoro me dé pene cuando yo quiera
Your usual RGG remake (😒), but at the same time your usual RGG game and story (😁😁😁)
About the game in itself:
Amazing fucking game from start to finish man, I haven't had this much fun with a game in a LONG while. There's nothing quite like an RGG game and I will always be grateful for it. Story grabs you in and spins you around in many ways but it culminates in a perfect way. The gameplay is fun as per usual, took a bit to get used to since it's not the usual RGG gameplay, but it was fun nonetheless with all the styles. More some than the others, but that's bound to happen. While I only did like 50% of the side content that didn't disappoint either so I had a great time with the game.
About the remake:
While the game being very good, let's talk about the "Kiwami" aspect of it.
I had high hopes that RGG Studio would finally be able to make a great and faithful remake. I was somewhat disappointed in both regards. There are a couple huge bugs in cutscenes, that just ruin the whole cutscene, like character models disappearing. Main one that comes to mind is the one reveal in Teradaya. (I'm not sure if it's because I am playing on an Xbox One though.) There are also a bunch of typos in the dialogue of the game. And while I totally appreciate them bringing back some popular characters like the lieutenants from 0, I absolutely despise the fact it came at the cost of other characters. Other than that though, unlike the other two remakes, the game remained essentially pretty faithful from what I saw, though that's probably cuz this was more of a port from engine to engine than a proper full remake. All in all I believe this was pretty rushed.
Overall however, at the end of the day it's still an RGG game so it's always gonna be "perfect" in my eyes, but I really can't ignore these issues with the remakes. I really wish they would invest more time in properly bringing these games, either old or unlocalized, back to wider audiences. The DLC thing is a whole another problem, that I won't get into, but I really hope RGG sees the error in their ways.
Regardless, thank you RGG for another masterpiece 🫡
About the game in itself:
Amazing fucking game from start to finish man, I haven't had this much fun with a game in a LONG while. There's nothing quite like an RGG game and I will always be grateful for it. Story grabs you in and spins you around in many ways but it culminates in a perfect way. The gameplay is fun as per usual, took a bit to get used to since it's not the usual RGG gameplay, but it was fun nonetheless with all the styles. More some than the others, but that's bound to happen. While I only did like 50% of the side content that didn't disappoint either so I had a great time with the game.
About the remake:
While the game being very good, let's talk about the "Kiwami" aspect of it.
I had high hopes that RGG Studio would finally be able to make a great and faithful remake. I was somewhat disappointed in both regards. There are a couple huge bugs in cutscenes, that just ruin the whole cutscene, like character models disappearing. Main one that comes to mind is the one reveal in Teradaya. (I'm not sure if it's because I am playing on an Xbox One though.) There are also a bunch of typos in the dialogue of the game. And while I totally appreciate them bringing back some popular characters like the lieutenants from 0, I absolutely despise the fact it came at the cost of other characters. Other than that though, unlike the other two remakes, the game remained essentially pretty faithful from what I saw, though that's probably cuz this was more of a port from engine to engine than a proper full remake. All in all I believe this was pretty rushed.
Overall however, at the end of the day it's still an RGG game so it's always gonna be "perfect" in my eyes, but I really can't ignore these issues with the remakes. I really wish they would invest more time in properly bringing these games, either old or unlocalized, back to wider audiences. The DLC thing is a whole another problem, that I won't get into, but I really hope RGG sees the error in their ways.
Regardless, thank you RGG for another masterpiece 🫡
Like A Dragon Ishin: The Man Whose Name Was Repeated A Thousand Times
Besides that I wish I could give this game a higher score. It's got everything you could ever want from your typical RGG Studio experience and more, complete with goofy side content that I shirked the main story for at every single opportunity possible, funky dialogue & digs on popular figures of the time period (i.e. Souseki Natsume who would've been exactly 1 year old at the time of the games' release) that I was beyond happy to see returning to what in my head, i imagined to be a game that would take itself 'too seriously', but nope, it's still a tried and true RGG game at heart. Another Life was lots of fun as well, giving an ample incentive to visit it at every opportunity possible; even though Haruka had no factor into anything outside of those scare side content segments some of those scenes though scant, were very well implemented.
SAKAMOTO RYOMA was of course every bit the Kiryu I'd come to know and love over the course of such a spanning saga of games and so understandable was easily my personal favorite character, who else could it be, really. BUT OKITA THOugh damn I love that man a hell of a lot, he and Ryoma going on quirky and sometimes heart wrenching escapades together warmed me down to my very core, especially considering who the former is based after.
In the thick of my issues with the game, however, lies the story. I just couldn't connect with everything going on, the pacing felt contrived and all over the place, none of the characters besides the aforementioned Ryoma and Soji felt substantially developed or explored on deeply enough for me to care, and all-in-all the game just left me feeling empty by its conclusion, all due to my inability to feel for much of anything there. I have plenty of gripes with this game but in the end, I can't hate or even dislike it. The side content truly kept me hooked and coming back for more, and I did most of the dilligence records (~80%) as well as over half of the completion list which alone took me a looot longer than I initially projected. And speaking of the content off the beaten path, I can with full confidence express I learned MUCH more about the Edo period than I knew before, so since I've was watching Gintama in tandem with playing this game, it actually BOLSTERED my enjoyment of that show even more which,, is pretty funny lmao... the different sides of the Shinsengumi such as Hijikata's softheartedness being a major aspect of his personality reminded me a ton of the not selfsame Hijikata I knew from Gintama.
I'll end this review here, I've def written an entire essay and a half at this point but my feelings on this game are so beyond complicated Idk I just felt I had to place them somewhere, even if onto the isolated box of a video game logging website.
Besides that I wish I could give this game a higher score. It's got everything you could ever want from your typical RGG Studio experience and more, complete with goofy side content that I shirked the main story for at every single opportunity possible, funky dialogue & digs on popular figures of the time period (i.e. Souseki Natsume who would've been exactly 1 year old at the time of the games' release) that I was beyond happy to see returning to what in my head, i imagined to be a game that would take itself 'too seriously', but nope, it's still a tried and true RGG game at heart. Another Life was lots of fun as well, giving an ample incentive to visit it at every opportunity possible; even though Haruka had no factor into anything outside of those scare side content segments some of those scenes though scant, were very well implemented.
SAKAMOTO RYOMA was of course every bit the Kiryu I'd come to know and love over the course of such a spanning saga of games and so understandable was easily my personal favorite character, who else could it be, really. BUT OKITA THOugh damn I love that man a hell of a lot, he and Ryoma going on quirky and sometimes heart wrenching escapades together warmed me down to my very core, especially considering who the former is based after.
In the thick of my issues with the game, however, lies the story. I just couldn't connect with everything going on, the pacing felt contrived and all over the place, none of the characters besides the aforementioned Ryoma and Soji felt substantially developed or explored on deeply enough for me to care, and all-in-all the game just left me feeling empty by its conclusion, all due to my inability to feel for much of anything there. I have plenty of gripes with this game but in the end, I can't hate or even dislike it. The side content truly kept me hooked and coming back for more, and I did most of the dilligence records (~80%) as well as over half of the completion list which alone took me a looot longer than I initially projected. And speaking of the content off the beaten path, I can with full confidence express I learned MUCH more about the Edo period than I knew before, so since I've was watching Gintama in tandem with playing this game, it actually BOLSTERED my enjoyment of that show even more which,, is pretty funny lmao... the different sides of the Shinsengumi such as Hijikata's softheartedness being a major aspect of his personality reminded me a ton of the not selfsame Hijikata I knew from Gintama.
I'll end this review here, I've def written an entire essay and a half at this point but my feelings on this game are so beyond complicated Idk I just felt I had to place them somewhere, even if onto the isolated box of a video game logging website.
Man I really do hate to say this but this game…is one of the biggest disappointments for me in recent memory.
I love the Yakuza/Ryu Ga Gotoku franchise, these games have so much heart & soul to them & every title I’ve played so far over the last three years has always had me so invested in the world & the characters. Yakuza 0 is literally in my top 10 favourite games of all time after all. So when I heard about Ishin finally coming west, I like many others was so excited to finally play what some consider as one of the best titles in the franchise that never came overseas.
It brings me no pleasure to say that Like A Dragon: Ishin! is my least favourite RGG title that I’ve played. I got to chapter 5 & I just…don’t care about anything that has happened. The story isn’t interesting. The combat is incredibly unbalanced in my opinion with only one of the four styles actually being useful. Hell not even the side stories are fun for me. This is just not the level of quality I expect from what is one of my favourite game franchises of all time. So ultimately I just do not see it as worth continuing when I simply put am not invested at all.
I’m not angry RGG Studio, I’m just incredibly disappointed.
I love the Yakuza/Ryu Ga Gotoku franchise, these games have so much heart & soul to them & every title I’ve played so far over the last three years has always had me so invested in the world & the characters. Yakuza 0 is literally in my top 10 favourite games of all time after all. So when I heard about Ishin finally coming west, I like many others was so excited to finally play what some consider as one of the best titles in the franchise that never came overseas.
It brings me no pleasure to say that Like A Dragon: Ishin! is my least favourite RGG title that I’ve played. I got to chapter 5 & I just…don’t care about anything that has happened. The story isn’t interesting. The combat is incredibly unbalanced in my opinion with only one of the four styles actually being useful. Hell not even the side stories are fun for me. This is just not the level of quality I expect from what is one of my favourite game franchises of all time. So ultimately I just do not see it as worth continuing when I simply put am not invested at all.
I’m not angry RGG Studio, I’m just incredibly disappointed.
frankly.....eeeeeeeeh. this is honestly the most eeeeeeeeeeh ive felt towards a yakuza game. a lot of the story felt like kinda like slog. some of the characters were fun and frankly i like the amount of fanservice for long time yakuza fans, just seeing people like mine again is great. A lot of the music is also great. but otherwise its just eeeeeeeeeeeh. side quests werent my favorite, and the ones with friendship bars to fill up were all awful (im looking at you vegetable kid i gave that fucker 100 cucumbers). combat was kinda cool, even if i got my ass kicked. still overall a good time if youre yakuza fan but its far from my favorite
A polished up PS3 port that is an alright time.
Pretty soon after I got into the Yakuza franchise (thanks to the PC Port of 0 in 2018) I learned that there were two spinoff games that take place in the real historical japanese past, with characters from the franchise filling in like actors of real historical figures. Immediately I wanted these two games to come out in the west. Reading up on them some people consider Ishin to be one of the best stories done in the franchise. But hey now that one of them is here (Hoping for Kenzan to get some kind of re-release as that one sounds more interesting from a narrative standpoint, Miyamoto Musashi was quite the character) does it live up to the hype? Eh, sorta.
Immediately I just viewed this game as all my friends from Kamurocho putting on a play, it's much funnier that way and I don't know enough Japanese history to be able to draw comparisons to the actual accounts of this period so anything crazy there is lost on me. It's fun seeing which characters appear and what roles they have in the story. I'm aware that a decent portion were recast to give parts to characters from Y:LaD and Y0, not a huge loss as I don't think I remember most of the people replaced when I looked them up. Some of the choices felt odd like Shibusawa being the sworn brother to Kiryu's Sakamoto Ryoma, or Adachi being the head of the Shinsengumi. However on the other end I'm glad that Mine plays a major role in this story as Hijikata who stays a close ally of Sakamoto. I felt that his character was underdeveloped in 3 and had the building blocks of someone who could've really been great. Majima also goes method and is himself even in 1800s japan. My view of it being a play is reinforced by the directors statements on the lack of Kasuga Ichiban being that joining a murderous samurai group would be against his morals. All the historical theming is fun really, I enjoyed the historical renditions of karaoke songs.
The narrative is fine enough, even if its based off of history its also just the usual Yakuza story but with samurai. I wasn't ever wowed or super engrossed with the story but there are some interesting moments and cool creative decisions along the way.
The combat is probably the best it's ever been for the traditional RGG game, even better than Lost Judgment. Each fighting style has its Pros and Cons, it feels necessary to switch between them depending on the situation, and they all feel great to use. It's especially funny to pull out a gun and blast down bandits with a 45 combo like the modern day Kiryu would. Equipment also matters for the first time in the franchise! Even if its tied to a pointlessly in-depth Monster Hunter crafting system that the game really doesn't need with how not varied combat really is. Different weapons have different effects and you can customize your weapons if you really get into it! probably helpful for harder difficulties/side content/Samurai Amon. Not a lot to say about Trooper Cards, I just equipped the celebrity guest ones and forgot about it, used the abilities but didn't worry about the intricacies too much.
On the other end of things this game is so clearly a weird inbetween of a remaster and a remake of a PS3 game. The combat is tightned up, areas are combined, and the visuals look nicer than the Yakuza Remastered Collection BUT the maps are bafflingly laid out+annoying to navigate and the story has the same pacing issues I feel plagued all 3 of the PS3 games with short chapters and rushed developments. I don't have any huge huge complaints but I ust felt underwhelmed with the game by the end. I don't see myself going back and finishing any of the side stuff here either, none of it feels all that compelling to visit.
Not a bad time by any means but it's so average it didn't feel like it was a super necessary play to me. If you want to get into the franchise but see that there's 8, soon to be 9 main games with 2 handheld spinoffs, a zombie what if, 2 samurai spinoffs, a whole side franchise in the same city, and a recently released side story for the main character of the first 7 games and start to feel overwhelmed OR you're on the fence. You can probably skip this or wait for a sale.
Pretty soon after I got into the Yakuza franchise (thanks to the PC Port of 0 in 2018) I learned that there were two spinoff games that take place in the real historical japanese past, with characters from the franchise filling in like actors of real historical figures. Immediately I wanted these two games to come out in the west. Reading up on them some people consider Ishin to be one of the best stories done in the franchise. But hey now that one of them is here (Hoping for Kenzan to get some kind of re-release as that one sounds more interesting from a narrative standpoint, Miyamoto Musashi was quite the character) does it live up to the hype? Eh, sorta.
Immediately I just viewed this game as all my friends from Kamurocho putting on a play, it's much funnier that way and I don't know enough Japanese history to be able to draw comparisons to the actual accounts of this period so anything crazy there is lost on me. It's fun seeing which characters appear and what roles they have in the story. I'm aware that a decent portion were recast to give parts to characters from Y:LaD and Y0, not a huge loss as I don't think I remember most of the people replaced when I looked them up. Some of the choices felt odd like Shibusawa being the sworn brother to Kiryu's Sakamoto Ryoma, or Adachi being the head of the Shinsengumi. However on the other end I'm glad that Mine plays a major role in this story as Hijikata who stays a close ally of Sakamoto. I felt that his character was underdeveloped in 3 and had the building blocks of someone who could've really been great. Majima also goes method and is himself even in 1800s japan. My view of it being a play is reinforced by the directors statements on the lack of Kasuga Ichiban being that joining a murderous samurai group would be against his morals. All the historical theming is fun really, I enjoyed the historical renditions of karaoke songs.
The narrative is fine enough, even if its based off of history its also just the usual Yakuza story but with samurai. I wasn't ever wowed or super engrossed with the story but there are some interesting moments and cool creative decisions along the way.
The combat is probably the best it's ever been for the traditional RGG game, even better than Lost Judgment. Each fighting style has its Pros and Cons, it feels necessary to switch between them depending on the situation, and they all feel great to use. It's especially funny to pull out a gun and blast down bandits with a 45 combo like the modern day Kiryu would. Equipment also matters for the first time in the franchise! Even if its tied to a pointlessly in-depth Monster Hunter crafting system that the game really doesn't need with how not varied combat really is. Different weapons have different effects and you can customize your weapons if you really get into it! probably helpful for harder difficulties/side content/Samurai Amon. Not a lot to say about Trooper Cards, I just equipped the celebrity guest ones and forgot about it, used the abilities but didn't worry about the intricacies too much.
On the other end of things this game is so clearly a weird inbetween of a remaster and a remake of a PS3 game. The combat is tightned up, areas are combined, and the visuals look nicer than the Yakuza Remastered Collection BUT the maps are bafflingly laid out+annoying to navigate and the story has the same pacing issues I feel plagued all 3 of the PS3 games with short chapters and rushed developments. I don't have any huge huge complaints but I ust felt underwhelmed with the game by the end. I don't see myself going back and finishing any of the side stuff here either, none of it feels all that compelling to visit.
Not a bad time by any means but it's so average it didn't feel like it was a super necessary play to me. If you want to get into the franchise but see that there's 8, soon to be 9 main games with 2 handheld spinoffs, a zombie what if, 2 samurai spinoffs, a whole side franchise in the same city, and a recently released side story for the main character of the first 7 games and start to feel overwhelmed OR you're on the fence. You can probably skip this or wait for a sale.
Masterpice.
I don't care if is a remaster or a Kiwami, I don't care if they fucked up the craft system, is Ishin. The gameplay, the side content, the history and how they handle the politics subject, the music, action, is all a master craft. All things that RGGS was trying to do have a pay off here and I am all for it, even if don't have the same punch effect in the emotions side like 5 did.
I don't care if is a remaster or a Kiwami, I don't care if they fucked up the craft system, is Ishin. The gameplay, the side content, the history and how they handle the politics subject, the music, action, is all a master craft. All things that RGGS was trying to do have a pay off here and I am all for it, even if don't have the same punch effect in the emotions side like 5 did.
Man, what a let down. A great idea on paper, let's take the Yakuza/Like a Dragon universe and move it into a new time period. There are some differences here and there of course, but the general idea should be a slam dunk and unfortunately, it comes up quite short and becomes maybe the worst Yakuza/LaD game in the franchise (excluding Dead Souls).
This game just feels incredibly scaled down from LaD's normal over-the-top nature. I never found much of the heat moves that you normally see to be that impressive. Most of the items around you that are normally grabbable and usable are pretty generic as well. Luckily this game features sword and gun (and a combo of both) fighting styles to help make up some of that.
Unfortunately, these aren't all that fun to play with either. All four fighting styles feature pros and cons to them but quickly you'll realize that the hand to hand is kinda pointless. You do get a weapon you can swap to in this fight style, some of which can be interesting and fun to use but to me, it just never made up for some of the limitations this game felt like it possessed.
The enemies feature a lot of the Yakuza 3 issues of just constant blocking. All four fighting styles do have a guard break attack but some of those had range issues. It also happens so frequently too that some of these moves get so old because you are constantly having to use it to break through for damage.
The gun had moments of being OP which was satisfying and the sword/gun style had some fun crowd control uses. I just wish they went over-the-top with these styles, though I didn't unlock every heat action or move so there might be some I missed out on that are silly and over the top. If they do, I wish they would've better spread those out to make the combat more fun, I might've stuck it out more if I was getting these fun moves, would've probably made the monotony of the combat decrease as well.
The new feature in this game where some of the over-the-top attacks resided was the army/card system. Think Majima Construction type card setup but in Ishin you are able to set these cards up for use in battle. There are a few over the top attacks found here, you can have a Tiger or Bear help you for instance. You can add 3-4 cards to each fighting style all that have different powerups. Some will heal you, some are stat buffs, general attacks, etc. If they are the General in your squad, those also lead to various powerups as well, so placement can be important as well.
In order to use these attacks you'll have to attack in that fighting style in order to build up bars that, when filled, will allow you those abilities during a fight. If you aren't using those styles though, they will stay at the level they were at when you last used that fighting style. I found some of these pretty useful and fun to use but there seemed to be a lot less 'rare' or story character cards then in previous games so rarely strayed from the cards I selected fairly early into using it (this card based thing is not unlocked right away in the game).
I found crafting and upgrading your weapons a bigger grind than in previous Yakuza games and more annoying to deal with. There aren't a ton of super powerful weapons that can easily be found in this game, so you'll be tasked with focusing on crafting to help keep your attacks doing damage as you progress. The weapons are so pricey to make though. You can 'level up' your crafting abilities to help cheapen prices but I always felt like it was barely knocking them down. Since you're having to craft basically everything too, from weapons to armor, you're still spending a good amount.
You can get money in various ways, many that should be familiar to people who have played other games in the franchise. If you like some of the money making ways of other games, you'll probably be able to still go through those means in order to make money. I did grind through my normal ways of making money but because so much was going to crafting, it just felt like a bigger grind in those ways.
The farming side game is kinda neat and easy to use. You can use these items to make food as well, and those cooking games are pretty standard but a nice addition as well. Think Cooking Mama style mini games. The biggest pain with this cooking game though is you have to make every item one by one, there is no ability to cook multiple dishes at the same time. I wouldn't even mind having to do these mini games over and over and over if I could at least choose to make more than one of a dish at one time. These dishes I found were a huge lifesaver too since they provide a good amount of health recovery. The normal medicine and items you can buy in this game always felt pretty underpowered too so I was constantly going back and making dishes.
The other big problem with this game is just traversing in it. If you want to go farm and make dishes, there is only one point on the map that will take you there. You can't even use a taxi to go there directly. So if you're on the other side of the map, you'll have to either walk all the way down to that one singular location or fast travel to it, and the fast travel areas that are set in the game are spread out way too far. So even when you fast travel to the nearest point, you're still having to walk a good amount after that.
The side quests, another Yakuza staple are all a pretty big let down. Another area that feels scaled back from its normal silly and over-the-top nature. You can also make connections/relationships with various people around town, something that has been featured before. These connections though are not all that different from each other. So you'll be constantly giving people dishes or junk or vegetables to slowly build up these meters.
Overall, Like a Dragon: Ishin just feels like a missed opportunity. This setting and the LaD style should be great, but the grind, the lackluster side quests and main story, the slog of battle, and overall lackluster location just made me want to get through this game as quickly as I could. Besides all of this, it looks pretty nice, seeing some of these familiar character in newly imagined ways is neat, seeing some characters that only were featured in one Yakuza game from ages ago was a nice treat as well, it's not all doom and gloom when it comes to this game. It's just that the bar for Like a Dragon games is pretty damn high for me and Like a Dragon: Ishin just doesn't come close to hitting that bar and being as silly and satisfying as the other games in this franchise.
This game just feels incredibly scaled down from LaD's normal over-the-top nature. I never found much of the heat moves that you normally see to be that impressive. Most of the items around you that are normally grabbable and usable are pretty generic as well. Luckily this game features sword and gun (and a combo of both) fighting styles to help make up some of that.
Unfortunately, these aren't all that fun to play with either. All four fighting styles feature pros and cons to them but quickly you'll realize that the hand to hand is kinda pointless. You do get a weapon you can swap to in this fight style, some of which can be interesting and fun to use but to me, it just never made up for some of the limitations this game felt like it possessed.
The enemies feature a lot of the Yakuza 3 issues of just constant blocking. All four fighting styles do have a guard break attack but some of those had range issues. It also happens so frequently too that some of these moves get so old because you are constantly having to use it to break through for damage.
The gun had moments of being OP which was satisfying and the sword/gun style had some fun crowd control uses. I just wish they went over-the-top with these styles, though I didn't unlock every heat action or move so there might be some I missed out on that are silly and over the top. If they do, I wish they would've better spread those out to make the combat more fun, I might've stuck it out more if I was getting these fun moves, would've probably made the monotony of the combat decrease as well.
The new feature in this game where some of the over-the-top attacks resided was the army/card system. Think Majima Construction type card setup but in Ishin you are able to set these cards up for use in battle. There are a few over the top attacks found here, you can have a Tiger or Bear help you for instance. You can add 3-4 cards to each fighting style all that have different powerups. Some will heal you, some are stat buffs, general attacks, etc. If they are the General in your squad, those also lead to various powerups as well, so placement can be important as well.
In order to use these attacks you'll have to attack in that fighting style in order to build up bars that, when filled, will allow you those abilities during a fight. If you aren't using those styles though, they will stay at the level they were at when you last used that fighting style. I found some of these pretty useful and fun to use but there seemed to be a lot less 'rare' or story character cards then in previous games so rarely strayed from the cards I selected fairly early into using it (this card based thing is not unlocked right away in the game).
I found crafting and upgrading your weapons a bigger grind than in previous Yakuza games and more annoying to deal with. There aren't a ton of super powerful weapons that can easily be found in this game, so you'll be tasked with focusing on crafting to help keep your attacks doing damage as you progress. The weapons are so pricey to make though. You can 'level up' your crafting abilities to help cheapen prices but I always felt like it was barely knocking them down. Since you're having to craft basically everything too, from weapons to armor, you're still spending a good amount.
You can get money in various ways, many that should be familiar to people who have played other games in the franchise. If you like some of the money making ways of other games, you'll probably be able to still go through those means in order to make money. I did grind through my normal ways of making money but because so much was going to crafting, it just felt like a bigger grind in those ways.
The farming side game is kinda neat and easy to use. You can use these items to make food as well, and those cooking games are pretty standard but a nice addition as well. Think Cooking Mama style mini games. The biggest pain with this cooking game though is you have to make every item one by one, there is no ability to cook multiple dishes at the same time. I wouldn't even mind having to do these mini games over and over and over if I could at least choose to make more than one of a dish at one time. These dishes I found were a huge lifesaver too since they provide a good amount of health recovery. The normal medicine and items you can buy in this game always felt pretty underpowered too so I was constantly going back and making dishes.
The other big problem with this game is just traversing in it. If you want to go farm and make dishes, there is only one point on the map that will take you there. You can't even use a taxi to go there directly. So if you're on the other side of the map, you'll have to either walk all the way down to that one singular location or fast travel to it, and the fast travel areas that are set in the game are spread out way too far. So even when you fast travel to the nearest point, you're still having to walk a good amount after that.
The side quests, another Yakuza staple are all a pretty big let down. Another area that feels scaled back from its normal silly and over-the-top nature. You can also make connections/relationships with various people around town, something that has been featured before. These connections though are not all that different from each other. So you'll be constantly giving people dishes or junk or vegetables to slowly build up these meters.
Overall, Like a Dragon: Ishin just feels like a missed opportunity. This setting and the LaD style should be great, but the grind, the lackluster side quests and main story, the slog of battle, and overall lackluster location just made me want to get through this game as quickly as I could. Besides all of this, it looks pretty nice, seeing some of these familiar character in newly imagined ways is neat, seeing some characters that only were featured in one Yakuza game from ages ago was a nice treat as well, it's not all doom and gloom when it comes to this game. It's just that the bar for Like a Dragon games is pretty damn high for me and Like a Dragon: Ishin just doesn't come close to hitting that bar and being as silly and satisfying as the other games in this franchise.
Kyo is a lovely looking village hub filled with great substories and its own share of side activities.
Though you'll be sorely disappointed if you expect to find any Sega arcades, cabaret clubs, bowling or baseball centres.
The best thing about Ishin is the tale it weaves, as it spins the yakuza conventions back to the edo period twisting familiar characters from the series into new roles without any predictable boundaries to their roles and fates.
The combat system as well as the stuff you eventually unlock to tweak in both new abilities and temporary attribute boost is one of the better in the series.
Just spend one session in the barrack dungeon sidegame to loot and craft yourself one of the higher rarity swords, and sell the loot you don't need for money. Then the rest of the game should be a breeze.
Though you'll be sorely disappointed if you expect to find any Sega arcades, cabaret clubs, bowling or baseball centres.
The best thing about Ishin is the tale it weaves, as it spins the yakuza conventions back to the edo period twisting familiar characters from the series into new roles without any predictable boundaries to their roles and fates.
The combat system as well as the stuff you eventually unlock to tweak in both new abilities and temporary attribute boost is one of the better in the series.
Just spend one session in the barrack dungeon sidegame to loot and craft yourself one of the higher rarity swords, and sell the loot you don't need for money. Then the rest of the game should be a breeze.
"Não consigo lembrar o nome dos cara, poha"
Por mais que seja um remake bem do vagabundo, o jogo em si é mais peak yakuza 😍
Achei o pacing da história perfeito, começa bem e te enche de hype, a história não cai num limbo de coisa irrelevante e explicação redundante no meio, e fecha muito bem. O gameplay momento a momento do jogo as vezes vai pro caralho, porque esse aqui ainda é daqueles que pra apresentar uma substory, te para no meio da rua contra a tua vontade... várias foram as vezes que eu tava hypado pra ir pra seguir na história, e no caminho, eu era interrompido 3, 4 vezes por substories que eu não tinha o menor interesse de fazer no momento
O negocinho de reutilizar modelos e VAs de personagens que a gente já conhece da franquia principal é muito daora, basicamente fanservice memo, mas isso vem com um problema: é consideravelmente dificil lembrar do nome dos personagens desse jogo, pq tu instintivamente associa o rosto deles aos nomes da franquia original, o que atrapalha bastante o entendimento de alguns diálogos
Quem é o Hanpeita? ah, é o Shibusawa
Quem é o Ito? Ah, é o Kuze
Quem é o Izo? Ah, é o Nishiki
Quem é o Kondo? Ah, é o Adachi
Obviamente isso vem do fato do jogo ser inspirado em uma história real, e consequentemente, personagens reais... não é um defeito, mas atrapalha, saca?
Outro defeito que vale a pena ressaltar é a estranha inclinação do jogo pro grind... pra zerar o jogo e fazer a história, tu não PRECISA grindar, é só usar os equipamentos que a história te dá e encher o cu de cura, mas é fortemente sugerido que tu faça, mas isso na história, em todo o resto do conteúdo secundário, é praticamente uma norma
O remake é estranho, principalmente pq era só localizar o original e relançar, mas também pq o remake é basicamente o jogo original mas portado pra UE4. Nisso, nós vemos bugs e comportamentos nunca antes vistos na franquia como demora de renderização e pop-in, coisas parecidas com explosão de vetores (sim, bagulho característico de emulação e tá aqui) e no geral, um sentimento de deslocação... se tu olhar atentamente a algumas texturas e detalhes, vai ver que falta o detalhe de jogos mais modernos, evidenciando que de fato, praticamente só pegaram o jogo OG e botaram na UE sem um cuidado maior, e essa falta de zelo se alastra pro resto do jogo também. Vendo vídeos do original, o remake simplesmente passa uma impressão de ter menos alma, ser mais genérico que o normal da franquia
Mesmo com esses problemas, o que mais se sobressai sem dúvida é o combate foda, a trilha sonora sensacional e a história que é tão boa quanto a gente espera de um jogo dessa série... no geral, mais uma adição fodástica pra essa franquia fodástica
Por mais que seja um remake bem do vagabundo, o jogo em si é mais peak yakuza 😍
Achei o pacing da história perfeito, começa bem e te enche de hype, a história não cai num limbo de coisa irrelevante e explicação redundante no meio, e fecha muito bem. O gameplay momento a momento do jogo as vezes vai pro caralho, porque esse aqui ainda é daqueles que pra apresentar uma substory, te para no meio da rua contra a tua vontade... várias foram as vezes que eu tava hypado pra ir pra seguir na história, e no caminho, eu era interrompido 3, 4 vezes por substories que eu não tinha o menor interesse de fazer no momento
O negocinho de reutilizar modelos e VAs de personagens que a gente já conhece da franquia principal é muito daora, basicamente fanservice memo, mas isso vem com um problema: é consideravelmente dificil lembrar do nome dos personagens desse jogo, pq tu instintivamente associa o rosto deles aos nomes da franquia original, o que atrapalha bastante o entendimento de alguns diálogos
Quem é o Hanpeita? ah, é o Shibusawa
Quem é o Ito? Ah, é o Kuze
Quem é o Izo? Ah, é o Nishiki
Quem é o Kondo? Ah, é o Adachi
Obviamente isso vem do fato do jogo ser inspirado em uma história real, e consequentemente, personagens reais... não é um defeito, mas atrapalha, saca?
Outro defeito que vale a pena ressaltar é a estranha inclinação do jogo pro grind... pra zerar o jogo e fazer a história, tu não PRECISA grindar, é só usar os equipamentos que a história te dá e encher o cu de cura, mas é fortemente sugerido que tu faça, mas isso na história, em todo o resto do conteúdo secundário, é praticamente uma norma
O remake é estranho, principalmente pq era só localizar o original e relançar, mas também pq o remake é basicamente o jogo original mas portado pra UE4. Nisso, nós vemos bugs e comportamentos nunca antes vistos na franquia como demora de renderização e pop-in, coisas parecidas com explosão de vetores (sim, bagulho característico de emulação e tá aqui) e no geral, um sentimento de deslocação... se tu olhar atentamente a algumas texturas e detalhes, vai ver que falta o detalhe de jogos mais modernos, evidenciando que de fato, praticamente só pegaram o jogo OG e botaram na UE sem um cuidado maior, e essa falta de zelo se alastra pro resto do jogo também. Vendo vídeos do original, o remake simplesmente passa uma impressão de ter menos alma, ser mais genérico que o normal da franquia
Mesmo com esses problemas, o que mais se sobressai sem dúvida é o combate foda, a trilha sonora sensacional e a história que é tão boa quanto a gente espera de um jogo dessa série... no geral, mais uma adição fodástica pra essa franquia fodástica
NOTA: 8,0
Pela primeira vez na franquia Yakuza (agora mudou para Like a Dragon) Like a Dragon: Ishin é extraordinário, não sou de ficar tão imerso na história de um game normalmente, mas a desse jogo me surpreendeu bastante e é muito bem feita, com cinemáticas muito boas, um leve suspense e personagens bem interessantes, além de um ambiente bem representado.
O combate é bem divertido, com 4 estilos diferentes e uma variedade de especiais e buffs, ser parado na rua e sair dando espadada nos desafiantes é bem legal, devido ao bom ritmo também. O jogo possui um sistema de dungeons simples para farm porém bem desafiador no hard, além de ótimas boss fights também.
Apesar de ter sidequests e interações bem carismáticas como dança e canto, o mapa do jogo se resume quase 100% em kyo que não é grande. Talvez minha maior decepção, as sidequests são extremamente chatas, diálogos excessivos que não acrescentam muito além de mau recompensarem bem, o sistema de dungeons por ser simples fica muito repetitivo e eu zerei o jogo sem fazer cerca de 20 missões delas ainda, apesar de render bons materiais e equipamentos, não é necessário fazer todas, o que reflete na progressão meio lenta e não tão aparente do jogo.
Graficamente é abaixo para um jogo de 2023 e a trilha sonora é mais presente nos momentos finais, sobre performance algumas leves quedas mas nada que atrapalhasse de fato.
Uma excelente experiência sem dúvidas, foco maior na história e ambientação e me surpreendeu bastante a quantidade de conteúdo para o tamanho de mapa reduzido mesmo sendo bem linear, recomendo bastante principalmente pelo gamepass.
Pela primeira vez na franquia Yakuza (agora mudou para Like a Dragon) Like a Dragon: Ishin é extraordinário, não sou de ficar tão imerso na história de um game normalmente, mas a desse jogo me surpreendeu bastante e é muito bem feita, com cinemáticas muito boas, um leve suspense e personagens bem interessantes, além de um ambiente bem representado.
O combate é bem divertido, com 4 estilos diferentes e uma variedade de especiais e buffs, ser parado na rua e sair dando espadada nos desafiantes é bem legal, devido ao bom ritmo também. O jogo possui um sistema de dungeons simples para farm porém bem desafiador no hard, além de ótimas boss fights também.
Apesar de ter sidequests e interações bem carismáticas como dança e canto, o mapa do jogo se resume quase 100% em kyo que não é grande. Talvez minha maior decepção, as sidequests são extremamente chatas, diálogos excessivos que não acrescentam muito além de mau recompensarem bem, o sistema de dungeons por ser simples fica muito repetitivo e eu zerei o jogo sem fazer cerca de 20 missões delas ainda, apesar de render bons materiais e equipamentos, não é necessário fazer todas, o que reflete na progressão meio lenta e não tão aparente do jogo.
Graficamente é abaixo para um jogo de 2023 e a trilha sonora é mais presente nos momentos finais, sobre performance algumas leves quedas mas nada que atrapalhasse de fato.
Uma excelente experiência sem dúvidas, foco maior na história e ambientação e me surpreendeu bastante a quantidade de conteúdo para o tamanho de mapa reduzido mesmo sendo bem linear, recomendo bastante principalmente pelo gamepass.
So much damn fun. Story took me by surprise in a good way. Love how the characters were casted. I know some didn't like the recasts with Y0, 6, & 7 chars, but I feel they fit their roles really well. They gameplay was a lot more fun than I expected. Early on, I thought I'd lock into one style and not have much use for the others, but I found myself switching between styles consistently and having fun with all four. As per usual, RGG knows how to make a banger soundtrack. Substories and minigames were very enjoyable as well. Overall great time.
A hyped localisation and remake of a much requested game.. that personally I feel ended up being pretty terrible.
Ishin's story felt rushed, and a lot of emotional story beats failed to really feel like they had impact due to how little i got to see of the characters involved. It's plot, while having a cool setting and setup, leaned too hard into making crazy twists... in the same vein as yakuza 4's infamous plot twists. It's historical setting is cool to see, and I liked a lot of RGG's warped versions of past events to fit with their original plot.
The gameplay side doesn't fare much better either. Out of the 4 combat styles, only Wild Dancer felt like it had any practical use and appropriate speed, while the others felt sluggish and stiff. I'd guess that the game wasn't designed around the speed and fluidity of this style, as the bosses tended to have 1 or 2 simple repetitive attacks you can avoid with ease, making this pretty easy on it's hardest difficulty. The boss design being so basic, I think its the worst in the series.
And while a servicable remake, I was disappointed in the choice to change character identities from their previous likenesses to characters from 0 and 7, the two most popular and mainstream games, sure, but it's sad to hear about characters I like getting cut due to that. I would have loved to see a bigger variety from the series as a whole. With these new faces, associated themes come back from their respective games, albeit in a cheap and disappointing form, a copy paste without remixes. The familiar tracks that do get remixes tho are excellent.
I wish this was better than it turned out to be, because I could see with work the game be a lot more enjoyable and engaging, but as of now it ranks among my least favorite RGG games.
Ishin's story felt rushed, and a lot of emotional story beats failed to really feel like they had impact due to how little i got to see of the characters involved. It's plot, while having a cool setting and setup, leaned too hard into making crazy twists... in the same vein as yakuza 4's infamous plot twists. It's historical setting is cool to see, and I liked a lot of RGG's warped versions of past events to fit with their original plot.
The gameplay side doesn't fare much better either. Out of the 4 combat styles, only Wild Dancer felt like it had any practical use and appropriate speed, while the others felt sluggish and stiff. I'd guess that the game wasn't designed around the speed and fluidity of this style, as the bosses tended to have 1 or 2 simple repetitive attacks you can avoid with ease, making this pretty easy on it's hardest difficulty. The boss design being so basic, I think its the worst in the series.
And while a servicable remake, I was disappointed in the choice to change character identities from their previous likenesses to characters from 0 and 7, the two most popular and mainstream games, sure, but it's sad to hear about characters I like getting cut due to that. I would have loved to see a bigger variety from the series as a whole. With these new faces, associated themes come back from their respective games, albeit in a cheap and disappointing form, a copy paste without remixes. The familiar tracks that do get remixes tho are excellent.
I wish this was better than it turned out to be, because I could see with work the game be a lot more enjoyable and engaging, but as of now it ranks among my least favorite RGG games.
During my playthrough of this game, I was telling my girlfriend a lot of the things about this one, and she had the audacity to make a lot of Gintama references
Not that I’m complaining of course
Not that I’m complaining of course
Feels like a Yakuza all-stars game, but Samurais. While there's certainly nothing wrong with that, it was a little tricky to remember who some of the cameos were because they were a secondary villain in one Yakuza game. It does take a while for the game to get going, but that's normal at this point. Once it gets into the real meat of the game, it's fantastic, with compelling characters and story. Sometimes you want to ignore the great side stories and bonds just to find out what happens next. The combat is fun and fluid, with you using a Katana and Gun, switching style to best suit the situation.
For me only thing holding "Like a Dragon: Ishin" from being a 9 or a 10 is an unpolished middle-part where the same beat of "Ryoma hangs out with a Shinsengumi Captain, they discuss their philosophies and then Ryoma goes to sleep" is repeated for 3 consecutive chapters. Technology can't me blamed, this could have been handled better (it was, on Yakuza 0).
That aside, it has everything you expect from an RGG game and the finale is amazing.
That aside, it has everything you expect from an RGG game and the finale is amazing.
Like a Dragon: Ishin! is the story about a name whose name is repeated many times.
The story of Sakamoto Ryoma was a powerful and beautiful one to that made me almost cry as story near the climax is a jump in quality for me. A clash of ideals to prove a character's resolve always pulls me in as Ryoma being the exact way Kiryu is just turns this story from good to great. The story never let me down even with the twists and turns.
I was extremely excited for this game to get it as I've never experienced the original and I have say--the story is pretty damn good with the characters. It still had that RGG touch to it with the comedic side to it and the good side quests that I always prioritized it over the main story. Obviously, the remake changed the casting where some are replaced with characters from the newer games like 0 and 7 after the OG's release alongside new trooper cards, new minigames, and simplistic UI changes. I always love the style-switching gameplay in RGG games so I can say that the gameplay is still good as it is throughout. Wild dancer style is little bit OP but the other styles have their own OP quirks regardless as you destroy bosses with the usual komaki tiger drop (and trooper cards).
As much as I like some of these remake changes in the game... some of them just don't feel enough to make me like it. Money in this game is hard to acquire compared to 0 or 7 which is necessary to upgrade your essential gear and weapons making it feel like a chore. The blacksmith wants you to upgrade late game stuff at 20 or more ryo then it jumps to a HUNDRED or more ryo--and you can't even acquire it yet because you need to level up the blacksmith in the first place. So how do you do that? Well that's where the bandit cave missions/dungeons come in. Their levels that have their own objectives and bosses (minus the fact that the bosses just get reused anyways in the story) and they're fun at first until you realize you have to keep doing this if you plan on leveling the blacksmith, get weapons, and/or gain money. I wished the remake tuned this grinding down in some way to prefer QoL but they didn't do that which is a shame. I got pretty burned out with the grinding but I got pretty decent gear anyways out of it.
The minigames and activities to do in Ishin are abundant and I liked it from the scarecrow destruction to cannonball smashing along with the courtesan minigame that includes a bullet hell, rock paper scissors, and a drinking minigame; it's is alright--that's just it.
Is this game a good game? Sure. Absolutely. Love it like any other RGG game with the story and combat. Is it perfect? No, but that's up to you. I'd say it's worth the buy but I recommend a casual playthrough cause unlocking max blacksmith is hell.
The story of Sakamoto Ryoma was a powerful and beautiful one to that made me almost cry as story near the climax is a jump in quality for me. A clash of ideals to prove a character's resolve always pulls me in as Ryoma being the exact way Kiryu is just turns this story from good to great. The story never let me down even with the twists and turns.
I was extremely excited for this game to get it as I've never experienced the original and I have say--the story is pretty damn good with the characters. It still had that RGG touch to it with the comedic side to it and the good side quests that I always prioritized it over the main story. Obviously, the remake changed the casting where some are replaced with characters from the newer games like 0 and 7 after the OG's release alongside new trooper cards, new minigames, and simplistic UI changes. I always love the style-switching gameplay in RGG games so I can say that the gameplay is still good as it is throughout. Wild dancer style is little bit OP but the other styles have their own OP quirks regardless as you destroy bosses with the usual komaki tiger drop (and trooper cards).
As much as I like some of these remake changes in the game... some of them just don't feel enough to make me like it. Money in this game is hard to acquire compared to 0 or 7 which is necessary to upgrade your essential gear and weapons making it feel like a chore. The blacksmith wants you to upgrade late game stuff at 20 or more ryo then it jumps to a HUNDRED or more ryo--and you can't even acquire it yet because you need to level up the blacksmith in the first place. So how do you do that? Well that's where the bandit cave missions/dungeons come in. Their levels that have their own objectives and bosses (minus the fact that the bosses just get reused anyways in the story) and they're fun at first until you realize you have to keep doing this if you plan on leveling the blacksmith, get weapons, and/or gain money. I wished the remake tuned this grinding down in some way to prefer QoL but they didn't do that which is a shame. I got pretty burned out with the grinding but I got pretty decent gear anyways out of it.
The minigames and activities to do in Ishin are abundant and I liked it from the scarecrow destruction to cannonball smashing along with the courtesan minigame that includes a bullet hell, rock paper scissors, and a drinking minigame; it's is alright--that's just it.
Is this game a good game? Sure. Absolutely. Love it like any other RGG game with the story and combat. Is it perfect? No, but that's up to you. I'd say it's worth the buy but I recommend a casual playthrough cause unlocking max blacksmith is hell.
I think this would be a perfect 3.75 rating, but for the sake of my experience with this game I decided to scale down with my rating instead of up.
I did enjoy my time with Like a Dragon: Ishin, but to varying degrees throughout my time with it. I think for the first half or so I thought it was great, with a compelling story and setting and themes within. Like other entries in this series I played, I loved a lot of the side tasks (although the quests were mostly just fine). I liked the new environment and time period this was set in because it felt like fresh territory in the series.
The combat is fine. It allows for variation with different styles and weapons but more often than not I stuck with the same one (swordsman) while occasionally messing with brawler. Boss fights can be fun, but aren't always, and the random enemy encounters really become grating after a while. Some of my favorite games of all time have random battles but for some reason here I would roll my eyes or groan whenever one popped up, especially in my last 5-10 hours with the game.
The narrative I felt became more uninteresting as it unfolded, as I found that I checked out probably around chapter 5 or 6 or so. I can't exactly pinpoint why I stopped being into it. It just wasn't grabbing me I suppose.
A major reason this got bumped down half a star is because of some design decisions I found frustrating, particularly near the end. I won't spoil anything, but there's basically a point of no return (like there is with a lot of games) as you gear up for the final boss. So I utilized the warning and went to go find a vendor that sells Deluxe Vitality Pills so I can stock up and be prepared, only the vendor wasn't there. Welp. That was annoying. So, the final part of the game I would willingly let myself die if certain battles weren't going well, so I could regain my health and start over in hopes that I can manage it next time around, knowing that I must save what little items I have left for an inevitable, tough final boss.
Anyways overall I'd say its worth playing especially if you're a fan of the series, but I wouldn't consider it anywhere near my favorite of the series.
I did enjoy my time with Like a Dragon: Ishin, but to varying degrees throughout my time with it. I think for the first half or so I thought it was great, with a compelling story and setting and themes within. Like other entries in this series I played, I loved a lot of the side tasks (although the quests were mostly just fine). I liked the new environment and time period this was set in because it felt like fresh territory in the series.
The combat is fine. It allows for variation with different styles and weapons but more often than not I stuck with the same one (swordsman) while occasionally messing with brawler. Boss fights can be fun, but aren't always, and the random enemy encounters really become grating after a while. Some of my favorite games of all time have random battles but for some reason here I would roll my eyes or groan whenever one popped up, especially in my last 5-10 hours with the game.
The narrative I felt became more uninteresting as it unfolded, as I found that I checked out probably around chapter 5 or 6 or so. I can't exactly pinpoint why I stopped being into it. It just wasn't grabbing me I suppose.
A major reason this got bumped down half a star is because of some design decisions I found frustrating, particularly near the end. I won't spoil anything, but there's basically a point of no return (like there is with a lot of games) as you gear up for the final boss. So I utilized the warning and went to go find a vendor that sells Deluxe Vitality Pills so I can stock up and be prepared, only the vendor wasn't there. Welp. That was annoying. So, the final part of the game I would willingly let myself die if certain battles weren't going well, so I could regain my health and start over in hopes that I can manage it next time around, knowing that I must save what little items I have left for an inevitable, tough final boss.
Anyways overall I'd say its worth playing especially if you're a fan of the series, but I wouldn't consider it anywhere near my favorite of the series.
This is fr the coolest game of all time, I love the fanservice even if the story is just alright and the side content reminds me of Yakuza 5 a lot which I love. Definitely happy I ended up playing it cuz man I love RGG games so much
And yeah Assassination of Bodhisattva is peakkkk
And yeah Assassination of Bodhisattva is peakkkk
I wasn't expecting much, both from the opinions I heard and because it was an old spin off, and perhaps it was this low expectation that made me like this game so much, I'll start with the combat, which was the point that interested me most, when it it works, it's peak combat, but when it doesn't work it's Yakuza 4 Seishiro Munakata boss fight level of shit, of the 4 styles, fist, sword, gun and sword + gun, you'll only use two, fist is useless from the beginning, and the pistol starts OP but it quickly becomes obsolete when enemies start to have more health, leaving only Swordsman and Wild Dancer as really viable styles, and both are very enjoyable to use when they work, just cutting everyone or spinning with the sword while shooting, you really feel very powerful, but it is in some bosses that the flaws in the combat show themselves, often the bosses can have attacks that come faster than you can react, because you generally give preference to the Swordsman in 1v1 fights because it deasl more damage than the Wild Dancer, but it is impossible to execute a dodge or defense while you are already in an attack animation, and seeing as how the bosses give few openings for attack, you have to make the most of them, but out of nowhere they can just start a combo that stun locks you or a grab with absurd damage, I often felt that the combat was unfair and slow, but it still worked well for most of the game.
The story is by far the point that surprised me the most and that I liked the most, it easily enters my top 5 of the franchise, it is a grand plot but at the same time very personal, conflicts of ego, identity, morals, politics, everything very well developed, directed and with believable characters, and the icing on the cake is that all the characters have familiar faces from other games in the franchise, it's really cool for anyone who is a fan of the franchise to see Majima, Mine, Date and Kuze in the same room, and the characters manage to have similar personalities to their original versions but still distinct enough to not simply be the same character, I have literally no complaints in this regard.
The side content is the point that leaves the most to be desired, the game has practically 70 substories, which seems like a lot, but half or more of these substories are simply a 2-minute dialogue where an NPC asks you for an item, you deliver it, a friendship starts and that's it, the substory is over and now you can give more items to the NPC to fill his friendship to just gain virtue, which are the equivalent of the Completion Points from the other games, the substories that are REALLY stories are good and in the level of quality that you expect from the franchise, but they are buried by this stupid decision to make a substory for each friendship. Regarding the minigames, there isn't much to complain about, it has the same classics from the franchise and the addition of some new ones such as dancing, chicken racing and some minigames for hostesses, all of which are very fun and do a good job of distracting from the main story.
The songs and ambience as usual are impeccable, they nailed the setting of Edo period Japan, and the OST is not among my favorites in the franchise but it is very good and fits very well.
Now something that I don't usually talk about in my reviews but I think it's pertinent to comment this time, the game's performance on eighth gen consoles is strange, sometimes the game runs smoothly at 60fps and sometimes at 15, the graphics are also sometimes beautiful and sometimes pixelated and strange, and I also had 2 crashes, it's clear that RGG didn't know how to optimize Unreal very well.
Final rating: 8.5/10, 4/5 stars.
The story is by far the point that surprised me the most and that I liked the most, it easily enters my top 5 of the franchise, it is a grand plot but at the same time very personal, conflicts of ego, identity, morals, politics, everything very well developed, directed and with believable characters, and the icing on the cake is that all the characters have familiar faces from other games in the franchise, it's really cool for anyone who is a fan of the franchise to see Majima, Mine, Date and Kuze in the same room, and the characters manage to have similar personalities to their original versions but still distinct enough to not simply be the same character, I have literally no complaints in this regard.
The side content is the point that leaves the most to be desired, the game has practically 70 substories, which seems like a lot, but half or more of these substories are simply a 2-minute dialogue where an NPC asks you for an item, you deliver it, a friendship starts and that's it, the substory is over and now you can give more items to the NPC to fill his friendship to just gain virtue, which are the equivalent of the Completion Points from the other games, the substories that are REALLY stories are good and in the level of quality that you expect from the franchise, but they are buried by this stupid decision to make a substory for each friendship. Regarding the minigames, there isn't much to complain about, it has the same classics from the franchise and the addition of some new ones such as dancing, chicken racing and some minigames for hostesses, all of which are very fun and do a good job of distracting from the main story.
The songs and ambience as usual are impeccable, they nailed the setting of Edo period Japan, and the OST is not among my favorites in the franchise but it is very good and fits very well.
Now something that I don't usually talk about in my reviews but I think it's pertinent to comment this time, the game's performance on eighth gen consoles is strange, sometimes the game runs smoothly at 60fps and sometimes at 15, the graphics are also sometimes beautiful and sometimes pixelated and strange, and I also had 2 crashes, it's clear that RGG didn't know how to optimize Unreal very well.
Final rating: 8.5/10, 4/5 stars.