Ichiban really is the perfect protagonist to succeed Kiryu and potentially even surpass him. Easily has the best gameplay in the franchise too
One of the best "baton passes" ever made, it's incredible how RGG handled so well making a turn based RPG after 15 years focused on beat'em ups, emotional story as always, excellent balance between silly slapstick comedy and somber and tense moments. Damn hyped for LAD 8
the ending left me bawling like a little baby.
Even as someone who's unfamiliar with the rest of the series, this was such a fucking blast. It's got an incredible story and one of my favorite casts ever; everyone was great in their own way and managed to add to the story and it's themes so damn well. Can't recommend it enough.
Yakuza: Like a Dragon isn't a perfect game, but I loved absolutely every second of it regardless. For example, the RPG combat isn't perfectly tuned and there are a few late-game boss fights that are mostly damage sponges that don't require actual strategy beyond attacking and healing. The job system is a bit messy, and there are a few moments of laughably wonky animation.
None of these things took away from how much fun I had playing this game and how attached I felt to the characters, the story, and the world. I genuinely didn't want this game to end, and it has opened my eyes to how special Yakuza is. Video games NEVER make me cry, but the one where you can summon several crawfish in battle did. The way this series effortlessly switches from insane and goofy to somber and dark is like nothing else in games to me. Before this, my experience with the series was limited to about 10 hours of Yakuza 0, a game that I quickly wrote off as having bad combat and a bland world to explore.
After finishing Like a Dragon, the appeal of Yakuza is clearer than ever to me, and I can't wait to play the rest of the series. If this game is this good, I can't imagine how good the Kiryu games are.
Update 3/12/2021 the true final millennium tower is absolutely one of the hardest things i've ever done in a jrpg
None of these things took away from how much fun I had playing this game and how attached I felt to the characters, the story, and the world. I genuinely didn't want this game to end, and it has opened my eyes to how special Yakuza is. Video games NEVER make me cry, but the one where you can summon several crawfish in battle did. The way this series effortlessly switches from insane and goofy to somber and dark is like nothing else in games to me. Before this, my experience with the series was limited to about 10 hours of Yakuza 0, a game that I quickly wrote off as having bad combat and a bland world to explore.
After finishing Like a Dragon, the appeal of Yakuza is clearer than ever to me, and I can't wait to play the rest of the series. If this game is this good, I can't imagine how good the Kiryu games are.
Update 3/12/2021 the true final millennium tower is absolutely one of the hardest things i've ever done in a jrpg
The duality of light and dark, the hero vs the evil villain
Yakuza: Like a Dragon (or Yakuza 7) is a JRPG released by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio and Sega in 2020 on most modern consoles and PC barring Switch. There's something special about this game in a lot of ways that make this the most unique entry in the Yakuza series. It manages to retain what makes the series loved by its fans, adds new characters that have their own stories and give the people that played the entire series a final hurrah for the old arc before starting fresh with this entry.
The combat is the most contentious thing between the fans since it essentially changed the genre from a brawler action game to a turn-based roleplaying game. For RGG Studio's first attempt at a roleplaying game, they did a surprisingly decent job here. There's a class/job system with a modern and comedic twist on what it means to have a "job" in the real world. The abilities are decent and each job feels varied in what it can do for each character. There is a lot of customization here even to the point of changing costumes when you start a battle. The enemy variety is decent and creatively explained via the main character's overactive imagination and love for traditional JRPGs that he seems normal people as exaggerated caricatures of what they really are. The story here is probably one of the best in the series with an emotionally charged final quarter that left me extremely sympathetic about what happened. As an actual side note but also a huge part is the huge amount of content that's here to do on the side that I can't really list, it's just as big if not bigger in side content than any other Yakuza game here so you won't be sorely missing for things to do here.
My only complaints is wishing for a way to properly gauge ability aoes since some attacks are entirely dependent on which way an enemy goes and you have no control of that along with the rough difficulty spike around a certain chapter but it wasn't too bad.
Yakuza: Like a Dragon manages to change things up for the series in a good way that probably refreshed the developers after making so many brawler type games with the same type of gameplay. It was nice to see them still managing to tell an incredible story that gives a lesson the series never really got to tell until now. Once you hit rock bottom, you can only go up from here.
Yakuza: Like a Dragon (or Yakuza 7) is a JRPG released by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio and Sega in 2020 on most modern consoles and PC barring Switch. There's something special about this game in a lot of ways that make this the most unique entry in the Yakuza series. It manages to retain what makes the series loved by its fans, adds new characters that have their own stories and give the people that played the entire series a final hurrah for the old arc before starting fresh with this entry.
The combat is the most contentious thing between the fans since it essentially changed the genre from a brawler action game to a turn-based roleplaying game. For RGG Studio's first attempt at a roleplaying game, they did a surprisingly decent job here. There's a class/job system with a modern and comedic twist on what it means to have a "job" in the real world. The abilities are decent and each job feels varied in what it can do for each character. There is a lot of customization here even to the point of changing costumes when you start a battle. The enemy variety is decent and creatively explained via the main character's overactive imagination and love for traditional JRPGs that he seems normal people as exaggerated caricatures of what they really are. The story here is probably one of the best in the series with an emotionally charged final quarter that left me extremely sympathetic about what happened. As an actual side note but also a huge part is the huge amount of content that's here to do on the side that I can't really list, it's just as big if not bigger in side content than any other Yakuza game here so you won't be sorely missing for things to do here.
My only complaints is wishing for a way to properly gauge ability aoes since some attacks are entirely dependent on which way an enemy goes and you have no control of that along with the rough difficulty spike around a certain chapter but it wasn't too bad.
Yakuza: Like a Dragon manages to change things up for the series in a good way that probably refreshed the developers after making so many brawler type games with the same type of gameplay. It was nice to see them still managing to tell an incredible story that gives a lesson the series never really got to tell until now. Once you hit rock bottom, you can only go up from here.
I don't know how they made Yakuza into the one JRPG whose combat I like, but they sure as hell did. I appreciate how the main character starts off a loser and doesn't really stop being one.
This game is honestly unforgivably bad. And it's 50 hours long, the story was so obviously re-written to be a JRPG, this mainly applies to the boss fights which were these scenarios clearly written in the context of an action game. The party members range from one cool dude who doesn't get much story to one chick who's there for an insanely dumb reason if you stop to think about it and the most annoying character in an rgg game period. Not to mention that when the time comes for badass boss fights that is only related to Ichiban, these goobers feel like they don't deserve any place in these boss fights whatsoever.
Yokohama is a very boring map that has places that really just don't have any activities to engage in. The only undeniably good part about this game is the management mini game, which feels like it had more thought put into it in than the core gameplay and main story.
I can only hope RGG's next game is good after the low point that is 6 into Kiwami 2 into 7. This series was so godlike man.
Yokohama is a very boring map that has places that really just don't have any activities to engage in. The only undeniably good part about this game is the management mini game, which feels like it had more thought put into it in than the core gameplay and main story.
I can only hope RGG's next game is good after the low point that is 6 into Kiwami 2 into 7. This series was so godlike man.
Ichiban is such a great new main character that they already seem to be throwing away with the 8th game by putting Kiryu on the box art when he fucking died in that one Yakuza game.
Unfortunately, they decided to follow tradition with the inspiration from Dragon Quest by taking the combat system from the series too. And they couldn't even do it well. Despite the enemy variety, it will never reach the wonder of variety that Mother offered; they're trying too hard to make a cohesive design. I should be fighting abstract art, not a very specific list of machinery like a roomba and construction shit. Even if this sounds appealing, the novelty wears thin very quickly the second you are forced to do the dungeon crawling from Yakuza: Like a Dragon. I can appreciate the originality in the mini-game's but I question if it border's on addictive mobile gaming rather than an actual quality mini-game.
Did you know gaming? This is the 2nd Japanese game whose 7th mainline entry also indicated a huge reinvention of the series and also when they decided to fuse the Japanese name and English localized title into the same title. That other game is called Resident Evil: Biohazard 7
Unfortunately, they decided to follow tradition with the inspiration from Dragon Quest by taking the combat system from the series too. And they couldn't even do it well. Despite the enemy variety, it will never reach the wonder of variety that Mother offered; they're trying too hard to make a cohesive design. I should be fighting abstract art, not a very specific list of machinery like a roomba and construction shit. Even if this sounds appealing, the novelty wears thin very quickly the second you are forced to do the dungeon crawling from Yakuza: Like a Dragon. I can appreciate the originality in the mini-game's but I question if it border's on addictive mobile gaming rather than an actual quality mini-game.
Did you know gaming? This is the 2nd Japanese game whose 7th mainline entry also indicated a huge reinvention of the series and also when they decided to fuse the Japanese name and English localized title into the same title. That other game is called Resident Evil: Biohazard 7
God, do I adore this game. Replaying it has made me realize how truly brilliant the story is. It's so consistently engaging and emotional, and balances the new party cast very well. Your first four members are people you meet and then learn about, but your last two you learn about long before they join. They're all some of my favorite characters in the series, such wonderful characters. I've even grown to love the combat. I'll admit that it's pretty barebones, but I love how it still feels like Yakuza. It has the absurd brutality Yakuza is known for, a variety of animations and classes, and I like how it incorporates qtes into it. I enjoy the positioning aspect of skills, even if you can't directly position your character. I love how the game uses the combat to show how Ichiban thinks and how much different he is to Kiryu the previous protagonists. Ichiban is not afraid to like what he likes and embrace his inner child, and I think that's really beautiful in a time where adults liking anything even remotely childish is frowned upon. The final fight perfectly shows this, literally throwing the bat down and switching classes to show the desperation he and the villain have. There's definitely some dumb bullshit in the story, specifically one character, but I love how he's used so I don't mind. The last three chapters of this game are so smartly written, and they're probably some of the best planning from a Yakuza protagonist. This entire game is a treat, but the end is probably my favorite part. That's not even mentioning the fun side content and new world. A lot of the side content is about how people are drawn to Ichiban's kindness, literally shown in the business minigame(best in the series?) and Poundmates. I could honestly talk for hours about how this is the perfect continuation of mainline Yakuza. I really think that switching mainline is such a breath of fresh air, and works so well with this game. Love it.
Now my favourite game in the series. Really delivered an all around incredible Yakuza experince. I love the new combat system and ichiban is an incredible new main character.
One of the best written Yakuza games in the series, Ichiban has managed to become one of my favorite protagonists RGG has written. The story is insanely good with good motivations, stakes, and characters and for a first try at a JRPG, RGG Studios has done a good job. I desperately want more of Ichiban and his crew and I really want RGG to push into the future and focus more on new characters instead of relying on the old.
Yakuza 7 busca um novo começo para a série: em gênero, protagonista e tema. A história que queria contar envolvia a mensagem de superação e sobrevivência depois de cair para o lado errado das graças da sociedade - seguia ao redor de ex-presidiários, moradores de rua, prostitutas e imigrantes ilegais. A escolha, portanto, de basear sua essência em JRPGs e shonens, tanto tematicamente quanto mecanicamente, fazia sentido - são gêneros cuja mensagem tema costuma ser o triunfo meritocrático mesmo diante de impossíveis adversidades. Infelizmente, sinto que Yakuza 7, em seu processo de assimilação e reconstrução, acabou por absorver o pior das duas formas. Primeiro, sua inspiração em JRPGs clássicos (principalmente Dragon Quest) e shonens, ao ser imposta em cima de um drama criminal e familiar, acabou relativizando-o e suavizando seu impacto. Sendo o primeiro Yakuza que joguei até o final, já esperava - e ansiava por - um nível saudável de melodrama e tosquice; porém, a história do jogo sofre pesadamente pela adoção de arquétipos shonen como o triunfo do poder da amizade e reviravoltas desnecessárias e inconsequentes. Não me sinto mais investido na história quando Kasuga consegue convencer sua amiga bartender a enfrentar um prédio cheio de Yakuzas armados apenas porque eles são amigos, ou quando o vilão desnecessariamente expõe seu plano de forma não-característica e sem sentido diante do protagonista, especialmente quando essa mesma história tenta muitas vezes puxar pra um realismo seletivo: a justaposição de uma cena de jovens sendo executados cruelmente nas ruas por uma gangue rival e logo depois o assassino sendo convencido pelo poder da bondade é mais ridícula do que impactante. Não é como se eu fosse avesso à chicoteios tonais, afinal, sou fã assíduo de Metal Gear Solid - só acho que as estéticas shonen adotadas aqui foram um detrator enorme de uma história que tem todas as porradas emocionais para ser um puta melodrama.
Além de ferir a história, a inspiração desmedida de Dragon Quest também feriu grosseiramente o jogo - me surpreende que, um jogo tão bem apresentado em todo aspecto, que muitas vezes assume bem o posto de paródia e homenagem a Dragon Quest, consiga ser pior e mais antiquado em todo aspecto mecânico do que o tão engessado vovô dos jogos que o inspira. Sistemas de progressão que simplesmente não tem fluxo ou lógica; crafting arcaico; requerimentos de grinding artificiais, inimigos de qualquer embalo da história; e, como pior ofensor, combates repetitivos e inconsequentes compostos de inimigos irrisórios que não oferecem desafio algum (coisa que Earthbound, de 1995, já tinha resolvido), são o comum aqui - acho que conto em uma mão quantas lutas me incentivaram a engajar com todos os sistemas de batalha.
Na maioria das vezes que jogava, especialmente na história principal, ou estava entediado ou estremecia de vergonha alheia de ter que ver Naruto versão thriller policial. Ainda assim, joguei quase 60 horas desse jogo. Escrevi tanto e me entreguei tanto porque aqui encontrei brilho, escondido e apagado pelos seus defeitos gritantes - o protagonista Kasuga é reflexo perfeito do jogo, estupido e amável, apesar de todos seus defeitos. O combate, por mais bobo e fácil que seja, é visualmente impecável e dinâmico, e a substories oferecem a tosquice de qualidade que eu esperava de Yakuza, junto do ridiculamente engajante "mini"-game de CEO, que compôs mais de ¼ do meu tempo total de jogo e foi um dos pontos altos da experiência toda. Vejo nesses pequenos brilhos o que amam em Yakuza - o melodrama, o teatro, o humor, toda a alma colocada em cada esquina de seus ambientes, tudo formando um pacote deliciosamente idiossincrático, que não tem pretensão de se expor-se ridículo e emotivo como é. Infelizmente, só não acho que souberam bem usar o gênero que escolheram para ser o novo âmago da série.
Além de ferir a história, a inspiração desmedida de Dragon Quest também feriu grosseiramente o jogo - me surpreende que, um jogo tão bem apresentado em todo aspecto, que muitas vezes assume bem o posto de paródia e homenagem a Dragon Quest, consiga ser pior e mais antiquado em todo aspecto mecânico do que o tão engessado vovô dos jogos que o inspira. Sistemas de progressão que simplesmente não tem fluxo ou lógica; crafting arcaico; requerimentos de grinding artificiais, inimigos de qualquer embalo da história; e, como pior ofensor, combates repetitivos e inconsequentes compostos de inimigos irrisórios que não oferecem desafio algum (coisa que Earthbound, de 1995, já tinha resolvido), são o comum aqui - acho que conto em uma mão quantas lutas me incentivaram a engajar com todos os sistemas de batalha.
Na maioria das vezes que jogava, especialmente na história principal, ou estava entediado ou estremecia de vergonha alheia de ter que ver Naruto versão thriller policial. Ainda assim, joguei quase 60 horas desse jogo. Escrevi tanto e me entreguei tanto porque aqui encontrei brilho, escondido e apagado pelos seus defeitos gritantes - o protagonista Kasuga é reflexo perfeito do jogo, estupido e amável, apesar de todos seus defeitos. O combate, por mais bobo e fácil que seja, é visualmente impecável e dinâmico, e a substories oferecem a tosquice de qualidade que eu esperava de Yakuza, junto do ridiculamente engajante "mini"-game de CEO, que compôs mais de ¼ do meu tempo total de jogo e foi um dos pontos altos da experiência toda. Vejo nesses pequenos brilhos o que amam em Yakuza - o melodrama, o teatro, o humor, toda a alma colocada em cada esquina de seus ambientes, tudo formando um pacote deliciosamente idiossincrático, que não tem pretensão de se expor-se ridículo e emotivo como é. Infelizmente, só não acho que souberam bem usar o gênero que escolheram para ser o novo âmago da série.
After finishing Yakuza 0 - 6 and Judgment Duology, being unsure of this new format yakuza was taking especially with this new protagonist, I took a break and waited a bit. Now after finally have finished this game, Yakuza LAD is a beautiful game and RGG nailed it in trying a new approach towards the yakuza series especially with a new protagonist.
Ichiban Kasuga one of the greatest characters in this series, RGG able to reward people who have played the past few games which is the Kiryu saga, and he and Kiryu are the same but different in the personality department and other things as well. RGG able to show other themes after finishing off the Kiryu Saga and executing it perfectly is just amazing. Ichiban living the best of his life after missing most of it, taking everything head on positively, personal favorite character to me.
Ichiban Kasuga one of the greatest characters in this series, RGG able to reward people who have played the past few games which is the Kiryu saga, and he and Kiryu are the same but different in the personality department and other things as well. RGG able to show other themes after finishing off the Kiryu Saga and executing it perfectly is just amazing. Ichiban living the best of his life after missing most of it, taking everything head on positively, personal favorite character to me.
I started this game just around the time of release, played about half / two thirds of it, and then stopped. In the time since then and returning to it a couple weeks ago, I played all of the Kiryu saga (minus what of 0 I had played) as well as Judgment and Lost Judgment. Initially I had stopped playing 7 because I wanted to really have the full picture for when Kiryu shows up in the story. Ironically, I picked it back up because I reached the point of Gaiden where those events happen again. There’s something poetic about that, I suppose. I’ll keep my thoughts on this one short but I wanted them down for posterity.
Story
Ichiban is a great new protagonist for the series to jump off with. His approach to problems is different from Kiryu’s and he sees the world differently (in a literal sense). The whole cast is so good, the party really comes together organically and the central group of Ichi, Saeko, Nanba, and Adachi work so well together. The extra additions along the way only increase the enjoyment. The story is phenomenally well done in certain parts and only really dragged down by a couple chapters here and there. The opening third is so grounded and fun, I thought the hospital / old folks home sequence is just a little genius bit thrown in that you never would’ve seen from a Kiryu game. The finale is rather great too, minus the perhaps-too-long campaigning section. It feels like they took what they learned from telling a “cinematic” story from Yakuza 6 and really improved on it here, lots of movie-quality cutscenes that make the whole thing come alive and quite honestly stand out from the rest of the JRPG crowd. As much as I like FF7 Remake, the type of lengthy and somewhat quiet cutscene like the final interaction between Ichi and Aoki Ryo just doesn’t happen there. The story is strongest in its smaller and more contained moments, like working at the soapland or helping the Yokohama residents. The grander shit with the Omi and the Tojo is fun in a big picture “LORE” kind of way but doesn’t feel necessary for Ichiban’s story in the slightest, and feels like an excuse to bring Kiryu and the other Tojo legends into the picture. I don’t think this is the strongest in the extended series, but it sits nicely up at the top with Judgment, Lost Judgment, and Yakuza 5.
Combat
Oh jeez. I think Ryu Ga Gotoku’s best case scenario is making a Judgment -> Lost Judgment type glowup happen with Infinite Wealth because there’s so much to improve upon. It’s not a bad start for a team who have never made a JRPG before, but it feels lacking in a number of ways. Reservations about the job system aside, I feel like there isn’t enough actual experimentation to do - fights are largely decided by having a damage dealer, a healer, and a defense / attack debuff. Status effects are largely worthless and there’s little in the way of party composition strategy. The move lists are a little underwhelming too, and they feel lacking in that they don’t actually take advantage of Ichiban’s delusional Dragon Quest vision. Most attacks are just walking up and hitting the opponent with something, minus the heat actions / Essence skills. Gear is similarly bleh, with basically only stat upgrades meaning anything. I actually will NOT criticize the difficulty, as despite the fact that you can easily find criticisms of the Majima / Saejima and Kiryu fights online, I cleared both on the first try without doing any grinding beyond the singular dungeons they give you access to before each. I will criticize other things, however. I absolutely despise the “always moving” mechanic within battle. The fact that your attacks can straight up miss entirely regardless of your accuracy stat because the physics engine pushed you back when you moved past a box or something is infuriating. All the movement within combat feels clunky and unnecessary. The level curve feels wack, not in a difficulty way but in a numbers way. Leveling up a job takes probably 2-3 times longer than I feel it should for the number of jobs each character has, and considering that the game’s story ends at basically level 60, why is level 99 even the cap? Overall it’s a relatively acceptable system that feels like it leaves a few things down to be finetuned in the next game, which is hopefully the case.
Misc
Extra content is still pretty much as good as ever, minus the extra dungeons being a slog. Karaoke is fantastic and there are some amazing renditions in here. There are a ton of substories which, admittedly, felt a bit more committed to the bit of “being weird” than just simply telling a standalone story, which I don’t like, but they’re mostly pretty great. The strength of the party chat / “drink links” help make up for the substories as the one-on-ones are pretty emotional and unique in terms of the series. Dragon Kart and Can Hero are… fine, I guess. These types of minigames are never perfect in RGG releases but they’re fun enough. Part Time Hero is imperfect in terms of its missions but I can’t be bothered to seek out 100% regardless so it hardly matters in the long run.
Yeah, really great game. I don’t think it makes sense to play this as your first Yakuza release, but it does serve as a great first step in a new period of Yakuza. It would’ve felt more meaningful if RGG were capable of truly setting Kiryu aside instead of trotting him out 4 more times after his “last” game, but maybe they’ll make good on that decision in Infinite Wealth. The story is excellent, the smaller scale of the conflict helps it immensely, and the RPG focus is good enough to never feel dull but leaves room for improvement.
Story
Ichiban is a great new protagonist for the series to jump off with. His approach to problems is different from Kiryu’s and he sees the world differently (in a literal sense). The whole cast is so good, the party really comes together organically and the central group of Ichi, Saeko, Nanba, and Adachi work so well together. The extra additions along the way only increase the enjoyment. The story is phenomenally well done in certain parts and only really dragged down by a couple chapters here and there. The opening third is so grounded and fun, I thought the hospital / old folks home sequence is just a little genius bit thrown in that you never would’ve seen from a Kiryu game. The finale is rather great too, minus the perhaps-too-long campaigning section. It feels like they took what they learned from telling a “cinematic” story from Yakuza 6 and really improved on it here, lots of movie-quality cutscenes that make the whole thing come alive and quite honestly stand out from the rest of the JRPG crowd. As much as I like FF7 Remake, the type of lengthy and somewhat quiet cutscene like the final interaction between Ichi and Aoki Ryo just doesn’t happen there. The story is strongest in its smaller and more contained moments, like working at the soapland or helping the Yokohama residents. The grander shit with the Omi and the Tojo is fun in a big picture “LORE” kind of way but doesn’t feel necessary for Ichiban’s story in the slightest, and feels like an excuse to bring Kiryu and the other Tojo legends into the picture. I don’t think this is the strongest in the extended series, but it sits nicely up at the top with Judgment, Lost Judgment, and Yakuza 5.
Combat
Oh jeez. I think Ryu Ga Gotoku’s best case scenario is making a Judgment -> Lost Judgment type glowup happen with Infinite Wealth because there’s so much to improve upon. It’s not a bad start for a team who have never made a JRPG before, but it feels lacking in a number of ways. Reservations about the job system aside, I feel like there isn’t enough actual experimentation to do - fights are largely decided by having a damage dealer, a healer, and a defense / attack debuff. Status effects are largely worthless and there’s little in the way of party composition strategy. The move lists are a little underwhelming too, and they feel lacking in that they don’t actually take advantage of Ichiban’s delusional Dragon Quest vision. Most attacks are just walking up and hitting the opponent with something, minus the heat actions / Essence skills. Gear is similarly bleh, with basically only stat upgrades meaning anything. I actually will NOT criticize the difficulty, as despite the fact that you can easily find criticisms of the Majima / Saejima and Kiryu fights online, I cleared both on the first try without doing any grinding beyond the singular dungeons they give you access to before each. I will criticize other things, however. I absolutely despise the “always moving” mechanic within battle. The fact that your attacks can straight up miss entirely regardless of your accuracy stat because the physics engine pushed you back when you moved past a box or something is infuriating. All the movement within combat feels clunky and unnecessary. The level curve feels wack, not in a difficulty way but in a numbers way. Leveling up a job takes probably 2-3 times longer than I feel it should for the number of jobs each character has, and considering that the game’s story ends at basically level 60, why is level 99 even the cap? Overall it’s a relatively acceptable system that feels like it leaves a few things down to be finetuned in the next game, which is hopefully the case.
Misc
Extra content is still pretty much as good as ever, minus the extra dungeons being a slog. Karaoke is fantastic and there are some amazing renditions in here. There are a ton of substories which, admittedly, felt a bit more committed to the bit of “being weird” than just simply telling a standalone story, which I don’t like, but they’re mostly pretty great. The strength of the party chat / “drink links” help make up for the substories as the one-on-ones are pretty emotional and unique in terms of the series. Dragon Kart and Can Hero are… fine, I guess. These types of minigames are never perfect in RGG releases but they’re fun enough. Part Time Hero is imperfect in terms of its missions but I can’t be bothered to seek out 100% regardless so it hardly matters in the long run.
Yeah, really great game. I don’t think it makes sense to play this as your first Yakuza release, but it does serve as a great first step in a new period of Yakuza. It would’ve felt more meaningful if RGG were capable of truly setting Kiryu aside instead of trotting him out 4 more times after his “last” game, but maybe they’ll make good on that decision in Infinite Wealth. The story is excellent, the smaller scale of the conflict helps it immensely, and the RPG focus is good enough to never feel dull but leaves room for improvement.
This review contains spoilers
I am conflicted with this game. It does some things better than any yakuza game but at the same time it does some things so sloppy that I am not sure what they were thinking
Story
What it does better is main character. Whenever story revolves about the ichiban himself, story hits so damn hard your heart starts pumping. But rest of it... Feels like a bunch of unfocused ideas.
Corrupt friends, corrupt politicians, corrupt justice force, corrupt civilians, corrupt yakuza. There is a lot of ideas here and none of them are fleshed out other than ichiban the protagonist himself. One idea gets introduced then later it gets solved like nothing happened or story itself forgets about it until remembering and rushing it's conclusion to finish it. Almost feels like they tried to combine multiple yakuza games(especially 1 and 2) into a one game but end up unfocused as a result
I only heard pure good things about the story but unfortunately I don't agree with that sentiment. There is pacebreaker parts as much as good parts for me. To describe what I really meant is, I didn't enjoy any story chapter that doesn't involve the Arakawa storyline. I mean they weren't bad but they didn't support the main story nor connect it in any interesting way in my opinion. It's really easy to see that Arakawa family and Ichiban's relationship is the main dish. But the time spent on mostly separate side character's storylines somehow 2 times longer than that storyline and it just soured my motivation on following the story
Side content
There is dragon kart(mario kart), that feels weird to control and not so fun. Also once you realize drifting button is broken and you can hold infinitely to continue your burst, all the difficulty disappears.
There is movie sleep minigame. You need to press correct buttons to not sleep. Kind of like a harder karaoke game but ichiban's harsh comments about iconic movies really entertained me a lot.
Management minigame returns and it's the best evolution of it. Unlike the 0 incarnation, buying and assigning guards not enough. You can't buy places mindlessly because there is a limit. Every place needs a different kind of guard so you need to change your strategy in every buyout. Not just that, you can't spend your company money freely because this time your biggest enemy is shareholders and they want to big money to be happy. There is so many quirks to this minigame and that makes it so entertaining to play, so much so that it's the best part of the game for me. I had that much fun with it.
Karaoke also returns and it's still fun but... One thing kind of ruined it for me and that is how out of sync the karaoke is unfortunately It really bothered me to the point of leaving this minigame entirely unfortunately.
Side missions of course here and they are fortunately better then judgment games. But still... I can't say it's the best. Other than one substory(forget me not substory) most of them requires you to leave the area and return again and again and again maybe even more than 3 times and it's frustrating. Writing is fun but why the heck it doesn't finish right there and there and forces you to go back and forward multiple times I really don't understand! I didn't like this change so because of that I don't think substories are the best in this game.
Gameplay
Compared to the a lot of people I started pretty optimistic to this game's turn based nature. There were jobs(classes) to choose, magic to prepare, buffs and debuffs to throw etc. But unfortunately it's starts to lost it's magic once you realize the repetitive nature. Unfortunately combat is mostly surface level stuff, you: debuff-> buff-> attack-> heal, you repeat this order trillion amounts of times. Elements nor job systems doesn't change your experience that much, they only fasten your enemy beating time. You still repeat this order until the end of the game and nothing breaks this other than the boss before finale one(yeah that damn boss). Actually there is a lot of moves to spice your gameplay strategy but because of some problems that I will tell under this, they feel wasted.
First problem is big ranged attacks are pretty wack. They have a limited range and you can't even get creative with them where you choose to attack, because... you can't position your character. So you are up to the luck gods that gives you an enemy group that stays really close to each other so ranged attacks actually manage to hit multiple enemies.
Another thing I am not hot on is, you can't order your character to use environmental objects, you can only use them if they are super close to you. It's again, up to the luck gods that spawns you near an object at the beginning of a battle, otherwise you are out of luck.
Oh also, you can't change jobs freely in combat... That's not fun as well. Combine this with, sometimes only way to make enemies fall to the ground or stagger them is with a specific hard hitting or elemental attack. So... have fun with slowly doing chip damage hours and hours to some specific enemy types.
Last thing I didn't like the implementation of, is the environmental heat system. Only Ichiban's one job can do heat attacks and that job is the beginnner job. That's it. Feels like an afterthought to be honest. I think new summon system or job specific super attacks designed to replace the older heat system but I wish there was a way to use the old environmental heat actions more freely.
At least It was fine for me until... that sotenbori part... What killed this system for me is last quarter of the game ups the enemy levels at least 10-15 more than you. Even with doing every damn side content I found I was still underleveled, because they don't give experience that much for some reason. So, sudden level farming requirements with the repetititous gameplay managed to kill my enjoyment entirely unfortunately. I said Fu#k it! And opened trainer and selected immortality and exp booster. I don't have any shame because game forced my hand on this.
I have to congratulate for them tho. This game is probably the most difficult yakuza game compared to other yakuza games for all the wrong reasons. But also if they decided to continue in this bland/repetitious system without adding things to the combat system then I won't accept to play their game honestly anymore. Because repetitive gameplay with forced grind is a death sentence for this franchise fo me.
I can't portray my feelings enough about this part. I really really really hated that grind part and for that reason I probably never damn again replay this game. I would replay any yakuza game rather than playing this one again. Who the heck thought slowing the game to a halt was a good idea I really don't understand!
Pacing
It's not bad as Yakuza 5 but unfocused nature of it makes it frustrating to experience like lost judgment. Especially after the chapter 3, story completely stops and becomes mini stories collection and doesn't pick up where it stopped until last half of the game. At least when it's filled with character moments you have fun but that's only a part of it, it's not the whole story. Also couple of things make this worse. This game's full animation cutscene percentage is very. Very. Low... Most of the cutscenes are people standing still and only their mouths move like robots. This is in the every game right but this game have so much of it that it starts to wear down on you after a while and you start to get bothered from pacing more and more easily. So yeah, pacing isn't that great
So yeah It's a conflicting game for me. Emotional parts are so strong that it fills me with happiness, but lows are so sloppy that I never want to return to this game ever again.
Story
What it does better is main character. Whenever story revolves about the ichiban himself, story hits so damn hard your heart starts pumping. But rest of it... Feels like a bunch of unfocused ideas.
Corrupt friends, corrupt politicians, corrupt justice force, corrupt civilians, corrupt yakuza. There is a lot of ideas here and none of them are fleshed out other than ichiban the protagonist himself. One idea gets introduced then later it gets solved like nothing happened or story itself forgets about it until remembering and rushing it's conclusion to finish it. Almost feels like they tried to combine multiple yakuza games(especially 1 and 2) into a one game but end up unfocused as a result
I only heard pure good things about the story but unfortunately I don't agree with that sentiment. There is pacebreaker parts as much as good parts for me. To describe what I really meant is, I didn't enjoy any story chapter that doesn't involve the Arakawa storyline. I mean they weren't bad but they didn't support the main story nor connect it in any interesting way in my opinion. It's really easy to see that Arakawa family and Ichiban's relationship is the main dish. But the time spent on mostly separate side character's storylines somehow 2 times longer than that storyline and it just soured my motivation on following the story
Side content
There is dragon kart(mario kart), that feels weird to control and not so fun. Also once you realize drifting button is broken and you can hold infinitely to continue your burst, all the difficulty disappears.
There is movie sleep minigame. You need to press correct buttons to not sleep. Kind of like a harder karaoke game but ichiban's harsh comments about iconic movies really entertained me a lot.
Management minigame returns and it's the best evolution of it. Unlike the 0 incarnation, buying and assigning guards not enough. You can't buy places mindlessly because there is a limit. Every place needs a different kind of guard so you need to change your strategy in every buyout. Not just that, you can't spend your company money freely because this time your biggest enemy is shareholders and they want to big money to be happy. There is so many quirks to this minigame and that makes it so entertaining to play, so much so that it's the best part of the game for me. I had that much fun with it.
Karaoke also returns and it's still fun but... One thing kind of ruined it for me and that is how out of sync the karaoke is unfortunately It really bothered me to the point of leaving this minigame entirely unfortunately.
Side missions of course here and they are fortunately better then judgment games. But still... I can't say it's the best. Other than one substory(forget me not substory) most of them requires you to leave the area and return again and again and again maybe even more than 3 times and it's frustrating. Writing is fun but why the heck it doesn't finish right there and there and forces you to go back and forward multiple times I really don't understand! I didn't like this change so because of that I don't think substories are the best in this game.
Gameplay
Compared to the a lot of people I started pretty optimistic to this game's turn based nature. There were jobs(classes) to choose, magic to prepare, buffs and debuffs to throw etc. But unfortunately it's starts to lost it's magic once you realize the repetitive nature. Unfortunately combat is mostly surface level stuff, you: debuff-> buff-> attack-> heal, you repeat this order trillion amounts of times. Elements nor job systems doesn't change your experience that much, they only fasten your enemy beating time. You still repeat this order until the end of the game and nothing breaks this other than the boss before finale one(yeah that damn boss). Actually there is a lot of moves to spice your gameplay strategy but because of some problems that I will tell under this, they feel wasted.
First problem is big ranged attacks are pretty wack. They have a limited range and you can't even get creative with them where you choose to attack, because... you can't position your character. So you are up to the luck gods that gives you an enemy group that stays really close to each other so ranged attacks actually manage to hit multiple enemies.
Another thing I am not hot on is, you can't order your character to use environmental objects, you can only use them if they are super close to you. It's again, up to the luck gods that spawns you near an object at the beginning of a battle, otherwise you are out of luck.
Oh also, you can't change jobs freely in combat... That's not fun as well. Combine this with, sometimes only way to make enemies fall to the ground or stagger them is with a specific hard hitting or elemental attack. So... have fun with slowly doing chip damage hours and hours to some specific enemy types.
Last thing I didn't like the implementation of, is the environmental heat system. Only Ichiban's one job can do heat attacks and that job is the beginnner job. That's it. Feels like an afterthought to be honest. I think new summon system or job specific super attacks designed to replace the older heat system but I wish there was a way to use the old environmental heat actions more freely.
At least It was fine for me until... that sotenbori part... What killed this system for me is last quarter of the game ups the enemy levels at least 10-15 more than you. Even with doing every damn side content I found I was still underleveled, because they don't give experience that much for some reason. So, sudden level farming requirements with the repetititous gameplay managed to kill my enjoyment entirely unfortunately. I said Fu#k it! And opened trainer and selected immortality and exp booster. I don't have any shame because game forced my hand on this.
I have to congratulate for them tho. This game is probably the most difficult yakuza game compared to other yakuza games for all the wrong reasons. But also if they decided to continue in this bland/repetitious system without adding things to the combat system then I won't accept to play their game honestly anymore. Because repetitive gameplay with forced grind is a death sentence for this franchise fo me.
I can't portray my feelings enough about this part. I really really really hated that grind part and for that reason I probably never damn again replay this game. I would replay any yakuza game rather than playing this one again. Who the heck thought slowing the game to a halt was a good idea I really don't understand!
Pacing
It's not bad as Yakuza 5 but unfocused nature of it makes it frustrating to experience like lost judgment. Especially after the chapter 3, story completely stops and becomes mini stories collection and doesn't pick up where it stopped until last half of the game. At least when it's filled with character moments you have fun but that's only a part of it, it's not the whole story. Also couple of things make this worse. This game's full animation cutscene percentage is very. Very. Low... Most of the cutscenes are people standing still and only their mouths move like robots. This is in the every game right but this game have so much of it that it starts to wear down on you after a while and you start to get bothered from pacing more and more easily. So yeah, pacing isn't that great
So yeah It's a conflicting game for me. Emotional parts are so strong that it fills me with happiness, but lows are so sloppy that I never want to return to this game ever again.
I was really enjoying Yakuza till I played this, then I just lost all motivation to play any more of it and even lost motivation to play lost judgement after I'm sorry 😕
This review contains spoilers
Yakuza: Like a Dragon: A fresh spin on a formula that never gets old.
Yakuza: LIke a Dragon is the 8th mainline game in the coveted RGG series, but instead follows a new protagonist: Ichiban Kasuga. And over the course of 40-60 hours, you'll learn that Ichiban is just as good of a main character as Kiryu was.
Despite being a completely new genre of gameplay while also lacking a lot of the familiar faces we are used to, Yakuza: Like a Dragon has to be one of my favorite RGG games to date.
Story:
The story follows Ichiban trying to get into contact with his former boss Masumi Arakawa, who saved his life when he was 16, and spent 20 years in prison for the sake of his "family." (only to find out 20 years later that Masumi joined the Omi Alliance from the Tojo Clan)
The storytelling is as good as every other Yakuza game. A plot interesting enough to keep you on your seat and finding out more. RGG never misses with the classic "something happened during timeskip which is now tied to some big grand scheme to destroy the world", and it will never get old in my opinion.
What makes this game even better are the characters. Every character--side, playable, extra--are all lovable, popular, and fleshed out. Every single character that is involved in the story aren't flat and all have their own complexities. Each character involved in the story has a motivation and a reason for why they do what they do, and that is something that previous games have lacked.
It also helps that since this is a JRPG, Ichiban has a party of people that are essentially with him 24/7. This means that the members in Ichiban's party are involved in the story at pretty much every point. It's a cheat code to developing characters, and it also makes it easier to integrate subplots for character development into the main story like they did with Nanba.
Let's talk about Ichiban.
Ichiban encapsulates the vibe of RGG games. He tackles some of the most serious business, while still managing to find an opportunity to be silly. His addiction to Dragon Quest captures this very well.
We also know that behind this happy-go-lucky front, he is a very compassionate and caring individual who will go to no ends to help people who he considers family. Ichiban is the type of guy to help people because he loves them, not because of an ulterior motive like most Yakuza. The complexities behind Ichiban's character is what propels this game to be next level and on-par with other games in this series.
Gameplay:
I will give the gameplay some major slack since it's the first JRPG for this series. If the gameplay wasn't somewhat flawed, this would easily be a 5/5.
LaD fell under the JRPG trap of pretty one-dimensional enemies and strategy. Trash mobs were one shot fodder while bosses had no gimmicks other than "i have a lot of hp and do more than one action per turn." Because of this, the game became more of a number battle rather than strategic warfare. The game artificially creates difficulty by making bosses longer to kill, not harder.
Alongside that, Yokohama is FUCKING MASSIVE. I would say Yokohama is like 3 Kamurochos large, and Kamurocho is already big enough. What makes RGG distinctive and arguably better than other open world exploration games is that all the content is packed inside a walkable city. Open World games like GTA and Zelda suffer from the fact that they are making Open Worlds for the sake of Open Worlds, when in reality you can condense all the content into one, compact area. Yokohama is a great city, but it would be great if the size of the city itself was cut down to about 1/3 or 1/2 of its size in this game.
For a JRPG, the dungeon crawling in this game is... mediocre at best. It's boring as shit. It also doesn't help that the music in the dungeon is the same 5 second chime on a loop. And because of that, grinding in dungeons makes me wanna gouge my eyes.
The grinding in this game is not anything too unusual, though if you're attempting to plat the game, good luck trying to get max job level LOL that shit will take you 20-30 hours minimum.
Conclusion:
If people don't want to play 7 games to get started in RGG games, LaD is an entry that I would put alongside 0 for people to try. They're both games that are great by themselves, and even better for returning fans of the series.
The storytelling and characterization in this game is second to none in my opinion, but with it being the first JRPG series, there are bound to be some flaws and traps the developers fall into in terms of gameplay.
4.5/5
(80 hours played)
Yakuza: LIke a Dragon is the 8th mainline game in the coveted RGG series, but instead follows a new protagonist: Ichiban Kasuga. And over the course of 40-60 hours, you'll learn that Ichiban is just as good of a main character as Kiryu was.
Despite being a completely new genre of gameplay while also lacking a lot of the familiar faces we are used to, Yakuza: Like a Dragon has to be one of my favorite RGG games to date.
Story:
The story follows Ichiban trying to get into contact with his former boss Masumi Arakawa, who saved his life when he was 16, and spent 20 years in prison for the sake of his "family." (only to find out 20 years later that Masumi joined the Omi Alliance from the Tojo Clan)
The storytelling is as good as every other Yakuza game. A plot interesting enough to keep you on your seat and finding out more. RGG never misses with the classic "something happened during timeskip which is now tied to some big grand scheme to destroy the world", and it will never get old in my opinion.
What makes this game even better are the characters. Every character--side, playable, extra--are all lovable, popular, and fleshed out. Every single character that is involved in the story aren't flat and all have their own complexities. Each character involved in the story has a motivation and a reason for why they do what they do, and that is something that previous games have lacked.
It also helps that since this is a JRPG, Ichiban has a party of people that are essentially with him 24/7. This means that the members in Ichiban's party are involved in the story at pretty much every point. It's a cheat code to developing characters, and it also makes it easier to integrate subplots for character development into the main story like they did with Nanba.
Let's talk about Ichiban.
Ichiban encapsulates the vibe of RGG games. He tackles some of the most serious business, while still managing to find an opportunity to be silly. His addiction to Dragon Quest captures this very well.
We also know that behind this happy-go-lucky front, he is a very compassionate and caring individual who will go to no ends to help people who he considers family. Ichiban is the type of guy to help people because he loves them, not because of an ulterior motive like most Yakuza. The complexities behind Ichiban's character is what propels this game to be next level and on-par with other games in this series.
Gameplay:
I will give the gameplay some major slack since it's the first JRPG for this series. If the gameplay wasn't somewhat flawed, this would easily be a 5/5.
LaD fell under the JRPG trap of pretty one-dimensional enemies and strategy. Trash mobs were one shot fodder while bosses had no gimmicks other than "i have a lot of hp and do more than one action per turn." Because of this, the game became more of a number battle rather than strategic warfare. The game artificially creates difficulty by making bosses longer to kill, not harder.
Alongside that, Yokohama is FUCKING MASSIVE. I would say Yokohama is like 3 Kamurochos large, and Kamurocho is already big enough. What makes RGG distinctive and arguably better than other open world exploration games is that all the content is packed inside a walkable city. Open World games like GTA and Zelda suffer from the fact that they are making Open Worlds for the sake of Open Worlds, when in reality you can condense all the content into one, compact area. Yokohama is a great city, but it would be great if the size of the city itself was cut down to about 1/3 or 1/2 of its size in this game.
For a JRPG, the dungeon crawling in this game is... mediocre at best. It's boring as shit. It also doesn't help that the music in the dungeon is the same 5 second chime on a loop. And because of that, grinding in dungeons makes me wanna gouge my eyes.
The grinding in this game is not anything too unusual, though if you're attempting to plat the game, good luck trying to get max job level LOL that shit will take you 20-30 hours minimum.
Conclusion:
If people don't want to play 7 games to get started in RGG games, LaD is an entry that I would put alongside 0 for people to try. They're both games that are great by themselves, and even better for returning fans of the series.
The storytelling and characterization in this game is second to none in my opinion, but with it being the first JRPG series, there are bound to be some flaws and traps the developers fall into in terms of gameplay.
4.5/5
(80 hours played)
This some hard shit no lie.
Would’ve gone even harder if my brother hadn’t come downstairs to get yelled at by my dad while the credits are rolling just to then say afterward “Are you crying?”.
Hate it here, man.
Would’ve gone even harder if my brother hadn’t come downstairs to get yelled at by my dad while the credits are rolling just to then say afterward “Are you crying?”.
Hate it here, man.
Um dos melhores Yakuza e um dos melhores JRPG que já joguei, história incrível, gameplay divertidissimo e cheio de personalidade, personagens mais que carismáticos e músicas marcantes através do jogo todo, tem nem mais oque falar.
Another banger in the Yakuza/Like A Dragon series. Loved the story, the turn-based combat, the amount of things to do. Ichiban is a great replacement for Kiryu and I can't wait to see more of him in future games.
I think my standards were always gonna be too high since this game was the whole reason I wanted to play the series but sadly didn’t really enjoy this as much yakuza 2-5, 0, or judgment. Still good though, Ichi is a wonderful protag and the gameplay loop is fun enough for what it is. I think if LAD 8 irons out the pacing issues as well as a couple of other things then it has the potential to be the best in the series. Good base for the series going forward even if I’m not as big on it as I wanted to be.
Almost dropped it cold turkey style couple of times but eventually pushed through likely because I kept convincing myself and hoping it will be worth it by the end.
Now what's the verdict now that I rolled the credits - well I almost certainly will not be replaying this game ever again. Its simply not worth slogging through 70% of the 65hr playtime it took for a handful of really good moments.
Like all mainline Yakuza games the actual good shit is at the last few chapters but this time around it was especially grueling to get there, since they switched to JRPG turn based combat style everything became either more grindy or more apparent that its a grind fest.
Most combat encounters fall in to two categories -laughably and eventually annoyingly easy where you mash auto attack button to end it and move on, the game even has auto battle you can enable which in my opinion if you can shut off your brain completely during the only "gameplay" section, the game itself is not well designed or balanced. Then we come the the 2nd type of encounters you'll come across that is elite enemies and boss battles this is where you throw constantly same attacks that the enemy is weak to and watch their massive healthbar veeeryyy slooowlyyy deplete please try to remain awake during that. Of course why not buff your party so you do more damage or take less you might say, well why would I waste my turn sacrificing raw damage adding buffs that increase your attack or defense by 3%, debuffs ain't that much better I would have to hire a data analyst who could break down an excel spreadsheet for me just to see the difference in damage dealt.
So combat is a grind, upgrading weapons is a grind, making money in game to spend on those upgrades is a grind, mini game that you use to grind for the money to spend on upgrading a weapon you grinded for the materials is a grind, walking around in the city without tripping into auto battle combat encounter every 10 seconds is a challenge and you'll be doing this for 50-60hrs if you're also try out the side content.
What about the good stuff? Well the combat menus are well designed responsive, easy to navigate, the animations for all your moves and different party "classes" and their moves are all well done and look flashy, the city especially at night looks nice and vibrant depending which district you visit, all the facial animation during cutscenes look very clean, the story has some good moments especially towards the end and soundtrack is fantastic there are some absolute bangers.
Conclusion: at the end of the day I do kinda regret putting this many hours where majority of the time I did not enjoy or was barely engaged with the game and that is not the feeling I want to have when the credits roll.
Now what's the verdict now that I rolled the credits - well I almost certainly will not be replaying this game ever again. Its simply not worth slogging through 70% of the 65hr playtime it took for a handful of really good moments.
Like all mainline Yakuza games the actual good shit is at the last few chapters but this time around it was especially grueling to get there, since they switched to JRPG turn based combat style everything became either more grindy or more apparent that its a grind fest.
Most combat encounters fall in to two categories -laughably and eventually annoyingly easy where you mash auto attack button to end it and move on, the game even has auto battle you can enable which in my opinion if you can shut off your brain completely during the only "gameplay" section, the game itself is not well designed or balanced. Then we come the the 2nd type of encounters you'll come across that is elite enemies and boss battles this is where you throw constantly same attacks that the enemy is weak to and watch their massive healthbar veeeryyy slooowlyyy deplete please try to remain awake during that. Of course why not buff your party so you do more damage or take less you might say, well why would I waste my turn sacrificing raw damage adding buffs that increase your attack or defense by 3%, debuffs ain't that much better I would have to hire a data analyst who could break down an excel spreadsheet for me just to see the difference in damage dealt.
So combat is a grind, upgrading weapons is a grind, making money in game to spend on those upgrades is a grind, mini game that you use to grind for the money to spend on upgrading a weapon you grinded for the materials is a grind, walking around in the city without tripping into auto battle combat encounter every 10 seconds is a challenge and you'll be doing this for 50-60hrs if you're also try out the side content.
What about the good stuff? Well the combat menus are well designed responsive, easy to navigate, the animations for all your moves and different party "classes" and their moves are all well done and look flashy, the city especially at night looks nice and vibrant depending which district you visit, all the facial animation during cutscenes look very clean, the story has some good moments especially towards the end and soundtrack is fantastic there are some absolute bangers.
Conclusion: at the end of the day I do kinda regret putting this many hours where majority of the time I did not enjoy or was barely engaged with the game and that is not the feeling I want to have when the credits roll.
Holy shit this was amazing, it's been so long since I've really enjoyed both the story and gameplay of a Yakuza game.
And it also kinda turned into my favorite turn-based RPG, although it might not be as impressive considering the other ones I played so far were Persona and Pokemon X3
Only reason why I'm not giving all 5 stars is because it does take a while until the gameplay really becomes fun, the first 10 hours of the game feel like a tutorial. And I didn't like one thing about the ending. Besides that it's an incredible game :3
And it also kinda turned into my favorite turn-based RPG, although it might not be as impressive considering the other ones I played so far were Persona and Pokemon X3
Only reason why I'm not giving all 5 stars is because it does take a while until the gameplay really becomes fun, the first 10 hours of the game feel like a tutorial. And I didn't like one thing about the ending. Besides that it's an incredible game :3
Starting over from rock bottom, huh? I'll take those odds.
Going into this, I wasn't fully sure what to expect with the new formula, new setting, new main character and all that
For such a refreshing take on the series and the start to whatever comes after, I applaud the number of risks they took with this game. Yet for all of these risks taken be it with the writing style or gameplay, all of them contribute towards making it a great entry furthermore. That's not to say it isn't without issues, the new gameplay certainly felt experimental and you can see they weren't fully clear about what to make of it, but what they did make of it is fantastic. I trust 8 only to improve upon it.
The writing, where do I even begin...this game is probably the most suited to my tastes in the series as far as general writing style goes and I couldn't be happier with it. The lighter tone yet more mature approach to social issues like the existence of a backwards society that no other game in this series does justice, extremely fulfilling side character content for the main cast, brilliant tie ins to the first 7 games and on....yeah I could sit here all day about how well put this is for a new identity to the series. My issues with the story are far too minimal to even mention.
For such a refreshing take on the series and the start to whatever comes after, I applaud the number of risks they took with this game. Yet for all of these risks taken be it with the writing style or gameplay, all of them contribute towards making it a great entry furthermore. That's not to say it isn't without issues, the new gameplay certainly felt experimental and you can see they weren't fully clear about what to make of it, but what they did make of it is fantastic. I trust 8 only to improve upon it.
The writing, where do I even begin...this game is probably the most suited to my tastes in the series as far as general writing style goes and I couldn't be happier with it. The lighter tone yet more mature approach to social issues like the existence of a backwards society that no other game in this series does justice, extremely fulfilling side character content for the main cast, brilliant tie ins to the first 7 games and on....yeah I could sit here all day about how well put this is for a new identity to the series. My issues with the story are far too minimal to even mention.
why the fuck am i fighting construction equipment
The new combat being turned based works really well. Basically, it takes what would normally be a heat animation and turns it into a special move that takes what replaces heat in this game, MP. So in any other game you could walk up to a fella with full heat and do a cool little attack animation, in this game you choose which one to do from a menu and they all have different stats and there are different builds you could do with armor and equipment and there's just so much depth to the combat. Yeah, you could just mash. But when you get to the bosses, you can't just spam the highest damage moves over and over until it's done. You gotta use your support characters, lower their stats, raise your own, use every tool in your arsenal. But yeah, it kinda sucked having to grind in chapter 12 but that was the only time I felt under-leveled, and after that, even if I was a lower level I could whittle their health down with strategies and good team comp. And it fixes a system-based problem with the original that also happens in a lot of action games and kinda ruins them: you can't just pause the game anymore and down 30 staminans. Stopping time and healing really kills difficulty in a lot of games (that's why dark souls are so godly) and that's why this game is great. I had to really think and strategize. I had to make one party member into the medic/support. It's a great battle system and while it's no replacement for the good old fashioned real-time tiger drop, the turn based combat really came together as you got more party members and the jobs opened up. Unfortunately, my favourite character out of the gang was the weakest (or at least didn't fit in my playstyle) and I never got to have him on my team :( sorry Adachi
The music, boss fights, side quests, minigames, and quality of life changes are all amazing. Two boss fights, in particular, stand out, and yeah everyone whos played knows exactly what I'm talking about. Chapter 12 was probably the most eventful and insane chapter in any Yakuza and a shoutout to the voice actors both English and Japanese. I played subbed like some stupid weeb and I thought Ichiban's voice was perfect. It's really easy to make a character like him dislikable and annoying, but there's a lot of subtle kindness and heart in his voice and demeanor that is great. And an extra special shoutout to the business management minigame. In the beginning, I was so confused and I failed the shareholders meeting minigame and I was in the red and losing money.. but then 4 uninterrupted hours later I was in full swing and I was doing the minigame like it was my job. They put crack into the code of that, I swear. Anyways god-tier game, god-tier Yakuza, and the story is obviously great. GG (good game)
Ichiban Kasuga is a lovable fool with a heart of gold from start to finish. He's a great protagonist who makes friends quickly and treasures each one. The switch from brawler to turn-based party combat emphasizes that quality in an inspired use of videogame mechanics. It's a good representation of the direction of the Yakuza series since 4, which has been more about overcoming obstacles together than it is about a single hero.
However, there are some qualities that still need some work. I would have liked substories to grant XP in addition to their other rewards and the game could do more to give a spotlight to its own job system. As it went for me, there was also some repetition and lost hours to some unlucky dungeon deaths. That unfortunately distracted from the story and its characters, which are ultimately the bigger draw than the combat. All the same, Like A Dragon has some of the most lovable characters in videogames and it gave me plenty of time with them. Here's to the friends we made along the way!
However, there are some qualities that still need some work. I would have liked substories to grant XP in addition to their other rewards and the game could do more to give a spotlight to its own job system. As it went for me, there was also some repetition and lost hours to some unlucky dungeon deaths. That unfortunately distracted from the story and its characters, which are ultimately the bigger draw than the combat. All the same, Like A Dragon has some of the most lovable characters in videogames and it gave me plenty of time with them. Here's to the friends we made along the way!
It's really hard rating this game. I loved it a lot. I really enjoyed my time with it. I loved the characters. I loved Ijincho. I loved that Yakuza was willing to move on and create a whole new cast. It is their first try at an RPG, and it shows. It's not a great RPG system. But also, Yakuza wasn't a great beat em up. It's almost series tradition to have just passable gameplay, as that's not the point. The story was that of a soap opera in the best possible way. I loved all the twists and turns. I think it's gripping, and while it might be kinda cheesy, it's always fun and enjoyable. Ichiban also stands as one of the best RPG protags ever. Please play this game, even if you don't know much about Yakuza.