Like a Dragon: Ishin! is undoubtedly the best hidden gem of 2023. This Yakuza series spin-off transports players to a pivotal moment in Japan's history, circa 1860, when the nation was encountering visitors from other countries, reshaping crucial aspects of its way of life.

This game is a remake of a title originally developed for the PS3 and exclusively released in Japan. This remake version boasts stunning visuals and modern gameplay. With its new features, it stands out as one of the top games available on PS5 and Xbox Series, while also being accessible on PS4 and Xbox One.

The narrative revolves around Sakamoto Ryoma, who grapples with conflicting pressures and uncertainty surrounding his identity and societal role. Amidst a coup in Tosa, he is determined to uncover the assassin responsible for his mentor's death, leading him to operate under a secret identity on the streets of Kyoto and aligning with the formidable Shinsengumi.

One drawback for me is the reuse of faces familiar from other Yakuza games. In a story set two centuries ago, it feels off to see these faces interacting again. The presence of undercover villains is somewhat undermined if you're familiar with the Yakuza storyline, as it becomes predictable, affecting the impact of plot twists.

The game offers an open world to explore, although not overly expansive. Despite its size, there are some noteworthy locations to visit.

Combat in the game is both enjoyable and accessible. While there are four fighting styles available, players will likely find themselves primarily using just two during gameplay. The standout moments in combat are undoubtedly the encounters with bosses.

It's unfortunate that Like a Dragon: Ishin! isn't receiving as much attention as it deserves. This release is unquestionably solid, and I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys action games.

"I now realise what I search for is not revenge, but the truth."

A unique title that echoes the heights of the franchise. A Yakuza game to it's core and the first title to be shipped to the West under the Like A Dragon rebrand, Ishin Kiwami (I call it Ishinwami for short) has a lot to live up to., and it does for the most part.

On the gameplay side? I like it, boss fights are slower than the rest of the series but it goes great along with it's swordplay. It's your average day to day enemies you encounter that pose any real issue, enemies with the spear will give you a hard time getting back up and during long fights you're suddenly forced to fight these giant armoured enemies who you can't use heat actions against. While the combat isn't anything amazing, it works extremely well for it's setting.

One thing I do not like Ishinwami's character changes, they sell completely different images of the characters and during my playthrough there was always an itch in the back of my mind about how it doesn't feel right. Replacing fan favorites with other fan favorites was not the way to go, however, it's mostly ignorable and the average person will not mind. I'm just care for details like this. I just hope if they ever decide to release Kenzan here, the changes made aren't as major.

But story is what's always mattered in Yakuza to me, and for the most part it delivers very well. The game uses the Meiji Restoration era as a metaphor for our dual selves. Japan, much like us, projects an image of themselves which is how they want to be seen as. But just like us, it's plagued with infighting and conflict.

The story starts out slow and takes a while to get going but when it does it reminds me of why I love this franchise. The final fight especially is a great set piece about two men fighting over a legacy, their legacy. I just wish the rest of the game could've been like this too, because the cracks start to show very soon.
The ending especially veers so hard into Japanese nationalism out of no where that all it does is leave a bad taste in your mouth. It doesn't break the game but it certainly could've been handled a lot better.

Ishin reminds me of a lot of what I love about the franchise, but I can't deny that it occasionally falls into the same pits as some of the other games. Jarring reveals and awkward pacing, I still love Yakuza, or as it's now called, "Like a Dragon". I'm very optimistic for the future.

What a wild ride, to think they did very little to improve on the original and the vast majority of changes make the game much worse. The biggest bad change is the whole crafting system, which I spent ages figuring out and working on a video explaining it all because it's total nonsense https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2e82M7zj12g&t=22s&ab_channel=AllstarBrose

On its own, Ishin is a middling Yakuza game. Middle of the road story that's really slow but has a few decent highs, a weak selection of minigames, a bad selection of substories, some of the grindiest side content in the series, and combat that loses the refinement of 5 without the energy or synergy of 0's styles. If you look at it on its own, Ishin's probably a solid 6/10. Once you compare the changes between the original release and this one, you'll question what the hell RGG Studio was doing.

First off, why on earth is brawler so weak? It deals no damage compared to the rest of your styles and the combo speed boost does not help. Why is sword so slow? Why does wild dance do so little? Why is gun... well gun's mostly the same once you put a pierce seal on one since armor takes no damage from guns. The combat does not feel good, especially when compared to the original release. Ryoma falls over if an enemy so much as looks at him wrong and you gotta sit through a two second animation. There is no herculean spirit in this game (and stability is locked to brawler) so unless you wanna be on the ground for 1/5 of the time you're fighting, get good at those blocks and dodges (of which they locked komaki dharma tumbler to unarmed instead of it being for all styles for some reason).

Ishin was already known as one of the grindiest games in the series, but they did very little to fix it initially. A lot of the diligence records were made less grindy, but some of the worst ones (like Gion reputation) weren't changed at all. The seal system was completely ruined, but the video linked above covers that. At release material gathering was just as tedious as it was in the original, but a patch has been put out to remedy this at least. This game is still insanely grindy and frustrating for that purpose, don't say "that's just for 100% completion!!!" The game encourages you to use the blacksmith. If you're playing a casual playthrough, you won't be able to craft much of anything since so much requires dungeon grinding, plus none of the systems are explained to you. It's complete bullhonkey.

The casting changes are also a big misstep, one of the cool things about the original release was that because almost every character was similar to their mainline personality, you got to see interactions that never happened before. Seeing Mine as an ally to Kiryu or interacting with Saejima or seeing Baba showing off his deceptive personality from the start created interesting dynamics. Now? Oh cool there's Kuze, sounding more bored than ever and being an underhanded, dishonest bastard for some reason. Oh wow there's Han, who's a spy and torturer but sticks out like a sore thumb and acts completely different than he did in 7 (and in 6 he has one scene where he's ruthless). Oh cool there's Zhao, being shifty and shady when he's never been like that before. The only one that really fits is Awano, but that character was barely present anyway. All of this casting just screams fanservice for people who played only 0, K1, K2, and 7 instead of having a wide variety of characters from your whole legacy.

The original release of Ishin was in my bottom 3 for Yakuza games, but this one easily takes the cake for worst game in the series to me. I can't ever see myself replaying either iteration of the game, nor could I ever recommend them. If you want a gripping story with good emotional beats, play Y3. If you want a more serious, clinical, but tightly written story, play Judgment. If you want great side content, play 5. If you want great combat, play Lost Judgment. There's nothing Ishin does better, or even close to as good, as any other game in the series. Do not bother with this one.

Ryoma Sakamoto, the man who rewrote history with his sword.

No "Like A Dragon" game is complete without it's many substories, plot twists, and action movie-style cliches. Was really excited to play the new installment, however, when I ended up starting my journey I started to have issues taking this spinoff seriously at all. It is difficult to be immersed into the characters and stories when I know these characters and mannerisms as others in the canon Like a Dragon universe. It is confounding because I honestly do not know if it could be as good without these great performances, especially with Takaya Kuroda killing it as always. Fortunately, it did not take me long to adapt to it and get invested in the story which seems to suffer from a bit of a slow start but kicks into gear after a few chapters.

Great beat-em-up gameplay with the new editions of the upgradeable weapons and crafting system. The world and environment are as vibrant and lively as ever. This is one gorgeous-looking game especially crossing the bridges and seeing all the scenery and water surrounding Kyo.

Swordplay is really nice against many bosses and the final climactic battles are always one hell of a ride. Definitely a must-play for die-hard fans of the series with a plethora of side content and mini-games to enjoy. I put 59 hrs in and ended up only completing 19%.

Sing some Baka Mitai and watch Ryoma's story unfold. Hopefully, we will eventually get Kenzan as well, I really wanna get my hands on that one now!

ishin was pretty okay! i can totally understand people who think it didn't live up to the hype like other yakuza entries usually do and i understand people who think this was a pretty good remaster / yakuza entry.
i'm somewhere in the middle, i certainly did enjoy ishin but i kinda expected something more of it and i would change some things etc etc so i'll try quickly to mark up what i liked and disliked;

-i didn't like the combat that much, felt really clunky, expected something more akin to judgment combat which is fast and fluid; here in ishin combat falls flat. brawler style is completely void and in late game wild dancer is kinda useless too. swordmaster and gunner was the winning combo for me.
-the card system is really weird tbh i can get behind the concept but all in all it's just useless addition imo
-weapon crafting and upgrading felt like a chore and you can pretty much use that one heavenly sword from mukurogai until the lategame bosses
-speaking of bosses; combat wise the last portion of the last chapter was really crammed with mini bosses and boss fights in general and there's not a minute of respite not to mention the shortage of resources which made me restart some fights several times and ultimately killed my enjoyment
-as for the story aspect - the final boss esp didn't really live up to my hype and it was predictable, like one of my mutuals here mentioned
i may be projecting here a lot bc of the og yakuza characters and i realise that's not the main point here but it didn't sit well with me that they used specifically shibusawa for kiryu (ryoma's) kyodai. i'm a firm believer that should've been nishiki and everything would be more emotional and the stakes would be higher. but for those that think that'd be just a kiwami rehash they could've put someya at least, i think it would be a bit more believable compared to an old ass guy being the same age as ryoma LOL
-also like my mutual here said we were led to believe some characters would have a bigger role but in the end they just. did not.
-not a big fan of the oryo and ryoma romance angle, felt a bit forced

now the things i liked!
-the whole another life with haruka segment was so wholesome and fun and i would spend so much time there i just love ryoma and haruka so so so much
-the minigames were super fun
-this is my bias but i love how hijikata (mine) had a prominent role here and him interacting with kiryu filled my yakuza 3 holes with joy :) i love mine so much guys def my fave yakuza character + akiyama and hana too! although i wanted more screentime of them
-the shinsengumi quartet in the endgame was so good and gave me yakuza 4 vibes which i really liked
-even though the sidecontent could get sometimes overwhelming it sure was a fun ride

all in all a pretty decent game! def expected more but in the end i don't regret buying it and experiencing it for myself! hoping gaiden and y8 will be even better than this!

Fantastic remake that sadly has a few issues keeping it from being a 5/5. Presentation, combat, visuals and especially music are very good, but with the change of engine over to UE4 some issues have crept up. Some cutscenes have flickering issues (and run at 30fps no matter your framerate!), and somehow most of chapter 12 specifically runs below 30fps when this game runs at a capped 60 on PS5. Combat, while fun can get stale as it’s not as free flowing as you would think, which is a shame after what Lost Judgment showed us. However, the introduction of battle cards offset this as there are plenty of buffs, debuffs, healing and special moves that come with those, that help the game to feel fresh and exciting for the most part.

I’m hoping they iron out the issues that were present here as it looks like sadly Sega have binned the Dragon Engine and want to be lazy like most developers nowadays instead of using the great engine they had built over the last few years.

Overall Ishin is definitely a great game, not one I would recommend to newcomers to Yakuza, as this game is pure fan service and a lot of it will be lost on people who have not played the games that came beforehand.

Kenzan next you cowards

Ishin is an alright RGG game whose appeal lies in its fanservice more than anything else. It was sold as a remake, but it doesn’t really feel like one. Granted I haven’t played the original, but quality-wise, this feels on par with the remastered PlayStation 3 Yakuza games more than a full on remake. While I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, it doesn’t really feel like the game should be sold for full price either, and should be priced closer to those remastered PS3 Yakuza games instead. Combat generally doesn’t feel very good, and the game has an abundance of tedious systems that I just actively refused to engage with.

The story is the best part of Ishin, though in all honesty, I didn’t enjoy it more than the vast majority of other RGG Studios games. The story’s main appeal is in its fanservice. It made me super giddy to see so many different characters from past Yakuza games (the vast majority of which are dead) come together and interact with one another. Even though these are technically different people, at their core, they’re still the characters we know and love. This made for really interesting tension and plot dynamics, since despite knowing these characters, we didn’t know what roles they’d play in the story. This allowed the writers to subvert our expectations and surprise us, allowing for some of my favorite story moments in any RGG Studios game.

That’s pretty much where my praise for this game ends. Just about everything else regarding this game is either a let down or a drag. There’s an abundance of systems that aren’t fun or interesting to engage with at all, and hinder other areas of the game. Money is incredibly stingy, unless you do the homestead farming minigames, which aren’t interesting to do at all. The stingy economy is also an element of the really poorly implemented crafting system that after a few attempts, I actively refused to do whatsoever. There’s also the Trooper system which I also just didn’t really mess around with at all. The gacha nature of it dissuaded me from wanting to have anything to do with it. I didn’t want to manage the Troopers, nor did I want to spend the already limited money I’ve got trying to fish for more/better Troopers. These systems make the game such a grindy, boring drag. I didn’t want to do them at all, despite the drawbacks of not engaging with them.

Thankfully the game has ways to circumvent these systems. There was a free DLC sword that’s really strong which I used the whole game. Very rarely did I have to upgrade it at the blacksmith. As a result, I spent the vast majority of this game using that one sword. I made money using the log chopping mini game, and spent it on filling my inventory with medicine. I did spend time unlocking various skills for the different styles, but I generally played the game by avoiding attacks as much as possible, and taking medicine whenever I did get hit, since enemies are so aggressive and do an immense amount of damage. Now I fully admit, I might have hindered my experience by not meeting the game on its own terms and engaging with these systems. However, from what I’ve read from other people, these systems were very much the tedious grind that they seemed to be, so I don’t think my experience would’ve improved all that much even if I did engage with the blacksmithing and farming.

Combat doesn’t feel very good in this game either. The original Ishin was a precursor to Yakuza 0, so this was the first game in the series to implement the style system in combat. Compared to the styles in Yakuza 0/Kiwami or the Judgment games, the styles in Ishin don’t really mesh well together. Whereas the styles in the latter RGG games had situational uses, the styles in Ishin just feel more like alternate ways to engage with the combat and nothing more. I primarily used Swordsman for most of the game. Wild Dancer was good for crowd control, but I’d quickly switch back to Swordsman once I knocked enemies down and got myself some breathing room. I used Gun occasionally to pick off low health enemies from a distance. It seemed really easy to exploit Gun, and shooting a gun just doesn’t feel anywhere near as satisfying as the melee in an RGG game. I never really used Brawler much at all. It never seemed to do much damage and so I saw little point in using it. Plus I primarily wanted to use my sword in the game about samurai.

The game also has minor issues that aren’t that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, but I feel like they are still notable since this game is being sold as a $60 remake. The UX in this game is very laggy. It takes a noticeably long time to enter/exit menus on the pause screen, especially the abilities and equipment menus. Also, every cutscene in the game is only 30 fps. For me, this was a bit jarring, especially after playing every single RGG Studios game currently on Steam with cutscenes that were 60 fps. It just makes me feel like the care and attention that was put into this remake were put in the wrong areas.

Ishin has a lot to do, but hardly any of it is actually fun to do. It has a great story with tremendous fanservice, but that is just about all the game has going for it.The terrible economy forces you to either grind tedious minigames and crafting systems, or feel largely underpowered for the vast majority of the game. For a game that’s being sold as a remake, I don’t think enough was done to actually improve it. Instead, it just adds an additional tedious system to engage with. Now that I’ve reached the end of my journey through all of the RGG Studios games (until Like a Dragon Gaiden comes out), I eventually plan on revisiting them all and playing through their Premium Adventure modes. However, I don’t think I’ll be coming back to Ishin. Since I’ve completed the story, there just isn’t really anything appealing that would make me want to come back to it.

Second 'Like A Dragon' game I've played.
I feel, so far, these games aren't extremely polished on the gameplay side of things. If we're only discussing combat, that is. For context, I played this start to end on "Legend" difficulty, the highest feasible difficulty ('Ishin' mode explicitly states that it should only be attempted on new game plus). I did 90% of substories, all the dungeons, and did a looot of crafting. I didn't do much of the arena, why? Well, one fight had a foe shoot me with incidenary bullets that literally stunned-lock me to death. Sadly that wasn't the only time I loss more then half of my health from being trapped in a inescapable combo. I'm fine being punished for not dodging the initial hit of a combo, but the amount of total combined damage doesn't really feel fair with how quickly some of these enemies swing their swords. Am I saying this game is too hard on Legend mode? Not really. If anything, this game goes repeatedly back and forth with it being too punishing, and yourself being utterly unstoppable. You can craft and buy some seriously disgusting weapons, like a cannon that will literally infinite combo most foes and some bosses, or the Vortex pistol which shoots so fast that it shreds health pools in seconds. Then there's the trooper system that are special attacks, and if you have the tiger trooper (as in a literal tiger) then that's near-guranteed instakill on a single enemy. Did I mention that some troopers are real content creators (which are free DLC)? One of which is a Vtuber. No, I'm not going to spoil who.
Of course there's a lot to do beyond shoving swords up a ronin's ass. You got karaoke, dancing, fishing, gambling, farming, pet managing, cards, shogi, cooking, and the bane of my existence, chicken races. What's wrong with that last one? It's easily the best way to make money in the entire game, but its of course luck-based. And every attempt takes an agonizingly long time. And sometimes you get those ""fun"" moments where ten times in a row the chicken with the highest possible chances of winning just never wins. Literally gone for half an hour before winning once, but the payout is honestly worth it.
Substories are very frequent compared to 7, which my first Like A Dragon game. Wasn't a fan how a ton of them required coming and leaving so many times. You'd visit a friend, give them a item, walk away, then come back. This happens an absurd amount of times. They do provide a lot of cute, and funny side stories so they're at least worth it.
It's funny how many issues I have with this game, but it's hard to hate. It has some great set-pieces, a roller-coaster of a plot, excellent sound design with stellar choreography in cutscenes and combat, a ton of stuff to do beyond the main story, and honestly quite a lot of heart. You know you've done good when I've invested so much time in your RPG system to want to grind for rare materials, namely to see the great weapon designs. Not necessarily for stat ups. And while not my favorite, the music did its job very well across the board.
That aside, you can spin around like a madman with your katana and your rapid-fire pistol as you carve a path of death, then summon a bear for good measure. That should be enough to convince you one way or another.

Like a Dragon: Ishin is a familiar experience to RGG fans like myself, but definitely feels different enough to warrant its existence. Many of the pieces are there -- substories, minigames, goofy ass combat, and a killer main plot. There's a couple things that I think set Ishin apart, though.

The most obvious is the setting. I thought it was awesome to see this take on 19th century Japan, especially juxtaposed with all the wackiness of a Like a Dragon entry. The story it follows is one about incredible people fighting hard for the sake of their home, which is easy to get behind. I'll admit I thought it had a slow start, but I was captivated by the back half.

Ishin returns to real time action combat, with the notable twist of allowing you to equip troopers for your different battle styles which grant both passive effects and abilities. I thought this was a nice way to keep the combat fun, but unfortunately I only encountered a select few choices that were just way more viable than the rest so there wasn't a ton of variety. The game also tends to make its drawn-out combat sections a little too drawn out, throwing traps, bosses, and hordes at you without giving hardly a break.

I may just be fatigued on the Like a Dragon formula, but the innovations that are here to me don't heighten this game to the likes of Y0 or YK2. There's many things in Ishin that just feel way more tedious than they need to, and it feels like RGG did not do too much beyond reskinning one of the old Yakuza titles with a handful of new mechanics. Honestly, with some quality of life tweaks, overall less tedium, and a slightly fresher coat of paint, this could have been an instant classic. Instead, it joins the "good but overall unimpressive" camp of RGG titles.

i am not the woman i was when i made this account, for one i’m now happily engaged and i don’t thirst after men who live in the tv anymore. that being said okita is rivalling yakuza 0 majima in terms of ‘men made of pixels making me feel insane’ here. so much so, i am convinced this being remastered was a ploy devised by rgg studios bc they saw i’d stopped buying yakuza merchandise and needed to boost their figures, “show that bitch majima with a ponytail again, we need to shift these novelty shot glasses”. jokes on them i’m in my mid-20s now and i dont have the vigour 22 year old me had when it comes to blowing money on stupid bullshit. i want to wander the streets of kyo and lock eyes with okita, i think it’d be like looking at the sun or a really nice photo of a landscape, just pure bliss before he kills me out of fear & confusion bc i’m a white woman in 1800s japan

As someone who feels like they're in a constant game of tug of war with each Yakuza game they play, I was genuinely surprised with how much I ended up enjoying Ishin. As far as ones I've completed go, this very well may be my second favorite in the series.

Yakuza games are often funny and unique, with really entertaining characters. I really think Kiryu is one of the best protagonists of all time. But theres always some things that bring them down for me. Grueling pacing, terrible boss design and lackluster endings are what a lot of this series has left me with. Most of the games make up for this overall (besides Yakuza 4. Sorry I dont usually like to use reviews to insult other games but god I fucking despised playing that). But starting with 0 which does have some of the same issues but is by far the strongest I've beaten yet has made the entire series onwards feel a bit disappointing. Especially with my last two experiences, Yakuza 5 and 6. I never ended up reviewing them but they did so much that I wanted from the series and I really felt the Yakuza love again (much needed after 4), but then both of them completely dropped the ball for me with some of the most unsatisfying endings I've ever experienced.

So yeah, I made sure my expectations were tempered for this one. Which I think in the end made me enjoy it more. Its completely fair to expect the mainline series to be high quality but in most cases its understandable to expect a spinoff to be a little weaker. But damn, not this one.

I'm not really familiar with the history behind what inspired the story, but the small amount I do know tells me they definitely took some liberties. I can't really comment on if thats a good thing or not, but the way they play off of some of the real life events is pretty damn cool. Even without the history aspect, its just a badass story to begin with. And my god, characters are getting murdered every other chapter. I love that shit. And! Half of them aren't ridiculously stupid fake out deaths, hallelujah. I can't really get into too much detail because of spoilers but, for basically every Yakuza game there's a few chapters in the beginning or near the middle where I want to cry myself to sleep, but with Ishin I was hooked the entire time past the end of chapter 1.

The combat is already pretty fun. Yakuza needs more guns. Wild Dancer obv is the most entertaining but Swordsman and Gunman are both fun in their own right. Brawler is completely useless, barely touched it lol. The card system is fine, It wasn't implemented all that great and the best cards in the game are free DLC so I just used those the whole time, but It existing is neat. There's also the Another Life farming sim side mode that was cute and fun but for a reason I'm about to get to, I didn't get too far into it.

By 'about to get to', I mean we're going to talk about it right now. The only thing I really disliked about this game is how god damn grindy it is to interact with the side stuff. I usually skip a lot of the side content in this series but I like to do a bit of it when its one of them I particularly like, and it really felt like this one was fighting against me. The battle dungeons are absurdly long, everything in Another Life takes ages (also you can't pay off Haruka's debt with your own money normally for some dumb reason) and trying to upgrade weapons and make the blacksmith actually useful is a nightmare. The light rpg elements and how slow everything is really take away from wanting to interact with much of that.

But that rather large-but-not-really issue aside, this was definitely one of the most surprising games I've played in a minute. Very high contender for the most fun and best written game in the series.

We are now at the blog portion of this review. Skip to the bottom for a TLDR and my final score if you don't care about all that. Things have been going solid, this was one of 5 games I beat in a day (not in their entirety obv) the other day so I'm pretty proud of that. Found a sealed copy of Persona 4 Arena for PS3 so happy to get that. Been playing Breath of the Wild too. Not sure what my next review will be but a MGRR one is quite likely. Also been doing a lot more creative writing which made trying to do write this review harder than usual. I hope this turned out good enough and you enjoyed reading it. If you did, thank you <3

-----TLDR-----
+ Great story
+ Fun gameplay
+ sexy music
- Extremely grindy side content

Nancymeter - 89/100
Trophy Completion - 41%
Time Played - i forgor I'll add this in later
Completion #3 of May
Completion #92 of 2023

It's a tough one. For the record, I have not played the original, so this touches on elements of the original and the remake at the same time.

PROS:
+ Some really lovely work on fictionalizing this just enough that those familiar with the details of the real-life people and places will be left on their toes. I think this comes together really nicely in the last third despite the game practically screaming the Big Reveal at you as it's being set up - that's not really where the thrill lies.

+ Additionally, it's nice to have an RGG game that goes super hard on political intrigue. Previous games touch on politics, of course, but it always has the texture of interpersonal drama among the Important Involved People - factions are typically extensions of their leaders and footsoldiers are very rarely granted any agency in the narratives of these games. You see shades of that here as well, but the political turmoil, the calculus, the maneuvering involved means these factions come closer to being groups of people instead of one big hive mind.

+ Using the facescans/voice actors from the main series for this spinoff is generally quite nice. Characters like Mine getting more time in the spotlight is always welcome, and the big stars are basically just the same characters from the mainline games, so fans of Saejima or Goda that want more will get it. You could certainly be more ambitious with these - I kind of wish Not-Kiryu would give up on the "no killing" thing, but I get it - it's Bakumatsu fanfic with Yakuza characters, might as well ham it up.

+ The Yakuza series is so good with soundtracks that it feels like it's not even worth mentioning that the soundtrack is good, but I'm going to do it anyway: The soundtrack is good.

+ Swords and guns are nice mostly for the heat moves. There are only so many ways you can do a big punch, but the heat moves for these weapons are as heinously violent as you would expect and they're a breath of fresh air. The gun is especially fun in this context.

MIXED:
= Very strange to return to the older mechanics after five Dragon Engine games. A good thing in that combat possesses the weight of the older games, a bad one in that I lose more health to the camera facing the wrong way mid-fight. Wild Dancer is especially prone to this given that the style is based almost entirely around twirling around and between opponents.

= The slice of life... minigame(?) is nice! Unfortunately, being segmented off by a boat ride on the edge of the map means you're never just going to stop in because you're nearby. You've got to consciously decide to go make room to pick radishes in between deciding the fate of Japan. I guess this is how Yakuza works, tonally, but there's just too much separation here and it seems like THIS is the point where this kind of thing becomes jarring for me personally.

CONS:
- Crafting is a straight-up mistake. There's too much going on here, it's too hard to get parts and too hard to get smithing experience unless you spend unfathomable resources crafting shit you don't need. The weapons aren't distinct enough to warrant this Monster Hunter-style equipment progression and the fact that you're not really actively pushed to engage with it makes it worse, not better. The components are everywhere, too, so I'm stuck reflecting on how many resources I'm losing out on by choosing to pursue the plot instead of opening a pot every ten meters during the climax. Perhaps related...

- ...the Yakuza series is generally good at indulging the fantasy of the duel, something I think there's a pretty good appetite for especially when adding samurai to the mix. For me, that samurai fantasy does not include a boss interrupting the fight every six seconds to un-stagger-ably shoot fire from his hands for three seconds. Every ability like this also does insane damage, but I'm open to being told I didn't craft good enough armor or whatever. It's probably true.

- The way they chose to fictionalize this story means that there is a LOT of focus on espionage, and RGG writes not-Kiryu as the least believable spy on the planet. Almost constantly people are saying things like "it is time to kill The Bad Guy" and Kiryu visibly freaks the fuck out, to which the other person will say "what was that about? do you know The Bad Guy" and he goes "absolutely not. I Have Never Heard Of Him" and the plot just continues on like nothing happened. Honestly this is funny enough that it's almost a pro

- I'm generally quite tired of the franchise moving in a direction where we pretend that Y0 and Y7 are the only games that exist. The recasting of characters is mostly fine, given that some of the facescans in the original are relative nobodies, but it REALLY leaves a sour fuckin' taste in my mouth to see every one of the Yakuza 0 lieutenants represented among the Shinsengumi captains while characters like Baba and Hamazaki get replaced with Zhao and Kuze. There's still a captain that doesn't have a main series counterpart! He even gets time in the spotlight! Come on man.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
+ https://i.imgur.com/JA0To49.jpg

Y'know, maybe I should have been more wary. RGG have now proven they have a serious track record of fucking up re-releases. Monkey ball 1+2 got borked physics. VF5 got racist netcode. Yakuza 1+2 got Kiwami'd. And now it really feels like Ishin has as well.

RGG will really add an unforgivably terrible gacha Card system on what already seems like a way too bloated game, but not address that you can just bait one attack and gun down from across the room every story boss.

RGG will really just change what seems like a pretty well thought out original cast considering the conceit in what is obviously a shortsighted fanservice move that will reek in like 3 years.

RGG will really just not address the game's blatant issues like a quarter of the runtime consisting of you running to and from work, attaching Kiryu's morality system onto thi main character requiring consant contrivance and the game's map clearly being hamstrung by loading times on the PS3.

Deep,, deep under Nu-Ishin is the best Yakuza game. And frankly, I get the impression that it's buried a fair bit under the original Ishin as well - I don't think the Yakuza stuff helps tell the story at play (not-Kiryu just sucks the life out of what seems like a truly fascinating real person imo) there's a pointless aount of RPG nonsense that only detracts from the combat that I can't blame entirely on the remake, and the map is probably the series' weakest if you arent a huge nerd for this shit like me.

But im a huge sucker for stories from this period (WATCH YOJIMBO) i love the aesthetic, the combat whilst having issues gainst greatly from swords and guns, and the general plot is really cool. Frankly, just experiencing thils state of japan from the viewpoint of an RGG game is satiation enough for me, huge nerd. But god it could be so much better.

And Nu-Ishin is just the worst kind of re-release. It reminds me a lot of Strange Journey Redux - making pointless changes that dont help and just alienate, whilst adding pointless new stuff that's both terrible and bloats out a game that if anything needs cutting down.

RGG are a very competent studio, but god they need to stop doing this shit.

PS: the translation/localisation here feels really rough. To the point i've spotted multiple spelling mistakes. Makes it particularly tempting to go back to the original once i've improved my Japanese... a lot.

Damn, spending a few evenings to read on the turning events of Bakumatsu and nearly mythical status of Sakamoto Ryoma in Japanese culture paid off in spades. This isn't simply a history lesson with cool Yakuza dudes – Ishin's entire shtick is a subversion and dramatization of events that turned the course of Japanese history around. The prior context is, in fact, so cornerstone to key reveals and emotional bits, you kinda see why developers were so wary about bringing the game outside of Japan? The more happy it makes me they trusted our curiosity to learn this context ourselves. When RGG storytelling dramatism and historical anticipations truly synthesise — it's a fucking riot.

Where it does kidna lose me is in the handling of Shinsengumi? RGG games can sometimes be conflicted like that, but more thought should be given to the fact that we work with literal fash secret police, be it history or not. The game doesn't even embellish them and fully elaborates on atrocities they commit. And yet the adherence to subvert Sakamoto Ryoma's legend is just so backbreaking, to the point we're simply required to accept that some boys in blue are ready to put their lives for the future of reformed country just as we are, and it's just so at odds with the rest of the story told. Love Majima and Mine as much as the other guy, but I'm just not buying it here.

As a digression I'd add that Kiwami remake is actually totally fine? In most shots it looks better than before (unless you enjoy the swelter of seventh gen piss filter), the trooper system is a fun additional thing to play around (and can be totally ignored if you wish so), and cast changes are mostly for the better (you're lying to yourself if you think Zhao sells his character worse than fucking Baba). If anything, it could change more.

Kiryu and company go back in time to do the same thing they always do: tell a phenomenal story with captivating characters in an engaging setting.

I've spoken before about how RGG/Like a Dragon reviews outside of Y7/Like a Dragon boil down to the same talking points, so I figured this review will run pretty short as I want to condense the pros/cons and how that aligns with other RGG titles.

The first positive is that this is again a fantastically written tale of deceit and treachery, however unlike the other titles in the series, doesn't take place in contemporary Japan. I'm a sucker for a well done period piece like Ghost of Tsushima or the Red Dead Series and it's a no brainer at this point that RGG could and would join the ranks of those works by releasing a title of their own. I know this is a remake of a previously released game, but this is my first time playing it. Jidaigeki stuff is under-represented, lets get some more quality titles out of this era! Seldom do you see games release in the west that touch on the unique piece of history that was the beginning of the Meiji restoration and the departure of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Running through it with an ensemble cast of characters from the franchise I've spent the last year focusing on based upon real people who existed in actual ancient Japan (yes that was intentional) made me feel like I was in a candy store. The familiar allies and foes make this journey into the past feel significant, as you have a ground base for who will help you, who will betray you, and who might be a little... mad (I love Goro Majima and I'm not afraid to say it.) To not ramble on about another RGG story I'll wrap it up by saying this is a typical interweaving RGG tale about a captivating piece of history that houses their trademark plot twists and out of the blue assists. Second to how well the story is written, this game is downright beautiful. The zones are small, which is typical at this point for the series, but crafted perfectly to make them feel alive but most importantly the characters look GOOD. RGG has spent the last few years narrowing down on an engine that makes Kiryu and the gang look better than almost any other developer out there, almost turning the characters within the game into real people with how realistic the engine does its work.

Cons are, well, more Yakuza/Like a Dragon cons. The combat is... mostly good, honestly I had more fun with the wild dancer class than I have in any Yakuza game since Majima's bat class in Y0, but it still falls flat when it comes to boss fights. Bosses are simply awful throughout this game, and for the most part that isn't the worst because you can employ the tried and true "stack healing items" strat right before the chapter ending battles, but that gets annoying after doing it time and time again. Surely you could say "git gud," but these battles feel more like a war of attrition and learning unblockable combo timings than they do a test of skill. Bosses have pools of health so inflated they could be used in a pool and will instant break out of your stun-lock (which isn't new to the franchise.) At least this time they don't have multiple health bars (minus the armor bar,) yet the ability to cheat the actual mechanics of the game that the player can't even pull off is straight up antagonizing to you. Additionally, the constant falling when taking damage and having to press A/equivalent to get up is excessively furstrating and kills a lot of rhythm that the combat has. The taking a combo from a boss, pressing A, getting combo'd again, pressing A, combo'd again loop had me in a tizzy. In an attempt to test how much bosses could break the game, I attempted to see how many attacks I could get in before the boss I was attacking would stop blocking near the end of the game and got to thirty-three. Abysmal. Lastly, the ending gauntlet of this game is maniacal, giving players five bosses and a plethora of enemies in between to fight without an opportunity to obtain more healing.

I'd recommend this heavily to any fan of the Yakuza/Like a Dragon franchise. My qualms ending up longer than my positive takeaways with the game are only a result of my previous experiences with RGG and the zero-sum game of propping-up each game's story without spoilers. I had a great experience overall and more Kiryu (rather Sakamoto Ryōma) is always a good time.

I'm going to spoil the hell out of this one, so fair warning.

Our fictions set in the past reflect our thoughts, in the present, about that time. That's obvious they told me that in grade school. They were like, hey you dipshit kids don't assume everything in a book is real. There's a unique madness to historical fiction involving real people. Actual human beings with thoughts and dreams and complicated lives, all at the mercy of history, interpretation, propaganda, and literary tradition, made to dance like a puppet for whatever point some dipshit author wanted to make long after their deaths.

I guess what I'm saying it that I want to have a time machine to show historical figures really fucked up versions of themselves from video games. I could kill half the dudes in the Three Kingdoms period instantly with Dynasty Warriors. Ryoma Sakamoto would survive though I think. I think he could have been a gamer if he was born a hundred and fifty years later.

So, on some level Ishin is the test on if just throwing whatever into a LAD style of game will keep my interest, and the answer is yes. Turns out that yeah, I like the most generic possible LAD experience. This isn't my least-favorite of them, either. I enjoy learning about history, so I was happy to have a reason to kick off some light research to see just how bullshit every bit of the plot was. And honestly I expected it to be more of a drama of Ryoma Sakamoto's life rather than a whole-ass thing, but this is the RGG studio so it's on me for expecting anything straightforward from a game where Kazuma Kiryu gets to shoot a gun while spinning around. And also, I like when a dude I recognize is on the screen and I clap and hoot because it's Ryuji Goda. I remember Ryuji Goda. I saw him after punching a couple of tigers to death that one time.

Speaking of the whole "guys from those other games playing historical figures" thing, that's an interesting little gimmick isn't it? I started off thinking of it as like, all your pals are putting on a little play for you. Then I wondered if it was just the same thing is casting a bunch of the same actors in another movie, since most of those are being played by real actors. Finally I was forced to admit that it's like that time when Family Guy did the Star Wars movies. Because for the most part nobody is cast even slightly out of type. Almost everyone is the same character they are in the "main universe," to the point where I was convinced that Date was going to be a secret traitor specifically because it would represent a meta-twist. Didn't happen though! The closest thing is Mine, who is just fully on your side the whole time, but he's sinister as hell about it. Typical Yakuza series thing where a guy is introduced by murdering a guy with torture and then you just have to forget about it later because you're friends now.

I don't think this is really totally on purpose, but it all sorta ties into the plot being basically 90% dudes having secret identities. I haven't entirely figured out how but I'm sure it does. At least half of the main cast has more than one name in this sucker, obviously inspired by the fact that some of them actually did do that since they were actively trying to overthrow the government and had to avoid being arrested. It has the vibe of a major theme, and the characters go around discussing like, which parts of their lives are the real ones worth keeping, but fuck if I can really find anything more compelling in it than the simple fact that there's two Ryoma Sakamotos.

On its face, this is the sort of soap opera you'd expect from the series. Imposter using your guy's name, it's his sworn brother, something about their adopted dad's desires and one of them being the favorite etc etc. Viewed in context, it's the most bonkers this series' politics have ever been. Wild nationalism and a generally conservative worldview have always been there, of course, but that's just what you expect from a mass-market entertainment product. The big-brain liberal genius happening here is in taking the history of a handful of real guys and putting them into a blender so you can construct your own perfect revolutionary who never did anything that made you uncomfortable. Honestly it kicks so much ass. I want to show the real Hajime Saito the game at the same time as Sakamoto so they could both be pissed off about the former being the latter in disguise. That would rule.

(Note: I say disguise but it's exactly Kiryu's characterization so this version of Sakamoto is entirely gormless and everyone later reveals they figured him out immediately because going undercover in the Shinsengumi to catch a guy whose face you don't know but who knows yours is a terrible plan.)

Right where was I? Oh yeah, so we distinctly separate things into stuff the REAL Sakamoto did (think the caste system is bad, technically broker a peace between the Satsuma and Choshu although in this game it's entirely on accident) and the stuff the FAKE Sakamoto did (use force of arms to achieve political results) and goes so far as to make the fake Sakamoto be deliberately working to get Britain to take over Japan in one of the wildest ending FMV plot twists I've seen in a very very long time. When it comes to the feudal system, the plot is heavy-handed in its criticism to the point where I was thinking 'yeah okay I get it you can move on now', but that kind of criticism doesn't actually extend to the kind of force required to keep a system in place. The Shogun is ultimately presented as a super cool honorable badass who can shoot laser beams as you one-on-one duel him in Edo Castle after fighting your way through a really impractical number of wacky traps and ninjas. Oh yeah he stepped down because Ryoma Sakamoto sailed to Edo and beat the shit out of him but like, respectfully. And at the end of it all everyone agrees on two things. One is that Japan is so fuckin good bro. Two is that you simply cannot make real change without... love. Love being defined as like being really nice and only killing dudes when it's cool to do so for drama reasons. And I'm like hey this actually happened! This was a real thing!! The government DID change and it involved a whole-ass civil war and everything it really happened!!! What are you even GOING with this. I don't love everything that happens in any given historical period either but come ooooonnnnnnn

So basically it kicks ass. I had a blast the more fucked up it all got and did all the substories and did NOT do all the combat dungeons they added to the remake because life's too short but it was still like 40 hours of game for me. You wouldn't play this before a normal Yakuza game but if you really want more of that shit, it's all here and it's nice. I will ultimately, I think, always be harder on the historical drama than the dumb soap opera specifically because I will research stuff and find your bullshit out more carefully. Because I love the human stories of history! They're complex! People change and aren't clean dramatic characters and you have to take them as a whole. The lessons you take from real history will never be these pat little things that make you feel good all the time. What I'm saying is that Ryoma Sakamoto would probably think Castlevania 2 was bad. And I'd have to tell him listen up fucko

Despite being a remake on the same engine, it's hard to imagine that Ishin is a 9 year old game with some new polish, features, and QoL. For all my love of the Dragon Engine, it's almost nostalgic playing another RGG game on Unreal engine.

Ishin follows the story of Ryoma Sakamoto through 1860's Japan following the appearance of the "black ships". As you go through the story, you are introduced to a number of historical figures who are played/modeled after characters that span the main Yakuza/LaD series. Part of this new remake is recasting to include some new characters, and it was great to see newer faces (particularly from 0 and LaD). This also means great new battle remixes for the relevant characters as well. While I'm not overly familiar with the history surrounding the game, I assume quite a number of liberties/interpretations are made to adapt it into a RGG studio story, but it's definitely one of the better ones they have put out.

Gameplay-wise, Ryoma fights with 4 styles. Fists, Sword, Gun, and Wild Dancer (Sword+Gun). I had my doubts, but all 4 of them maintain relevancy in different situations throughout the game and are all fun to use. The trooper system that lets you equip cards to activate different abilities is really fun to use too. You can even set the abilities to auto-activate so you can set-it-and-forget-it, should you choose. While the game is back on the previous engine, some QoL from the Dragon Engine did get backported as well - namely, auto-saving and saving anywhere, and expanded inventory. I miss the lack of loading screens and more dynamic animations/environments, but it still looks and feels tremendous.

At the time of writing this, Like a Dragon Ishin is easily a top 3 RGG Studios game for me (along with LaD and 0) and I'm really glad the work was finally put in to localize it. Definitely looking forward to doing more of the side content and looking up some of the real history!

i love rgg games, i found them around this time last year and 2022 ended up being the hardest year of my life so they kept me company & kept me sane through all of it. when this was announced i was so happy that i was gonna be able to play another new game so soon, i had actually just gotten my import copy of the original in the mail the day of the anniversary presentation cause i thought people were insane for theorizing about ishin kiwami at the presentation, so when it showed up on the stream & it had a new engine, had yakuza 0/7 characters, and the fans who played the original were saying it was “easily the best rgg game” or “their favorite rgg game of all time” i was so insanely excited, i was so certain this would end up as one of my favorites, the hype kept me running for months until i finally got to play it

the story is a pretty simple revenge plot, but for those to be interesting i have to not see all the twists coming right away & i think the twists were especially bad due to character choices. im not going to spoil anything but there was quite a few characters who i knew were gonna be more important than they led on originally & cause some of them and their main series counterparts had extremely similar motivations, which i guess is kinda cool for a fanservice game like this but it ended up being a bad thing for me cause there was zero tension. the characters tend to be my favorite part of rgg games too but this one had like nobody i cared about at all, hijikata was cool & i love having more mine screentime but i feel like even he was pretty underdeveloped and i think that could’ve been fixed for him and the rest of the shinsengumi if this game had more content to get to know the characters instead of just sidecontent bloat

the combat is also really disappointing, i only have a few major things that bother me about it though. the game is very wild dancer centered, even late game when i had most of my trees unlocked. to be fair i didn’t do much of the class training either but i would be very surprised if that actually made a drastic enough difference. it felt like majima in yakuza 0, where all the styles are technically playable but in almost every single situation breaker was preferable. also the card system that you can supposedly just not interact with is a system the games bosses feel balanced around regardless of if you’re using it or not & speaking of bosses am i insane or was there only like 1 or 2 good fights in this game? yakuza bosses are very hit or miss and i rarely like all of them so i wasnt going in expecting a perfect group but only having a few that i like is very rare for me

i havent interacted with much of the side content in this game, but theres a lot of it as expected from the game that landed between yakuza 5 and yakuza 0, which are two of the longest games they’ve made. i really liked the minigames that i did play though! i think one of my favorite parts was them taking minigames that are very familiar to people who've played the rest of the games and turning them into something that actually fits into the era, favorite example being cannon coaching in place of baseball

i wanted to talk about the switch to unreal engine or at least the pc optimization for this game as well. i’m not knowledgeable enough about video game development to say whether or not the engine in this game is the reason for a lot of its technical problems, but i do know that the game runs worse than any other rgg game i’ve played thats been officially ported & i know that in at least 3 important cutscenes the screen would just cut randomly to black and white blinking for 5 seconds at a time or cut to a shot of a random wall instead of focusing on the characters, which sucks cause i already wasnt invested in these characters and then when they actually get character development the cutscene breaks and i cant see it or can only see it in chunks

this probably doesn't add much to the conversation but i’ve been thinking about it a lot since i finished playing and it will forever bother me how excited i was for this and how it turned out. i'm still holding hope for gaiden & rgg8 later this year and next, i'm just really sad that this didnt stick with me like it did for other people

edit: they've actually fixed a lot of the technical issues the game had when i reviewed it thankfully! it's reassuring knowing that they're looking out for problems :3

Eu sempre tive interesse em jogar os jogos da franquia Yakuza (Agora Like a Dragon); e desde que os jogos entraram no gamepass o interesse subiu mais ainda. Mas nunca encontrei muito um espaço onde eu falasse “Quero jogar Yakuza agora”. Já tentei com o 0, mas formatei o PC na época e daí nunca voltei. Sempre tive um pouco de preguiça, por mais interesse que tivesse, porque são muitos jogos. Então, quando eu vi que iam lançar um spin-off que não tem envolvimento com a franquia principal, eu fiquei bem animada pra jogar. Esperei no gamepass e, assim que veio, comecei a jogar. Felizmente, minha primeira experiência com “Yakuza” foi verdadeiramente muito boa; e por mais que eu ainda tenha desgostado de algumas partes do jogo, o positivo ainda se sobressai bastante.

Sempre me falaram muito bem sobre as atividades fora da história principal de Yakuza. E a maioria é realmente muito boa, eu amei os mini-games, pelo menos a maioria deles. Gastei horas apostando em galinha, fiz todas as músicas que dava pra fazer no Karaokê e adorei quase todas, quis fazer todos os dojos, achei a ideia de você ter sua casinha com sua horta e poder cozinhar e trabalhar nela bem legal também. Por mais que não tenha sido algo que eu passei muito tempo usando, eu me diverti nos momentos que usava. Uma pena que eu tenha achado a pesca horrível (Sou viciada em mini-game de pesca).

Mas não só os mini-games foram divertidos; eu gostei bastante de algumas side-quests, as do “Ee ja nai ka” foram minhas favoritas e elas sempre me faziam rir no final. Mas também adorei a de descobrir quem roubou o doce daquele homem, ou as de decifrar as cartas que a “web namorada” do século 19 mandava pra um cara. Eu não fiz todas as sides-quests; são demais e não tenho tanto saco assim, mas das que eu fiz, a maioria eu gostei. Pra mim, as que mais brilham são as que vão um pouco mais pro lado da comédia; o estilo de humor do jogo funciona muito comigo e a forma de trabalhar esse humor na maioria das vezes me agradava. Apesar de gostar da maioria, admito que ainda tiveram umas side-quests que eu odiei, principalmente as que se tem que ir de pouquinho em pouquinho construindo um vínculo de amizade com outro personagem. Acho que só fiz a do velho das galinhas (não foi proposital) e a do gato da sorte, porque de resto, meu deus, eu não aguentava.

Uma pena que as outras coisas que se faz fora da história principal como grindar o jogo seja tão, mas tão ruim, facilmente foi a pior parte do jogo. Eu odiei o sistema de tropas e sentir que ele era algo necessário, principalmente pra mim que tava jogando na dificuldade mais alta, fez tudo pior ainda. Tanto o processo de subir o nível deles quanto o de conseguir novos recrutas, principalmente no gacha que é algo estupidamente caro e exige demais da moeda do jogo, me faziam entrar numa agonia infinita enquanto passava pelo processo.

O mesmo vale pra farmar material e dinheiro em si, principalmente pra fazer melhores equipamentos com o ferreiro. Não só é muito chato aumentar o nível dele que é muito, mas muito lento, quanto é chato conseguir o necessário pra fazer melhores os equipamentos. Cada coisinha é muito exaustiva de se farmar; o processo é muito repetitivo, e não só é repetitivo quanto é muito demorado. Pra pegar os materiais se tem que fazer e refazer a dungeon que mais droppa do recurso X até se ter o suficiente. E o pior é que isoladamente eu até gostava das dungeons, mas quando tive que fazer elas repetidamente foi terrível; é o mesmo layout com os mesmos inimigos repetidas e repetidas vezes, cansa bastante.
Mas a pior parte de longe é pegar dinheiro, eu admito que usei os métodos da galinhas porque nenhum método mais legítimo de se fazer dinheiro no jogo é remotamente aturável. É necessário MUITO dinheiro pra fazer as coisas do jogo; mais de 150 ryo pra fazer uma espada, isso tirando o resto do equipamento que se usa, 10 ryo pra cada rodada boa de Gacha e etc. E eu juro que durante minhas 55 horas de jogo eu não juntei 1/3 do necessário pra se fazer SÓ uma espada “tier A”. A maioria das coisas que se faz legitimamente no jogo demoram demais e só não dão tanto dinheiro; e daí repetir a mesma coisa 50 vezes não é comigo, nem ficar um dia inteiro fazendo só isso. Meus pêsames pra quem fez ou vai fazer dessa forma.

Ainda existem outros probleminhas que sinto no jogo, mas não são tão impactantes. Tipo o combate, que apesar de ter me divertido bastante, eu ainda sentia alguns problemas. No jogo se tem 4 estilos diferentes: “Brawler”, que é basicamente dar porrada; “Gunman”, pra quem só quer usar a arma a longa distância; “Swordsman”, que é o samurai clássico; e então “Wild Dancer”, que mistura o uso da pistola com a espada. Eu não tenho nada a reclamar do Wild Dancer, é uma ideia interessante, os movimentos são bem fluídos e, no geral, ele sempre foi a opção mais divertida pra mim. O problema é quando eu ia pra outros estilos eu sentia que sempre tinha um probleminha neles. O brawler, apesar de muito divertido de usar, só me soava inutilizável porque, comparado a todo o resto, ele só dava muito pouco dano, eu dava 40 de dano no hit de Wild-Dancer e 9 de Brawler por exemplo. Já o Gunman, honestamente, só me soava um tanto tedioso, meus movimentos eram limitados, e as ações que eu podia tomar mais ainda. Tentaram dar uma profundidade na gameplay com a mecânica de balas especiais, mas não foi suficiente pra que eu sequer cogitasse a possibilidade de usar o estilo seriamente, eu acabaria dormindo nas lutas. Já o estilo de Swordsman não tem muitos problemas, de início, eu achava ele lento e limitado sobre o que eu poderia fazer, mas com o tempo foi me acostumando e me divertindo usando ele também, meu único problema com ele é sentir que ele é forte demais. A desvantagem dele é justamente ser mais lentinho e não ter formas de lidar com muitos inimigos de uma vez, mas quando se lida com inimigos isolados, o jogo vira brincadeira. Como a defesa básica não dá dano algum no personagem, é só pegar o timing que, mesmo quando quebram a defesa, é facinho de recuperar a tempo de parar o próximo golpe mesmo estando durante a animação de ataque do oponente. Então, apesar de eu gostar de lidar com algumas lutas com uma abordagem de duelo clássico de espadas, por causa do estilo do boss também, muitas vezes eu largava essa ideia por sentir que, usando o Swordsman, as lutas ficavam fáceis demais. E eu não sentia que elas eram fáceis por habilidade minha, não era como dar parry durante o hit de Wild Dancer, eu só sentia essa defesa como uma mecânica roubada do jogo, e daí não me era muito satisfatório usar. Mas eu ainda gostei do estilo; foi o segundo que mais usei.

Mas onde o jogo mais brilhou pra mim foi longe da gameplay. Eu achei a história incrível; é uma história dramatizada de samurai, são traições e traições das traições, reviravoltas e mais reviravoltas na trama, tragédias a todo momento, ideias um tanto loucas e absurdas mas que, ao serem levadas a sério, não só soam completamente válidas dentro da história quanto também levam a momentos extremamente interessantes, o desenrolar da trama também é ótimo, é feito de uma forma que me prende cada vez mais na história. O jogo sempre tem alguma relação interessante entre os personagens pra me apresentar, desde o embate entre o protagonista e o irmão, e as ideias dos dois sobre como levar a frente seus desejos, até as intrigas do Ryoma em meio aos Shinsegumi, os planos dentro da organização e a constante tensão que alguns dos integrantes me passam, principalmente os que carregam uma aura misteriosa e sempre me fazem estar ansiosa sobre o que será que vai acontecer a seguir, ou quais serão suas intenções. E quando a história e o jogo vão se revelando aos poucos, sempre é bem impactante, muitos plot twists me deixaram boquiaberta, com vontade de continuar e ver aonde aquilo ia dar.
Isso além do mistério que o jogo se baseia, que começa como algo pequeno e vai se desenrolando em algo cada vez maior, se interligando cada vez mais com outros personagens e pontos da história. Mesmo quando se recebe uma resposta sobre e o mistério parece resolvido, essa resposta abre junto uma questão complemente nova e nisso o jogo vai criando uma trama que não me deixa parar de me interessar e me envolver cada vez mais. E quando todos os pontos se ligam, acontece de uma forma tão bem feita, é a parte que mais amei do jogo.

De forma alguma é uma história feita só de grandes plot-twists e mistérios. O caminho que leva até esses pontos de impacto do jogo também é muito bom. Frequentemente, o jogo aborda temas como honra, identidade, a forma como se vê o mundo, ou os problemas causados pelo sistema de governo regente no país como a desigualdade, o preconceito e o constante terror sentido pelos personagens de classe mais baixa. O jogo tem uma boa consciência de como tratar esses temas, uma boa noção de quando inseri-los e, principalmente, de como trata-los sem fazer com que eles soem pequenos em meio à trama. Tudo é importante e bem trabalhado pra se ligar e potencializar o que tem de mais relevante na trama; e isso pode ser algo difícil de se fazer, tanto que algumas vezes o jogo não consegue, principalmente no último capítulo, mas na maior parte do tempo funciona muito bem.

Não dando muitos spoilers, mas um dos meus momentos favoritos da trama é quando ela para falar sobre a identidade daqueles personagens. Sempre é um tema recorrente na trama, principalmente porque uma das premissas da história é que Sakamoto Ryoma passou a viver como Saito Hajime, e muitas vezes no início da trama é tratado como se o Saito fosse uma mascara e tanto o que ele faz quanto o que ele sente são algo que não pertence ao Ryoma. Porém, mais pra frente no jogo, tem um diálogo muito bonitinho sobre o quão verdadeira é aquela identidade. Seus momentos, amizades e sentimentos enquanto Saito são tão verdadeiros quanto os de Ryoma, e não adianta ignorar e deixar pra trás tudo que se acontece por causa de um nome, tudo que ele viveu ali é real, e o jogo fala isso de uma forma tão bonitinha. O Saito existiu, e tudo que ele fez não pode ser só apagado; querendo ou não, ele é parte de Ryoma também.
Em geral, eu tenho muito a elogiar os personagens da trama também, principalmente o Kondo, Okita e Ryoma. Adorei cada um deles. Eles vão ganhando um lugar no meu coração conforme vão progredindo junto à trama, mostrando mais de si mesmos e mudando conforme as coisas vão caminhando e acontecendo.

Uma pena que eu sinta que o jogo falhe um tanto nisso logo no desfecho. Todo o capítulo final tem problemas, e dentre o que eu considero como a melhor parte do jogo (Capítulo 7–14), ele é de longe o mais fraquinho. Mas os momentos finais são tão bons; e tudo isso pra posteriormente se ter uma ceninha meia boca e o jogo parecer esquecer que algumas coisas existiram. A cena pós-crédito foi verdadeiramente frustrante, me fez sentir que o jogo pareceu esquecer que o Saito existe, toda a jornada e tudo aquilo que eu passei por pra no final focar unicamente em duas coisas. Achei fraquinho, entendo a mensagem e ela é tocante; o discurso final do Ryoma é muito bom, e eu gosto do peso que ele traz, mas depois disso foi só péssimo. Parece um jogo que em seus momentos finais esqueceu de si mesmo, mas isso de forma alguma tira toda a jornada que foi incrível.