had a great time with this

liked the different fighting styles a lot. I felt some of the encounters actually encouraged me to switch to different styles depending on the situation.

Side stories were fun, but the friendship meter things got boring after the first 5 or 6

The game had great callbacks to other yakuza characters. The plot went crazy for the spectacle of it. The pull a lot of funny tropes/references.

I feel like the ending could have been better written, but it was still funny.

I'd say this is an average entry in the yakuza series. still fun and enjoyed it

A welcome distraction while waiting for Like a Dragon Gaiden and Infinite Wealth to come out. It definitely feels more like a PS3 Yakuza title, even remastered like this, but it's got a relatively fun story and all the usual side content that I love about the series. The dojos, Another Life portions, and various minigames are extremely fun and well worth the time I put into them.

UNfortunately, the combat and crafting systems in this game leave a lot to be desired. The four different styles aren't particularly versatile, and the crafting/upgrade system requires a mind-numbing amount of grinding and repeating dungeon crawls to do anything significant.

So as far as Yakuza goes, it's no Zero or 7. But as a remastered title released before RGG's next big title, it definitely kept me occupied!

I really wanted to like this game, but it's got a handful of critical issues for me.

Let's start off with the things I liked about this game:
The story and setting were pretty cool! I think both Tosa and all the different parts of Kyo look nice! The way they use iconic characters is fun, if a bit on the nose to how they are in the actual games. It feels almost like a play that everybody put together, which I find pretty enjoyable.

The music is also pretty nice! Well, at least the songs that are unique to this game are pretty nice. There are a handful of songs that come from other games without any remixes or anything to help them feel at home with the rest of the OST. Not the end of the world, but it does kinda take me out of it a bit.

This takes me onto the big things I didn't like about this game:
The combat is... pretty weirdly balanced. Brawler is so weak and stiff that it's borderline useless. The only reasons you'd use it are for the busted parry you can unlock or the handful of times where you're basically forced to use it. Gunman is just kind of boring. Outside of the handful of times where they force you to use it, i only really used gunman for ONE really annoying ultimate challenge. Swordsman feels pretty smooth but it's pretty slow. It's pretty difficult to use especially in boss fights, but it can be satisfying. And that just leaves Wild Dancer... which is the most BROKEN fighting style in the whole game. You get insane agility with basically infinite dashes and some really easy slash combos. Not to mention you get to use a gun at long range, which just kinda makes Gunman borderline obsolete.

Not only that, but I also had this strange issue where the game would mysteriously start dropping inputs for me. No amount of research or messing around on my end caused this issue to go away for me. I also never really found anybody else with the same issue, so it could just be the game not liking the hardware I had at the time.

It's also worth noting this game is SUPER grind-heavy. It is easily the one of grindiest RGG game I've played, which is absurd when you consider there are two main-line JRPG games. The sheer amount of money you're expected to get in order to get some decent gear could easily take you an eternity. What makes it worse is that a lot of the upgrades you do get feel like they make very minimal difference in the grand scheme of things. I always felt weak no matter what I did. Heck, the only reason I got super high level gear was cause of a bug with the chicken racing minigame that basically let you get money for free.

Finally, there was the forced inclusion of trooper cards in the main combat. To my understanding, the original Japanese-exclusive version of this game had trooper cards as a mechanic exclusive to the dungeons. BUUUUUT this remake just kinda shoved it into the main combat. One minute you'd be in a tense sword fight. The next you (or the boss) would randomly start shooting out massive lightning bolts as if you both were wizards. It really ruins the vibe they were going for. Sure you could just... not use the cards. BUT this game is also on the harder side for an RGG game. You get very little health and bosses can do a lot of damage. The solution: get some trooper cards that give you a lot of HP. So you're heavily encouraged to at least have those cards equipped.

Again, I really wanted to like this game. I was hyped when I saw they were remaking Ishin. It was a game I always wanted to play but couldn't cause of the lack of a proper localization. The combat looked super fluid and the locations looked super interesting. Maybe I'll replay this game some day and feel a bit more fond of it. But right now, I just can't help but feel left down.

A Long-awaited Localization/Restoration With a Bumpy Transition to a New Engine

Disclaimer: I played on a GTX 1070ti which runs the game fine but needs extra tinkering to eliminate stutters and get the performance/visuals that I wanted. Also played on-release so my gripes about performance could already be fixed

Like a Dragon: Ishin is a welcome remake and localization of the original released back in 2014. However, its switch to Unreal Engine 4 has introduced bugs and performance issues that may take you out of the wonderful experience the game is trying to portray. Here are my pros and cons as a fan of the series and as someone who got 100% Achievements

Pros:
+ Amazing Retelling of Sakamoto Ryoma's story w/ the blend of wacky and serious that RGG is known for
+ Cool and fun cast of beloved characters from previous Like a Dragon titles. The recasts are mostly good too
+ A nice variety of side-content that keeps you busy throughout. Casually, it's fun but extremely grindy for completionists
+ Trooper Cards are a nice addition that adds fun and keeps the gameplay fresh and more strategic
+ OST is a banger

Cons:
- Some of the recasts were worse than their original counterpart (Hanpeita and Yamazaki especially)
- Framerate Drops A TON on DX12. I had to switch to DX11 and thankfully that fixed it for me 100%
- Scummy DLC practices. You can only use the DLC items you paid for on one save, the highest difficulty level is locked on paid DLC
- Photo Mode is extremely buggy for me. It lowers resolution and there's a ton of aliasing. As a massive fan of photo mode in games, this is a definite con for me.

Overall, Like a Dragon: Ishin is a fun experience as a long-time fan and someone who already played the original Ishin. Much like the transition from the PS3-era games to Dragon Engine, the transition to Unreal Engine 4 leaves a lot to be desired. I hope RGG Studio listens to the community and apply the necessary fixes such as Shader Compilation to current and future games (as of this review on 04/08/23). With all that said, to all my RGG kyodais around the world... tomorrow is yours!

153 hours and 100% Achievement later, I give Like a Dragon: Ishin a 4/5

It's a solid story, but I feel this is the worst the combat has been for the series. I mostly used the wild dancer style for normal enemies and swordsman style for bosses because my attacks did more damage with that style. I would've only did the wild dancer style if it didn't make boss fights take forever. The gunman style was just boring, and the short reach of the brawler style was annoying. I surprised myself with how invested I got into the farming part of the game. I was proud of how efficient I got with it, and I amassed a fortune doing it. The writing still remains the highlight with plenty of enjoyable side quests. It's an interesting time period in Japanese history too with the Western world moving in.

As a fan of Yakuza 0, I find this game slower and less memorable from its story, characters and map design. When I saw equipment and assist levels with a crafting tree and dungeon crawling element, this game was definitely not for me. While I was able to finish the game at Hard mode without grinding or engaging too much with the random elements, the experience was not enjoyable and repetitive. Before I delve into my issues, I overall think this is an okay open world game with good mini-games and provides a longer playtime and value albeit grindy and random.

My first issue is the combat itself. While it does have similar issues with Yakuza 0 such as mostly linear progression and low mechanical depth, my issues stem mostly form single combat such as bosses with Sword stance as multiple enemies can be dealt with the other stances much easily. First off, the general combat strategy is block the enemy combo string, retaliate with a combo string, repeat. Nuance exist for each enemy of course, but I did not really rethink my strategy which made my strategic experience really bland. The only real nuance for me is delaying my button presses ever so slightly so I can dodge whenever the enemy dodges or armors through it. This leads me to a measured and slow button style which I did not enjoy for this genre.

Second is the lack of lock-on where I keep missing my attacks or hitting the wrong target. It just feels really inconsistent and bad specially when it gets me hit accidentally or unfairly at times. A soft lock-on exists with the fighting stance but I never felt I can reliably depend on it as I still miss with it specially charged attacks.

While I have so much more gripes such as the optional guard recovery skill, lack of hurt invincibility frames, dodge orientation and could be my lack of engagement, the implementation here just gave me such a bad experience that I did not want to replay the game and simply finish it.

As for the story and characters, I cannot really comment as much with how accurate or how much creative liberties are taken; however, I will say the story is slow specially cutscenes and line deliveries. It is even more agonizingly slow as skipping to the next line sometimes require waiting for animations to finish where at times. While a few characters can somewhat be somewhat engaging, I do not buy the character relationships entirely specially in the mercenary group. It overall feels underdeveloped and unearned without stronger moments. I do wish the story was not driven by a mystery as it is not executed well since the opening cutscene and physical models reveal a bit too much. The political message of class abolition really feels like lip service without discussing why it happened and what exact changes and repercussion would be.

Since I did not engage with the crafting and dungeon crawling, I will not comment on this as some will find their value here. Also with the open world elements such as the mini-games and substories since I did not majority of them. I will say that the map design feels worse to navigate without much route planning and better fast travel points. Let me reiterate though, this is a good game but this was not for me and I wish I can talk more positively about it given its unique setting.

A really enjoyable story that's held back by it's combat so badly. I really liked the setting too, I think they did Edo period Kyoto justice. However there are just some bizarre decisions made in this remake, like changing the faces of some characters. I think this almost kind of ruins what the original game was trying to do - such as Hanpeita. The weird troop system with the abilities is just downright bad too and the fact only 2 of the styles are good and they're the most boring ones is disappointing. One day we'll get a great Edo period samurai game, but today is not that day.