Yakuza/Like a Dragon has been my favorite gaming series since a few years now and naturally I've been very hyped for Infinite Wealth. So much that I didn't watch any trailer past the first 10-minute reveal of the game and muted Yakuza related keywords on social media. I usually never do this for a game, but the urge to see Kiryu's fate by myself was strong, since that's a key selling point for this entry.

The new characters are great and became some of my favorites in the series, but it was also nice to see how Infinite Wealth expanded on the previously established characters from Yakuza: Like a Dragon in meaningful ways. This is especially noticeable with Ichiban himself, since he really gets to shine in many different aspects here - whether he is serious about the things that matter the most to him or if he is just goofing around with his friends, he just feels like a great guy to be around overall. There's something about him that just feels so human and real.

I always felt like the combat in Yakuza 7 was a bit janky, but I excused it since it was RGG's first attempt at creating a turn-based game. Fortunately, Infinite Wealth follows up on the foundation that's already there and adds some tactical elements like moving during turns, guaranteed crits when attacking from behind and combo attacks with party members. It really makes a big difference and makes the combat flow a whole lot better. Balancing is also just right for the most part and the DLC classes have good basegame integration this time around. No more solo-ing bosses with the comically overpowered Head Trauma move in the previous mainline game.

Story is enjoyable for the most part. There are some plotholes and other minor nitpicks that bother me, even so it's still an enjoyable ride overall with some good supporting characters and villains along the way. Pacing is a bit wonky in a way that there are some instances where you have to follow a very linear route across half the map to get to your destination while avoiding random encounters left and right. This makes sense with the narrative context in those situations, but it's rather dull from a gameplay perspective, considering you just have to beeline from A to B without being able to do anything else for that time (without prior warning). It's not a major flaw, since it only occurs a few time in the game, but what's really bugging me is that the narrative unfortunately has a lot of wasted potential, keeping it from being one of the best ones in the series. Some seemingly "major" characters are especially undercooked, which is a shame given their assigned roles in the story.

Now for some positivity again, one of the biggest highlights in Infinite Wealth for me is Kiryu's involvement. Having to come to terms with his own mortality, he decides to seek out friends and locations from the past one more time. It's really cool to see so many returning characters from the Kiryu games and what they're up to now; the little flashbacks to past Yakuza games you can see at various points scattered across the cities are also neat fanservice. While this aspect falls pretty flat for those who got into the series with Yakuza: Like a Dragon, it feels like a nice reward for all long-term fans and might even motivate some of the newer fans to go back to the Kiryu saga!

Overall, Infinite Wealth feels like a big step up from Like a Dragon into the right direction and is worth your time. It's not just a good game for Yakuza fans, but for JRPG fans in general with the amount of effort put into this game. Now onto Persona 3 Reload, another game I've been looking forward to a long time!

Thanks for reading.

Gaming in 2023 peaks here, nothing is ever gonna top Hi Fi Rush and it's only January.

Honestly I wasn't actually excited for much coming out this year outside of two other games but then this got released and I bought it day one due to loving it's style and lemme tell you this is the best $30 I've ever spent.

So many options to customize the experience to your skill level, charming characters (Peppermint is my favorite), fluid and fast combo action gameplay, and an excellent use of music to make the experience even better. Absolutely in love with this game, please go buy it!

The PS2 is back, folks. We got PS2 ass shooters with Gungrave 2, PS2 ass action games with HFR, and kind of middling PS2 character 3D platformers back with Spongebob in the seat. Obv rough around the edges, game has skung for days, but it's packed to the gills with charm and love for the series it's just sort of infectious. All the VAs and a lot of the music are back from the series (no weird ass Mr. Krabs imitation), and there's a lot of incidental and moment specific dialogue that's generally pretty funny!
It's notably lesser than BfBB, which had tons of small interior areas and moments, vs here where you get to see more landmarks in Bikini Bottom but not actually go in so it just feels a lil hollow. Also can't see this game taking off with the speedrunning scene since it's super linear. One of the weirdest things is they populate the levels with side quests after you beat them, so the first time you go through there's just obviously empty spots in secret areas or tricky platforming sequences that don't get used till later. Super weird! Also while the cutscene animation here is excellent, super expressive and in line with the newest movie, it def feels like they just rushed it out the door, no nice 100% cutscene like BfBB.
The levels themselves are great though, lots of variety and neat themes. The replaying stages thing is clearly to pad the runtime (did everything in the game in like 6 hours), but they make good use of it, with some funny objectives, new dialogue and characters, and new platforming challenges. And sometimes it's just lock and key padding shit... can't win em all 😓. Patrick and Sandy are missed, but the grappling hook and kick moves feel good in their simplicity. If something like a Hat in Time is a game for people who want a new and improved modern collectathon, this is a game for people for whom the warts on those old games is part of the charm. It's skung, and it's loving skung