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.