If Y7 was the passing of the torch to the next generation then Y8 is the last spark of the old guard.
Feels kinda bad when Gaiden was made only after most of 8's development was done because it hurts seeing how Hanawa and Daidoji were handled.
Don't want to beat a dead horse but the story is kinda meh (the first part is pretty good and interesting but after the ending of chapter 9 iirc the story fluctuated too much in quality akin to a sinusoidal wave) but gotta appreciate the whole messianic theme they did with one of the villains and the MCs.
The beloved characters from Y7 are back in business (even though some were kinda shoehorned in there cough cough Zhao and Joongi Han cough cough) and the new characters are pretty good most of the time ("This hoodlum wanted money and he pointed a gun right at me!" Tomizawa, Cutiepie Chitose not Buster Holmes, Fangirl Suengee, Cold-blooded Yamai) but some of them like the villains or some minor characters are kinda shitty.
The gameplay received an overall improvement and it’s so enjoyable that I’ve grinded dungeons just to juggle enemies between the team members (don't even get me started how I creamed my pants when Dragon's Resurgence was introduced).
For the love of God just leave Kiryu alone so he can live his last days in peace and not bait us with another battle on the Millennium Tower in the future.
I wanted more Yamai but he was too good for this game and left too early (hope he'll become a playable character in Y9 somehow).
My first impression was a 6/10 but in retrospect I've enjoyed the game too much so yeah fuck it 7/10.

First one was like 6/10 gameplay 9/10 story, second one is like 8/10 gameplay and 6/10 story

An unfortunate trade
Absolute ass pacing throughout the game is probably the biggest issue, along with the split stories lacking any like meaningful cohesion. I definitely won't get very hyped for the next installment. This was a one step forward two steps back sequel through and through.
All that said the good parts are great. I enjoyed the vibe of exploring Hawaii, and some of the story beats are a lot of fun to play through. Just unfortunate that it plays out more as a monster of the week sort of thing instead of the much more thematically consistent previous game

There are a lot of improvements from 7 in here. The movement around the map is a lot better, you can move in a limited space in combat now to setup for stuff better, and the random debris Ichiban could use to attack with is now much more accessible and usable by everyone. With all of the improvements, some stellar new characters, and a hot new setting; Infinite Wealth on paper seems like a killer game.

Unfortunately, it probably comes at the cost of one of the weakest Yakuza stories ever. It's a very messy narrative with an intro that would put Persona 4's to shame. It jumps back and forth after a point in a very obnoxious splitting of events and the antagonists of this game outside of two particularly notable ones are pretty terrible. While some aspects like the remembrance chapters appeal to someone like me who's been playing these games since 3, newcomers are probably going to find it hard to connect to some of those scenes too.

Despite my complaints, this game is still very good. However, I don't feel it outright usurps 7 and in a decent number of cases I think it's honestly weaker. Less than the sum of its parts is a phrase that comes to mind. Also for as funny as the idea of Sujimon and Dondoko Island are, I did not enjoy contributing hours of my time to two thoroughly dull minigames. The money I got for Dondoko Island came in handy so that was at least worthwhile. I really dislike how much minigames play into this one in particular. Hope a future game can be a bit more focused, because coming off of Man Who Erased His Name left me wanting something more... whole, I suppose.

quite possibly the clumsiest, worst-paced story in a series that is already infamous for bearing these two traits but has typically managed to be incredibly charming, cinematic, and emotionally charged in spite of that. as much I as I enjoyed the base game and the improvements made to the combat system, I can't bring myself to get over just how much of a step down the narrative was in comparison to 7 and Gaiden. never have I cared so little for the cast of newcomers in a Yakuza game (Tomi & Yamai being the sole exceptions). I don't plan on forgiving this game's horrible monetization practices either.

Hawaii was fun. maybe they'll do more with it when they inevitably make up some convoluted reason to send Yagami there in Judgment 3

Starting with the positives: combat is a significant step up from 7. Leaning into positional requirements is a cool angle, and while manual movement is a great change, there's still a bit of frustration that can come from allies and enemies shifting around just enough to screw up what you were trying to do. Basic attacks being a powerful and viable option with combo attacks, back attacks, follow up, and SP regain is also fun to play with. Even though your strategies don't change a massive amount of the time (in late game, most fights had large packs, which meant I would use whatever strong skill hit as many enemies as possible, then clean up the rest), there's usually just barely enough going on to mix you up, like an enemy guarding and requiring a grapple break. If every job was as cool and in depth as Dragon of Dojima, this would be a pretty incredible game, because that's by far the most interesting and engaging one here. You can tell in the back of the RGG's heads that they still know that a brawler is just the right fit for these stories a lot of the time though, especially in that one moment in a certain boss fight. Also, a lot of the side content was pretty good, and Honolulu, while not my favorite RGG city, was a fun new environment to explore.

On a more critical note though, the story is easily one of the weaker ones in the franchise. For a lot of the runtime, it remained either frustrating or uninteresting to me. The first goal of the main plot remains the main goal for like 85% of the game (despite being achieved briefly in the middle) without really giving you quite enough of a reason to care as much as the characters seem to. This is especially true on the Hawaii side, which I was definitely into at the start, but failed to progress in a way that kept me super invested. The one big twist there was super poorly executed, especially after playing Gaiden, and the way it set back the characters' goals just kept me so checked out or annoyed. The Japan side is a little better, though honestly that's completely to do with Kiryu and almost none to do with the actual plot going on there, which has its own share of frustrating turns. Maybe I just don't like Ichiban enough for him to carry a plot in the same way Kiryu can; ironically, this game eroded my confidence in him as a protagonist who can stand on his own going forward.

A trend that I've picked up on that stands out as bizarre to me is the last few games completely lacking confidence or respect for what just happened in the previous game, walking back decisions and saying "actually that thing they did was stupid and doesn't work." Consequences and fallout that change the game's world are cool to see in general, but Lost Judgment handled a post-7 world in a much better way than 8 to me. This is especially frustrating as someone who really liked and respected 6, which it does not feel like RGG themselves do (which they already showed with 7). In some ways, this feels like a reactionary apology for some of the complaints that people had about 6, but pulled off in a way that just reinforces to me that they were correct to have 6 play out how it did. (Some vague spoilers ahead) Pulling in key characters from Kiryu's past only to have them not really do much other than get 1 more fight and then get a 5 minute spotlight feels like a "there, sorry we didn't do that before, are you happy now?" kind of gesture without much relevance or substance to me. And I get that part of the theme is letting Kiryu not have to be a stubborn solo hero, and having him push forward, but a more focused solo journey works a lot better as a sendoff to me. The Life Links and Memories of a Dragon were sort of in the same camp. Sure, it was nice to see a lot of characters and places from throughout the series acknowledged one more time and hear some brief thoughts from Kiryu on each, but the execution makes them feel all like a bit of a tease and not super vital to Kiryu's story. All of the Daidoji stuff is also done in such a weird way that sometimes feels in line with 6/some of Gaiden, sometimes feels totally irrelevant, sometimes bafflingly ignores other happenings in the story, and then eventually decides to recognize those developments without a word about doing so. It cheapens 6 and what came earlier in 8 itself in a very unsatisfying and frustrating way. I think there's a story in here, if you combine most of Gaiden and bits and pieces of 8, that would be a truly worthy follow up and sendoff for Kiryu, but it's buried under a load of other plots, fallout from 7's decisions, and incohesive twists. Where it eventually ends is a solid enough spot, but it got there in such a way that didn't deliver on almost any of its potential and has extremely little narrative or emotional payoff.

And a couple nitpicks that didn't fit elsewhere: this game made me realize how much I dislike Ichiban's suit (and most of the 7 cast's Japan outfits overall). Going to Hawaii was an instant improvement after the brief PTSD endured from (Chapter 1 spoilers) infiltrating the Seiryu base again, in the same outfits, with the same jobs, with the same underground dungeon and the same theme as in 7. I groaned when eventually the suit returned. Also, it feels like there is no good language to play this game in if you speak English. I played in Japanese, which was good overall, but major American characters speaking completely incomprehensible English really took me out of it, and one character in particular really suffered from it. This game also contained one of the best substories in the franchise (Let It Snow), perfectly showcasing their unique balance of goofy and emotional, but also a slew of just awful "romance" (literally just assault) substories. And finally, there were 1-2 standout new characters to me that I did generally enjoy overall and are probably what I'll remember fondly from this game as it ages (name spoilers): Yamai and maybe Tomizawa.

It’s not peak fiction, but you can see it from here.

Yakuza: Like A Dragon — referred to as Yakuza 7 from here on — was pitched to me by a couple of friends as one of the greatest games ever made. That’s a tough sell, largely because I’m a miserable dickhead who seriously (don’t laugh!) writes about video games. Putting forth anything as being one of the best is a fucking gamble, because you’re not playing with good odds. There are a lot of works out there, and only a couple get to be the best. It tends to make it hurt worse when, almost inevitably, it’s not actually one of the best; you get your hopes up, and then the work doesn’t live up to the inflated goals you set for it, and then you’re left feeling disappointed.

Luckily, though, that’s not the case here. I don’t think Yakuza 7 is as good as I was told it was, but it’s certainly still pretty good. Great, even! There are some pacing and writing issues that drag it down, but what’s here is legitimately impressive. I don’t really care for RPGs as a genre, and I especially don’t care for games that ask for thirty to forty hours of my time, so the fact that this is still scoring as high as it is may as well be a sign of the end times. The four horsemen are a yakuza, an ex-nurse, an office worker, and a triad boss.

It’s immensely funny that, in an era where the largest development studios are playing it as safe as they possibly can, RGG Studios decided that Yakuza is no longer an action game. It’s such a ridiculous fucking idea. Some positive reception to an April Fool’s joke was all they needed to go all-in on this? What the fuck? You aren’t supposed to make games like this. And yet, they did; and yet, it works. It works really well, actually. There’s a bit of a problem that AoE skills are absurdly good compared to their single-target little brothers; obviously the single-target skills are king in boss fights, but those are pretty far and few between. Autobattling still takes a while and uses up precious items, and low-level mooks don't run away even when you've got a massive numbers advantage over them; most of the street fights are little more than time wasters, ultimately. Expect to spend the majority of the endgame running away from random encounters simply because they don't pay out in resources more than they take.

Ichiban is a wonderful character, and it's frankly no surprise that many people have latched onto him as hard as they have. Most of the cast is strong, really. I certainly wasn't expecting this to handle social issues as well as it did. It's more than a little hamfisted at times — discussions about "gray zones" and "bleaching white" tend to lean on wordplay a bit too heavily — but it's a pretty solid takedown of blind idealism. Bleach Japan's goals sound, from the outset, to be pretty reasonable. It's only once you dig in and find out what they're actually working towards that it becomes apparent that they're interested solely in enforcing laws, not in ensuring that people benefit from the law. Sure, women being forced to turn to sex work is bad. Homeless people not being able to find a safe spot to sleep is bad. Yakuza gangsters shouldn't be running the streets. The solution, though, is not to deport them, arrest them, and incite a gang war in the hopes they all kill themselves off, respectively. The gray zones are astronomically far from perfect, but blindly adhering to already-oppressive laws serves only to worsen the problem. It's rare to find a work with a positive view on criminal activity that isn't individualistic "fuck-you-I-do-what-I-want" id slop, but rather calls into question the legitimacy of the laws being broken.

I do have a problem with the writing in that it feels mean, sometimes. It happens often enough to be noticeable, and it clashes hard with a lot of what's written elsewhere. Nanba, for example, never really stops being a "homeless guy", even after he manages to get two(!!!) different houses that he stays in. The game just keeps reminding you how bad he smells, because he's homeless: he can debuff enemies because he stinks; he can breathe fire because his breath is just that potent; he can revive allies because none of them want him to give them CPR. It's weird. I don't really feel a sense of malice here, because the game is otherwise pretty fair to homeless people — certainly more than most, as low of a bar as that is. It's more like the game needs a smack upside the head and for someone to tell it that it's not being funny. I feel like it'd smarten up pretty quick.

Yakuza 7 has a bit of a habit. It’s definitely not a good habit, but I’m a little hesitant to call it a bad habit. Yakuza 7 just really loves killing off characters. Whenever a character’s arc comes to a close, they just get merked. The Geomijul goon who shakes down the bar owners? Shot to death. Arakawa? Shot to death. Hoshino? Shot to death. Ogasawara? Probably shot to death. Characters just start dropping like flies the second that they’ve served their narrative purpose. I guess I can understand it, considering that this is ultimately a game about organized crime — nobody walks away from Goodfellas wondering what was up with all of the indiscriminate murder — but it makes it a little difficult to stomach the feel-good ending that follows in the wake of such a bloodbath. Yakuza as a franchise is kind of renowned for being over the top, so this might just be a case of me going to a steakhouse and complaining that they don’t have enough vegetarian options, but I think there’s a bit too much melo in this melodrama.

Where it really came to a head for me was in the final stretch of cutscenes — as good a place as any for it to come to a head, I suppose. After going through a lengthy boss sequence, and then a second boss sequence, and then a third boss sequence, Ichiban finally manages to corner his young master. Masato pulls a gun, points it at Ichiban, and then points it at himself; his life as he knows it is over, and all of his hard work has been pulled out from under him, and he sees no reason to go on. Ichiban, who’s spent the entire game desperately trying to make this fucking stupid asshole see the light, breaks down in tears. He tells Masato that he would have done anything for him, that Masato needs to start over, that he believes Masato can turn a new leaf and be a better person. He caps it off with the line “please don’t make me watch my brother die”, which is so insanely good that I’m getting choked up again writing it out. It’s a phenomenal sequence. It’s written really well, it’s paced really well, and it works. It works better than any single moment in the preceding thirty hours.

Masato then gets stabbed by a lackey and bleeds out. Ichiban punctuates the moment with a slow-motion “NOOOOOOOOOOO!”. I roll my eyes because the game is now being stupid. Take it down a notch. You had something really good going, with the whole “choosing to be a better person after spending twenty years fucking up” angle. You don’t need to spoil it by going full soap opera, pretending like you’re gonna kill off the character after all of that. Just roll these obviously fake credits, and show us the scene where Masato is out of the hospital, and — oh, no, you actually killed him off. Jesus. Really? What a waste. I can’t really articulate why this complete bloodbath bothers me so much if not for the fact that it all feels at odds with the fact that this is supposed to be a happy ending. I guess when you’ve got a franchise that’s been running for this long without the universe being reset, it does you well to just kill off as many named characters as you can; people who play the next game won’t be asking where the old characters are if they know that they’re all turning into compost.

A severe difficulty spike right near the end also necessitates a good dose of grinding to get to a point where you can (un)comfortably clear it, which doesn't help the pacing much. You're more-or-less forced to complete the battle arena at least once, and then subsequently forced into the Kamurocho sewers to farm Invested Vagabonds. It's certainly not as egregious as some other RPGs when it comes to how much grinding you're expected to do, but it's still a hefty ask for a game that's already about thirty hours when you're going straight down the critical path. Add in the obscene amount of substories and minigames — some of which are great, some of which very much aren't — and this is a long game. I was definitely starting to lose patience with it by the end.

It's not perfect, but it's not far from it. There's a lot here to love. I think if this had ended somewhere around the halfway point, I wouldn't have a single bad thing to say. The first ten or so hours of Yakuza 7 are masterful, and the remaining minimum twenty are only pretty solid. It's easy to be a lot worse than this.

Don't piss me off. I'm close to leveling up and you look like just enough XP.

Well, Trails has finally truly impressed me. This is definitely my kinda series after all.

3rd has decent pacing of things happening the entire time, though that is partially helped by its shorter length. The dungeon structure is preferable to FC's and SC's for me, and there is way less backtracking. It has a complex main character and a personal character-driven story. The combat system is mostly similar to FC and SC, but the way it ties into the story here more often is cool. Most of the 3rd music is the best in the series so far for me, especially the final boss theme and the OP.

Every problem I had with FC and SC have been fixed. Nobody is annoying anymore; a lot of the story is a love letter to the Sky games in general. Hell, some characters are better in this game than the previous ones. I even care more about Joshua and Estelle in 3rd than I did in FC and SC.

It's also got the majority of the emotional and dark moments (especially that one door) of Trails in the Sky. I genuinely cried to a few of them, which hasn't happened with Trails so far.

I will be continuing onto Crossbell with high expectations.

Never have I felt so conflicted over a game more than this one. On one hand, when you solely focus on the gameplay aspect, it's fantastic. The combat is fun and the side content is enjoyable. You can easily make the argument that this is a game-of-the-year contender. On the other hand, the story is horrible and easily bogs down an otherwise great game.

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth vastly improved its combat system over its predecessor's, Yakuza: Like a Dragon. While it was fine for a first attempt in the last game, it was rough around the edges. This game smooths over the edges and adds some nice additions to the combat. You can move the characters around in combat, strategically placing them so you can deal extra damage to enemies, do combo attacks with party members, and use the weapons that are lying around. All in all, it's a great system. There is only one thing I can complain about. Admittedly, this is mostly a nitpick but characters still have some pathfinding issues during combat sections. It's an improvement over the previous installment, but characters getting stuck behind objects happened often enough to be annoying.

The side content was fantastic in this game. There is so much to do here that one can easily get overwhelmed by it. The new mini-games they introduced were great. I especially liked the Dondoko Island game. The substories were thoroughly enjoyable here. The karaoke selection was also amazing. Bringing back fan favorites and introducing some new (and great) songs easily makes this the best karaoke selection in the series to date. I did have some problems with Kiryu's bucket list side quest, but I'll discuss that later.

I must say, I enjoyed the Hawaii map they introduced. Admittedly, I was skeptical about having the game set in America (mainly because I wanted them to explore other Asian countries before coming to the US) but they handled it well. Hawaii would have been my first choice for the series to take place in America and the Honolulu map was great. The atmosphere was so cheerful despite some plot points.

While I did enjoy all of those things, there's no dodging the game's story. It's a huge mess. Many plot points were seemingly forgotten, only to be brought back up again at the last minute. There were so many odd decisions/plot holes in this story. While I admit there were moments that I enjoyed, they mainly involved Kiryu. It feels like Ichiban got sidelined in his own game. Perhaps the reasoning behind that was the game was trying to be two things at once: a grand, emotional adventure for Ichiban while simultaneously being an epic sendoff for Kiryu. One was going to overshadow the other. Maybe handling the dual protagonists similarly to Yakuza 0, where you switch between the two near the start, could have helped prevent that since Ichiban and Kiryu don't split off until the midpoint of the game. Then again, other plot points in this game left me scratching my head. Were they making stuff as they went along the writing process (which wouldn't be the first time RGG did something similar) or were there a lot of script rewires? Either way, it's not a good look.

As I mentioned, one thing that bugged me was Kiryu's bucket list. I love the concept of it but the execution was so odd to me. It wouldn't bother me that much if most of them happened before a certain plot point in the game, but they happen after it. It's such an odd decision since these moments feel so disassociated from the plot because of their placement. I don't get it.

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth certainly is a game. It has some fantastic gameplay and side content, but the story left a lot to be desired.