More than anything, it feels very strange to finally be, essentially, current with this franchise. I still have Lost Judgement and the Ishin remake in the hopper, but in the grand scheme of things it feels like the long journey that began with a humble Giant Bomb Quick Look of Yakuza 0 six years ago has finally reached its end.
Though, happily, it feels more like a new beginning!
For all the entertainment this franchise has provided me over half a decade, I feel I've made it pretty clear that the ecstatic highs were balanced by some nearly intolerable lows. Of course it was always going to be impossible to fully reconcile this franchise's sprawling mid-section with the considerable gameplay and presentation advances they'd made by the time Yakuza 0 came to serve as a new entry point, so I tried and mostly succeeded to take the franchise's lumps with a grain of salt.
After Yakuza 6, however, it was clear that the team at RGG Studio were essentially doing the same thing. Kiryu Kazama may be as iconic as video game archetypes come, but he was also a bizarrely limited character to spend so much time with. Obviously it allowed him to act as a sun around which the franchise's increasingly bonkers characters could orbit, but it also meant that once the conspiracy went all the way to the top way back during the events of Yakuza 2, the franchise was essentially trapped in an endless loop. If Kiryu must perpetually refuse to shape the world in his image while the Yakuza must similarly refuse to align themselves with his world view, all the character moments in the world couldn't save a franchise from turning back on itself, remixing and repurposing old, good ideas in decreasingly fresh packages.
Enter Ichiban, a man of the lowest rung on the Yakuza ladder, slowly but forcefully exiled by the only social structure he'd ever known to answer two simple, burning questions: why am I so unwanted, and why can't these people understand I'd do anything to change that?
Anyway, there's a video game here too, and while I completely understand some of its more glaring issues, this shit kicks fuckin' ass, full stop. Early on I was reminded of the DIY charm brought to the South Park RPG experiment The Stick of Truth, in which the kids reimagine their playground goofing off as life or death combat with world destroying stakes. But after nearly 80 hours with this game, the marriage of an idea as simple as way more money to the mad man assembly line they've got going at the RGG creative desk results in a game that takes full advantage of this franchise's sense of fun that makes that game look like a student project. While Yakuza's combat could be fun in fits and starts, it always threatened to become a slog, something to wade through on the way to the next side mission or TV-episode length main cutscene.
But now? I feel like I could just write two paragraphs full of enemy names, attack descriptions and a few errant side quest synopses and earn these 4.5 stars right away. This is a game where you fight worryingly oily men toting pool floaties and a penchant for club drugs three floors deep in a basement fight club. There are wild enemy puns like Dotcombatant, Druggler, Shillboard and Pornogra-Pharoah. The game isn't afraid to be uncomfortable about some of these jokes (and of 252 enemies, I'd say a good 2/3 of them are jokes) either. The Pandemicist very much plays up communicable disease, while the hosts (Biting Barker, Hostile Host, etc.) very specifically use attacks that double as rape and abduction tactics.
In other words, the game is still willing to wade in the darkness of its chosen world, which only makes its ability to coax humor out of these realities even more stunning.
As is tradition, the last three chapters of this game are a LOT. The only reason I completed the first chapter at the end of February but didn't see the final credits roll until early July is because of how discouraging a certain infamous chapter 12 boss battle forces players to do a bit of grinding to stand a chance. When I finally came back, it turned out this wasn't such a huge deal - just turn the auto battler on, queue up a podcast or two and punch your way through the battle arena - but compared to the rest of the game it's such a stark reminder of classic mid-90s RPG design that it feels as malicious as it is clearly intentional.
Likewise, the final major, actual boss definitely follows in a long tradition of demanding the player recognize its one primary gimmick, be as stocked as they can be on items (in this case, as a novelty, MP-replenishing Tauriners rather than HP replenishing Toughnesses and Staminans) and just grit their teeth. But even here, the shift from a brawler to a turn-based RPG is a balm because if the fight is getting a little exhausting, the player can simply set the controller down and chill out. This alone, even when just auto-battling through the streets, is such a balm to what can be a very monotonous franchise on the gameplay side.
Lastly, while it's heightening and cartoonish, somehow RGG have found themselves at the very foreground of the facial animation cutscene, with some of the most subtle (and outlandish) expressions you'll find in story-rooted games. Oftentimes this is all it really takes to make Ichiban feel like such a fresh shift from Kiryu, as his animations sell much of the late game drama even better than the early game comedy - the last bits of this game may be the first time this franchise elicited visceral emotion out of me, rather than the more empathic but flat ways heavy story beats tended to land in previous games.
I feel like I barely said half of what I wanted to say about this game, but I also think I've said enough for one unpaid batch of thoughts. Yakuza: Like a Dragon is a real triumph, and I'm so, so excited to see what this team can do with this iteration of the franchise with all the experience of this game under their belt. Especially if it's literally a fish out of water story?!
Ichi, I already miss you.
Though, happily, it feels more like a new beginning!
For all the entertainment this franchise has provided me over half a decade, I feel I've made it pretty clear that the ecstatic highs were balanced by some nearly intolerable lows. Of course it was always going to be impossible to fully reconcile this franchise's sprawling mid-section with the considerable gameplay and presentation advances they'd made by the time Yakuza 0 came to serve as a new entry point, so I tried and mostly succeeded to take the franchise's lumps with a grain of salt.
After Yakuza 6, however, it was clear that the team at RGG Studio were essentially doing the same thing. Kiryu Kazama may be as iconic as video game archetypes come, but he was also a bizarrely limited character to spend so much time with. Obviously it allowed him to act as a sun around which the franchise's increasingly bonkers characters could orbit, but it also meant that once the conspiracy went all the way to the top way back during the events of Yakuza 2, the franchise was essentially trapped in an endless loop. If Kiryu must perpetually refuse to shape the world in his image while the Yakuza must similarly refuse to align themselves with his world view, all the character moments in the world couldn't save a franchise from turning back on itself, remixing and repurposing old, good ideas in decreasingly fresh packages.
Enter Ichiban, a man of the lowest rung on the Yakuza ladder, slowly but forcefully exiled by the only social structure he'd ever known to answer two simple, burning questions: why am I so unwanted, and why can't these people understand I'd do anything to change that?
Anyway, there's a video game here too, and while I completely understand some of its more glaring issues, this shit kicks fuckin' ass, full stop. Early on I was reminded of the DIY charm brought to the South Park RPG experiment The Stick of Truth, in which the kids reimagine their playground goofing off as life or death combat with world destroying stakes. But after nearly 80 hours with this game, the marriage of an idea as simple as way more money to the mad man assembly line they've got going at the RGG creative desk results in a game that takes full advantage of this franchise's sense of fun that makes that game look like a student project. While Yakuza's combat could be fun in fits and starts, it always threatened to become a slog, something to wade through on the way to the next side mission or TV-episode length main cutscene.
But now? I feel like I could just write two paragraphs full of enemy names, attack descriptions and a few errant side quest synopses and earn these 4.5 stars right away. This is a game where you fight worryingly oily men toting pool floaties and a penchant for club drugs three floors deep in a basement fight club. There are wild enemy puns like Dotcombatant, Druggler, Shillboard and Pornogra-Pharoah. The game isn't afraid to be uncomfortable about some of these jokes (and of 252 enemies, I'd say a good 2/3 of them are jokes) either. The Pandemicist very much plays up communicable disease, while the hosts (Biting Barker, Hostile Host, etc.) very specifically use attacks that double as rape and abduction tactics.
In other words, the game is still willing to wade in the darkness of its chosen world, which only makes its ability to coax humor out of these realities even more stunning.
As is tradition, the last three chapters of this game are a LOT. The only reason I completed the first chapter at the end of February but didn't see the final credits roll until early July is because of how discouraging a certain infamous chapter 12 boss battle forces players to do a bit of grinding to stand a chance. When I finally came back, it turned out this wasn't such a huge deal - just turn the auto battler on, queue up a podcast or two and punch your way through the battle arena - but compared to the rest of the game it's such a stark reminder of classic mid-90s RPG design that it feels as malicious as it is clearly intentional.
Likewise, the final major, actual boss definitely follows in a long tradition of demanding the player recognize its one primary gimmick, be as stocked as they can be on items (in this case, as a novelty, MP-replenishing Tauriners rather than HP replenishing Toughnesses and Staminans) and just grit their teeth. But even here, the shift from a brawler to a turn-based RPG is a balm because if the fight is getting a little exhausting, the player can simply set the controller down and chill out. This alone, even when just auto-battling through the streets, is such a balm to what can be a very monotonous franchise on the gameplay side.
Lastly, while it's heightening and cartoonish, somehow RGG have found themselves at the very foreground of the facial animation cutscene, with some of the most subtle (and outlandish) expressions you'll find in story-rooted games. Oftentimes this is all it really takes to make Ichiban feel like such a fresh shift from Kiryu, as his animations sell much of the late game drama even better than the early game comedy - the last bits of this game may be the first time this franchise elicited visceral emotion out of me, rather than the more empathic but flat ways heavy story beats tended to land in previous games.
I feel like I barely said half of what I wanted to say about this game, but I also think I've said enough for one unpaid batch of thoughts. Yakuza: Like a Dragon is a real triumph, and I'm so, so excited to see what this team can do with this iteration of the franchise with all the experience of this game under their belt. Especially if it's literally a fish out of water story?!
Ichi, I already miss you.
Banfrid
9 months ago