Every single plot reveal in this game feels like they're doing this without making the tower completely collapse.

Fascinating non-linear sci-fi story that you can play in whatever order you want and at no point does it fall apart because of it. A real feat of storytelling to get everything to work how it does. A game you gotta go in completely blind.

The RTS portion of the game is a lot of fun when you figure it out, I just wish that there was a way to balance it out and make it feel less Start-And-Stop than it is but it is satisfying to see the waves of bad guys explode on the screen. I thought for sure the last mission was going to make my launch PS4 melt through the floor.

cool game.

Great follow up to Alan Wake 13 years later, almost everything is better and more interesting than in the first game. Almost.

Story is cool and more engaging. Love the connections to Control. Music rules. The case board is satisfying to fill out. The plot threads and light diffusion are cooler than any of the environment changes in Control. Puzzles are all fun. Combat is routinely frustrating, Reloading usually means death, enemies even if there's very few of them sometimes take more than a full clip to kill and that just feels bad, The wolves when you play as Saga are the most annoying enemy ever put in a video game, and routinely switching to a healing item or throwable glitches out and makes me stop -> switch to gun -> switch back to item -> die because of how long it takes.

I'll do The Final Draft when the other DLC comes out.

Finished awhile ago but sat with it before typing stuff up.

A fun followup to Like a Dragon! Fixing all my issues with the combat to really bring the transition to a turn-based RPG. A fun continuation of Ichiban's adventures and a final closing(?) of Kiryu's. Though the games narrative struggles with problems that haven't been around since the PS3 trilogy.

From the start its a delight being able to see all my friends in Ijincho again. The decision to make the first few hours of the game be low stakes slice of life is great, we rarely get these kinds of moments in games and when we do they're relegated to side content. It's nice to see everyone hanging out and see how their lives are going since the last game ended and it works as a great setup for getting the franchise out of Japan for the first time. Down on his luck, jobless, not getting a text back from a girl, canceled by a VTuber we've all been there. Why not go to Hawaii to reunite with your long lost mother? Where, even with the looming threat of the Hawaiian underworld surrounding the cast, the general tone is nice thanks to Ichiban's unwaivering spirit and optimism. Though when the stakes start to ramp up, a bit too late for me like in Yakuza 3, the narrative starts to suffer. Splitting the lead roles between Ichiban and Kiryu because they're STILL too scared to keep Kiryu out of the spotlight, and it really makes the ending feel flat because both of them confront the antagonist they have less conflict with and neither are built up in a way that feels cathartic to finally take down. Though I appreciate the time given to Kiryu to pay tribute to his nearly 20 years of adventures we've been along with him, it really takes away from time that could've been used to flesh out Ichiban's adventure and troubles. Though more about that in a bit.

The new additions to the cast with Tomizawa and Chitose are great, Tomizawa feels very American in contrast with the rest of the cast and Chitose's rich upbringing helps her stand out coming from a completely different world as everyone else. Seonhee being added to the group is a lot of fun, finding out she's just as much as a weirdo as the rest of the cast is great. Her helping Saeko and Nanba with Kiryu's bucket list is very sweet, and the three going from Ichibans quirks to Kiryus quirks creates some real funny moments. Adachi, Zhao, and Joon-gi feel tacked on but learning more about them is still nice. Kiryu, as a supporting character, is fantastic. His cancer bringing him out of his element and making him rely on others creates really funny and heartfelt moments, and as previously mentioned leads to my biggest problem with the game. Splitting Kiryu off from this supporting role hurts the game and hurts his growth on screen. Kiryu's journey here is that he has to learn to accept help from others instead of taking everything on by himself and Ichiban is the EXACT person he'd pick that up from, and he SHOULD be learning that by seeing how Ichiban lets everyone help him at the big ending of the game! Instead it's just kind of implied and you can draw the conclusions but it's not great, but enough of this.

Gameplay is fantastic, they fixed the biggest glaring issue with the combat in 7 being that you couldn't position the characters making the attacks that hurt in a row or a cone in front of the character making combat a blast. The positioning makes it so you can do really cool team combos and knock guys against the wall making the fights feel like a rad shonen battle. The monkey's paw with this change is that the fights are way too easy now. I'm sure its nice for people who are still struggling coming from an action game to a turn-based RPG but without any difficulty settings it feels like I'm slepeing through the fights. There's maybe 4 fights that are tough and 2 of them are because of annoying mechanics and less because you have to be creative. Kiryu's turn based breaking special is a blast though, loved how they used that during the Old Man fight.

Side content might also be the best it's ever been. Substories are a lot of fun, especially the ones that really focus on contrasting America with Japan. The trilogy of substories involving movie directors is great. Miss Match might be the funniest use of FMV in the series yet, Sujimon is the best Pokemon knock off this year (take that Palworld) and fills the itch I've wanted for a Gacha game that doesn't cost me money for rolls, Dondoko Island got old quick for me but I know people like that one. Using substories to wrap up loose ends with characters from Kiryu's past was nice (though I think he could've done this while also working alongside Ichiban too). I agree with most of the choices for people to come back into his life one last time and despite some inconsistencies like I'm pretty sure Kaoru fell for a guy in America and not that she just got too busy with work, It was great to see a lot of the people again. I missed Akiyama and will continue to miss him (I also miss Shinada why did he have to be relegated to just a quick memory bring him back). Confirming that the spinoffs are canon as dreams Kiryu had are a nice touch too.

Overall a great game! Well worth playing, I just wish it had more emotional weight and development for Ichiban. Maybe months out I'll feel differently.

Also fuck you RGG for teasing out the fucking cabaret club minigame with Yuki and Koyuki asking Kiryu to be a manager one more time for old times sake. Don't do that shit to me.

A pretty bog-standard Survival Crafting game that crashes every 20 minutes with anime critters tacked on for the crowd who wants a "Mature Pokemon game". If you've played Ark or The Forest or Conan: Exiles or Grounded or Valheim or any of the other 5000 games out there like it you've played this. The novelty of having the Pals around the world wears off pretty quick as you spend time chopping down trees to build fires and foraging for berries to refill that hunger meter. The Pals have some cute/interesting designs sometimes but the way you use them in the world isn't comparable to a
Pokemon game. Just a lazy asset flip survival craft game like Craftopia was

You know how shonen movies are just an arc condensed into a 90 minute format? this is the video game equivalent of that. A quick adventure with your pal Joryu thats a great sendoff for Kiryu in a leading role, assuming we don't get more in the future.

The majority of the games in the franchise are written in a way that you can pick up any of them as your first one and have a good time and know whats going on. This might be the only one that isn't that way. It's a short parallel story to Yakuza: Like A Dragon, with so much dialogue calling back to things you should already know about and so many substories and side activities paying tribute to all the adventures Kiryu has gone through over the years it's a bit refreshing that the game isn't scared to acknowledge the history. After all he is a Multi-Decade Pocket Circuit Champion.

Gameplay wise this is the best the dragon engine action combat has ever felt ( I played Lost Judgment on an Xbox One S so that could be better on a system that runs it at 60fps) Kiryu's Dragon stance is back with the Yakuza style and feels better than ever while his new Agent style is a flashy style that's similar to his old rush style but with some fun gadgets thrown in. Kiryu is also really strong from the jump, there's still upgrades to grab but it doesn't feel like nearly as much of a slog as it did in the past to get this legendary former yakuza back to his strength. Really filling in the gamer power fantasy with this one.

Towards the end of Yakuza: Like a Dragon I felt that it was a really poor decision to have Kiryu pop-in and have a "Passing of the Torch" moment with Ichiban, especially with how much he went through in 6 considering he was done with the Yakuza for good and had to live in hiding to protect the kids at Morning Glory. I think it would've made more sense for him to lay low for awhile and MAYBE make an appearance in 8. It felt like they didn't have confidence in their writing of their new protagonist at all. After playing The Man Who Erased His Name? I still think that it was a poor choice but I'm glad they fleshed out what got him there to make it a little more palletable. It's a quick journey that explains what lead to him being at the dissolution of the Omi Alliance and Tojo Clan, and sets the stage for Infinite Wealth being in Hawaii. It's a perfectly servicable LAD story, if it was dragged out to a usual games length it would've overstayed its welcome but here it's great. Love a good parallel between Kiryu and his antagonists and this game might also have the best one yet. Really though the shining moment of this game's story is the ending, one that couldn't work without the characters near twenty year history at this point and it comes close to making up for a lot of the gripes I've had about Kiryu's stories since Yakuza 3. Genuinely I think its the most emotional moment any of these games have ever had. Can't wait to play 8.