Ishin is an alright RGG game whose appeal lies in its fanservice more than anything else. It was sold as a remake, but it doesn’t really feel like one. Granted I haven’t played the original, but quality-wise, this feels on par with the remastered PlayStation 3 Yakuza games more than a full on remake. While I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, it doesn’t really feel like the game should be sold for full price either, and should be priced closer to those remastered PS3 Yakuza games instead. Combat generally doesn’t feel very good, and the game has an abundance of tedious systems that I just actively refused to engage with.
The story is the best part of Ishin, though in all honesty, I didn’t enjoy it more than the vast majority of other RGG Studios games. The story’s main appeal is in its fanservice. It made me super giddy to see so many different characters from past Yakuza games (the vast majority of which are dead) come together and interact with one another. Even though these are technically different people, at their core, they’re still the characters we know and love. This made for really interesting tension and plot dynamics, since despite knowing these characters, we didn’t know what roles they’d play in the story. This allowed the writers to subvert our expectations and surprise us, allowing for some of my favorite story moments in any RGG Studios game.
That’s pretty much where my praise for this game ends. Just about everything else regarding this game is either a let down or a drag. There’s an abundance of systems that aren’t fun or interesting to engage with at all, and hinder other areas of the game. Money is incredibly stingy, unless you do the homestead farming minigames, which aren’t interesting to do at all. The stingy economy is also an element of the really poorly implemented crafting system that after a few attempts, I actively refused to do whatsoever. There’s also the Trooper system which I also just didn’t really mess around with at all. The gacha nature of it dissuaded me from wanting to have anything to do with it. I didn’t want to manage the Troopers, nor did I want to spend the already limited money I’ve got trying to fish for more/better Troopers. These systems make the game such a grindy, boring drag. I didn’t want to do them at all, despite the drawbacks of not engaging with them.
Thankfully the game has ways to circumvent these systems. There was a free DLC sword that’s really strong which I used the whole game. Very rarely did I have to upgrade it at the blacksmith. As a result, I spent the vast majority of this game using that one sword. I made money using the log chopping mini game, and spent it on filling my inventory with medicine. I did spend time unlocking various skills for the different styles, but I generally played the game by avoiding attacks as much as possible, and taking medicine whenever I did get hit, since enemies are so aggressive and do an immense amount of damage. Now I fully admit, I might have hindered my experience by not meeting the game on its own terms and engaging with these systems. However, from what I’ve read from other people, these systems were very much the tedious grind that they seemed to be, so I don’t think my experience would’ve improved all that much even if I did engage with the blacksmithing and farming.
Combat doesn’t feel very good in this game either. The original Ishin was a precursor to Yakuza 0, so this was the first game in the series to implement the style system in combat. Compared to the styles in Yakuza 0/Kiwami or the Judgment games, the styles in Ishin don’t really mesh well together. Whereas the styles in the latter RGG games had situational uses, the styles in Ishin just feel more like alternate ways to engage with the combat and nothing more. I primarily used Swordsman for most of the game. Wild Dancer was good for crowd control, but I’d quickly switch back to Swordsman once I knocked enemies down and got myself some breathing room. I used Gun occasionally to pick off low health enemies from a distance. It seemed really easy to exploit Gun, and shooting a gun just doesn’t feel anywhere near as satisfying as the melee in an RGG game. I never really used Brawler much at all. It never seemed to do much damage and so I saw little point in using it. Plus I primarily wanted to use my sword in the game about samurai.
The game also has minor issues that aren’t that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, but I feel like they are still notable since this game is being sold as a $60 remake. The UX in this game is very laggy. It takes a noticeably long time to enter/exit menus on the pause screen, especially the abilities and equipment menus. Also, every cutscene in the game is only 30 fps. For me, this was a bit jarring, especially after playing every single RGG Studios game currently on Steam with cutscenes that were 60 fps. It just makes me feel like the care and attention that was put into this remake were put in the wrong areas.
Ishin has a lot to do, but hardly any of it is actually fun to do. It has a great story with tremendous fanservice, but that is just about all the game has going for it.The terrible economy forces you to either grind tedious minigames and crafting systems, or feel largely underpowered for the vast majority of the game. For a game that’s being sold as a remake, I don’t think enough was done to actually improve it. Instead, it just adds an additional tedious system to engage with. Now that I’ve reached the end of my journey through all of the RGG Studios games (until Like a Dragon Gaiden comes out), I eventually plan on revisiting them all and playing through their Premium Adventure modes. However, I don’t think I’ll be coming back to Ishin. Since I’ve completed the story, there just isn’t really anything appealing that would make me want to come back to it.
The story is the best part of Ishin, though in all honesty, I didn’t enjoy it more than the vast majority of other RGG Studios games. The story’s main appeal is in its fanservice. It made me super giddy to see so many different characters from past Yakuza games (the vast majority of which are dead) come together and interact with one another. Even though these are technically different people, at their core, they’re still the characters we know and love. This made for really interesting tension and plot dynamics, since despite knowing these characters, we didn’t know what roles they’d play in the story. This allowed the writers to subvert our expectations and surprise us, allowing for some of my favorite story moments in any RGG Studios game.
That’s pretty much where my praise for this game ends. Just about everything else regarding this game is either a let down or a drag. There’s an abundance of systems that aren’t fun or interesting to engage with at all, and hinder other areas of the game. Money is incredibly stingy, unless you do the homestead farming minigames, which aren’t interesting to do at all. The stingy economy is also an element of the really poorly implemented crafting system that after a few attempts, I actively refused to do whatsoever. There’s also the Trooper system which I also just didn’t really mess around with at all. The gacha nature of it dissuaded me from wanting to have anything to do with it. I didn’t want to manage the Troopers, nor did I want to spend the already limited money I’ve got trying to fish for more/better Troopers. These systems make the game such a grindy, boring drag. I didn’t want to do them at all, despite the drawbacks of not engaging with them.
Thankfully the game has ways to circumvent these systems. There was a free DLC sword that’s really strong which I used the whole game. Very rarely did I have to upgrade it at the blacksmith. As a result, I spent the vast majority of this game using that one sword. I made money using the log chopping mini game, and spent it on filling my inventory with medicine. I did spend time unlocking various skills for the different styles, but I generally played the game by avoiding attacks as much as possible, and taking medicine whenever I did get hit, since enemies are so aggressive and do an immense amount of damage. Now I fully admit, I might have hindered my experience by not meeting the game on its own terms and engaging with these systems. However, from what I’ve read from other people, these systems were very much the tedious grind that they seemed to be, so I don’t think my experience would’ve improved all that much even if I did engage with the blacksmithing and farming.
Combat doesn’t feel very good in this game either. The original Ishin was a precursor to Yakuza 0, so this was the first game in the series to implement the style system in combat. Compared to the styles in Yakuza 0/Kiwami or the Judgment games, the styles in Ishin don’t really mesh well together. Whereas the styles in the latter RGG games had situational uses, the styles in Ishin just feel more like alternate ways to engage with the combat and nothing more. I primarily used Swordsman for most of the game. Wild Dancer was good for crowd control, but I’d quickly switch back to Swordsman once I knocked enemies down and got myself some breathing room. I used Gun occasionally to pick off low health enemies from a distance. It seemed really easy to exploit Gun, and shooting a gun just doesn’t feel anywhere near as satisfying as the melee in an RGG game. I never really used Brawler much at all. It never seemed to do much damage and so I saw little point in using it. Plus I primarily wanted to use my sword in the game about samurai.
The game also has minor issues that aren’t that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, but I feel like they are still notable since this game is being sold as a $60 remake. The UX in this game is very laggy. It takes a noticeably long time to enter/exit menus on the pause screen, especially the abilities and equipment menus. Also, every cutscene in the game is only 30 fps. For me, this was a bit jarring, especially after playing every single RGG Studios game currently on Steam with cutscenes that were 60 fps. It just makes me feel like the care and attention that was put into this remake were put in the wrong areas.
Ishin has a lot to do, but hardly any of it is actually fun to do. It has a great story with tremendous fanservice, but that is just about all the game has going for it.The terrible economy forces you to either grind tedious minigames and crafting systems, or feel largely underpowered for the vast majority of the game. For a game that’s being sold as a remake, I don’t think enough was done to actually improve it. Instead, it just adds an additional tedious system to engage with. Now that I’ve reached the end of my journey through all of the RGG Studios games (until Like a Dragon Gaiden comes out), I eventually plan on revisiting them all and playing through their Premium Adventure modes. However, I don’t think I’ll be coming back to Ishin. Since I’ve completed the story, there just isn’t really anything appealing that would make me want to come back to it.