As I leave off the Dragon of Dojimas saga, I can't help but feel an immense relief. It took me 7 games to come to terms with the fact that I just don't love Yakukas beat em up style combat. It's stylish and makes for some great gifs but after all of these games it just reveals how lackluster the actual inputs are. This time around feels especially simplified. No alternate combat styles. Not alternate characters. It just makes me go wall-eyed after a while.

The new engine is really impressive. The game looks sharp even outside of the cutscenes, which includes sidequests. This along with the studios commitment to having all side content voiced is such a huge buff. The side stuff is always excellent in this series and it getting a glow up is fantastic.

The story writing is kind of a mixed bag. I'm really impressed how I was able to enjoy characters who not only are entirely unestablished, but also start out as the most insufferable dipshits in the world. It is super telling that I basically called every story beat in this game moments to hours before they occured. The novelty of the telenovela style drama wears off a few games in. It's such a staple of the series identity that it's hard to picture it any other way, but it wouldn't be a big deal if my expectations were subverted at any point.

Overall I'm satisfied with the way Kiryu's story ends. It's bittersweet and is the only kind of resolution that would make sense at this point. It just would have been nice to leave on the highest note possible.