Blockuza: Like a Dragon Quest
In a rush to beat as many new video games as I could with my increasingly busy schedule this year, I elected to dedicate my time in attempting Yakuza: Like a Dragon before the release of Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name this coming November. What I didn't really understand was how involved and lengthy that Like a Dragon (Which I'll just call LAD in this review,) would be, even if this is now the 9th Ryo Ga Gotoku studio game that I've played. I knew a fair bit about the game, never intending to have played it when it released in 2020 I watched many streams and listened to a plethora of podcasts on the departure of a longstanding franchise's direction, tackling the game mechanics and overall design of games from a bygone era: the standard JRPG. Going into LAD, I knew that the new series protagonist, Ichiban Kasuga, was a happy-go-lucky Dragon Quest nerd (a series of immense popularity in Japan) and a complete 180 from one of my all time favorites in Kiryu Kazuma. What I didn't understand going in though was how intense and in depth Kasuga as a character was, willing to display a full range of emotions rather than "everything will work out" syndrome that I'm used to in Shonen animes or JRPG's like the ones he is a fan of.
Now as I've already mentioned, the most clear departure between LAD and the many games that precede it from RGG is the massive change in combat. Combat in the Yakuza games was unfortunately the weakest point in each entry to me, barring what I felt like were amazing titles from a legitimate rhythm and smoothness that they could have had in telling their stories. The Blockuza meme I referenced in the title is real, the real time action combat was excessively rigid and unintuitive unless you had perfectly understood the game's nuances and had the patience to subvert excellently calculated enemy timings. With the company continuing to move in that direction with the Judgment games (and LAD: Gaiden apparently,) RGG elected to take Ichiban's journey in the most Dragon Quest way possible: a JRPG. The rudimentary definition of this as most people would understand is turn based combat that uses a party of x many characters (in LAD's case: four) to take on world enemies and bosses with a continuous level system that ranks up classes/jobs which are required to take on tougher opponents as the game goes on. I've mentioned Dragon Quest probably too many times already, but this is the in-game explanation for the mechanical alteration of LAD's combat systems. Legitimately, just because Ichiban was a big fan of DQ as a kid he sees the world like a game that needs to be beaten with his party of friends to defeat the big bad evil. This results in him and his party having classes, world enemies morphing into mysterious beings like evil cleaners and amorphous trash bags when they begin to brawl, and several key story elements being stylized in a fantasy setting. As a fan of JRPG's in general I appreciated this change going into LAD because as previously stated, even though its a series I love, the rigidity of Yakuza's combat had begun to weigh on my greatly going into each release. In practice though, the JRPGification of LAD greatly waned on me as I realized the reality of the grind required to make the game manageable. I greatly appreciate the effort that RGG went through with the Poundmates, diversified class system, incredible visuals, and lengths of explanation in the mechanics, but at the end of the day the systems just aren't for me. No love lost, it's a Yakuza/LAD game and I knew the story would be there to back it up, but I feel like there is a better way to do combat going forward. Maybe in Infinite Wealth (due out in 2024) will remedy my issues with grinding and the timesink required to do so, but that might be wishful thinking.
Outside of the combat changes, I came out of Like a Dragon immensely satisfied with the experience I had. In terms of narrative, it's a safe bet with RGG and this franchise that you'll get something that is resoundingly silly but also incredibly impactful and serious. Our story follows Ichiban Kasuga, a lowly Yakuza grunt at the bottom of the famed Tojo Clan totem pole take the fall for a crime he didn't commit. The world he returns to eighteen years later is disparagingly different, not only in the way that society has changed but most importantly in the organization he used to refer to as his family. We follow Kasuga along his journey out of prison looking for answers from those he was trusted that had betrayed him, looking for a way back into the world he once knew and discovering a sinister plot to control Tokyo from forces he never would have expected. As is typical with my reviews, I don't jump into story elements, but I will say that the early game of LAD had me gripped to my computer screen pretty much right away. The narrative loses itself a bit by design as Ichiban and company meet more and more adversity from teh powers that be, but this all setup. As is tradition with the Yakuza franchise, the narrative swan song that RGG puts Ichiban and the player through can be described as nothing but beautiful. I wanted to end the game last night but after a long day and way too little sleep, I knew I'd be doing a disservice to the work RGG did in weaving a spider web's worth of narrative intrigue into the last few chapters, so I cut it early and woke up today to round out Chapters 14 and 15 of the end game, and I'm very glad I made that decision. Ichiban's unveiling to the player reminds me of my first watch of Fullmetal Alchemist and Edward Elric. You're introduced to a spry young red-clad youth, eager and ready to make their mark on the world after tragedy befell them in their earlier years. While they begin their journey in good faith with willingness to tackle the evil at large, the continuous depraved malice they are exposed by their friends and foes alike slowly strips them to their core. Edward has a moment when he first really draws blood in FMA that rattles him and completely breaks his mental image, and you see that a few times in the later chapter of Like a Dragon as Ichiban's grasp of the answers he is looking for drifts away like sand in the wind. There's a strength in having your protagonist lose their cool. As a narrative technique it shows that for one, the character is not impervious to stressors of the world they're in, and secondly gives the hero a benchmark at their lowest to measure themselves to as the game progresses from there. Like a Dragon utilizes this mechanic a few times as Ichiban discovers his journey has a lot more going on than just exposing corruption within the police and the Yakuza, and that blood is thicker than water. What I thought would be a man who was all smiles going into LAD, I found was one of the most emotionally well-rounded protagonists of any game that I've had the pleasure of playing.
To round out my review, I figure a little blip about the setting is important, as RGG intricately crafts their fictional takes on Japan ever so feverishly. Though you begin in the familiar Kamurocho and return a time or two, the bulk of LAD takes place in Ijincho, their version of Yokohama's Isezakicho. Again the city feels lived in and alive, something that RGG is completely unparalleled in the gaming space of doing, but for some reason it felt... too big? In a JRPG where you need to craft diversified encounters, sidequests, and general experiences there is a need for a world that trends to be larger in scope. Though because the location is so massive in comparison to Sotenbori, Kamurocho, Osaka, and Hirsohima from the series past, I felt like no location within LAD really felt like home or felt too familiar. You need to transition to and visit more and more locations as the narrative progresses so you can meet/fight new foes, which is natural in game design, but as it takes place in an insular city I felt that it reduced upon the familiarity that Yakuza games succeed in. Maybe this is a result of me not engaging in as much side content as your average LAD player, since I've been burnt out on that from playing as many of these games in a fairly short time span, but I didn't ever feel at home in Yokohama. Maybe this will change as the series progresses, but Kamurocho in Yakuza 0 to me was an immediate affinity, I can't say the same about Ijincho.
I would absolutely recommend Yakuza: Like a Dragon to fans of the series or of JRPG's at large. The fanservice, familiar faces and locations, and again amazing narrative from RGG are a treat to fans of the series and hopefully will attract newer fans as well. Ichiban Kasuga gained a fan in me.
In a rush to beat as many new video games as I could with my increasingly busy schedule this year, I elected to dedicate my time in attempting Yakuza: Like a Dragon before the release of Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name this coming November. What I didn't really understand was how involved and lengthy that Like a Dragon (Which I'll just call LAD in this review,) would be, even if this is now the 9th Ryo Ga Gotoku studio game that I've played. I knew a fair bit about the game, never intending to have played it when it released in 2020 I watched many streams and listened to a plethora of podcasts on the departure of a longstanding franchise's direction, tackling the game mechanics and overall design of games from a bygone era: the standard JRPG. Going into LAD, I knew that the new series protagonist, Ichiban Kasuga, was a happy-go-lucky Dragon Quest nerd (a series of immense popularity in Japan) and a complete 180 from one of my all time favorites in Kiryu Kazuma. What I didn't understand going in though was how intense and in depth Kasuga as a character was, willing to display a full range of emotions rather than "everything will work out" syndrome that I'm used to in Shonen animes or JRPG's like the ones he is a fan of.
Now as I've already mentioned, the most clear departure between LAD and the many games that precede it from RGG is the massive change in combat. Combat in the Yakuza games was unfortunately the weakest point in each entry to me, barring what I felt like were amazing titles from a legitimate rhythm and smoothness that they could have had in telling their stories. The Blockuza meme I referenced in the title is real, the real time action combat was excessively rigid and unintuitive unless you had perfectly understood the game's nuances and had the patience to subvert excellently calculated enemy timings. With the company continuing to move in that direction with the Judgment games (and LAD: Gaiden apparently,) RGG elected to take Ichiban's journey in the most Dragon Quest way possible: a JRPG. The rudimentary definition of this as most people would understand is turn based combat that uses a party of x many characters (in LAD's case: four) to take on world enemies and bosses with a continuous level system that ranks up classes/jobs which are required to take on tougher opponents as the game goes on. I've mentioned Dragon Quest probably too many times already, but this is the in-game explanation for the mechanical alteration of LAD's combat systems. Legitimately, just because Ichiban was a big fan of DQ as a kid he sees the world like a game that needs to be beaten with his party of friends to defeat the big bad evil. This results in him and his party having classes, world enemies morphing into mysterious beings like evil cleaners and amorphous trash bags when they begin to brawl, and several key story elements being stylized in a fantasy setting. As a fan of JRPG's in general I appreciated this change going into LAD because as previously stated, even though its a series I love, the rigidity of Yakuza's combat had begun to weigh on my greatly going into each release. In practice though, the JRPGification of LAD greatly waned on me as I realized the reality of the grind required to make the game manageable. I greatly appreciate the effort that RGG went through with the Poundmates, diversified class system, incredible visuals, and lengths of explanation in the mechanics, but at the end of the day the systems just aren't for me. No love lost, it's a Yakuza/LAD game and I knew the story would be there to back it up, but I feel like there is a better way to do combat going forward. Maybe in Infinite Wealth (due out in 2024) will remedy my issues with grinding and the timesink required to do so, but that might be wishful thinking.
Outside of the combat changes, I came out of Like a Dragon immensely satisfied with the experience I had. In terms of narrative, it's a safe bet with RGG and this franchise that you'll get something that is resoundingly silly but also incredibly impactful and serious. Our story follows Ichiban Kasuga, a lowly Yakuza grunt at the bottom of the famed Tojo Clan totem pole take the fall for a crime he didn't commit. The world he returns to eighteen years later is disparagingly different, not only in the way that society has changed but most importantly in the organization he used to refer to as his family. We follow Kasuga along his journey out of prison looking for answers from those he was trusted that had betrayed him, looking for a way back into the world he once knew and discovering a sinister plot to control Tokyo from forces he never would have expected. As is typical with my reviews, I don't jump into story elements, but I will say that the early game of LAD had me gripped to my computer screen pretty much right away. The narrative loses itself a bit by design as Ichiban and company meet more and more adversity from teh powers that be, but this all setup. As is tradition with the Yakuza franchise, the narrative swan song that RGG puts Ichiban and the player through can be described as nothing but beautiful. I wanted to end the game last night but after a long day and way too little sleep, I knew I'd be doing a disservice to the work RGG did in weaving a spider web's worth of narrative intrigue into the last few chapters, so I cut it early and woke up today to round out Chapters 14 and 15 of the end game, and I'm very glad I made that decision. Ichiban's unveiling to the player reminds me of my first watch of Fullmetal Alchemist and Edward Elric. You're introduced to a spry young red-clad youth, eager and ready to make their mark on the world after tragedy befell them in their earlier years. While they begin their journey in good faith with willingness to tackle the evil at large, the continuous depraved malice they are exposed by their friends and foes alike slowly strips them to their core. Edward has a moment when he first really draws blood in FMA that rattles him and completely breaks his mental image, and you see that a few times in the later chapter of Like a Dragon as Ichiban's grasp of the answers he is looking for drifts away like sand in the wind. There's a strength in having your protagonist lose their cool. As a narrative technique it shows that for one, the character is not impervious to stressors of the world they're in, and secondly gives the hero a benchmark at their lowest to measure themselves to as the game progresses from there. Like a Dragon utilizes this mechanic a few times as Ichiban discovers his journey has a lot more going on than just exposing corruption within the police and the Yakuza, and that blood is thicker than water. What I thought would be a man who was all smiles going into LAD, I found was one of the most emotionally well-rounded protagonists of any game that I've had the pleasure of playing.
To round out my review, I figure a little blip about the setting is important, as RGG intricately crafts their fictional takes on Japan ever so feverishly. Though you begin in the familiar Kamurocho and return a time or two, the bulk of LAD takes place in Ijincho, their version of Yokohama's Isezakicho. Again the city feels lived in and alive, something that RGG is completely unparalleled in the gaming space of doing, but for some reason it felt... too big? In a JRPG where you need to craft diversified encounters, sidequests, and general experiences there is a need for a world that trends to be larger in scope. Though because the location is so massive in comparison to Sotenbori, Kamurocho, Osaka, and Hirsohima from the series past, I felt like no location within LAD really felt like home or felt too familiar. You need to transition to and visit more and more locations as the narrative progresses so you can meet/fight new foes, which is natural in game design, but as it takes place in an insular city I felt that it reduced upon the familiarity that Yakuza games succeed in. Maybe this is a result of me not engaging in as much side content as your average LAD player, since I've been burnt out on that from playing as many of these games in a fairly short time span, but I didn't ever feel at home in Yokohama. Maybe this will change as the series progresses, but Kamurocho in Yakuza 0 to me was an immediate affinity, I can't say the same about Ijincho.
I would absolutely recommend Yakuza: Like a Dragon to fans of the series or of JRPG's at large. The fanservice, familiar faces and locations, and again amazing narrative from RGG are a treat to fans of the series and hopefully will attract newer fans as well. Ichiban Kasuga gained a fan in me.