While a dramatic departure from the rest of the Yakuza series in terms of gameplay, almost everything else about Yakuza 7 is the franchise at its absolute peak. It’s not only one of, if not the best entries in the franchise, but it’s also one of the best RPGs I’ve ever played. It’s tremendously addicting in just about every regard, once I started playing it, I had such a difficult time putting it down.

The story is very well told, and I think it’s up there with some of RGG Studios’ best work. The new protagonist, Ichiban, is not only my new favorite Yakuza protagonist, but one of my favorite video game characters of all time. It is impossible to not get swept up into the flames of his kindness, passion and charisma. While I absolutely adore and idolize Kiryu, and he was my favorite character in the series until this point, I was absolutely won over by Ichiban and his grueling journey of losing everything and then crawling his way to the top. I enjoyed the rest of the cast quite a bit as well, but I did find that they all take a backseat to Ichi as far as their involvement in the story goes. This isn’t really a bad thing, just noticeable. Thanks to the Bond system, you do get a chance to learn more about them and get involved with their personal stories on the side. I just prefer it when the party members of a JRPG are more involved with the overall story.

Whether or not you’ll enjoy the combat will hinge entirely on how you feel about JRPGs. If you actively despise turn-based combat, there’s admittedly not much here that will get you to reconsider your feelings for it as it’s mostly pretty standard. Skill attacks require you to either mash a button or press a button at a specific time similar to the Heat actions of old but otherwise it plays like a traditional turn-based JRPG. My only complaint when it comes to the combat is that if the protagonist, Ichiban dies then your game is immediately over, and I absolutely despise it when JRPGs do that. It just makes no sense when you have party members or items that can bring other party members back to life. Normally it's not a huge issue, I rarely found it happening to me, but later in the game there are bosses and certain enemies who have either instant kill attacks, or attacks that can kill a party member if they weren’t at full health already and it's when Ichiban dies during moments like this that make this design choice absolutely infuriating.

My only other complaint about the game is how the game handles enemy encounters. Enemies in the overworld have a wide and far range of vision, especially compared to previous Yakuza games. This makes it easy for them to spot you and difficult as well as annoying to avoid them. I also can’t tell you how many times I’ve defeated a squad of enemies on my way to a destination, only to watch another 5 or 6 dudes literally materialize right in front of me and I’m forced to fight them as well. At the very least, they completely vanish from the map if you successfully run away, but this was still annoying to deal with, especially in Sotenbori, where the streets are so narrow that it's almost impossible to avoid enemy encounters altogether.

Everything else about the game is absolutely top notch. The game has an abundance of different mechanics and systems that all feed back into one another and make for a title that feels like it's constantly rewarding you. This is primarily what makes the game so addicting. I couldn’t put this game down when I started it. I was thoroughly engaged and entertained from beginning to end. Fantastic game.

I wrote a lot of substantive critique and compliments in a bunch of different places for the few hours i played this as a filler inbetween Rebirth (review pending) and Dragon's Dogma 2 (review probably not happening) but i think the real core of this is just... it's still a combo-focused game, it's got that DMC DNA and all your moves are built around linking them together and styling on enemies, right? But the combos aren't as interesting as the games that it's building off of, because it's shit-scared to push back or make the player feel like they ever failed, and everything you're doing is ultimately just filler inbetween mashing out your cooldowns during stagger - which does the vast majority of the damage in any given fight for about 5% of the brain cells. At that point, why am i not just playing DMC4?

It's a plot about coming together with a combat system about fighting literally with your lone wolf. People fuck a lot and present it as a sign of maturity. I'd rather just get caught up on One Piece.

I love this series so much. Another absolute triumph from RGG that easily cemented itself in my top 3.

As much as I will always love Kiryu, Ichiban has grown on me immensely between LAD7 and Infinite Wealth. His relentless optimism, goofiness and loyalty is the perfect foil for Kiryu's cool, tough and solemn demeanor. They complement each other perfectly, and Infinite Wealth did an amazing job at giving them both a time to shine.

The gameplay is a ton of fun and is very much an improvement from the already great turn-based combat of 7. Mixing and matching skills from different classes, utilizing combo attacks, finding the perfect team synergy for each battle - I never got bored of the combat. I was felt fairly over-leveled by the end of the story, but the final boss still put up a decent fight that felt fair.

The amount of content in this game is absolutely absurd. I like to focus on the story during my first play-through of a game, although I did manage to do a good chunk of side stories and optional activities but still feel like I barely scratched the surface. I have a lot of clean-up to do, but with so much variety in the activities I know I'll never get bored trying to finish everything and get the platinum, which I absolutely want to do with how good this game is.

The story was also excellent, although I think I liked 7's just a bit more. I'm always impressed by how well RGG can connect all of these seemingly random plot points together into a cohesive whole, as well as how big they can make the stakes feel in each game. Just when I think they couldn't possibly come up with something as grandiose as their previous game, they always manage to outdo themselves in the next entry. I appreciated the globe-trotting adventure of Infinite Wealth, and being able to flip between the two locations and parties (with no spoilers) kept things fresh and allowed the game to keep moving at a good pace. Couple that with their ability to tackle complex themes like the homelessness epidemic, wealth inequality and the harmful effects of Internet virality and you have a really amazing narrative overall.

Before I had played LAD7 I first played through the previous games in the series to catch myself up. Going into 7 I felt really connected to this story and these characters and this world, and I was nervous that with the longer wait between 7 and Infinite Wealth that I would lose that sense of connection and have a hard time feeling immersed in the world. I'm happy to say that isn't the case - playing Infinite Wealth felt like coming home in a sense, and it didn't feel like I had missed a beat when I loaded it up for the first time. This is a really special series to me, and I'm already counting down the days until we hear about the next adventure for this goofy, lovable found family.

Fully embracing the near 20 year history of the franchise while also being able to stand on it's own is what it achieves best. There's such a passion and love itself throughout the whole journey, it feels like the proper evolution to both being a sequel to an already incredible game but to also be able to understand the series.

On the actual experience part, from the new combat mechanics to the sheer amount of quality side-content it's fantastic but what really makes the game stand out is the focus on presentation from the much better graphics and direction which adds so much to every bit of the game. The one cherry on the top is what the sound team had done for the soundtrack, from the more quiet cutscenes tracks to the activity ones, it's orgasmic

Overall, it's a very strong contender for the top of the franchise, too much to love about it otherwise.

If Yakuza 3 has a million of fans I am one of them.

If Yakuza 3 has ten fans I am one of them.

If Yakuza 3 has only one fan that is me.

If Yakuza 3 has no fans, that means I am no longer on earth.

If the world is against Yakuza 3, I am against the world.

Note: this will be mostly spoiler-free concerning the story. However, I will go a tadge in-depth concerning the combat and mechanics, as well as the characters you travel with.

I began playing the Like a Dragon series about a year ago. Starting with Yakuza 0, I sprinted through every game in the main series until I finally got to Gaiden in mid-December. I've been preparing. I feel an extreme emotional attachment to the characters and world. And it has finally come to a head in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth.

First, I want to get the minigames and side content out of the way - it's top tier in the series. I played almost all of the side content in 0, Kiwami, Kiwami 2, and Yakuza 7. And, of those, I would pick Infinite Wealth's content every time. At first, I thought the substories were slightly weaker overall, but the stories told were longer and more meaningful. That is, until I got to Kiryu's substories. They take a pretty decent collection and elevate it to referential yet meaningful stories for Kiryu to experience. Not to mention, a lot of the stories have little specific minigames and experiences within the game that can't be otherwise accessed. Ichi's stunt film substories are specifically a standout.

These substories aren't even including all of the actual minigames though. Almost all of the sports games are back, including Darts or Pool. The karaoke in this game is unmatched, featuring the most songs in the franchise thus far. Can Quest and the new Crazy Delivery modes are as fun as they were, and the Delivery mode was specifically a standout. The Sicko Snap mode is hilarious and quick/easy fun. These minigames do a lot of heavy lifting to make the new locale fun and lively. Not to mention the Aloha Links, which make RANDOM NPCs INTERESTING, which is SUCH an achievement.

However, in terms of side content, the highlights of the game are the Bucket List/Life Links, the Drink Links/Bond Actions, and, of course, Dondoko Island. To speak quickly on Drink Links, these are far and away better than 7's. They have better stories, there are more of them, and the actual content relates to the main story better than they had before. The Bucket List is genuinely a highlight, and I found myself intensely interested in pointing at my screen for every reference to a previous game they made. This includes games I haven't even played yet. The Life Links are incredible, with characters returning that I never thought I would see again. And all of these things have an intense relation to combat, whether it gives a summon (poundmate), or if the drink links allow your teammates to help out and do more damage per turn.

But, of course, the king of side content is Dondoko Island (and the related Sujimon quests). Sujimon are so much better in this game. They have become a fully fleshed out (and well-written) story, with fun, pokemon-like gameplay. Their real use, however, is working on Dondoko, an animal crossing-like island. It's here where I was able to decorate and upgrade my own spot of land in the Pacific. The amount of depth in this minigame is actually incredible. It could have been a game all on its own, to a certain degree. It takes a lot of the fun and peaceful portions of Animal Crossing, and adds some story-based tension to up the stakes and entice the player to finish upgrading the island. I finished the island within 20ish hours, but I easily could spend a hundred just fine tuning my land and upgrading my house. There is so much content, and it alone guarantees a fun time if anyone is willing to make it through a very long portion of the game to get there.

I still intend to keep this review completely spoiler-free, but at this point, I'm going to talk about my feelings about the plot in this game. Feel free to skip this next paragraph if you want no prior thoughts about the plot.

Regardless, I generally really enjoyed the plot of this game. Like most of the games I would consider my favorite, this game does have a major flaw and I think it's the story in this entry. It's good. Great, even. But it does slightly suffer after coming off of Yakuza 7, which contains the only story to rival Yakuza 0 and Yakuza 4's (in my opinion). But these flaws are not devastating by any means. It's really just a very unevenly paced ending, with an emotional core that doesn't totally pay off by the end of the game. The new characters are a fantastic addition, and the opener to this game is incredible. In fact, the way this story weaves all the characters together is really well done and it ambitiously attempts to do way more than any other Yakuza game (maybe other than 5).

The game's storytelling is not confined to its plot, however. "Environmental storytelling" is honestly an overused phrase within the medium, and LAD8's use of it is mixed. The returning cities are mostly kept the same (from what I could find), which is almost disappointing when it comes to how many changes the maps go through inbetween entries. Honolulu, the new map, is probably even the best map that RGG has made. They've come a long way from the many, sadly mid maps they made for Yakuza 5. Consolidating into one really big and cohesive map does wonders for this game. I only brought up the fact that the phrase is overused because of how much it doesn't matter that RGG didn't change much. Yeah, it's somewhat disappointing, but this game is doing so much more with its premise that I cannot fault this small "oversight," if you can even call it that. Hell, I'm sure I missed certain things within the three explorable maps. I only bring this up at all for those who might really care about that storytelling - I know it was very cool when Kamurocho Hills came into existence, or the retroactive changes between 0 and Kiwami. Don't expect anything like that in this game.

In Yakuza 7, one of my biggest issues was with the combat. Again, I love that game to death, and a lot of the faults didn't matter to me in the end, but I can admit that the combat in that game tends to be rough.

None of that is present in this game.

The combat is sharp, smart, and engaging. Hell, adding the ability to move around solved nearly half of the issues. The inherited skill system is tons better, with more build options presented to the player. And, while yes it is disappointing that there are classes locked behind a paywall (not to mention NG+), as someone who preordered the deluxe edition the Footballer and Tennis Pro jobs are two of the most fun jobs. The amount of fun combinations you can make is stunning. The Tag Team and Special Attack animations are amazing again, with the Poundmates really getting more attention this time around. Additionally, Kiryu's Dragon job is rightfully the best job in the entire game, with so much versatility and fun.

Overall, through all the hemming and hawing about various different thing, it might be confusing as to why I would consider this my new favorite game of all time. A lot of this is definitely due to certain story beats and moments that I wouldn't spoil here. But in any case, as an overall package, I cannot believe how stunning this game is. I cannot wait for the next installment, even if I feel pretty sure that nothing will feel this ambitious for a long time. RGG outdid themselves, and I can't believe how amazing of a product this is. Before, I was sure that LAD/Yakuza 7 was going to be the lasting JRPG for RGG. Now I realize that this game is the one that deserves to be canonized into the JRPG hall of fame, sitting along big hitters like the FF or DQ series. Incredible work. I am so glad that I was able to work through all of the Yakuza games' ups and downs in order to get to this singular project. I don't have better words to give it.

I am pleased to find that one of my favorite games as a kid is as fun as I last remember it being. Mechanically, there is a lot rough around the edges here, as is expected from Insomniac trying something brand new, but the amount they get right in this first go is remarkable.

That they were able to nail the tone, art direction, sound design, worldbuilding, and general game feel in this first entry just confirms what Spyro fans already knew about this studio's brilliance. It's the things that they miss on that make their successes all the more puzzling. It's not too detrimental in the year 2024 because, you know, a bunch of sequels came out and addressed issues R&C1 had, but if I were reviewing this in 2002 I would have gone in on Insomniac for not having strafing in a shooter. I was busy being a Child in 2002 though, so no one asked me my opinion.

The lack of strafing is both a glaring omission, but clearly noticed by the developers, as every one of the best guns in the game is designed around positioning and crowd control more than it is precision aiming or dodging. The tesla claw, pyrocitor, suck cannon, and the almighty RYNO combined with large mobs are where the combat has some grease on its wheels, allowing you to have a little more control over the fight and get into it and, you know, have some action in your action game. Ranged enemies that require the devastator or blaster primarily put the fucking brakes on the experience, as the game trains you that the ideal way to deal with these situations is to sit in a corner with the devastator or visibomb and pick them off from afar. It's effective, but completely at odds with the comic-book action the game is clearly going for. Ratchet coldly picking people off from afar just isn't what comes to mind when I boot up one of these games!

The final boss is very bad about this, and also features everything that drags the game down, especially in regards to the terrible check pointing in Ratchet and Clank, where dying sends you back 3 years into the past to replay half the game every time you die. I get you don't want the game to be too easy, but I don't want it to waste my fucking time either!

The combat here is so rudimentary and unpolished that it never ever elevates beyond average. Which is kind of a problem in a game with so much of it! But it's just passable enough and surrounded by so much delightful set-dressing that I personally don't think it does enough to drag the experience down. I don't think nostalgia is guiding my hand here, as I haven't played through this game since at least 2007, so there are many years between me and this series at the moment, and I have given myself enormous amounts of brain damage watching Super Sentai and Family Guy between now and then that I might as well be playing this shit fresh.

One thing I am amazed they nailed is how actually honest-to-god funny this game can be. the 2016 remake being a completely sanded down baby game for toddlers makes me even more angry when I remember that R&C 2002 had some wit and irreverence to it. The dialogue is snappy, well-written, with fantastic voice acting. The plot is very competently structured, and minus some hiccups in the second act where Ratchet has his heel turn for a few levels, has some pretty solid foundation to it. The consistent theme of capitalism ruling everything in the world works both narrative and mechanically, as the game isn't afraid to put toll bridges up to really drive home how Cash Rules Everything Around You.

Plus, it is a beautiful game. I am sickened when I remember this is a 20 year old game, as it still looks so wonderful! The way the game frames the vistas of every planet upon first arriving at them is that artist's touch that really gives this game something special. Its framed so deliberately, it reminds you how everything has such a careful design here.

The pure focus on exploration and platforming is what separates it greatly from its more action-oriented sequels. In many ways, I think R&C1 might be my favorite for that alone, as I love the way Ratchet feels to control, how the variety of worlds encourages exploring every nook and cranny, and how there is no real fat here, they included about as many good bits as they could.

Of course, there are bad bits. The dumpy racing minigame every 3d platformer is legally obligated to have, but thankfully, isn't actually THAT bad. Rail grinding sections where the camera is placed in such a way to make it difficult to gauge where obstacles sit on the rail, very stinky. The hydrodisplacer being a big waste of time that's most likely just here to showcase that water looks good on the PS2. The stuff that doesn't work isn't bad enough to drag the experience down, and none of it is as wretched as some of the putrid minigames in Spyro 3 or Crash 3, but I still don't get why if you have a really solid foundation for a game, you would have the player do something completely irrelevant to it.

Could I recommend Ratchet & Clank? Yeah, absolutely. It's very fun and bursting with charm, and what's here to appreciate is so brilliant. Thinking about how sanitized, charmless, and, to be frank, unfunny the newer Ratchet games are, it is all the more stunning how brilliant so much of the 2002 game is.

This was genuinely So good, most pleasant experience ive had with the series so far which is funny because on a technical level it's probably the worst ive played thus far. Barring being able to deal with the stupid ass goon guys that sit in the middle of a hall blocking your way with just a few shots of a pistol to the face and an actually Fun gun boss fight.. this SUUUUUUUUURE IS RGG's first outing with Yakuza on some new hardware alright lmao. And yesss yes yes I played the remastered version on my Xbox, and yet the civillians seem to crowd up in swarms weirdly and clip and bug into each other all weird, even ingame cutscenes ive seen some weird model glitches that i'd never seen at all in the first couple games.. and in general the enemy AI seems a lot softer this time around and hell the upgrade where you can get a second finishing move kind of just grants you access to a Lot of ways to exploit every boss in the game if youre paying attention to which light + heavy combo mixups grant you the best possible tool to break guards, though i digress, cause id rather feel Rewarded for learning the game's quirks, ins and outs than having my back blown out by a 54 year old devil may cry wannabe draining all of my resources (yes i am still bitter about that one fight even if it was all Fine in the end)

Though on top of it all the game is still pretty fun and you even get a lot of opportunities to pick up new special moves from kiryu's first actual native english speaking friend AND black friend like holy fuck they remembered we can exist in Japan and are actually showin melanated ppl galore in Okinawa and some even in Kamurocho, its nice! Mack is a pretty funny character, understandably silly because i can totally see a lot of things he says coming out of the mouth of someone making a japanese friend for the first time in the late 00s
he didnt need to slip that bit about tentacle.. porn.. though.. i didnt need to know tht
ahem
But anyways I think Kiryu learning how to use a camera is extremely funny and adds a nice bit of interactivity to the gameplay that wasnt there before
and speaking of interactivity, i think that the chase missions are actually really fucking cool & even though sometimes it feels janky as all fuck esp with vaulting over things that FEEL like youre getting them at the right time.. I think theyre still a great idea for an addition because kiryu shouldnt Always need to kick the shit out of something or just talk to something to get an answer or progression out, infact thats kind of how it shouldve been with that jingweong bullshit in the latter bit of yakuza 2
Though i get that that shit wouldve been harder to do on the ps2
Anyways all the side content is there and i did some of the substories and i think they actually fit really well within the framework of the story this game is trying to tell, they feel a bit more.. local and tender??? Idk! It's kind of hard to put my finger on but it feels like such a relaxed game even when there's dudes trying to actually murder you LMFAO

I think the part about it that made it breeze by and feel so serene despite the apeshit plot and how severely lackin in money you are for most of this game unless you're prowling these streets on thug-patrol batman lite type shit, is that its by far the most emotional story this dev has told so far and that amplifies everything about the experience and gameplay for me.

I'll keep it short with the story because it's a LOT to fuckin digest and a backloggd review is no place for that shit really.

Weirdly enough the most intriguing thing about this entry in the series to me isnt that there's a mysterious benefactor resembling someone from the past, recurring characters' alignments and whereabouts unknown, shit or even this "greater enemy group" that has an underground presence throughout the whole game(which imo kind of sucks aside from the boss fight being kind of cool but i do like how seamless they assimilate and keep tabs on everything going on but jingweon mafia was runnin streets way harder in 2 and so was Goatda) NAH F U C K ALL THAT SHIT MANNN ITS THE ORPHANAGE ITS THE CHILDREN ITS THE CONNECTIONS ITS THAT KIRYU IS BEING ROBBED OF HIS FUCKING RETIREMENT AND ROPED INTO SOME MORE OF THAT B U L L L L L L L L shit, thats whats intriguing. The new connections he's made, the haven and calm before the storm he's enjoying, you feel it All, or atleast i fuckin do dude
because the reason why having kiryu interact with each kid and helping them with their problems is awesome isnt because its ""mindblowing storytelling"" but because it feels Earned. He's EARNED this. He has lost so much and will continue to lose and gain because that's life. He is ultimately a guy thats doomed to get fucked over in relationships platonic and romantic otherwise with people because even if he's a good guy, his status and world he was born in lingers in the background like a black swirling vortex and every time he has to batter that shit back
and he does! but usually at a cost, and this time the price is insane because of the personal stakes and sentimentality that it means
this game has a slow start because it wants you to see it from kiryu's point of view like that as well. I fucking love this main character, and I love this series. Now ill touch on the general plot as a whole, i like the idealogy clash with the final antagonist and the ending really does come out of left field yes... but i cant say its a marvel of writing and thats what keeps me from giving this game a 5/5 the most, a good shitload of this game's biggest twists and information are infodumped out the ass to you instead of the writers finding an organic way to go about all of this. The biggest excuse card they can pull is that Kiryu is out of the loop, which makes sense yes but the fact that it gets played so many times and you never even let Date do all that much aside from telling you the profiles of the new family patriarchs is really disappointing.

final thoughts: this game is one of my favorite games ever right now, that might change in the future bc like.. tbf i got like maybe 5 games to go until im fully caught up with the series still, but even if i sink this ranking lower i think itll still hold a sweet place in my heart. I think the final bits of the game can get really speech-y and derail from the tenseness you can feel in a scene but I get the point they were trying to make out.. just kinda fell flat though
Someone had told me before that they actually felt the orphanage content and stuff revolving around it felt really tame for an M rated game and that it seemed a lot softer than the content proposed in other entries in the series, and I couldnt disagree more.
A scarred man born and raised to bear and wear his dragon tattoo'd back bare and with pride and conviction, not as a lapdog or loyalty to occupation, but a moral representation of defending the righteous and aiming to teach and stand and invoke his scorching fury on anyone that dares to fuck with those he holds dear. When all is said and done he never wavers and plants his feet staring anyone in the face, asserting that he Can change and Will change, and that anyone is able to do so as well only if they take the steps to better themself and trust in those that trust in you. A man teaching lessons, righting wrongs, accepting shortcomings and that accidents can be out of your control and that its what you Do after the fact and the accountability and ever burning drive to rebuild that matters, giving warmth and hope to the next generation of scarred children, scarred like he was at an almost similarly young age by the throes of life.

To me, that's some of the most mature shit you could ever do.

easily the least good of all the yakuza games, yakuza 4 is on the same engine but this one feels waaaaaay more like a ps3 game.

lots of positives here though: okinawa is great, the orphanage and the kids are great, and the characters here are pretty memorable for the most part; the gameplay, however, is the serious pullback for a lot of people. i didnt find it that bad (and trust me some people just suck) but the remaster does have a bug making enemies block more often so.... yeah. still good game though.

dont skip this one, especially after kiryu's latest developments in Gaiden (and probably 8).