It’s incredible that the Yakuza Like A Dragon series exists in this form at all. It’s really easy to discuss these games as a simple comeback story where it was saved from (Western) obscurity by grassroots efforts rallying around 0, but the fact that this insane momentum was met by RGG Studio changing the protagonist and turning it into a triple-A turn-based JRPG when the studio has no prior experience making those and conventional wisdom says the genre is utter sales poison is staggering. The last several mainline games demonstrate a remarkable and admirable disinterest in providing fans with what they expected or wanted, which is doubly impressive when the series is so iterative by nature.

Infinite Wealth iterates a lot on its predecessor, especially. It’s still a turn-based JRPG, and its changes are really, really cool. 7 felt like an experiment that had some great moments but didn’t cohere, an exemplification of the divine mathematics that underpin Dragon Quest and the travails that come when they are fucked with too much. Infinite Wealth still has a major debt to DQ (and some tinges of Chrono Trigger-style enemy shuffling) but manages to be much more unique and self-assured.

For starters, the exp curve is just phenomenally well-considered this time. Gone are the days of 7’s stupid-ass back-to-back grinds, and the scaling for exp and job levels means that it’s very easy to catch up and it can be surprisingly difficult to overlevel. In my playthrough, I kept half of the cast with their default jobs and I had the other half level a side job to 30 before swapping back to default. Team OG ended the game with job levels in the forties, and Team FAFO ended the game with a cumulative sixty job levels. I didn’t feel punished for doing either, as each job kit feels well-rounded and useful even without getting into the insane potential added by skill inheritance, but leveling side jobs felt breezy.

Beyond just the math, job design and skills got so much love - each new job has a really cool and distinct aesthetic, a really fun playstyle, and AoE attacks are way more interesting than they were 7. Circle AoEs might have one edge centered on the targeted enemy, making them finickier for selecting a full group but granting finer control over who else to include, granting damage bonuses for initiating the attack from far away, or having a long line start and end at interesting points. Cone-shaped AoEs are a lot more useful-feeling in this game when their far edge can be centered on the targeted enemy instead of the front tip. It all adds up to make lining up attacks require thought and positioning, which is really nice.

Being able to move around is the most transformational part of the combat changes, easily, but it’s part of a host of other changes that all feel a little small on their own but add up fast. There’s now a proximity bonus for basic attacks that adds in extra hits if they’re made from up close, and getting a proximity hit from behind guarantees crits. Enemy AI is aware of this, and the window to get back attacks is often fleeting at the start of the player’s turn. Having autoattacks be gimped if the party member is pathed far away or wants to hit a specific far-away enemy is frustrating, and there are three major ways to circumvent this - the simplest is to just use a skill to close the gap and do reliable damage.

They can also pick up an environmental object and use that - being able to walk up to ‘em means that they’re an actually valid part of the player’s strategy this time, and on top of their positioning benefits they're a great way to hit elemental weaknesses on people who don’t have certain skills. Otherwise, they can stand nearby another party member and do a combo attack that applies their weapon effects, does full damage at range, and gives their partner a bit of MP back on hit as well. These latter two options are useful and have a variety of obvious applications, but still come with drawbacks - if somebody’s basic attacks do knife or gun damage, then using a ground weapon will override that. Sometimes proximity attacks do way more damage than a combo strike or weapon attack, or the other person in a combo attack will hit an enemy’s elemental resistance and do almost no damage.

On top of all this, there is now a visible knockback indicator for attacks, which adds in yet another layer on top of all of this: knocking an enemy down into a party member does a lot of damage and applies their weapon effect, but knocking them into another enemy does a good bit of AoE, but knocking a large enemy into a wall scores a full knockdown other party members can exploit that otherwise wouldn’t exist. Enemies who block can have their guard broken by either doing a grab-type attack or hitting them from behind; a grab will permanently break it, a back attack will just pierce it for that one attack (and any followups while the enemy is on the ground). This is all then further compounded by the incessant shuffling and jockeying for space that enemies do - every consideration the player will make is based on reading the situation as it exists and trying to capitalize on split-second opportunities. It’s fully turn-based, but it has the pace and feel of an action fight, while retaining the positional focus, comboing, and okizeme of the series’ beat-em-up roots. It’s really fucking good.

The standout is Kiryu’s default job, which exemplifies almost all of this. Style swapping changes the properties of his basic attacks in cool ways on its own; Rush lets him make two weaker attacks per turn, giving him strong AoE or letting him score a guaranteed KO on a weakling before focusing fire on somebody else, Beast lets him do grabs without spending MP and amps up his ability to use ground weapons, and Brawler is the “vanilla” set of attacks that then let him do heat actions under the traditional series rules - be nearby a specific environmental object or otherwise fulfill certain criteria, get into proximity with them, then ace a quick QTE. All three styles get additional action game flair by having their proximity attacks have a short mash or timing prompt, which sells Kiryu both as somebody with a foot firmly planted in real-time and also as a monstrous DPS machine who feels awesome to control.

This mechanical empowerment is contrasted by his narrative role. Ichiban’s stylization as a JRPG hero sells him as somebody strengthened by his friends, but it results in a constant bitter tinge when Kiryu is in the squad. He didn’t always need help, and the character writing does a lot of really satisfying stuff with this disempowerment and reliance for such a stoic, badass lone wolf. Infinite Wealth is a game defined by dichotomies like this - obviously it’s a story split between two countries and two leads, but its themes are equally defined by parallels and mirrors. Everything ultimately comes back to purification or corruption, light and dark, and the terrors and delights of both the past and the future.

It doubles down on everything that makes these games what they are while simultaneously being confident enough to downplay so many of the series’ touchstones, giving the game a feel kinda like a concert that’s half playing the hits and half showing tracks from their next album. The first time a jacket is dramatically removed to reveal the body underneath is an unthinking act of kindness on Ichiban’s behalf, performed without any intent to fight or to show off, but when the player sees the world through Kiryu’s eyes, he can’t help but see ghosts everywhere he goes. These themes of past and future cycles make it hard to not feel a bit of metatext in this being the first full game released after Nagoshi left, and this “changing of the guard” plot can spark worries of being a retread of 7’s themes - and while certain plot elements certainly evoke it, there’s always a knowing tweak to it. 7 is a game about starting over again, of living through a storm and planting seeds for the future once the rubble’s been swept away. Infinite Wealth is more about perpetuating or changing the cycles everyone inhabits - of seeing what’s been done to them and the people before them and trying to break, fix, or continue things.

The returning characters are all well-considered and, equally importantly, most feel unexpected. Few of them feel obligatory, and those that do are given angles and elements that keep them surprising and cathartic nonetheless. Plenty of them have been chewed up and spit back out, some have come back stronger and better, some are indolent, and some lucky few stroll back into the picture feeling just as magnetic and lovable as they were all those years ago. Seeing the game take full advantage of its position as the ninth mainline title in a series stretching back almost twenty years is just as satisfying as seeing how it fantastically it intersects fantastically with the character writing writ large.

Yamai manages to escape the “Majima clone” allegations with aplomb, with a great design, fantastic presence (Koyasu the GOAT), and a satisfyingly mercurial-but-coherent role in the narrative. With the exception of Saeko, whose entire character frustratingly feels like an extension of Ichiban’s arc, literally every single party member is given a lot more to chew on this time. The gap between December 2019 and November 2023 reshuffled a lot and the status quo shifts give people unexpected and lovely positions and angles to view the world. Each little skit and friendship bingo conversation is consistently funny and interesting, and the new party members are literally all bangers. Special shout outs to the job unlock cutscenes creating the implication that Chitose has a Nico Robin-style hyperactive imagination that she does not ever share with anybody; that being said, Tomizawa and Chitose are both incredibly endearing and have a lot of great dramatic and comedic chops. Tomi gets more focus in the front half and Chitose the back, which gives her a bit of an edge in terms of immediate retrospective emotional edge, but both are excellent.

Tomizawa’s arc is tied up with the Barracudas, who are kind of a nexus of the game’s more annoying issues. The gang has a really strong and sympathetic hook that is connected to pretty venomous social commentary, but they rapidly recede from institutional relevance and, just like 7, the themes of homelessness, discrimination, and critiquing the lived effects of Japan’s comically harsh anti-yakuza laws (making it basically impossible to have a normal life certainly makes it effective for killing recruitment, but guys seeking a way out certainly have their work cut out for them…) feel under-discussed after the first act. Additionally, while Yakuza has always had a heightened tone, there are times when, regardless of the player’s tolerances, there will be moments that stretch credulity; especially when combat is done with silly costumes. Sometimes it feels weird to talk about America’s crumbling infrastructure and skyrocketing cost of life only to then beat up three Hungry Hungry Homeless.

These are issues, and they deserve mention, but simultaneously, this is the ninth mainline RGG game. Every issue raised so far has been present to some degree or another in quite literally every single game in the franchise. They’ll affect enjoyment to varying extents, of course, but… I wouldn’t get too mad at a fish for being bad at climbing trees, or at least when I’m neck-deep I’d think I know what pitfalls I'd fallen into.

For all the love heaped on the character writing, the main villains really falter, which is unexpected for this series. There’s good villains and bad villains, and certainly sometimes they contrive excuses for a final boss when punching out a businessman would be unsatisfying, but RGG Studio’s been on a hot streak for antagonists for a good while now. The antagonistic forces in this game feel more like an exercise in thematics than they are actually characters. It’s cool to see a contemporary political thriller manage to make themes of corruption, despoiling paradise, and battling against nature feel grounded within a real-world context and not feel too hacky about it, but despite their screentime they have a terminal lack of real presence or sauce. The villains’ big dramatic showcases pale in comparison to both the quiet and loud moments that accompany their underlings and frenemies. They do create good moments by contriving the protagonists into circumstances that showcase their amazing traits and even better voice actors, but the monologues and physical performances shown off could be bounced off somebody I actually give a shit about and I’d be into it even more than I am.

The cutscene direction, as implied above, is excellent. The stunt coordinator for every game since 6 cut his teeth on Mark DaCascos hood classic Drive (1997), a shitload of tokusatsu, and a little old game called Devil May Cry 3, and it lends the cutscene brawls a sense of physicality and flair that a lot of game cutscenes weirdly can’t do very well. The dramatic scenes have astonishingly good blocking and composition. For how many cutscenes are in this game, they find so many great camera angles, poses, and little vocal quavers to give far more weight to far more than one would expect.

It’s easy to gush about this game, and while it has its flaws and doesn’t always favorably stack up to past games, it feels like a chore to discuss them. Sure, Ichiban got a better moment in 7, Kiryu’s finest hour is still (regrettably) the final scene in Gaiden, and the enemy shuffling just inherently means that the combat’s chaotic, uncontrollable nature will create frustrating situations and missed attacks. It’s maybe not as focused as some other Yakuza games? (I mean, not really, lmao, the only games you might be able to argue that for are 2 and 6, and buddy, 2 is not as focused as you remember it being and 6 is just not interesting.) But at the same time, I don’t really give a fuck.

I love Yakuza most when it’s maximalist, audacious, willing to totally fuck with your expectations, and unafraid to be messy. That’s what I associate the series with and that’s what I want with each new game. That’s what I got here. I was so worried that Kiryu’s return would feel cheap, I was worried that losing Nagoshi would rob the games of an ineffable soul, and Gaiden put the fear of God in me that they would retain the godawful grinds that 7 had (if not double down.) Some mistakes it makes are certainly frustrating and I hope that one day the series will move on.

At the end of the day, it’s hard to not root for the game anyways. A game like this is so special to me. It never treats its past as a burden, and it plants one foot after another into an uncertain future with confidence. You can’t always cure stupid, but the way it endlessly strives towards a better and brighter path, unafraid to experience the sad, bitter, silly, and sweet in all its forms… it’s nice to see a game’s ethos resemble its admirable hero so much.

There is a music room on the lower floor of the mansion where a butterfly flutters around portraits of composers and musical instruments. A harp and flute plays a hauntingly repetitive melody that looms throughout the room. The butterfly speaks to the protagonist. “I remember when I was human. I was on a small stage together with my friends and I played the piano. Now I cannot even touch the keys. I had felt there was no other choice. So at the time I thought it would be wonderful to be like a butterfly. To be carefree. I know now that I made the wrong decision.”

I could almost cry listening to the butterfly musician recount her story of rejecting her body. In Mansion of Hidden Souls, people come to the mansion and are forced to shed their mortal human bodies, for immortal butterfly forms trapped to static rooms of the people they once were. Her passions drove her so far that she immortalized them. Consequently, she lost the ability to pursue them.

While I am not I’m not trapped in an immortal static plane, I have struggled the past year with the consequences of a long-term case of CPTSD burnout. Day after day I fluctuate between being paralyzed in bed or doing everything I can to distract myself from the inability to function the ways I spent years doing. I flutter over the desired possibilities of art, creative practice, friendships, and self-realization. Then I spend days shuttering and writhing to work up the ability to pursue them, many times only ending up with overwhelming emotions of pain that erase any passions that were originally there. (Being able to write this long of a review in a cohesive manner has honestly taken me a massive amount of practicing emotional balancing and self-care).

Throughout this all, I’m constantly wishing I could be more, that I could do more. I spent 10 years of my life pursuing my passions with an unfiltered drive that left any sense of care or pace behind. In a way I feel like the musician butterfly, trapped in a body and place that is the consequence of my drive but lacking understanding of my own limitations.

I recognize that Mansion of Hidden Souls isn’t attempting to make nuanced statements about burnout or the limitations of the soul. In fact, the butterflies of the mansion could easily be interpreted as merely a hollow interpretation for the spirit as luminescent spectacle. The beginning of the game presents the butterflies as a silly little fairytale told by the two siblings grandmother. It’s a story that, alongside the voice acting, largely feels childish and whimsical. Alongside this, each character of the mansion feels like caricature. They each speak with poor fake international accents and, at first, feel like plain fairytale antagonists attempting to undermine the protagonist just for the sake of being evil.

However, as I ventured through the mansion and met more of its’ residents I was struck by how the caricatured emotions each of them held towards the protagonist were a reflection of their feelings towards their lives and residency in the mansion. The painter, the musician, the little girl, the game room attendant; they are not souls that unwillingly came to the mansion. Rather, their dialogue with the player implies that the mansion was the only path forward. Despite their transformation to static beings and loss of interaction with the material world, a chance to immortalize their beauty was impossible to pass up.

Each resident’s room materializes and spatializes their personas. The little girl’s room is filled with floral patterns, plush furniture, and pink curtains concealing the holistic view of the room from being seen. The artist’s room feels like it was built to be unfinished. The wood of the bannisters and walls make it seem as though you are in an attic. The canvases feel like there was some work in progress that was interrupted. Each room is filled a looming aura of the past. They not only feel trapped in a static image of what they once were, but they also feel forgotten and lost. As though no one has ever come to look for them. No one has ever appreciated the beauty that they sought to immortalize.

Despite this, there is still a beauty in these forgotten rooms in that if no one ever sees them you, the player, still did. The artists room of images are striking to look at and tell a story of an artist’s development from outdoor portraits to psychological abstracts. The musicians room of instruments and composers tells a story of someone who held deep compassion for their medium. The little girl’s room is exuberant with indulging in the fun of femininity, but clearly has parts of herself that she doesn’t want anyone to know about.

Looking at the rooms of the hidden mansion, I find some sort of comfort. In my recovery towards finding meaning in my life’s acts, it can be hard to find any hope and fall into a pit of nihilistic despair. Yet, these rooms, they would argue that despite all my struggles my beauty remains. That even if I find myself unable to engage with the activities, community, and practice which I hold such passion for, my history with them and my present actions still retain meaning.

I wonder if I became a butterfly what my own room would look like and what would be inside. Perhaps it would be filled with a collection of niche video games. Perhaps it would be filled with love letters of those whom I held in such high regard throughout my life. Perhaps it would celebrate the femininity I so luckily found in myself.

In the basement of the Mansion a librarian butterfly pins other butterflies in display cases, infatuated by their beauty.

The librarian is positioned to discomfort the player. Their position is that of enjoyment of the very thing that the player fears. Disembodiment and loss of humanity. They even speak in disgust of the player’s “human” body. But perhaps there is something beautiful that the librarian sees that we, in the position of the brother protagonist, cannot see. Perhaps in the midst of chasing after retaining what the brother has as a human, we are neglecting the beauty that remains as a butterfly.

Trauma-induced delusions are one of the least supported and understood areas of mental health that is represented in media/larger society in general. So I was incredibly skeptical discovering there was a sequel to the original "bag of Milk" game.

The first game kind of felt like it was trying to express how the player cannot ever understand the experiences of those that exist within fiction and telling a challenging story within that. It follows a protagonist who is attempting to go outside of her home for the first time since her father died with monsters and cruel thoughts following her every step. Along the way the player is interacting with her thoughts and representing a sort of "medication" for her. This first game doesn't necessarily succeed in its aims. However due to it's short amount of timespan and ambiguity in low fidelity it surprisingly doesn't feel exploitative. Instead it just feels like a short story that presents us with ideas and images for us to carry and think about.

By making a second game in relation to this, I have to wonder what the goals are. Why do the ideas and images from the first title need to be expanded upon? Unfortunately it feels like "Milk outside" doubles down on the moments from the previous title as a means of reveling in traumatic iconography. This sheds the sympathetic lens formed from the first game's lo-fi constrained ambitions, and reveals a voyeuristic kaleidoscope of torturistic pleasure with higher fidelity animation and visuals.

I have heard there is some pretty cool stuff the game does with narrative structures and I also think it looks nice. However, I just don't feel a desire to play through more of this game's depictions of delusions and trauma.

"A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one." Sometimes a game is 5 different games. Maze Spelunking? Box Puzzles? Bank Robbery? Tomb Raiding? Cow Abduction? Cooking? Torture chamber? We got it all, smella! Tron Bonne is based and so is her game.

I love the servbots!!! Every time they say "Yes, Miss Tron!" I mark out. Me, too, guys. Tron Bonne rules. She's such a dork but she's also a bad bitch. And she built this little bots. Loyal friends with empty yellow heads. I know I'm about to get cliched but fuck it. Cliches exist for a reason. Tron Bonne is a fucking mech queen and they stan. If you've never wanted to protect the cinnamon roll, you're lying to yourself. We say "smol" not just because its a meme but also because sometimes a friend really is a smol. And the servbots are smol. They're just tiny idiots who wanna help!!! What kind of evil pirate would build such silly little guys? Are they intentionally such goofballs? Were they supposed to be evil and just ended up like a little peachypies? How much yogurt is in their processors? I want no harm to come to them. When the mean bird robots say mean things to them I get angry and am ready to destroy the mean birds. Do not be rude. They're proof machine intelligence is a good idea. They just smile and say "yay" and I think that is a good thing. When people compliment them they nearly cry. They're trying so fucking hard and they can't do anything right. They can't do anything right and when they do do something right it's a triumph, a beautiful miracle that need be heralded and rewarded by trumpets, by a symphony that would make the sun weep. Dumb idiot babies. They're doing their best, please for the love of god be nice to them.

There is a tendency in lots of games these days to focus on one thing and doing that one thing well. It can be a good design strategy. But sometimes? Sometimes a game is 5 games. And sometimes that's good, too.