This review contains spoilers
Yakuza: Like a Dragon: A fresh spin on a formula that never gets old.
Yakuza: LIke a Dragon is the 8th mainline game in the coveted RGG series, but instead follows a new protagonist: Ichiban Kasuga. And over the course of 40-60 hours, you'll learn that Ichiban is just as good of a main character as Kiryu was.
Despite being a completely new genre of gameplay while also lacking a lot of the familiar faces we are used to, Yakuza: Like a Dragon has to be one of my favorite RGG games to date.
Story:
The story follows Ichiban trying to get into contact with his former boss Masumi Arakawa, who saved his life when he was 16, and spent 20 years in prison for the sake of his "family." (only to find out 20 years later that Masumi joined the Omi Alliance from the Tojo Clan)
The storytelling is as good as every other Yakuza game. A plot interesting enough to keep you on your seat and finding out more. RGG never misses with the classic "something happened during timeskip which is now tied to some big grand scheme to destroy the world", and it will never get old in my opinion.
What makes this game even better are the characters. Every character--side, playable, extra--are all lovable, popular, and fleshed out. Every single character that is involved in the story aren't flat and all have their own complexities. Each character involved in the story has a motivation and a reason for why they do what they do, and that is something that previous games have lacked.
It also helps that since this is a JRPG, Ichiban has a party of people that are essentially with him 24/7. This means that the members in Ichiban's party are involved in the story at pretty much every point. It's a cheat code to developing characters, and it also makes it easier to integrate subplots for character development into the main story like they did with Nanba.
Let's talk about Ichiban.
Ichiban encapsulates the vibe of RGG games. He tackles some of the most serious business, while still managing to find an opportunity to be silly. His addiction to Dragon Quest captures this very well.
We also know that behind this happy-go-lucky front, he is a very compassionate and caring individual who will go to no ends to help people who he considers family. Ichiban is the type of guy to help people because he loves them, not because of an ulterior motive like most Yakuza. The complexities behind Ichiban's character is what propels this game to be next level and on-par with other games in this series.
Gameplay:
I will give the gameplay some major slack since it's the first JRPG for this series. If the gameplay wasn't somewhat flawed, this would easily be a 5/5.
LaD fell under the JRPG trap of pretty one-dimensional enemies and strategy. Trash mobs were one shot fodder while bosses had no gimmicks other than "i have a lot of hp and do more than one action per turn." Because of this, the game became more of a number battle rather than strategic warfare. The game artificially creates difficulty by making bosses longer to kill, not harder.
Alongside that, Yokohama is FUCKING MASSIVE. I would say Yokohama is like 3 Kamurochos large, and Kamurocho is already big enough. What makes RGG distinctive and arguably better than other open world exploration games is that all the content is packed inside a walkable city. Open World games like GTA and Zelda suffer from the fact that they are making Open Worlds for the sake of Open Worlds, when in reality you can condense all the content into one, compact area. Yokohama is a great city, but it would be great if the size of the city itself was cut down to about 1/3 or 1/2 of its size in this game.
For a JRPG, the dungeon crawling in this game is... mediocre at best. It's boring as shit. It also doesn't help that the music in the dungeon is the same 5 second chime on a loop. And because of that, grinding in dungeons makes me wanna gouge my eyes.
The grinding in this game is not anything too unusual, though if you're attempting to plat the game, good luck trying to get max job level LOL that shit will take you 20-30 hours minimum.
Conclusion:
If people don't want to play 7 games to get started in RGG games, LaD is an entry that I would put alongside 0 for people to try. They're both games that are great by themselves, and even better for returning fans of the series.
The storytelling and characterization in this game is second to none in my opinion, but with it being the first JRPG series, there are bound to be some flaws and traps the developers fall into in terms of gameplay.
4.5/5
(80 hours played)
Yakuza: LIke a Dragon is the 8th mainline game in the coveted RGG series, but instead follows a new protagonist: Ichiban Kasuga. And over the course of 40-60 hours, you'll learn that Ichiban is just as good of a main character as Kiryu was.
Despite being a completely new genre of gameplay while also lacking a lot of the familiar faces we are used to, Yakuza: Like a Dragon has to be one of my favorite RGG games to date.
Story:
The story follows Ichiban trying to get into contact with his former boss Masumi Arakawa, who saved his life when he was 16, and spent 20 years in prison for the sake of his "family." (only to find out 20 years later that Masumi joined the Omi Alliance from the Tojo Clan)
The storytelling is as good as every other Yakuza game. A plot interesting enough to keep you on your seat and finding out more. RGG never misses with the classic "something happened during timeskip which is now tied to some big grand scheme to destroy the world", and it will never get old in my opinion.
What makes this game even better are the characters. Every character--side, playable, extra--are all lovable, popular, and fleshed out. Every single character that is involved in the story aren't flat and all have their own complexities. Each character involved in the story has a motivation and a reason for why they do what they do, and that is something that previous games have lacked.
It also helps that since this is a JRPG, Ichiban has a party of people that are essentially with him 24/7. This means that the members in Ichiban's party are involved in the story at pretty much every point. It's a cheat code to developing characters, and it also makes it easier to integrate subplots for character development into the main story like they did with Nanba.
Let's talk about Ichiban.
Ichiban encapsulates the vibe of RGG games. He tackles some of the most serious business, while still managing to find an opportunity to be silly. His addiction to Dragon Quest captures this very well.
We also know that behind this happy-go-lucky front, he is a very compassionate and caring individual who will go to no ends to help people who he considers family. Ichiban is the type of guy to help people because he loves them, not because of an ulterior motive like most Yakuza. The complexities behind Ichiban's character is what propels this game to be next level and on-par with other games in this series.
Gameplay:
I will give the gameplay some major slack since it's the first JRPG for this series. If the gameplay wasn't somewhat flawed, this would easily be a 5/5.
LaD fell under the JRPG trap of pretty one-dimensional enemies and strategy. Trash mobs were one shot fodder while bosses had no gimmicks other than "i have a lot of hp and do more than one action per turn." Because of this, the game became more of a number battle rather than strategic warfare. The game artificially creates difficulty by making bosses longer to kill, not harder.
Alongside that, Yokohama is FUCKING MASSIVE. I would say Yokohama is like 3 Kamurochos large, and Kamurocho is already big enough. What makes RGG distinctive and arguably better than other open world exploration games is that all the content is packed inside a walkable city. Open World games like GTA and Zelda suffer from the fact that they are making Open Worlds for the sake of Open Worlds, when in reality you can condense all the content into one, compact area. Yokohama is a great city, but it would be great if the size of the city itself was cut down to about 1/3 or 1/2 of its size in this game.
For a JRPG, the dungeon crawling in this game is... mediocre at best. It's boring as shit. It also doesn't help that the music in the dungeon is the same 5 second chime on a loop. And because of that, grinding in dungeons makes me wanna gouge my eyes.
The grinding in this game is not anything too unusual, though if you're attempting to plat the game, good luck trying to get max job level LOL that shit will take you 20-30 hours minimum.
Conclusion:
If people don't want to play 7 games to get started in RGG games, LaD is an entry that I would put alongside 0 for people to try. They're both games that are great by themselves, and even better for returning fans of the series.
The storytelling and characterization in this game is second to none in my opinion, but with it being the first JRPG series, there are bound to be some flaws and traps the developers fall into in terms of gameplay.
4.5/5
(80 hours played)