So a while back I reviewed a game called Yakuza 0, which is the prequel to the entire Yakuza franchise. If you’re not familiar with the Yakuza series or the current developers Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio then let me catch you up very quickly. The first four games in the Yakuza series were developed and published by Sega, who you may know for a certain speedy blue hedgehog and a few other franchises. Yakuza, as shown in the title, follows an ex-yakuza member named Kiryu Kazama as he battled his way through the streets of Kamurocho to bring justice and figure out whatever political secrets may be hiding behind the scenes. Yakuza seemed like a simple third person beat ‘em up on the surface, but underneath that overtop combat lied a compelling world full of memorable characters and plenty of side activities to sink your teeth into.
The first Yakuza was an unexpected success and the series went on until 2010 when Sega passed the franchise onto a new team of developers, which they created for the soul purpose of making Yakuza games, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio. Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio developed Yakuza 5 which was as good as Sega expected and they allowed the studio to continue with the series. This is what leads us to Yakuza 0 which is the first Yakuza game that I played. Yakuza 0 marked the ten year anniversary for the yakuza series and is considered a good starting point for those who want to see what makes Yakuza, well, Yakuza! A lot of people seem to like Yakuza 0. It’s one of the grandest in the series and it likes to remind players that they're playing a video game with it’s nonsensical humor.
However, while Yakuza 0 was a great game it didn’t hit the mark for me like everybody else. The story was great but started to get more confusing than it should have and that eventually led to me losing interest. The combat got repetitive after a while, progression was really slow, and by the end I experienced everything the game had to offer. It wasn't a world I was really willing to return to. Yakuza 0 burned me out on the franchise, but I still thought the other games developed by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio looked pretty good. I heard they did a good job remaking the first two games with the Kiwami duo, Yakuza 6 was the highest point the series had reached, and Judgment was a nice spin on the formula while introducing a whole new plot to get into.
After Judgment, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio decided to reconsider what to do for the next Yakuza game. They could just continue where Yakuza 6 left off and do the same beat ‘em up styled combat that the series has had before, or they could find a way to reinvent Yakuza. The thought of redoing Yakuza started to spread throughout the studio and then they had a brilliant idea. Instead of doing the same beat ‘em up combat that got tiresome around the thirty hour mark why not do some traditional turn based JRPG combat? Why not introduce a new cast and world to the players rather than reuse the same cast and world from before? Why not make a Yakuza that would appease both old and new fans? This mindset is what propelled them towards the development of Yakuza 7. Which they went on to rename by combining the titles of both the western and Japanese release names. Yakuza: Like A Dragon.
They announced the changes the series was making via social media and hardcore Yakuza fans found this to be controversial. Change the Yakuza they knew and loved? That might go out either good or bad. Eventually, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio revealed a trailer for Yakuza: Like A Dragon which turned the tables. I was one of the very few people who saw the reveal trailer for Yakuza: Like A Dragon when it dropped online and I was actually really f*cking impressed. I thought the new cast of characters looked promising, the story would probably be good, and the changes they made could possibly be beneficial for the series. These were however predictions, I would have to wait it out and see if Like A Dragon would be good.
Like A Dragon released in Japan in 2019 and review sites over there were really positive. JRPGs are kinda a thing over in Japan, surely when the game comes over to the USA opinions would be different? Yet, I still hoped Like A Dragon would perform pretty well and luckily I was correct. While reception for Yakuza: Like A Dragon was decent with mainstream reviewers, the public praised Yakuza: Like A Dragon for being one of the most well rounded experiences in the series and bringing the changes it needed for awhile. It was fun, engaging, energetic, humorous, well written, and probably one of the more underrated Triple A games to come in 2020. It was a surprise.
Seeing how the game was being praised everywhere I finally decided to check out Yakuza: Like A Dragon the month the game got released. You want to know something readers? I’m so f*cking happy I decided to buy this game! This may sound like over exaggeration, but if you haven’t played this game yet then you probably should, because Yakuza: Like A Dragon may very well be one of my favorite games of this year. Top five at least. I was planning on getting this review out earlier, but I ended up pouring more time into this game than I thought I would. Fifty to sixty hours of total playtime! I poured fifty bloody hours of playtime into Yakuza: Like A Dragon and I don’t regret a single hour spent. I’m getting tired of this intro. Let’s start the review right now. Today we'll be talking about why I love Yakuza: Like A Dragon and why everyone should play this game at least once. Oh yeah, by the way Merry Christmas everyone.
Story
We play as Ichiban Kasuga, one of the youngest and most loyal members in the Arakawa family. When Ichiban was born he was left abandoned in the back of a soapland known as Shangri-La. He was found and raised by the owner of Shangri-La and life was pretty good for him. He went to school and played a lot of video games including Dragon Quest. He’s always dreamed of being a hero like in the video games he has played, but as he grew older he would soon figure out the world is much lonelier than he thought. His foster father dies because of age and Iciban eventually stops going to school, drifting in the wind while wondering what his purpose in life really is. Iciban adopts the habit of mugging random individuals, but things turn on him when he ends up almost beating a yakuza member to death. Ichiban is kidnapped and as payback the yakuza end up almost beating him to death. He is then threatened to be killed, but to avoid an untimely death he lies to them saying he is part of the Arakawa family. Apparently he knew about the Arakawa family since they were pretty popular around town, and he knew by calling out the most popular family then that would mean that the yakuza members beating him up couldn’t mess with him.
The Arakawa family is run by Masumi Arakawa who had to build off of what little things he had after his parents died. The mentioning of the Arakawa family does drag the attention of the yakuza members, but to make sure Ichiban is actually part of the Arakawa family they call over Masumi Arakawa himself. Arakawa shows up which worries Ichiban since he knows that Arakawa knows he isn’t part of his family, but Arakawa decides to save Ichiban by cutting off one of his own fingers. Ichiban thanks Arakawa for saving his life, but Arakawa ignores him at first. Ichiban found a role model, someone he could aim to be. Ichiban tracks down the main office where the Arkawa family is stationed and tries to convince them to let him join the Arakawa family. He tries to call Arakawa a faithful patriarch and offers to light his cigar. He is however denied and punched in the face by members of the family. Ichiban doesn't give up though and spends countless days waiting outside the office until he is let into the family. During one day when Arkawa brings his son Masato to work he stays behind to confront Ichiban. He notices how determined Ichiban is and that he doesn't give up no matter what happens. He likes that attribute of Ichiban the most and decides to finally let him into the family.
Ichiban has been loyal ever since that day and became one of the most loyal members in the Arakawa family. Rising in the ranks and even being tasked at times to take care of Arakawa’s son. The year is 1999 and Japan is getting ready for a new century. The Arakawa family is as busy as ever with right hand man Jo Sawashiro counting bills and Ichiban looking after Masato who is the son of Arkawa who has been crippled since birth. Everything was going fine until Ichiban was called up by Akrawa on January 1st, 2001. The night before, Jo accidently killed a guy and is suspected for murder. Arakawa can’t let Jo go to jail, because the family would fall apart without Jo’s work and organization skills. He asks Ichiban to go to jail in his place and Iciban accepts the offer saying it’s the perfect chance to repay Arakawa for saving his life years ago.
Iciban serves up to 15 years of prison with an additional three years added when he ends up beating up a bunch of men trying to kill him. It’s 2019 and Iciban exits prison hoping to be reunited with the Arakawa family outside the prison walls. The Arakawa family is nowhere in sight, but Ichiban is confronted by an ex-detective named Koichi Adachi. Adachi asks Ichiban a few few questions and gets to the point of asking him whether he was responsible for the murder that happened 18 years ago. Iciban tries to convince Adachi he did so that the real culprit wouldn’t be found, but Adachi sees through his lies. Adachi does decide to help Ichiban get back to Kamurocho where the Arkawa family is stationed. Ichiban discovers a lot has changed since then. The Arkawa family is now part of the Omi Alliance, the Tojo clan was obliterated, there are now strict new laws prohibiting yakuza activity in the open, and Masato is dead. Ichiban is shocked at first, but at least he knows Arakawa is still alive. He then figures out the Arakawa family are planning a meeting with the Omi Alliance and with the help of Adachi he sneaks in. Ichiban finally reunites with Arakawa, but his leader turns on him by shooting him through the chest.
Ichiban survives the bullet wound and wakes up in Ijincho. He is rescued by a camp of homeless people and patched up thanks to a homeless doctor named Nanba. Ichiban reveals what happened to them and finds a counterfeit bill in his upper pocket. This worries the camp, but Iciban does decide to venture out of the camp. He does convince Nanba to come with him and they start accepting job offers from the locals. Ichiban soon figures out that three factions rule over Ijincho known as the Ijin Three. The Seiryu Clan, The Chinese Liumang and the Geomijul. Ichiban is concerned with these factions and the countless crimes happening around Ijincho. Adachi does track down Ichiban and decides the only way to find the truth is to work together and fight anyone who stands in their way. Ichiban agrees and together with Nanba and Adachi they journey across Ijincho gathering allies and helping those in need. Wow that took longer than I thought, but luckily we’re about to move onto the gameplay!
Gameplay
What I really like about Like A Dragon is that even though it’s now part of an entirely new genre it still manages to be a Yakuza game through and through. Yakuza is mainly composed of two essential parts: the combat and the open sandbox the player is dropped into. Let’s start off with the combat since it’s the biggest change they have done for the series. As I have mentioned earlier, Like A Dragon decided to go for turn based combat rather than the beat ‘em up style the series has had before. Some people may not like turn based combat due to how much patience there is and you don't always have control over what happens to your party, but the more RPGs I play the more I begin to realize turn-based combat can actually be really awesome and genius at times. It can either be strategic to the point where the player has to make each turn count like a game of chess, or the developers can supplement it with some crazy stylish animation that makes each punch and blow satisfying. Like a “specific JRPG”. Anyways, Yakuza: Like A Dragon blends both of these aspects together to make a combat system that actually works and is fun no matter what.
Mechanically it doesn't do anything new for JRPGs standards, but it is very satisfying. They even find a way for the JRPG combat to blend in with the story. Ichiban is a hardcore Dragon Quests fan so whenever he is in a battle he imagines the enemies as ferocious monsters and treats the fight like it’s turn based as in Dragon Quest. The game even goes out of its way to remind you it’s all Ichiban’s imagination by having Ichiban’s companions judge him for how he views fighting. That’s a really smart writing move if you ask me! How does a battle play out? Simple. Each character takes turns hitting enemies until all the enemies are knocked down. If Ichiban falls during battle it’s either he will lose half the amount of money he has on hand or be kicked to the game over screen. Luckily Ichiban and his friends have a wide set of moves to eliminate foes. You can technically win a fight by using basic attacks, but the game motivates you to make full use of your most powerful abilities. Ichiban unlocks a bat near the beginning of chapter 4 which lets him gain access to heavy hitting swings that are capable of easily eliminating large groups of foes which is very useful. It’s really easy for enemies to cancel out basic attacks. One small complaint I have about Yakuza: Like A Dragon is that your allies and enemies are constantly shifting about so it’s hard to target the specific foe you want to kill when another enemy your rushing past ends up hitting you and canceling the action you want to perform. However, this does lead back to earlier and how the game wants you to make use of what you have. Test your abilities, figure out how they work, and when is the most optimal time to use them. The decision making which makes turn based combat engaging for the mind and eyes.
Whenever you win a battle you gain money which can be used to purchase items or equipment and experience points for both your character and their job. Character experience is easy to understand, it’s their basic stats without any equipment buffs. What about the other one? Job experience? Later on in the game you have the ability to assign your party members different jobs. These jobs will eliminate some of the stats and skills they have, but in exchange give them a new type of playstyle that will help form the team of fantasy travelers you want. I like it when an RPG gives you options unlike “a specific JRPG”. Back to Like A Dragon. How do jobs work? Well for example at the beginning of the game your friend Nanba is stuck with the hobo class. He has the ability to whack people with a cane, summon pigeons using bread crumbs, and breathe fire with alcoholic breath. He also has a few healing abilities which help out a lot during battles with heavy damage dealing brutes. What if you wanted Nanba to have a more supportive playstyle? You can swap him over to the musician class which allows him to cast buffs on allies and debuffs on enemies. Adachi hits foes hard with a baton, but what if you wanted him to have an even heavier playstyle or something faster? Swap him over to bodyguard and he equips himself with a katana which can attack in quick succession and be charged up for powerful slices. JRPGs are often known for having characters with one specific build, but Like A Dragon let's the player get creative without having to be confused with a stat board or number chart.
Another type of experience you may gain after battles are bond points. Bond points are the connection you can develop with your allies. When you have enough you can head over to the Survive Bar to increase the bond level you have with an ally. When you do this you not only grow closer to them, but you increase the rate in which they gain experience points and let them gain access to new jobs. If you max out a bond you even gain access to a special powerful move. I like it. It shows how there are some actual mechanical rewards for growing closer to your friends. Not just getting closer and unlocking minimal effects with them like a “certain JRPG”. And there are also other ways to earn bond points. You can eat out at restaurants, invite friends to do fun activities, or pass by certain locations and trigger wacky conversations. Well that’s enough about combat, how about world exploration? Here’s one opinion that might offend die hard fans of the series. The game puts you in a new world, Ijincho, rather than Kamurocho like previous entries and the world is more well designed. Ijincho is more spacious, more stuff going on, and it really makes use of everything it has packed in. Like the countless minigames spread about. How about we mention some of them? There’s one minigame where you ride around on a bike collecting cans. One where you watch vintage movies at a theater and you have to stay awake. There’s this one minigame that wasn’t fun at first where you run your own business chain and it mainly wasn’t fun because the game did a piss poor job explaining how it works, but I eventually caught on. And there’s of course the karaoke which still remains to be awesome. Some places you can even go to increase Ichiban’s social stats. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention those. I don’t know what the social stats exactly do, but it feels rewarding to pour poor experience into them. Plus the game actually shows you a meter and how close a social stat is to leveling up rather than a “specific JRPG” where you just have to keep doing one specific activity over and over and hope by chance the stat increases. At least the game rewards you for going back and doing side activities.
There are also side quests scattered about the world where you have to help random individuals with whatever f*cking problems they have. Yakuza 0’s quests were good and downright wacky at times, but Like A Dragon’s quests are extremely better because of the stories they center around and what rewards they may offer you from completion. For example there’s this one quest where you help a guy trying to deliver baby formula to his family only to hear a bunch of babies cry, run up stairs, and find a bunch of grown men in diapers doing some weird fetish. Trust me, a previous Yakuza game did this as well. Then you beat them up and get a poundmate. Oh sh*t that’s another system isn’t it? Besides getting butt loads of cash, poundmates are another good reason to do sidequests. They can be summoned once during battle to either do tremendous amounts of damage, buff your friends, or cast a debuff on enemies for a really long period of time. Summoning them for the first time is free, but after that you have to use money to summon them. It’s a completely balanced system since poundmates that are more powerful tend to cost more money or how they can only be summoned during specific times of the day.
Let’s see what other systems can I bring up? The Sujimon Codex which is filled out by elminating different enemy types? The Part-Time Hero quests? The Romance Workshop where you can craft and upgrade weapons, but the downside is that you have to raise funding for it and eventually you unlock better equipment? Hmmm... nothing else really. It’s just a really good JRPG with great build diversity, a ton of side activties to take a break from the main plot, and incentives to actually go do the side content. Well designed and I can't believe I spent hours exploring Ijincho to discover everything it had to offer. Hopefully you can take down the many crooks and scumbags in your way and figure out what is truly happening in the streets of Japan. It’s Ichiban versus the world.
Thoughts
Yakuza: Like A Dragon is weird, over the top, and one of the most awesome video games I've played this year. It is possibly the best Yakuza game I have ever played. Probably not a good assumption to make since I haven’t played the other six or so games, but I just really love this one and what it surprisingly achieves. Like A Dragon has exhilarating combat that grew more awesome with the many attacks unlocked and the cool animations that play when each one is performed. There is a good amount of build variety and customization to make each party member fit in with the fantasy team you desire to make. The only other JRPG I can think of that offers this much customization is Octopath Traveler, but it's nice to see more JRPGs handle the wide customization like it. In fact, Like A Dragon has the most approachable build creation I've seen in an RPG as it gives a clear idea of what a class or job can do.
The open world is chalk full of activities to do and I never got bored while running around it. It’s very easy to lose track of time, but maybe that is a good thing for a Yakuza game as Like A Dragon wants the player to be enlightened by the world as much as possible. Yakuza 0 may have dragged me down a bit by having systems that weren’t really needed, but Yakuza: Like A Dragon is simple and easy to get into as each system and mechanic makes sense. I personally believe it’s more accessible than Yakuza 0.
I like the cast of characters more than Yakuza 0 because the characters have more personality, expression, and points of interest to the plot. Yakuza 0’s writing fell flat mainly because it got stale later on. Plus to understand some of the characters you need to know what happened in the other games and why they are significant. With the new cast you can now set up a new plot to get into and what I like most about the new cast is Ichiban Kasuga. Kiryu Kazama was cool, but he had the personality of a brick wall. Ichiban is the more lovable among the two and gets the player hyped up right from the beginning of the game. He’s witty, he’s optimistic, he can easily trick himself into doing dumb things, but he ends up finding ways to fix these problem. It’s called writing a dynamic, likable character that gets the player engaged.
Now, throughout the gameplay paragraph I mentioned a very “specific JRPG” and even put quotation marks around it. I’m sorry to say it, but we’re bringing Persona 5 into this review. If you're a Persona fan here to compare the two games then let me remind you that not every JRPG these days is inspired by Persona 5. You may argue that making comparisons is a good thing and it may prompt Persona fans to try out other games, but at the same time it shows how we’re not capable of making good analyses and instead go for the simplest explanation possible. As much as I love Persona 5 there are some gameplay elements that make Yakuza: Like A Dragon a better designed video game. The combat is more experimental both with how battles flow and how characters can adapt the playstyles you dream of. Persona 5 goes for, “Hit enemy with weakness and continue hitting with said weakness”, which is fine but it means you won't have to get all that creative outside of that specific strategy.
The story “may” be better written than Persona 5. I say “may” because I still really love Persona 5’s story and the many twists it had, but some parts didn’t really add up. There were a few characters later on that felt unnecessary, some the characters I once loved slowly got worse as the story went on and the stakes rose, and to be honest with you the villains got worse as the game progressed. They felt creative at first, but overtime they got more predictable and expected. You fought god at the end of the game, and and it then led to one of the most cringiest final confrontations possible.
Here in Like A Dragon the twists and reveals do add up, the characters you meet are intriguing and play a role in your journey, more compelling villains are introduced as the game progresses, and the ending it sticks the landing thanks to some of the morals it worked so hard to build up from the beginning. Morals like fatherhood, brotherhood, friendship, determination, and living with a code of honor. Ichiban being severed by the once prosperous life he had. Seeing the family he cherished slowly change, die, or become corrupt with power. Knowing the time period he lived is far gone and he'll never be able to get it back. Alone, now to wander a world filled with new problems to deal with. Yet, he keep pushing forward despite all the problems. He's made new friends and families along his journey. He stayed optimistic despite it all and that's what made him a good person in the end. He may have had a terrible childhood and spent fifthteen years in prison, but he found light beyond the darkness. I won't spoil it, but the ending leaves off on a good note and ties together the main from the beginning. Not saying I like the story of Yakuza: Like A Dragon more than Persona 5, but the developers obviously made a lot of smarter design and writing choices.
It seems like I’m constantly praising Like A Dragon a lot right now, but trust me I do have a few minor problems. The game obviously doesn't have the greatest graphics in the world, but at least it’s an improvement from Yakuza 0 which looked like it came out on the Playstation 3. While the difficulty at first was consistent it’s around the final chapters of the game where it spikes randomly. Mainly with the later bosses because it’s either they have attacks that deal more damage than they really need to, or just have a huge health pool and become the pure definition of a bullet sponge. One boss near the end of the game has a hard to predict attack that can one shot you, and apparently Like A Dragon does the thing where if the main party leader dies the battle immediately ends and you are kicked to the game over screen which is stupid. The game is chalk full of content, but not enough to be at the proper level for endgame bosses. To the point you have to go to the arena and grind for an hour or two.
Besides these minor complaints, Yakuza: Like A Dragon is a fantastic game that I highly recommend. I don’t know where the Yakuza franchise will go next after this and I'm afraid they'll milk JRPG styled more, but I’m excited to see where Ichiban and friends will go next. Like A Dragon now made me a proper Yakuza fan and I’m now willing to check out the others games. What Ryu Ga Gotaku made here was a masterpiece in storytelling and wackiness, and it may just be one of the most important JRPGs in a long while. I am going to give Yakuza: Like A Dragon a 9.5/10 for excellence at best.
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