It’s hard to believe that this is the first JRPG entry in an action beat-em-up franchise with 7 previous entries, but now it’s hard to imagine anything else. The Yakuza series just works so well as a turn-based RPG and while the combat isn’t perfect, this game's wackiness and absurdity makes up for it. I mean what other game can I attack someone with a fucking laser from outer space?

But as goofy as this game gets, it’s never afraid to get personal and make you care about these amazing characters. I just absolutely adore this cast and Ichiban is the perfect protagonist. Ichiban had some pretty big fucking shoes to fill and he is on the same level, if not better, than Kiryu. Which just makes me even more excited for Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth coming later this month. They will be unstoppable.

I've adapted everything after this line from a Twitter thread I wrote - please forgive any clumsiness:

I've finally beat Yakuza 6 and I'm convinced I'll never be able to return to Like A Dragon/Y7 after this. Not as some kind of protest for them writing Kiryu out of the series, but because I really don't understand the allure of it at this point. The cast of Y7 is so huge and I'm like 60% of the way to caring about any of them as characters, but Ichiban permanently feels like a jester even in serious moments and the most endearing members of the cast are barely given room to breathe. The combat is decent enough but right as it starts wearing out its welcome there is a massive difficulty spike that forces you to just sit there and grind these fights that you've already been choking down for 20 hours.

I don't know man. This series has routinely been clumsy, but I made it through some of those clumsy moments because they had built up my attachment to a couple cities, characters, and showed me that they were capable of creating new attachment to characters when I least expected it. Y7 has just been an exercise in patience, fighting through some dull moments and my rewards are either interactions with a few new charisma vacuums, or trying to make my monkey brain light up by coldly bringing out a character I recognize from a previous game.

The answer to this is "you don't have to play games you don't like" and unfortunately I might just have to accept that outcome at this point. I spent a long while convincing myself I was having fun because the game was polished and I didn't actively hate the combat, but in retrospect I was just biding my time in the hopes that a Yakuza game would turn itself around and hook me as it has so many times before, only to let me down this time. It took a return to the Kiryu saga before I could put my finger on it, but seeing Kiryu's interactions with the new characters in Onomichi and being pleasantly surprised by how much I cared about them, how charming they were and how real their emotions (and their bond) felt, it highlighted how lacking Y7 is in comparison. At this point, I've given this game 50 hours of my time and completed 12 full chapters and it's just worn out its welcome. I wanted so badly to like this game, and knowing that other people see something great here and I'm just missing it leaves me feeling so tired, man.

I think my standards were always gonna be too high since this game was the whole reason I wanted to play the series but sadly didn’t really enjoy this as much yakuza 2-5, 0, or judgment. Still good though, Ichi is a wonderful protag and the gameplay loop is fun enough for what it is. I think if LAD 8 irons out the pacing issues as well as a couple of other things then it has the potential to be the best in the series. Good base for the series going forward even if I’m not as big on it as I wanted to be.

Ichiban is such a great new main character that they already seem to be throwing away with the 8th game by putting Kiryu on the box art when he fucking died in that one Yakuza game.

Unfortunately, they decided to follow tradition with the inspiration from Dragon Quest by taking the combat system from the series too. And they couldn't even do it well. Despite the enemy variety, it will never reach the wonder of variety that Mother offered; they're trying too hard to make a cohesive design. I should be fighting abstract art, not a very specific list of machinery like a roomba and construction shit. Even if this sounds appealing, the novelty wears thin very quickly the second you are forced to do the dungeon crawling from Yakuza: Like a Dragon. I can appreciate the originality in the mini-game's but I question if it border's on addictive mobile gaming rather than an actual quality mini-game.

Did you know gaming? This is the 2nd Japanese game whose 7th mainline entry also indicated a huge reinvention of the series and also when they decided to fuse the Japanese name and English localized title into the same title. That other game is called Resident Evil: Biohazard 7

Almost dropped it cold turkey style couple of times but eventually pushed through likely because I kept convincing myself and hoping it will be worth it by the end.

Now what's the verdict now that I rolled the credits - well I almost certainly will not be replaying this game ever again. Its simply not worth slogging through 70% of the 65hr playtime it took for a handful of really good moments.

Like all mainline Yakuza games the actual good shit is at the last few chapters but this time around it was especially grueling to get there, since they switched to JRPG turn based combat style everything became either more grindy or more apparent that its a grind fest.

Most combat encounters fall in to two categories -laughably and eventually annoyingly easy where you mash auto attack button to end it and move on, the game even has auto battle you can enable which in my opinion if you can shut off your brain completely during the only "gameplay" section, the game itself is not well designed or balanced. Then we come the the 2nd type of encounters you'll come across that is elite enemies and boss battles this is where you throw constantly same attacks that the enemy is weak to and watch their massive healthbar veeeryyy slooowlyyy deplete please try to remain awake during that. Of course why not buff your party so you do more damage or take less you might say, well why would I waste my turn sacrificing raw damage adding buffs that increase your attack or defense by 3%, debuffs ain't that much better I would have to hire a data analyst who could break down an excel spreadsheet for me just to see the difference in damage dealt.

So combat is a grind, upgrading weapons is a grind, making money in game to spend on those upgrades is a grind, mini game that you use to grind for the money to spend on upgrading a weapon you grinded for the materials is a grind, walking around in the city without tripping into auto battle combat encounter every 10 seconds is a challenge and you'll be doing this for 50-60hrs if you're also try out the side content.

What about the good stuff? Well the combat menus are well designed responsive, easy to navigate, the animations for all your moves and different party "classes" and their moves are all well done and look flashy, the city especially at night looks nice and vibrant depending which district you visit, all the facial animation during cutscenes look very clean, the story has some good moments especially towards the end and soundtrack is fantastic there are some absolute bangers.

Conclusion: at the end of the day I do kinda regret putting this many hours where majority of the time I did not enjoy or was barely engaged with the game and that is not the feeling I want to have when the credits roll.

This game is honestly unforgivably bad. And it's 50 hours long, the story was so obviously re-written to be a JRPG, this mainly applies to the boss fights which were these scenarios clearly written in the context of an action game. The party members range from one cool dude who doesn't get much story to one chick who's there for an insanely dumb reason if you stop to think about it and the most annoying character in an rgg game period. Not to mention that when the time comes for badass boss fights that is only related to Ichiban, these goobers feel like they don't deserve any place in these boss fights whatsoever.

Yokohama is a very boring map that has places that really just don't have any activities to engage in. The only undeniably good part about this game is the management mini game, which feels like it had more thought put into it in than the core gameplay and main story.

I can only hope RGG's next game is good after the low point that is 6 into Kiwami 2 into 7. This series was so godlike man.

Going into this, I wasn't fully sure what to expect with the new formula, new setting, new main character and all that

For such a refreshing take on the series and the start to whatever comes after, I applaud the number of risks they took with this game. Yet for all of these risks taken be it with the writing style or gameplay, all of them contribute towards making it a great entry furthermore. That's not to say it isn't without issues, the new gameplay certainly felt experimental and you can see they weren't fully clear about what to make of it, but what they did make of it is fantastic. I trust 8 only to improve upon it.

The writing, where do I even begin...this game is probably the most suited to my tastes in the series as far as general writing style goes and I couldn't be happier with it. The lighter tone yet more mature approach to social issues like the existence of a backwards society that no other game in this series does justice, extremely fulfilling side character content for the main cast, brilliant tie ins to the first 7 games and on....yeah I could sit here all day about how well put this is for a new identity to the series. My issues with the story are far too minimal to even mention.

Yakuza 7 busca um novo começo para a série: em gênero, protagonista e tema. A história que queria contar envolvia a mensagem de superação e sobrevivência depois de cair para o lado errado das graças da sociedade - seguia ao redor de ex-presidiários, moradores de rua, prostitutas e imigrantes ilegais. A escolha, portanto, de basear sua essência em JRPGs e shonens, tanto tematicamente quanto mecanicamente, fazia sentido - são gêneros cuja mensagem tema costuma ser o triunfo meritocrático mesmo diante de impossíveis adversidades. Infelizmente, sinto que Yakuza 7, em seu processo de assimilação e reconstrução, acabou por absorver o pior das duas formas. Primeiro, sua inspiração em JRPGs clássicos (principalmente Dragon Quest) e shonens, ao ser imposta em cima de um drama criminal e familiar, acabou relativizando-o e suavizando seu impacto. Sendo o primeiro Yakuza que joguei até o final, já esperava - e ansiava por - um nível saudável de melodrama e tosquice; porém, a história do jogo sofre pesadamente pela adoção de arquétipos shonen como o triunfo do poder da amizade e reviravoltas desnecessárias e inconsequentes. Não me sinto mais investido na história quando Kasuga consegue convencer sua amiga bartender a enfrentar um prédio cheio de Yakuzas armados apenas porque eles são amigos, ou quando o vilão desnecessariamente expõe seu plano de forma não-característica e sem sentido diante do protagonista, especialmente quando essa mesma história tenta muitas vezes puxar pra um realismo seletivo: a justaposição de uma cena de jovens sendo executados cruelmente nas ruas por uma gangue rival e logo depois o assassino sendo convencido pelo poder da bondade é mais ridícula do que impactante. Não é como se eu fosse avesso à chicoteios tonais, afinal, sou fã assíduo de Metal Gear Solid - só acho que as estéticas shonen adotadas aqui foram um detrator enorme de uma história que tem todas as porradas emocionais para ser um puta melodrama.

Além de ferir a história, a inspiração desmedida de Dragon Quest também feriu grosseiramente o jogo - me surpreende que, um jogo tão bem apresentado em todo aspecto, que muitas vezes assume bem o posto de paródia e homenagem a Dragon Quest, consiga ser pior e mais antiquado em todo aspecto mecânico do que o tão engessado vovô dos jogos que o inspira. Sistemas de progressão que simplesmente não tem fluxo ou lógica; crafting arcaico; requerimentos de grinding artificiais, inimigos de qualquer embalo da história; e, como pior ofensor, combates repetitivos e inconsequentes compostos de inimigos irrisórios que não oferecem desafio algum (coisa que Earthbound, de 1995, já tinha resolvido), são o comum aqui - acho que conto em uma mão quantas lutas me incentivaram a engajar com todos os sistemas de batalha.

Na maioria das vezes que jogava, especialmente na história principal, ou estava entediado ou estremecia de vergonha alheia de ter que ver Naruto versão thriller policial. Ainda assim, joguei quase 60 horas desse jogo. Escrevi tanto e me entreguei tanto porque aqui encontrei brilho, escondido e apagado pelos seus defeitos gritantes - o protagonista Kasuga é reflexo perfeito do jogo, estupido e amável, apesar de todos seus defeitos. O combate, por mais bobo e fácil que seja, é visualmente impecável e dinâmico, e a substories oferecem a tosquice de qualidade que eu esperava de Yakuza, junto do ridiculamente engajante "mini"-game de CEO, que compôs mais de ¼ do meu tempo total de jogo e foi um dos pontos altos da experiência toda. Vejo nesses pequenos brilhos o que amam em Yakuza - o melodrama, o teatro, o humor, toda a alma colocada em cada esquina de seus ambientes, tudo formando um pacote deliciosamente idiossincrático, que não tem pretensão de se expor-se ridículo e emotivo como é. Infelizmente, só não acho que souberam bem usar o gênero que escolheram para ser o novo âmago da série.

The new combat being turned based works really well. Basically, it takes what would normally be a heat animation and turns it into a special move that takes what replaces heat in this game, MP. So in any other game you could walk up to a fella with full heat and do a cool little attack animation, in this game you choose which one to do from a menu and they all have different stats and there are different builds you could do with armor and equipment and there's just so much depth to the combat. Yeah, you could just mash. But when you get to the bosses, you can't just spam the highest damage moves over and over until it's done. You gotta use your support characters, lower their stats, raise your own, use every tool in your arsenal. But yeah, it kinda sucked having to grind in chapter 12 but that was the only time I felt under-leveled, and after that, even if I was a lower level I could whittle their health down with strategies and good team comp. And it fixes a system-based problem with the original that also happens in a lot of action games and kinda ruins them: you can't just pause the game anymore and down 30 staminans. Stopping time and healing really kills difficulty in a lot of games (that's why dark souls are so godly) and that's why this game is great. I had to really think and strategize. I had to make one party member into the medic/support. It's a great battle system and while it's no replacement for the good old fashioned real-time tiger drop, the turn based combat really came together as you got more party members and the jobs opened up. Unfortunately, my favourite character out of the gang was the weakest (or at least didn't fit in my playstyle) and I never got to have him on my team :( sorry Adachi

The music, boss fights, side quests, minigames, and quality of life changes are all amazing. Two boss fights, in particular, stand out, and yeah everyone whos played knows exactly what I'm talking about. Chapter 12 was probably the most eventful and insane chapter in any Yakuza and a shoutout to the voice actors both English and Japanese. I played subbed like some stupid weeb and I thought Ichiban's voice was perfect. It's really easy to make a character like him dislikable and annoying, but there's a lot of subtle kindness and heart in his voice and demeanor that is great. And an extra special shoutout to the business management minigame. In the beginning, I was so confused and I failed the shareholders meeting minigame and I was in the red and losing money.. but then 4 uninterrupted hours later I was in full swing and I was doing the minigame like it was my job. They put crack into the code of that, I swear. Anyways god-tier game, god-tier Yakuza, and the story is obviously great. GG (good game)

I started this game just around the time of release, played about half / two thirds of it, and then stopped. In the time since then and returning to it a couple weeks ago, I played all of the Kiryu saga (minus what of 0 I had played) as well as Judgment and Lost Judgment. Initially I had stopped playing 7 because I wanted to really have the full picture for when Kiryu shows up in the story. Ironically, I picked it back up because I reached the point of Gaiden where those events happen again. There’s something poetic about that, I suppose. I’ll keep my thoughts on this one short but I wanted them down for posterity.

Story
Ichiban is a great new protagonist for the series to jump off with. His approach to problems is different from Kiryu’s and he sees the world differently (in a literal sense). The whole cast is so good, the party really comes together organically and the central group of Ichi, Saeko, Nanba, and Adachi work so well together. The extra additions along the way only increase the enjoyment. The story is phenomenally well done in certain parts and only really dragged down by a couple chapters here and there. The opening third is so grounded and fun, I thought the hospital / old folks home sequence is just a little genius bit thrown in that you never would’ve seen from a Kiryu game. The finale is rather great too, minus the perhaps-too-long campaigning section. It feels like they took what they learned from telling a “cinematic” story from Yakuza 6 and really improved on it here, lots of movie-quality cutscenes that make the whole thing come alive and quite honestly stand out from the rest of the JRPG crowd. As much as I like FF7 Remake, the type of lengthy and somewhat quiet cutscene like the final interaction between Ichi and Aoki Ryo just doesn’t happen there. The story is strongest in its smaller and more contained moments, like working at the soapland or helping the Yokohama residents. The grander shit with the Omi and the Tojo is fun in a big picture “LORE” kind of way but doesn’t feel necessary for Ichiban’s story in the slightest, and feels like an excuse to bring Kiryu and the other Tojo legends into the picture. I don’t think this is the strongest in the extended series, but it sits nicely up at the top with Judgment, Lost Judgment, and Yakuza 5.

Combat
Oh jeez. I think Ryu Ga Gotoku’s best case scenario is making a Judgment -> Lost Judgment type glowup happen with Infinite Wealth because there’s so much to improve upon. It’s not a bad start for a team who have never made a JRPG before, but it feels lacking in a number of ways. Reservations about the job system aside, I feel like there isn’t enough actual experimentation to do - fights are largely decided by having a damage dealer, a healer, and a defense / attack debuff. Status effects are largely worthless and there’s little in the way of party composition strategy. The move lists are a little underwhelming too, and they feel lacking in that they don’t actually take advantage of Ichiban’s delusional Dragon Quest vision. Most attacks are just walking up and hitting the opponent with something, minus the heat actions / Essence skills. Gear is similarly bleh, with basically only stat upgrades meaning anything. I actually will NOT criticize the difficulty, as despite the fact that you can easily find criticisms of the Majima / Saejima and Kiryu fights online, I cleared both on the first try without doing any grinding beyond the singular dungeons they give you access to before each. I will criticize other things, however. I absolutely despise the “always moving” mechanic within battle. The fact that your attacks can straight up miss entirely regardless of your accuracy stat because the physics engine pushed you back when you moved past a box or something is infuriating. All the movement within combat feels clunky and unnecessary. The level curve feels wack, not in a difficulty way but in a numbers way. Leveling up a job takes probably 2-3 times longer than I feel it should for the number of jobs each character has, and considering that the game’s story ends at basically level 60, why is level 99 even the cap? Overall it’s a relatively acceptable system that feels like it leaves a few things down to be finetuned in the next game, which is hopefully the case.

Misc
Extra content is still pretty much as good as ever, minus the extra dungeons being a slog. Karaoke is fantastic and there are some amazing renditions in here. There are a ton of substories which, admittedly, felt a bit more committed to the bit of “being weird” than just simply telling a standalone story, which I don’t like, but they’re mostly pretty great. The strength of the party chat / “drink links” help make up for the substories as the one-on-ones are pretty emotional and unique in terms of the series. Dragon Kart and Can Hero are… fine, I guess. These types of minigames are never perfect in RGG releases but they’re fun enough. Part Time Hero is imperfect in terms of its missions but I can’t be bothered to seek out 100% regardless so it hardly matters in the long run.

Yeah, really great game. I don’t think it makes sense to play this as your first Yakuza release, but it does serve as a great first step in a new period of Yakuza. It would’ve felt more meaningful if RGG were capable of truly setting Kiryu aside instead of trotting him out 4 more times after his “last” game, but maybe they’ll make good on that decision in Infinite Wealth. The story is excellent, the smaller scale of the conflict helps it immensely, and the RPG focus is good enough to never feel dull but leaves room for improvement.

The duality of light and dark, the hero vs the evil villain

Yakuza: Like a Dragon (or Yakuza 7) is a JRPG released by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio and Sega in 2020 on most modern consoles and PC barring Switch. There's something special about this game in a lot of ways that make this the most unique entry in the Yakuza series. It manages to retain what makes the series loved by its fans, adds new characters that have their own stories and give the people that played the entire series a final hurrah for the old arc before starting fresh with this entry.

The combat is the most contentious thing between the fans since it essentially changed the genre from a brawler action game to a turn-based roleplaying game. For RGG Studio's first attempt at a roleplaying game, they did a surprisingly decent job here. There's a class/job system with a modern and comedic twist on what it means to have a "job" in the real world. The abilities are decent and each job feels varied in what it can do for each character. There is a lot of customization here even to the point of changing costumes when you start a battle. The enemy variety is decent and creatively explained via the main character's overactive imagination and love for traditional JRPGs that he seems normal people as exaggerated caricatures of what they really are. The story here is probably one of the best in the series with an emotionally charged final quarter that left me extremely sympathetic about what happened. As an actual side note but also a huge part is the huge amount of content that's here to do on the side that I can't really list, it's just as big if not bigger in side content than any other Yakuza game here so you won't be sorely missing for things to do here.

My only complaints is wishing for a way to properly gauge ability aoes since some attacks are entirely dependent on which way an enemy goes and you have no control of that along with the rough difficulty spike around a certain chapter but it wasn't too bad.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon manages to change things up for the series in a good way that probably refreshed the developers after making so many brawler type games with the same type of gameplay. It was nice to see them still managing to tell an incredible story that gives a lesson the series never really got to tell until now. Once you hit rock bottom, you can only go up from here.

Holy shit this was amazing, it's been so long since I've really enjoyed both the story and gameplay of a Yakuza game.
And it also kinda turned into my favorite turn-based RPG, although it might not be as impressive considering the other ones I played so far were Persona and Pokemon X3

Only reason why I'm not giving all 5 stars is because it does take a while until the gameplay really becomes fun, the first 10 hours of the game feel like a tutorial. And I didn't like one thing about the ending. Besides that it's an incredible game :3

God, do I adore this game. Replaying it has made me realize how truly brilliant the story is. It's so consistently engaging and emotional, and balances the new party cast very well. Your first four members are people you meet and then learn about, but your last two you learn about long before they join. They're all some of my favorite characters in the series, such wonderful characters. I've even grown to love the combat. I'll admit that it's pretty barebones, but I love how it still feels like Yakuza. It has the absurd brutality Yakuza is known for, a variety of animations and classes, and I like how it incorporates qtes into it. I enjoy the positioning aspect of skills, even if you can't directly position your character. I love how the game uses the combat to show how Ichiban thinks and how much different he is to Kiryu the previous protagonists. Ichiban is not afraid to like what he likes and embrace his inner child, and I think that's really beautiful in a time where adults liking anything even remotely childish is frowned upon. The final fight perfectly shows this, literally throwing the bat down and switching classes to show the desperation he and the villain have. There's definitely some dumb bullshit in the story, specifically one character, but I love how he's used so I don't mind. The last three chapters of this game are so smartly written, and they're probably some of the best planning from a Yakuza protagonist. This entire game is a treat, but the end is probably my favorite part. That's not even mentioning the fun side content and new world. A lot of the side content is about how people are drawn to Ichiban's kindness, literally shown in the business minigame(best in the series?) and Poundmates. I could honestly talk for hours about how this is the perfect continuation of mainline Yakuza. I really think that switching mainline is such a breath of fresh air, and works so well with this game. Love it.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon isn't a perfect game, but I loved absolutely every second of it regardless. For example, the RPG combat isn't perfectly tuned and there are a few late-game boss fights that are mostly damage sponges that don't require actual strategy beyond attacking and healing. The job system is a bit messy, and there are a few moments of laughably wonky animation.

None of these things took away from how much fun I had playing this game and how attached I felt to the characters, the story, and the world. I genuinely didn't want this game to end, and it has opened my eyes to how special Yakuza is. Video games NEVER make me cry, but the one where you can summon several crawfish in battle did. The way this series effortlessly switches from insane and goofy to somber and dark is like nothing else in games to me. Before this, my experience with the series was limited to about 10 hours of Yakuza 0, a game that I quickly wrote off as having bad combat and a bland world to explore.

After finishing Like a Dragon, the appeal of Yakuza is clearer than ever to me, and I can't wait to play the rest of the series. If this game is this good, I can't imagine how good the Kiryu games are.

Update 3/12/2021 the true final millennium tower is absolutely one of the hardest things i've ever done in a jrpg

Ichiban Kasuga is a lovable fool with a heart of gold from start to finish. He's a great protagonist who makes friends quickly and treasures each one. The switch from brawler to turn-based party combat emphasizes that quality in an inspired use of videogame mechanics. It's a good representation of the direction of the Yakuza series since 4, which has been more about overcoming obstacles together than it is about a single hero.

However, there are some qualities that still need some work. I would have liked substories to grant XP in addition to their other rewards and the game could do more to give a spotlight to its own job system. As it went for me, there was also some repetition and lost hours to some unlucky dungeon deaths. That unfortunately distracted from the story and its characters, which are ultimately the bigger draw than the combat. All the same, Like A Dragon has some of the most lovable characters in videogames and it gave me plenty of time with them. Here's to the friends we made along the way!

It's really hard rating this game. I loved it a lot. I really enjoyed my time with it. I loved the characters. I loved Ijincho. I loved that Yakuza was willing to move on and create a whole new cast. It is their first try at an RPG, and it shows. It's not a great RPG system. But also, Yakuza wasn't a great beat em up. It's almost series tradition to have just passable gameplay, as that's not the point. The story was that of a soap opera in the best possible way. I loved all the twists and turns. I think it's gripping, and while it might be kinda cheesy, it's always fun and enjoyable. Ichiban also stands as one of the best RPG protags ever. Please play this game, even if you don't know much about Yakuza.