como cualquier yakuza te vas a divertir igual. la historia me dejo bastante enganchado, algo que hacen bien en estos juegos es darte una idea de como fue esa epoca. obvio no hay que tomarse todo literal (algunos aspectos de la historia real se la pasan por el culo para hacer algo distinto) pero lo que esta, social cultural, anade bastante. tambien decir que es un remake y algunas cosas que cambiaron no estoy tan de acuerdo (las armas y las dungeon, completamente arruinadas) pero no me quita tanto porque al combate no es un foco del juego. el final fue un cago de risa medio shockeante, si lo jugaste sabes que viene completamente de la nada, fascinante igual.

I understand why RGG Studios wasn't willing to port this game to the west back in 2014.
Now, hold on: this isn't necessarily because of a lack of quality, absolutely. Like a Dragon: Ishin! (or, well, it's remake) is still a solid game with the unique charm of the Yakuza series and the beautiful setting of 1860s Japan in its full glory, a combination which couldn't really fail for anyone or anywhere.
The gameplay is the same as a classic Yakuza, with the exception that this game was originally the first one with more than one fighting styles on one character: Ryoma Sakamoto can very well fights with his bare fists just like Kiryu Kazuma, but his true potential is revealed when using a katana or a gun, or even both at the same time.

The whole game feels pretty stiff. From walking in the streets of Kyo to fighting bad guys, the whole experience feels not only slow, but painfully mechanic, something that NEVER happened in the series, not even on the PS2.
It feels so stiff it hurts, and the battles suffer from this stiffness too: they are repetitive, slow and incredibly limited.
I also felt like this game spent more time on loading menus, figths and cutscenes than actual gameplay. It started getting really boring after a while, despite the fun of a classic Yakuza series still kicking in.

Now, that said, what made me think as my first sentence in this review?
Well, the answer's simple: the story is not meant for the west at all, and I'm not talking about the cultural differences of the setting.
The whole plot of Like a Dragon: Ishin! revolves around the Bakumatsu period, from its characters to its main plot development, and that means most of players outside of Japan won't understand it. How epic it was. How inspirational.
To fully understand the game's plot and message, you MUST know Japan history. Without it, you are sure to miss something, being it a crucial passage or just the fate of a specific character, because the game itself doesn't bother explaining most of what is happening on screen, since most japanese players old enough to have a basic school knowledge will put the piece together without any help.

If we can make an example, playing this game as a japanese could be like playing a game centered about the french revolution for a french person, or playing a game set in ancient Rome for an italian.
Taking into consideration the original Ishin! came out around 2014, when the west was just still opening to Japan and its culture (and viceversa), it is understandable that RGG Studios felt like this game wasn't really meant for a western audience, even more considering the series sails were a big failure outside of Japan.
That said, the story is still really good: it is much more political than your classic Yakuza, and the scale of the main conflict is bigger than ever in the series, but the spirit which never abandoned Kiryu is still strong in this one.
The cast is interesting and colorful, the soundtrack is fantastic and the gameplay is solid.
While cutscenes are really, really good, in-game graphic is mainly imported from the original game with just some new shaders added on, making it old-looking and, weirdly enough, REALLY slow to load. Many times, while playing, textures would not load at all until they were out of the scene.

I was originally gonna finish all the sidequests and defeat this game's Amon, but now that I have less and less time to spend on games and my backlog is still pretty big, I've decided to considered myself done with this game. It was an overall good experience, but I won't really recommend this game to anyone who isn't fan of the series or doesn't know Japan's history-at least good enough to understand the Bakumatsu period and his characters, that's it (and NO, playing the Fate series won't help you understand this game's Okita Souji at all, fools! Don't even think about it!).

Olha eu achei esse remake curioso pois como e de tradição a RGG fez mais um puta de um jogão Yakuza/like a dragon não me decepciona em termo de diversão e esse jogo mantem como os demais.

A história eu achei ela sensacional com um ritmo para mim impecável, começa muito bem, desenvolve maravilhosamente, e fecha com chave de ouro em nenhum momento da minha jogatina eu senti o jogo dando uma esticada so para ter mais tempo e a história em si muito bem amarradinha, com alguns cliches que vc chegando do começo mas sendo uma história fechada e muito bonita sobre o período histórico que jogo se passa e ate a mensagem dele no final que e linda demais. Sem contar o show de referências que ele tem isso pode talvez ser um problema pois como tal personagem e icônico na serie principal e difícil desvincular ele do personagem da história.

A gameplay eu estou misto pois ela e bem solida mas não me divertiu como os demais jogos, ate os mais antigos, da série tendo 4 estilos de luta mas 1 sendo o mais OP de todos, que meio que poderia perder um pouco a graça ficar usando ele, o sistema de tropas que de da poder e legal nas sides mas quebra a imersão legal quando você esta lutando contra um boss e ele solta um kamehameha em você, mesmo eu não usando poder. Uma coisa que eu notei que o jogo e motando em grind mas para zerar não e necessário grindar nada pois o jogo te dar armas ok o suficiente para zerar, e sem contar se você empacar e so mandar a ver na cura que passa. A dificuldade eu achei boa no normal, eu so morri 2 vezes no jogo inteiro pois nao estava prestando atenção mas o jogo ,no normal, tem partes mais chatinhas do que difícil mesmo.

A trilha sonora e simplesmente SENSACIONAL como o retorno de algumas ost lendarias ou o remix de alguns temas de personagens que ficaram DIVINAS, elas dão empolgação, tristeza e urgência muito bem feito. So tem uma coisa que eu achei estranho que no créditos finais tocam 2 música com letras full em inglês eu achei isso meio paia por causa da época histórica jogo e por causa do discurso final do protagonista e as músicas que vem depois, mesmo a letra da música fazendo sentido com o contexto, fica um pouco estranho, mas isso pode ser so algo meu mesmo.

E para mim o maior problema foi a unreal engine pois como foi um teste eles usarem ela tem vários problemas de texturas que toda hora ficavam renderizando em uma cutscene que tbm me tirava um pouco da imersão, e em certas partes os personagens pareciam não ter expressões, e a modelagem de npcs ficou muito a baixo da média.

De todo modo os maiores problemas do jogo e texturas, mas de resto mantem sendo um puta de um jogo com uma história muito boa, gameplay solida e ost maravilhosas, se puder jogar ele pelo gamepass ou em alguma promoção muito boa vale a pena.

Took longer then expected because my attention span in this Yakuza-like spinoff was really low, well mostly for the first few chapters.

Liked the take on how they brought back the Yakuza characters into a Ancient Japan. Definitely like the 4 playstyles you can switch within.

Me, personally, I did not like Takechi as the brother of Ryoma, especially when the character was used as a antagonist in Yakuza 0, makes it kinda predictable that his eventually gonna turn heel ( well atleast that's how it felt for me ). Although it was nice to see them have the spotlight as an protagonist, gives them a chance to be seen in a different light.

I did like the fact that they used historical figures to portray these characters, sort of telling their stories(in a way atleast).

Overall, fun and interesting way to bring about the mainline characters into a different setting. Worth a try!

I really enjoyed this game. I absolutely love samurai/ronin/japanese history stories and the fact it was all Yakuza characters made it even better. Now I have to say I am incredibly heartbroken and will not forgive RGG for killing off my favs. I cried like a fucking baby at chapter 13 because of that one death ARFGGFHFHDS I'm gonna be honest though the finale was kinda mid, especially that filler with Oryo like... I don't think anyone actually cared about her?

I enjoyed the gameplay a lot though and i'm excited to eventually get back on the game to do the side content.

i love you yamazaki and heisuke and okita and izo and hijikata

A solid entry to the Yakuza series. The samurai-era setting helped shake up the formula, and piqued my interest about the history behind it all. At the same time, that lack of connection to the main Yakuza storyline kept me from fully investing myself, which is a small personal gripe. There's tons of side content that is realized naturally throughout the game. At times it can feel grindy, but it's not really necessary to grind to finish the main story. The combat styles are fun, but seem imbalanced...why use fists when gun and sword do job better? The ending was a pretty cheesy diatribe about Japanese nationalism and anti-British imperialism, but the game had a ton of heart overall - the dramatic flair that we Yakuza fans are all used to.

You can see how the original game contributed so much to the Like a Dragon series. Unfortunately, it's hard to treat this as a "new" game when it's a fancy HD remaster (yes I know it's made from the ground up in a new engine). Some things are outdated, but there are still a lot to get out of this entry. The story is fantastic and some of the substories are great. It's a game packed with side content. However, there are some grind/bloat problems and some balance issues. Overall it is definitely a must play if you are a fan of RGG Studios games, but please don't try to 100% it lol

Having played 6 entries in the series at this point I am fully attuned to what these games offer. 20 to 25 hour stories with twists galore, wacky sidequests/minigames and men expressing their emotions through their fists. I mention this because if you have played other games in the series, Ishin follows the exact same set up almost to a tee albeit with the backdrop of 1800s Edo Japan. The lack of change outside of the setting while initially comforting also led to me being burnt out with the game sooner than I did with other entries. That being said some of the ways the game does differentiate itself are great.

The city of Kyo is a refreshing new setting that does a good job of differentiating itself from the series usual setting of Kamurocho. The addition of forming bonds with the citizens of the city and helping them out not only made it so there was always something for me to do but also added additional depth to city that I wish some of the other games took note of. I loved that fact that when I helped NPCs with problems they started to react to my presence positively as I roamed around the city. Kyo also has great parts of it that are just fun to walk around. Whether it be the bustling main street or a quiet temple path Ishin succeeds in one of my favorite aspects of the franchise, that being it's fun to just run around town.

One of the largest changes to the game is its story with many beloved Yakuza taking the roles of real life historical figures that existed during this time. Through this you get the usual structure of a Yakuza story with the slow unraveling of a grander plot being orchestrated by unknown enemies. The context that this based on historical events, albeit obviously fictionalized in many ways, made the story plenty entertaining to go through even with is predictable setups.

For the most part, I had a blast with Ishin. For the first 12 hours I was glued to it with me wanting to do as much of the side content and even engage with its crafting system which I am usually not a fan of. Past this point however the intense similarities to previous titles made me start to become burnt out. Even the setting change and updated combat was not enough for me to really feel like I was playing the same game again. That being said the format the series is a lot of fun its just hard not to notice how repetitive it can be.

It's kind of sad to see this game pushed to the wayside after it came out early last year as I believe its a worthy entry and an overall great remake.