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.

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.

I wasn't expecting much, both from the opinions I heard and because it was an old spin off, and perhaps it was this low expectation that made me like this game so much, I'll start with the combat, which was the point that interested me most, when it it works, it's peak combat, but when it doesn't work it's Yakuza 4 Seishiro Munakata boss fight level of shit, of the 4 styles, fist, sword, gun and sword + gun, you'll only use two, fist is useless from the beginning, and the pistol starts OP but it quickly becomes obsolete when enemies start to have more health, leaving only Swordsman and Wild Dancer as really viable styles, and both are very enjoyable to use when they work, just cutting everyone or spinning with the sword while shooting, you really feel very powerful, but it is in some bosses that the flaws in the combat show themselves, often the bosses can have attacks that come faster than you can react, because you generally give preference to the Swordsman in 1v1 fights because it deasl more damage than the Wild Dancer, but it is impossible to execute a dodge or defense while you are already in an attack animation, and seeing as how the bosses give few openings for attack, you have to make the most of them, but out of nowhere they can just start a combo that stun locks you or a grab with absurd damage, I often felt that the combat was unfair and slow, but it still worked well for most of the game.

The story is by far the point that surprised me the most and that I liked the most, it easily enters my top 5 of the franchise, it is a grand plot but at the same time very personal, conflicts of ego, identity, morals, politics, everything very well developed, directed and with believable characters, and the icing on the cake is that all the characters have familiar faces from other games in the franchise, it's really cool for anyone who is a fan of the franchise to see Majima, Mine, Date and Kuze in the same room, and the characters manage to have similar personalities to their original versions but still distinct enough to not simply be the same character, I have literally no complaints in this regard.

The side content is the point that leaves the most to be desired, the game has practically 70 substories, which seems like a lot, but half or more of these substories are simply a 2-minute dialogue where an NPC asks you for an item, you deliver it, a friendship starts and that's it, the substory is over and now you can give more items to the NPC to fill his friendship to just gain virtue, which are the equivalent of the Completion Points from the other games, the substories that are REALLY stories are good and in the level of quality that you expect from the franchise, but they are buried by this stupid decision to make a substory for each friendship. Regarding the minigames, there isn't much to complain about, it has the same classics from the franchise and the addition of some new ones such as dancing, chicken racing and some minigames for hostesses, all of which are very fun and do a good job of distracting from the main story.

The songs and ambience as usual are impeccable, they nailed the setting of Edo period Japan, and the OST is not among my favorites in the franchise but it is very good and fits very well.

Now something that I don't usually talk about in my reviews but I think it's pertinent to comment this time, the game's performance on eighth gen consoles is strange, sometimes the game runs smoothly at 60fps and sometimes at 15, the graphics are also sometimes beautiful and sometimes pixelated and strange, and I also had 2 crashes, it's clear that RGG didn't know how to optimize Unreal very well.

Final rating: 8.5/10, 4/5 stars.

This is honestly a hard RGG game to grade; on one hand its gameplay is both reminiscent and so far away from what the core gameplay of Like a Dragon main entry games established at the point of its original release. I love that this game finally made its way almost 10 years later to an international audience but also understand almost fully why the decision to take the plunge took as long as it did also, as well as why Kenzan might take even longer, if ever.

Look, I know a lot of people outside of Japan don't understand enough of Japanese history to consider something like this fruitful, but maybe investing time and money into something they love will help to make them understand by virtue of research and the actual account of Sakamoto Ryoma himself. Even if it means screaming "I know that guy!" every time a Yakuza household face comes on the screen.

My only significant issue is that this game suffers from a lot of the issues present in Yakuza 3, albeit most of them for optional activities. Foremost is the pure grinding of ryo and materials just to meet a single weapon thread to its completion; by the end even with all DLC I just barely managed to meet the requirements for a single gun and sword even with a significant amount of farming (figuratively and literally). Another of these points is the objectively difficult arena mode, which seems to only exist to punish you in the feeble hopes of being a manageable way to get high level materials and ryo.

A lot of this translates to the difficulty of the side content, in that you're expected to grind experience and "orbs" to individually press into each style with the expectation to finally meet a certain master one last time just to beat him. I'm sorry, but every single account I've seen has said that the grind is not even remotely enjoyable and far less reasonable, so forgive me when I say I end my journey at level 47; I seriously don't even want to push to the level 50 trophy at this point.

The game had great callbacks to other yakuza characters. The plot went crazy for the spectacle of it. The pull a lot of funny tropes/references.

I feel like the ending could have been better written, but it was still funny.

I'd say this is an average entry in the yakuza series. still fun and enjoyed it

At this point, you know what you're getting into with a Yakuza game. Difficulty curve is steep at the start, and smooth as butter by the end. Sidequests have funny writing, but too many rely on checking on a character and then coming back to them later - probably a holdover from the ps2 era.

My main criticism with Ishin, especially as this is a remaster, is the upgrade tree. I'm coming in after playing Yakuza Kiwami 1 & 2 last year. The rate at which you unlock new moves and abilities with the four styles was fairly consistent. In this game, the unlocks are more of a linear ring, and all of the interesting and special techniques are locked near the very end of the skill rings. So you end up doing the same stuff over and over.