The end of the Kiryu saga, The Song of Life, is an interesting specimen of a Like a Dragon game. It's the debut of the physics-based Dragon Engine, and there are shortcomings that are obvious from the difficulties they had in making Kamurocho at this new level of detail. However, while there are plenty of comparisons to make between this game and LaD 3, I actually prefer to think of this game as more similar to the original on PS2. It shares a self-serious story, focus on Kiryu as a flawed but honorable beat-em-up sort of guy, and a visceral but clunky combat system (and one that gets a bad wrap at times). It's my understanding that this game was developed alongside 0 and Kiwami, a throwback game to the first and a remake of said original in the same engine, and in my opinion, it shows that that first game was fresh in mind at the time this one was made.

I'll start on my favorite bit of this game - the storyline was phenomenal and brought the series back to the tone of the first game and the movies that inspired it. For the game's short length, it made the most of the drama of every boss fight and long battle, and the new cast of friendly characters felt more like a team and a family than usual for this franchise. The pacing was quite good compared to the lengthy and long winded nature of 5, though this game struggles with "belaboring the point" in dialogue much like 0 still did. My favorite element of this game's plot was the interrogation of Kiryu's tendency to fight to fix problems: he leaves a path of destruction every time he goes to Kamurocho or gets involved in crime business elsewhere, and this game is interested in challenging his ideals on that front unlike 4 and 5. It's refreshing to see this beloved character once again struggle with his nature of beating people up to get what he wants.

Though, as much as this game pays attention to the darker side of Kiryu and the criminal underworld, it's still in the era of goofy Yakuza hijinks. Once you take a step away from the main plot to do some side content, it's straight to the same wacky tone as 0's substories most of the time. Like a Dragon 0 rode a fine line between tonal shifts throughout the plot, and made room for that sort of silliness in the breaks you had between the drama in multiple ways. In 6, it's self-serious most of the time and it creates more intense whiplash than the series already had up to this point. You could say not to do side content, but rushing through the story in these games stunts your ability to level up and take on the challenges of the main story, especially on higher difficulties that demand a higher level of combat mastery than the standard or easy modes.

Speaking of leveling up, this game introduces a brand new system of experience types. There are five different types, and each is used to varying degrees in a long list of upgrades laid out in a similar fashion to the orbs system from LaD 4. I'll give credit that it's refreshing to once again have numerous choices on how to spend stats after 0 went the direction of a skill tree that basically normalized most playthroughs past the choice of which styles to level up first. However, this new system forces a lot of attention to go to side content, which is understandably frustrating for those who don't want to spend a good chunk of playtime managing a hunger system and looking for restaurants with balanced meals for the stats they want to upgrade.

Combat in this game was an interesting beast - it was refreshing and interesting in a way I did not expect. I knew going into this one that it was the first of the new engine, and therefore would likely have similar game feel and balancing issues as LaD 1 and 3 did. What I didn't expect was such a strong evolution of the original game's "pick things up and beat guys senseless" concept. Sure, 2 and its sequels had much better game feel and generally good combat compared to this game, but this is Like a Dragon. This is a series about Kiryu, a guy who's job was to beat people up to collect money for the Tojo Clan, and who can't seem to shake his urge to use his fists whenever serious problems arise in the darker side of his life. Much like that first game, the combat is very rough at the start and gets better as you scour the towns for things to do that give you experience and allow you to level up your stats and unlock abilities. If you are struggling to enjoy the combat in this game on a first playthrough, I encourage you to invest upgrades in experience boosts and a quicker hunger cycle to get stats and combat moves faster.

The game has two towns, Kamurocho and the new Onomichi. The classic city isn't quite in full form, with a good chunk of the top of the map completely inaccessible due to "construction". It's quite funny to see the developers actively admit that they couldn't build the whole city in time in-universe, though the construction barriers also randomly appear at times in the story to guide the player in linear segments. Onomichi is a much smaller map, which makes sense given it's a small town, though it's lacking in terms of restaurants and side games for a place that around half the game takes place in. That said, both locales look absolutely wonderful and the compromises are somewhat understandable given the achievements the team made in that department.

The ending of this game was certainly longer than it needed to be, but touched all the bases that the final full Kiryu game needed to. I felt emotionally satisfied by the final boss for the first time in the series since 2 or 3 (one day I'll explain what I mean by this) and the final act in general did a great job in tying everything together. Much like 4, this game is extremely twist heavy and I expect I'll get more disappointed with bits of the story as I spend more time away from this game. But as it stands, Like a Dragon 6 was more than I hoped it would be and I'm certainly glad I got around to playing it after taking a break from continuing the series for a long while.

It is a good game, the story is amazing and honestly it basically carries the whole game, it has a special place in my heart and shows some of the best character work on the whole series. The gameplay is where it falters for me, it feels very floaty and unresponsive, but can still be enjoyable, however it is not as addictive as other entries in the series have been for me. The less said about the leveling system the better. Overall it is a game let down by the growing pains it got from the change in engine, but is still very much worth a try.

When my tears won’t dry
Wanna just not even try
I’ll find the strength inside
Hope is all it takes to remake
Your dreams into reality
So don’t let it slip away

Alexa play 'Daddy Issues' by the Neighborhood.

Family is complicated. Yakuza 6, ultimately is about Kiriyu. To be honest, I wouldn't have given this game the rating I gave it if the plot wasn't so personal to Kiriyu. Above all else, this game is about Kiriyu Kazuma, and the lessons this story teaches him about family, the different types of family and how the game made him reflect on his own version of fatherhood, which gave us one of my favorite Yakuza scenes ever: Kiriyu's letter to Daigo. I won't talk much more about how much I love the plot but this game made me feel things I haven't felt in a Yakuza game since 0 and is such a perfect sendoff for Kiriyu. Although I know, and you know that killing off Kiriyu was never something that seriously crossed RGG's minds. But that doesn't matter, what this game really makes me mourn is the end of an era. This game closes the chapter for now on the Dragon of Dojima as we know him.

Now, this game isn't perfect. Onomichi, while very pretty was completely lacking in side content, the game expects us to care about this side content while we're figuring out what happened to Haruka. I don't care about the pirate ghosts, I don't care about time travel, I don't care that some rich girl and her boyfriend swapped bodies or whatever. I simply do not care. Kamurocho was a little better, introducing the cat cafe system and the internet cafe minigames along with some more interesting sub stories too.

I see a lot of people complain about the return of the Kiwami 2 combat system and while their complaints are valid, I just can't bring myself to hate it. The progression system is meh, I mean it wasn't much of an issue for me after I got the hang of it again after forgetting about it's existence for 3 games but the individual skills we have to get exp for is a system I'm not completely in love with. Like I said, adaptable but far from perfect, especially because the game is so hesitant to give out technique exp for absolutely no reason.

In Yakuza 6 we're welcomed with a lot of companions joining Kiriyu on his final adventure as the Dragon of Dojima which is cool at first and makes for fun cutscenes and dungeon sequences but this quickly wears off and too many cooks spoil the broth. Similar to Yakuza 5, the game loves to throw you in a big arena with like 10-15 enemies which is great, love that. BUT when you're trying to pull off different combos, throw enemies into eachother, pull off cool heatmoves but then Nagumo or Yuta or whoever comes in and starts grabbing enemies aggro'd on you, often times completely pushing you out the way to land some hit that does minimal damage, or get the enemy you've been trying to tiger drop for like 2 minutes and headlocking them, It gets old quick.

But despite all of that, Yakuza 6 is a very special game and is such a good send off to Kiriyu, his family and the world we've grown to fall in love with.

I left my heart in Kamurocho.