Grande parte da experiencia se carrega na estética samurai, o que é bom, cumpre a proposta nesse quesito, e ver os personagens da saga em contextos diversos, qualquer interação fora do comum eu me divertia. Sua narrativa tem um bom pacing, e tem uns temas interessantes de identidade, patriotismo japonês, etc e tal.
O maior problema é disparadamente a gameplay, é muito repetitiva, apesar de ter 4 styles quase nunca é necessário o jogador alterar, o sistema de tropas é desnecessário, o ferreiro é ruim, muita mecânica falha. Eu me divertia especificamente com o roll da Wild Dancer, desviar no timing tem seu valor, mas claro, cansa e não é recompensador all time. Além disso, o port é bem preguiçoso, tem uns problemas que eu nunca vi na franquia, com carregamento de texturas, delay nos menus, coisas bem amadoras.

This remake of the Japan-exclusive spinoff brings the Yakuza series to feudal Japan. Instead of beating people up, you can now rip them to shreds with a katana or shoot them, or both at the same time! I really enjoyed my time with the story and characters, and as usual with Yakuza games, the side stuff is also great. I did not particularly like the heavy grind in this game, but I could ignore that part with the free sword DLC you get relatively well (otherwise this review would probably be a lot more negative). Also, the many bonding side activities were a bit too much for my taste. Other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed this entry, and I hope they bring Kenzan to the west too. Perfect game for the Steam Deck.

Esse é um jogo meio curioso, ele tem uma boa história principalmente se você se interessa pelo contexto histórico do japão dos anos 1800, além de ter um mapa 100% inédito e 4 estilos de batalha, sendo 3 deles totalmente novos, já que o estilo brawler foi mantido da série principal (esse estilo é totalmente mal aproveitado e sinceramente nem precisava estar no jogo, podia muito bem ter só os 3 novos).
Só que, de longe, o grande problema do jogo é o balanceamento: vai chegando na reta final e os inimigos e principalmente chefes vão ficando com uma barra de vida simplesmente imensa e você dá muito pouco dano, a sensação é de que o seu personagem não evolui junto com os inimigos (dá pra comprar equipamentos novos pra aumentar os stats mas eles são extremamente caros, então se você não grindar vai ter que ir se virando na maior parte do tempo com o que os inimigos droparem).
Dito isso, se você já tiver jogado a franquia principal e estiver querendo algo novo, recomendo muito dar uma chance, porque a história e ambientação são realmente muito bons e, na minha opinião, valem a pena o sufoco da reta final.

Like A Dragon: Ishin! set a personal benchmark for "cinematic storytelling." Ishin, like many RPGs, is dialogue heavy and dramatic. However, Ishin also has a clear understanding of mise-en-scène and cinematography. Ishin uses cinematics to enhance inherently passive conversations. Eleven hours of cutscenes sounds like hell, but the camerawork and editing and lighting is so tight that despite having literally no way to interact with them, I was still glued to the screen. A lot cutscenes feel like they are there as a replacement to gameplay, like the developers could not find a way to tie the action to interaction. In this case, Ishin makes the best of it and instead relies on conventional filmmaking techniques with its camera moves and editing to still give the dialogue an added layer of urgency and, in turn, making the transition between flashy combat and melodrama more tonally consistent.

When the game is not in heavy dialogue revealing the sixtieth plot twist of the second chapter, it is still great. The combat, although the highlight of RGG games, feels rigid and bordering on outdated. The systems and location surrounding the combat feel a whole lot more polished. For one, the world, a miniature Kyo, is perfectly sized. The city is just big enough that it manages plenty of geographic diversity, but also small enough that I was able to naturally learn my way around. By the time the full map was revealed, I could be told where to go and know how to get there without relying on the minimap or fast travel. This allowed for me to experience a lot more side quests. I am mixed on the mandatory interruption when triggered, but they are usually short enough that they make for welcome breathers. The best part of the city is the sound: there is always a light buzz of conversation. Whether that be overhearing actual conversations or just running down the main streets with the sounds of people and food, Ishin captures the intimacy of cities more accurately than most games.

Like a Dragon: Ishin! does an exceptional job of justifying why medium sized (by RPG standards) games need to exist. Ishin has a respectable scope, but by having a thorough understanding of film grammar and city design, Ishin still lets me get lost in conflict and farming.

A welcome distraction while waiting for Like a Dragon Gaiden and Infinite Wealth to come out. It definitely feels more like a PS3 Yakuza title, even remastered like this, but it's got a relatively fun story and all the usual side content that I love about the series. The dojos, Another Life portions, and various minigames are extremely fun and well worth the time I put into them.

UNfortunately, the combat and crafting systems in this game leave a lot to be desired. The four different styles aren't particularly versatile, and the crafting/upgrade system requires a mind-numbing amount of grinding and repeating dungeon crawls to do anything significant.

So as far as Yakuza goes, it's no Zero or 7. But as a remastered title released before RGG's next big title, it definitely kept me occupied!

A nice change-of-pace for the Like a Dragon franchise, it allows for a few almost entirely new combat styles that distinguish it from the rest, with a cool aesthetic and world. Sometimes, the more powerful enemies feel like sponges and the mechanics make it apparent that RGG are not experts in this style of combat, but for the most part it's quite fun. The story is a lot to handle, as is the case with most RGG games, and maybe if I had a better grasp of Japanese history it wouldn't be as convoluted. I also will say the familiar faces and voices were great, but they only served to hinder me in figuring out each character's role in the story and allegiances.

Que experiência maravilhosa. Foi meu primeiro Like a Dragon, então eu cheguei sem expectativa alguma e terminei adorando cada capítulo desse jogo.

Eu preciso dar destaque pros combates, com os 4 estilos que dão variedade demais pra cada luta, e apesar do Wild Dancer ser meu xodó, eu consigo ver cada um sendo útil. E essas boss fights... maravilhosas todas.

A história é outro dos pontos altos desse jogo, engajante, cheia de personagens bons e bem escritos e com MUITO plot twist. É bem feita, com momentos emocionantes e com uma baita mensagem.

Mundo aberto vivo é difícil de se fazer, e Ishin faz com maestria. É muita atividade, minigame, e side quest pra te entreter se não quiser fazer a missão principal.

O que impediu esse jogo de ser perfeito, pra mim, foi a mecânica do ferreiro ser extremamente confusa, carente de explicação e mais complexa do que precisava. Também achei o ritmo do capítulo final meio estranho, não precisava daquele treino.

Como a ideia é fazer uma análise meio técnica, eu não dei 10 porque achei sim uns defeitos aqui e ali, mas que fique em mente que o saldo é extremamente positivo e, no meu coração, Like a Dragon: Ishin! é praticamente perfeito. A satisfação ao terminá-lo é imensa e eu recomendo a todo mundo que nunca jogou a franquia. Ir de cabeça nesse spin-off dá certo (e como dá).

Le jeu fan-service ultime, mais qui marche très bien !

Je ne m’attendais à rien en lançant le jeu car ne m’attendant qu’à un spin-off pas canon, et je suis surpris qu’il soit si complet. Je suis tellement heureux de voir mes personnages préférés arborer d’autres rôles ! Les 4 styles de combat sont assez cool, même si j’ai beaucoup plus joué danseur et bretteur. Je ressens quelque chose de bizarre avec le jeu qui fait que je ne saurais pas le situer, car il est très bon sur tant d’aspects, mais beaucoup de choses me gênent sans que je ne puisse trop savoir quoi.

Si vous avez du temps, le jeu est à faire, et ne nécessite pas d’avoir joué aux précédents !

It was pretty fun, all things considered. It would have made it a lot more enjoyable if I knew anything about the Bakumatsu period that it's referencing, but I still somewhat enjoyed the story.

As cool as it was having the Yakuza actors be in this one in different roles, it made all the plot twists extremely obvious. Wow you're telling me the good guys from the previous games are good here? You're telling me the big bads are bad here? I don't think they should've necessarily switched it up, because then it wouldn't feel right either, but I suppose this problem is inherent to what this game was trying to do. On the one hand, it made me greatly appreciate what the more complex antagonists could have been in the main series, and how the protagonists would interact with each other in this new timeline.

The story has a really eerie Japanese ultranationalist position. It shows this especially hard in the ending. Considering the horrors that were committed by them in the next period following Sakamoto Ryouma's assassination, it's really tough to just stand there and watch Ryouma talking about the bright future of Japan and how great a country it is etc. when RGG seems to be doing the thing that's popular there: pretending the 1900s didn't happen.

The combat was... ok? I think I initially tried to play it like the mainline games and it felt really wrong. Brawler is basically useless. Only when I got to the barracks missions did I finally realize that it feels much more like Nioh than Yakuza. After putting myself in that mentality, I really started enjoying the combat.

This game probably hurt the most in terms of not having infinite sprinting like the newer games. My god does it suck to constantly run out of breath until you can afford enough virtue to sprint for longer.

OST had some cool callbacks to older games which I really appreciated. Substories were pretty decent. Platinum grind was very very painful.

Alright game if you're looking for some more Yakuza gameplay.

Technical mess across the board
Visual glitches and pop in left and right, random freezing during heat actions, unexplainable performance dips etc etc.
In one instance the boss music didn't stop playing after the boss was down and continued playing over cutscenes, only way to fix it was to reopen the game.
Some of the usual Dragon Engine combat jank is still somehow present even in an Unreal game, hitreg and hitbox/hurtbox issues etc. it's nothing new at this point.

Kiry... I mean Hajim... I mean Ryoma's moveset is pretty interesting with the 4 unique styles. Unfortunately Wild Dancer was the only one that really felt great, brawler is just completely useless and swordsman/gunman feel too simplistic and somewhat stiff.
The bosses overall are probably the best in the series (minus some very cheap moves) but some of the other enemy designs aren't so great, specifically this one big ogre enemy they reuse as a miniboss like 30 times throughout the game which swings a massive boulder around, doesn't get startled by your attacks and throws projectiles at you when you're too far (he's also usually accompanied by 10 foot soldiers). Very not fun to fight!

The Bakumatsu era is a cool historical time period and the story itself is pretty entertaining for the most part but some of the creative decisions the writers took near the end REALLY sour the experience... We love random plot-twists!

While Ishin was irritating at times, the usual Yakuza charm is there with a cool new setting that was really well realized.