I'm torn, I believe this has some of the best side content, gameplay improvements, world building, etc - in the series... but the story just isn't there I'm afraid...

I don't find Ichiban meeting his mom nearly as compelling as persevering the "It's only business" style betrayal, and challenging the Prime Minister of Japan who happens to be someone who once was someone he looked up to, only for both of which to end horribly. I don't know how they could have topped Yakuza 7 but nonetheless, I couldn't help but feel like Infinite Wealth tried to use beats from Yakuza 7 but they don't work as well without the impact.

There was a true sense of pay off by the time Yakuza 7 ended, you witnessed the "end" of the Yakuza, you fought against a dragon, you outsmarted the the Governor after beating a heavyweight boxer built up so magnificent-ly, only for it to crash down at the end, masterful. Such an emotional experience... the only time I felt similar levels of emotion was when you fought the three legends in the Alps, caught me off guard, that's where it lies.

Ebina is mostly unseen throughout the game, with a silly goal, pal-ing up with a Hawaiian zealot, some random guy who also happened to hate Yakuza, and his vtuber-by-gunpoint cancel culture person. I couldn't help but feel like everytime the vtuber that it was just so unserious, using some random vtuber to cancel people. The overlap between a vtuber and a crime syndicate just doesn't make sense to me, I only ever felt like it made any impact when it affected Kiryu getting in trouble with the Daidoji, which also doesn't happen really happen.

The Daidoji did NOTHING about this, they were set up to be such an opposing force in Gaiden, yet, feel like they had conveniently no power here, relying on other people to find Lani, conveniently not knowing Eiji wasn't on the good side, confidently not knowing Chitose wasn't a unwilling accomplice, but always knowing what Kiryu is doing but doing virtually nothing about it

The two final bosses really did nothing for me, Bryce was just a cartoonishly evil cultist, Ebina just had a hate boner for the yakuza and wanted them gone. Sure it is evil, but it feels like such a roundabout way to do it, while I do think it could've been the only way that could have been realized, I just think they could have done something better entirely.

I do really like Kiryu's plea, I feel like it would do nothing but it scratched the itch I felt the entire game, just a bit. What I don't like is him staying alive, I get it's cool that he regained his name (further confirming how useless the Daidoji are) but it really felt like he was too valuable to kill outright, but there's just an utterly lack of anything going on that pulling the trigger on something (or someone) would've made the story feel a sizeable portion more impactful. The story really felt like a 50 hour long villian of the week affair, which is a shame considering how much was packed into Yakuza 7, despite that, I do feel the game is worth playing, incredibly fun combat, replayable side content, a full new map with tons to see, it's just a shame my favorite element of these games wasn't the strong suit.