My what a fantastic entry into the Like a Dragon series
I loved everything about this game except one thing and that is the coliseum, a staple in the franchise and generally my favourite kind of content to spend time with in these titles. However, in Like a Dragon Gaiden, this is a major part of the game that is necessary for progression and while I can appreciate the fact you can play as other fighters that you recruit under your team, it still feels like a watered-down experience overall with only the special event stages shining here. Something I liked about the previous entries to Like a Dragon with its Coliseum is that if you did a repeat tournament type you would still face off with various opponents, keeping it fresh with their movesets and allowing farming to be enjoyable without just being loopy content through and through. But Gaiden does this instead, it is very loopy you select a tournament type and it is the very same thing over and over, you just aim to earn money that you will use on upgrades and continue this till you eventually max everything out. But there is some stuff I appreciate with the coliseum despite the monotonous nature of most of it and that is when a specific substory starts to go into effect around it because it brings all the grind you've done around it into fruition in a very satisfying way by closing it up with an enjoyable subplot.
But hey enough about the Coliseum, everything else was just wonderful, the new characters they introduce in this title were exciting and I would love to see them return. The two fighting styles in the title were incredibly fun, I did not use one over the other throughout the entire game and kept them balanced in usage because they both have their pros and cons that work perfectly for the obstacles you will be facing.
One thing I think is fantastic for pacing is the change in how substories are encountered, it isn't perfect but they have finally stepped away from randomly pushing a substory in your face for walking down the street a tiny bit while trying to do other tasks and instead made it all linked to the Akame Network where you can accept them more freely. The substories in this title were some of the best, as mentioned earlier in the review about the coliseum, these plot lines will keep you hooked some of which use real-life trends as inspiration, opening up some interesting topics these substories then tackle.
I loved everything about this game except one thing and that is the coliseum, a staple in the franchise and generally my favourite kind of content to spend time with in these titles. However, in Like a Dragon Gaiden, this is a major part of the game that is necessary for progression and while I can appreciate the fact you can play as other fighters that you recruit under your team, it still feels like a watered-down experience overall with only the special event stages shining here. Something I liked about the previous entries to Like a Dragon with its Coliseum is that if you did a repeat tournament type you would still face off with various opponents, keeping it fresh with their movesets and allowing farming to be enjoyable without just being loopy content through and through. But Gaiden does this instead, it is very loopy you select a tournament type and it is the very same thing over and over, you just aim to earn money that you will use on upgrades and continue this till you eventually max everything out. But there is some stuff I appreciate with the coliseum despite the monotonous nature of most of it and that is when a specific substory starts to go into effect around it because it brings all the grind you've done around it into fruition in a very satisfying way by closing it up with an enjoyable subplot.
But hey enough about the Coliseum, everything else was just wonderful, the new characters they introduce in this title were exciting and I would love to see them return. The two fighting styles in the title were incredibly fun, I did not use one over the other throughout the entire game and kept them balanced in usage because they both have their pros and cons that work perfectly for the obstacles you will be facing.
One thing I think is fantastic for pacing is the change in how substories are encountered, it isn't perfect but they have finally stepped away from randomly pushing a substory in your face for walking down the street a tiny bit while trying to do other tasks and instead made it all linked to the Akame Network where you can accept them more freely. The substories in this title were some of the best, as mentioned earlier in the review about the coliseum, these plot lines will keep you hooked some of which use real-life trends as inspiration, opening up some interesting topics these substories then tackle.