A fun mash-up between the mechanics of like a dragon and def jam series, clumsily executed climax aside, the story and characters are nicely built on top of the main series which serves as a cool foundation for what comes next.
The narrative of this game isn't quite what I expected and I found that refreshing in way to be gradually surprised on where it could head next, unlike the tv drama style storytelling present in main series, this one is more of a sports manga (The story even presented literally with a comic/manga panels in motion style) with Tetsuya starting out as delinquent who just causes mayhem where ever he wonders ends up in trouble with the Tojo clan and his only salvation being completing set numbers of matches to earn his freedom, as the plot progress, after being exposed to the underground arena, Tetsuya starts to slowly morph into someone who wants to develop his own way of life and philosophy while encountering many demons of his past during his journey, overall I found the small cast to be fairly likeable and tetsuya specially being among my favorite main characters presented into the entire series, perhaps that's bias considering his journey strongly resembles Yabuki Joe from ashita no joe but it's trope that I don't get sick of personally, that being said the "conspiracy" aspect in this plot felt quite weak and it was presented way late than I would have liked where there's info or context that's presented right before moments away from the big revelations and I felt cheated by it many times considering that if it was presented much earlier in the plot, it would have left more room for players to connect the dots together which is the point and fun of figuring out the mystery and answers in my opinion, the final boss is the most underwhelming in entire series period, although I will give kurohyou a medal for the fact that the plot was much more small scale than what you see normally in the series which helps a lot considering it takes place in same timeline as the main series and even many familiar faces show up for some really cool fan service, so kudos for devs for trying to maintain consistency.
The gameplay as I mentioned is more of a crossover of both worlds where it is largely based on the wrestling/fighting game system of Def Jam: Fight for NY: takedown while borrowing few elements from main LAD series like the heat system and moves making the combat arguably bit more complex than the main series, although despite the game offering up to 20 "unique" styles, I argue they're not as unique as they sounds, many feel more so a variation of an existing style with only difference being passive buffs and unique animation, whether you prefer sticking to only punching, grabbing, kicking or all in one balanced style, you're not missing much by sticking to a single style outside unlocking more "extreme styles" or varying up your playstyle to reduce the reputation nature of this game, I do have gripe that the heat moves tend to be locked to 2 based on their retrospective fighting style, I believe PSP still had enough buttons to allow for more variations inputs to perform heat attacks considering there are attacks based on your direction inputs too, I understand that might have likely meant less fighting styles but I wouldn't have cried for quality over quantity which what Yakuza 0 and Like a dragon Ishin ended up doing much better eventually...
Playing on hard difficulty, average goons/thugs can present good challenge that slowly pushes you to consider how to approach your battles although some tend to be bit more spongy even with MAX stats, perhaps that's just the difficulty also increasing enemies durability, the bosses on other hand aren't step up in challenge unfortunately, difference only being that they can perform heat attacks and special "combo" sequence that can only be avoided by carefully dodging out of it, add to that just like main series, you can stash tons of healing items and it makes encounters even more cheese-able, I will commend the developers for mixing healing items and buff items into one category just so you don't become too powerful and allows more room to think if you're willing to sacrifice medication in exchange for more power, The brand new "injury mechanic" is nice mechanic that adds pressure on you to play for more carefully before allowing yourself to sustain blows that can leave you more vulnerable, although those too can be healed up by med kit but plus for trying out new stuff...
My least favorite parts had to be generally traversing the streets which harkens back to the ps2 era yakuza games, although unlike those, not only is Tetsuya more slower than Kiryu was before, but also the camera shots tend to cut more abruptly which can be nauseating to deal with early on and delivers sour impressions, part of it PSP limitation which I can understand but speeding up Tetsuya or present fast travel points for the other end of the maps as an option would have been better than nothing, there's also no item management on phone booths, only present on your home which can be tad aggravating if you plan to switch stored items, lastly the upgrade system being purchased through money currency is tad problematic, specially in first 4 chapter when everything (including healing items) are fairly overpriced for what you get, although mixture of part time jobs becoming available and higher rewards does eventually wash away that problem, in theory it might present difficult question of of choosing between increasing your stats/moves or keeping yourself well equipped for battles, that's practically thrown out the window when you can easily fail early on unlocking moves by losing against the dummy opponent and costing you decent amount for cash, so yeah, always save before!
While I complained a lot, I still think this game is worth experiencing for any Like a dragon/yakuza fan and even those who want to play interest obscure PSP games, it earns my recommendation,
Special thanks to the Translation Team at (TeamK4L) For their long efforts, you guys ROCK!
The narrative of this game isn't quite what I expected and I found that refreshing in way to be gradually surprised on where it could head next, unlike the tv drama style storytelling present in main series, this one is more of a sports manga (The story even presented literally with a comic/manga panels in motion style) with Tetsuya starting out as delinquent who just causes mayhem where ever he wonders ends up in trouble with the Tojo clan and his only salvation being completing set numbers of matches to earn his freedom, as the plot progress, after being exposed to the underground arena, Tetsuya starts to slowly morph into someone who wants to develop his own way of life and philosophy while encountering many demons of his past during his journey, overall I found the small cast to be fairly likeable and tetsuya specially being among my favorite main characters presented into the entire series, perhaps that's bias considering his journey strongly resembles Yabuki Joe from ashita no joe but it's trope that I don't get sick of personally, that being said the "conspiracy" aspect in this plot felt quite weak and it was presented way late than I would have liked where there's info or context that's presented right before moments away from the big revelations and I felt cheated by it many times considering that if it was presented much earlier in the plot, it would have left more room for players to connect the dots together which is the point and fun of figuring out the mystery and answers in my opinion, the final boss is the most underwhelming in entire series period, although I will give kurohyou a medal for the fact that the plot was much more small scale than what you see normally in the series which helps a lot considering it takes place in same timeline as the main series and even many familiar faces show up for some really cool fan service, so kudos for devs for trying to maintain consistency.
The gameplay as I mentioned is more of a crossover of both worlds where it is largely based on the wrestling/fighting game system of Def Jam: Fight for NY: takedown while borrowing few elements from main LAD series like the heat system and moves making the combat arguably bit more complex than the main series, although despite the game offering up to 20 "unique" styles, I argue they're not as unique as they sounds, many feel more so a variation of an existing style with only difference being passive buffs and unique animation, whether you prefer sticking to only punching, grabbing, kicking or all in one balanced style, you're not missing much by sticking to a single style outside unlocking more "extreme styles" or varying up your playstyle to reduce the reputation nature of this game, I do have gripe that the heat moves tend to be locked to 2 based on their retrospective fighting style, I believe PSP still had enough buttons to allow for more variations inputs to perform heat attacks considering there are attacks based on your direction inputs too, I understand that might have likely meant less fighting styles but I wouldn't have cried for quality over quantity which what Yakuza 0 and Like a dragon Ishin ended up doing much better eventually...
Playing on hard difficulty, average goons/thugs can present good challenge that slowly pushes you to consider how to approach your battles although some tend to be bit more spongy even with MAX stats, perhaps that's just the difficulty also increasing enemies durability, the bosses on other hand aren't step up in challenge unfortunately, difference only being that they can perform heat attacks and special "combo" sequence that can only be avoided by carefully dodging out of it, add to that just like main series, you can stash tons of healing items and it makes encounters even more cheese-able, I will commend the developers for mixing healing items and buff items into one category just so you don't become too powerful and allows more room to think if you're willing to sacrifice medication in exchange for more power, The brand new "injury mechanic" is nice mechanic that adds pressure on you to play for more carefully before allowing yourself to sustain blows that can leave you more vulnerable, although those too can be healed up by med kit but plus for trying out new stuff...
My least favorite parts had to be generally traversing the streets which harkens back to the ps2 era yakuza games, although unlike those, not only is Tetsuya more slower than Kiryu was before, but also the camera shots tend to cut more abruptly which can be nauseating to deal with early on and delivers sour impressions, part of it PSP limitation which I can understand but speeding up Tetsuya or present fast travel points for the other end of the maps as an option would have been better than nothing, there's also no item management on phone booths, only present on your home which can be tad aggravating if you plan to switch stored items, lastly the upgrade system being purchased through money currency is tad problematic, specially in first 4 chapter when everything (including healing items) are fairly overpriced for what you get, although mixture of part time jobs becoming available and higher rewards does eventually wash away that problem, in theory it might present difficult question of of choosing between increasing your stats/moves or keeping yourself well equipped for battles, that's practically thrown out the window when you can easily fail early on unlocking moves by losing against the dummy opponent and costing you decent amount for cash, so yeah, always save before!
While I complained a lot, I still think this game is worth experiencing for any Like a dragon/yakuza fan and even those who want to play interest obscure PSP games, it earns my recommendation,
Special thanks to the Translation Team at (TeamK4L) For their long efforts, you guys ROCK!