Translator’s note: “wealth” means “padding.”

It can’t be stressed enough how much Infinite Wealth’s core gameplay tweaks salvage it. This marks an all-time high for the Dragon Engine games’ responsiveness in terms of just fundamentally moving around, both Ichiban and Kiryu turning and 180ing with an unprecedented level of fluidity, but the real star’s the combat’s new emphasis on positioning. The movement circle’s so impactful for such a seemingly minor addition; lining up back attacks, proximity bonuses and the directions enemies get knocked in is an endlessly engaging triptych with suitably punchy feedback, as well as the best justification of the engine’s ragdoll physics outside of Lost Judgment’s big enemies, and only improves as you fiddle with party members’ equipment, jobs or builds. Kiryu’s fighting styles are arguably better differentiated here than in the game they’re from, which is emblematic of the extent to which all these pre-existing assets and gameplay concepts get freshened up by the genre switch. Despite retaining some of 7’s issues which’re less understandable in a game that already has a foundation to work off of, like a poor battle camera regularly obscuring enemies’ attacks and allies sometimes just not performing chain attacks when they trigger, it’s overall legitimately at the point where I can picture this being someone’s favourite turn-based RPG based on its mechanics rather than solely for how conceptually unique it is.

Playing so well’s an absolute lifeline given its relentlessly sluggish pacing. There’s an early segment in which Ichiban needs $30 to pay an information broker, and if you already have at least $30 he actually comments on how it’s already sorted, but instead of letting you just pay the broker at that point (as you weirdly can when this exact scenario resurfaces much later), you instead have to get roped into a substory which isn’t even really a substory since it’s bloating the main story to play a minigame to make the money you already have first, then travel back and only then pay him. The fatigue a situation like this brings on’s initially lessened by said minigame being great, but its introduction would’ve been a more unambiguous highlight if you’d been permitted to find it on your own and is quickly exacerbated by how often this happens; sizeable portions of the next three or four chapters are comprised of mandatory, agonisingly slow tutorials for shallow knock-offs of games Yokoyama was pretending this series is too cool for fewer than a couple of years prior. He talked big pre-release about how much longer Infinite Wealth is than the others, and although he wasn’t lying, it would’ve been good to mention that this is only because the typewriter monkeys under his dominion are masters of stretching out what could be single button presses into entire hours.

Some kind of stride’s finally hit with Kiryu’s segments – the core theme of recognising his mortality and appreciating the time he has left’s particularly resonant, as someone whose family’s seen one stage 4 cancer diagnosis and other health scares in recent years – but it’s also got the side effect of making the rest of the narrative that much thinner comparatively. In the same game partially revolving around the terminal illness of a character whom a decent amount of players will have essentially grown up alongside, I just can’t get invested in nuclear waste disposal, the unintentional humour brought about by a Vtuber interviewing yakuza figureheads or Ichiban’s efforts to assure child-gassing Dick Dastardly that they’re still nakamas to the extent that the amount of time dedicated to these seemingly expects you to, especially not with the lifeless substory-esque presentation the cutscenes for these plot threads often have or villains so tepid and hard to believe. Never mind that the Geomijul can hack government satellites but can’t doxx a famous streamer, whose decision was it to make the most American-as-interpreted-by-the-Japanese looking centenarian you’ve ever seen speak English like he’s fresh off the boat from the Tokugawa shogunate? I don’t know if it’s more or less dire than how Ichiban’s either unable to speak English or fluent in it depending on what the given scene demands. The camerawork’s presenting Bryce like he’s on the brink of attaining godhood or something and I’m giggling every time he speaks. The mismatch between voice and character’s sillier than all the plot twists people meme about combined.

His home turf’s enjoyable to explore at first thanks to an impressive amount of detail relative to its size, but the scale ultimately detracts more than it adds. Bigger in-game worlds wouldn’t feel so misguided for these games if Lost Judgment hadn’t already solved the issue of boring traversal; compared to its skateboard, the segway’s much slower to whip out, put away or move around on, more expensive, vulnerable to enemy encounters, prevents you from picking up valuable materials, doesn’t even require player input and has no tricks to perform or any means of interacting with the environment at all. Taken together with still being able to immediately fast travel to any taxi from the map, plus the fact that doing so’s cheap as chips, it becomes redundant not long after it’s introduced and with it goes most reasons to actually engage with this huge, meticulously crafted city. The likes of Kamurocho and Sotenbori stand out from the worlds of most vaguely comparable games for being small enough that you’ll naturally come to know them street by street and getting from A to B’s never arduous. Conversely, Hawaii and (this and 7’s version of) Yokohama are pretty much the definition of what Hideaki Itsuno was talking about here.

Regressions like these are only so frustrating because the occasional flashes of greatness shine so bright, though even those are weighed down by a disproportionate amount of them being relegated to a protagonist who’s supposed to have passed the torch roughly four times as of Infinite Wealth, which seems especially egregious when you consider how often its core cast reflect on the importance of moving on. The route 7 decided to go down was a much needed one that I’m still on board with in theory, and Ichiban remains a pot of potential narrative gold (which I don't think either 7 or IW fully capitalise on outside of Aoki's final scenes in the former), but it’s increasingly difficult to be confident in his ability to carry a franchise on his back when his own creators don’t seem to be themselves. His last scene ending on a punchline at his expense is so uncharacteristically insincere for these games, like an exclamation mark punctuating my confusion at this being their biggest break commercially and critically. If I wasn’t a big proponent of trusting people to know what they like instead of rationalising silly reasons why they might feel differently from you, I’d assume that the Daidoji are both real and responsible for the inherent RGG bonus that factors into Backloggd’s average score calculations.

The net gameplay improvements here are too substantial to suggest that Infinite Wealth isn’t worth playing, but at the same time, I reckon it’d be made largely redundant by its own predecessor if you could somehow surgically remove them and retrofit them into it. Eagerly anticipating this series’ sense of direction appearing as a bartender in the next one.

Do you remember that feeling of joy playing videogames in your childhood? Nothing mattered, time was not passing by, you just had a smile on your face. The feeling when your parents call you out for dinner, and you just said "I can't save the game now, mom! Just 5 more minutes"? The feeling of remembering that closed door you saw some days ago when you find the key? That's Sea of Stars.

The are is amazing, the combat is very entertaining yet curated. It scales well, it makes you think in every random encounter. No more "Charmander used Ember" and it's over. Managing the maná, managing the turns, the skills... It's designed so behind a simple facade make every decision count.

As for the narrative, it's just a traditional fantasy/adventure story, closer to The Goonies than to being transcendental. And yet it saves some plot twists, secrets, and works well in what the game needs: be joyful.

Hugely recommended, unmissable if you have Game Pass. If Tunic was my hidden gem in 2022, Sea of Stars is the one in 2023.