I keep trying to think of ways to describe how I feel about Rebirth but I just can't manage to put it into words. This is truly a generational experience. I spent so much time just scraping the map and doing absolutely everything I could. Everything after the point of no return was truly special and the way they left things has me craving more. This is my favorite party of any RPG I've ever played. Barret absolutely stole the show. I cannot praise John Eric Bentley enough. I've been saying for a while that the Dyne section was really going to hurt in Rebirth, but I wasn't expecting them to prove me right that hard.

The ending took me a bit to fully wrap my head around, but now that I have I am scared of what they might be teasing in the future. I can easily see a timeline where the party turns on Cloud at some point or he just becomes a villain for part of the story. I fully expect the timelines to converge at some point though, I won't be surprised if Cloud's Aerith shows up for the end of part 3, I think it would be cool for her to come back to fight Safer Sephiroth. I need to know what they're doing with Zack. Him being stuck in limbo feels like a threat and I don't know why. They're cooking something and it scares me.

When they first announced Infinite Wealth, I was very weary about bringing Kiryu back. His story had ended and bringing him back after they'd already passed the torch in probably the best way they could have felt wrong. However, after playing both Gaiden and Infinite Wealth, I am generally very happy that they did bring him back because despite some misgivings I have with the way things ended, the two of them combined are a very satisfying way to wrap back around and (probably?) end his story.

I'll start with some gameplay stuff because all and all its the thing I have the least to say about. This is the Kingdom Hearts 2 to Yakuza 7's Kingdom Hearts. The basic gameplay has been improved so much that I don't see how they really improve it going forward? I'm sure by the time LAD9 comes around they'll have figured it out but as of now I'm not really sure. I didn't mess around with the jobs as much as I probably should've, but the ones I did use felt great. The amount of side content in this game is absolutely absurd. I didn't do many of the substories in Honolulu (outside of 15 hours of Dondoko Island), but I did do basically every side thing I could in Yokohama. In general, substories in these games aren't really something I spend too much time on except for occasionally in post-game cleanup so I never really have much to say about them, but while the Yokohama side content was a lot shorter in general, it spent so much time reflecting on the series past in a way most series are too scared to do that it was incredibly satisfying to get through them all. It made me genuinely emotional to walk up to a random ass sign and have Kiryu reminisce about what has happened in the past, including bringing up two characters that I was 100% convinced they would never talk about again. The life links were probably the best example of this. By the time those had finished I was really sad that they weren't in the main story because so many people won't bother to finish them and get closure on so many characters most studios wouldn't bother bringing back. Not to mention that hearing Date call Kiryu his best friend fuckin hit me hard, man. I really wish they had gotten more use out of Akiyama though, it feels like ever since he stopped being playable they haven't known what to do with him. With that I guess I might as well move onto the story.

As a whole, my feelings on the story are fairly simple, but they've taken me a few days to really solidify because there's a lot to think about here. As a story, I feel like Yakuza 7 is basically perfect. There isn't really anyway I could see it being improved. Infinite Wealth is a sloppier story, but while it ends up having lower lows than 7, it also ends up with much higher highs. The boss fight with Majima, Saejima, and Daigo was a thing of beauty, and seeing them all barge in at the top of the Millennium Tower and being able to fight along side them for what's likely the last time fucking hit, man. I don't think there's really a misstep on Kiryu's side of things until the very end, which I'm still a little iffy on. Thinking about it now, him still being alive isn't what bothers me, its the way they keep fucking teasing Haruka and the kids and won't just let me have that release of just seeing them together again. I'm really tired of getting blueballed there. After the end of Gaiden and half of this game building up them reuniting, to just have it end right before they get to just kinda pissed me off. I did tear up a little when he got his name back though that was nice. His speech to Ebina right at the end also really got me bad. While I'm on the topic of Ebina, I have to say I wasn't a huge fan of the main villains this time around. Yamai and Dwight were really good and Eiji was such a little shit, but Bryce and Ebina both kinda fell flat for me. Ebina wasn't that bad, in fact in general I think he was fine, but he didn't deserve to be what is likely Kiryu's last fight. I didn't really like Bryce though he just kinda existed and wasn't threatening at all really. As much as I enjoyed what they added to Ichiban in this game, his story just doesn't have the same weight as the series main protagonist using his last days trying to atone for what he feels like he's done.

Something I think this game does mostly really well is its characters, especially it's new ones. Chitose and Tomizawa are both really incredible additions to the cast and I really hope they both stick around. Tomi's drink link is one of the best substories this series has seen. Getting to see more of Seonhee was also really nice, they fleshed her out really well. You could say that about all of the returning Yakuza 7 characters, really. Despite the plot feeling like it leaves Ichiban behind at points, they somehow succeeded in making me love him even more. He's such a goofball and so genuine that its hard not to love him. I really wasn't sure how to feel when Ichi proposed in the beginning but as time went on I kinda got over it and realized that, yeah its incredibly in character for him to do this.

As a whole I would say this is still one of the best games in this series, I think I just hyped myself up a little too much before launch. It shares a lot things with the best in the series. It's story is messy but incredibly heartfelt, the gameplay is a lot of fun, and the big minigame is absolutely phenomenal. I was expecting this to feel like the ultimate end of this era where they fully lept into the future, no longer shackled to the past, but I guess they felt they needed one more to fully get there. As much as I adore Kiryu and all the old guard and despite how attached I am to those previous games, I feel we've reached the point where its time either let it go or lean back into it, but maybe by the time we get to 9 I'll feel differently. Either way, I'm in this bitch for the long haul.