Put over 20 hours into this game. There's a point near the end where it cranks up the difficulty in a way that's incredibly unpleasant. I went on forums and did some reading. There doesn't seem to be much you can do about it besides grossly manipulating some of the subsystems in a gamebreaking way for hours on end, in order to MAYBE squeak out enough EXP to bring you to the finish line.

I guess 90s RPGs had difficulty spikes that were part and parcel for the time, but I'm in my 30s and I'm not going to spend hours grinding.

I'll watch the ending on youtube.

I really enjoyed a good chunk of this game, with a compelling world, some interesting characters (not the protagonist duo though), and an interesting battle system. Unfortunately, it completely fumbles the endgame, with a stupid collectathon in order to achieve the "true" ending instead of the lackluster regular one. Have some respect for the players that put 25 hours into the game, and don't want to comb through the world with a walkthrough to collect 60 rainbow conches. Not only that, but the story arc of the most compelling side character (Resh'an) feels unresolved. Somewhat frustrating?

At this point, you know what you're getting into with a Yakuza game. Difficulty curve is steep at the start, and smooth as butter by the end. Sidequests have funny writing, but too many rely on checking on a character and then coming back to them later - probably a holdover from the ps2 era.

My main criticism with Ishin, especially as this is a remaster, is the upgrade tree. I'm coming in after playing Yakuza Kiwami 1 & 2 last year. The rate at which you unlock new moves and abilities with the four styles was fairly consistent. In this game, the unlocks are more of a linear ring, and all of the interesting and special techniques are locked near the very end of the skill rings. So you end up doing the same stuff over and over.