This review contains spoilers
After a month and a half after my initial playthrough and recently finishing my NG+ Legend playthrough, I believe I finally have the ability to put my thoughts into words on one of my most anticipated titles of 2024 from one of my favorite series.
First and foremost, I am going to discuss probably my favorite element in the game, the combat. This system, which highly improves over the previous LAD mainline entry immensely. It is amazing how they improved the basic attack allowing freedom of movement, clear indications of what the outcome of your action will be whether that be proximity, back, or even combo attacks from another party member. The AI here has also vastly improved and the flow of battles feel much smoother. The new jobs introduced are really good and the skill inheritance feature is neat allowing you to choose which skills you want to carry over is a really neat addition from 2020's LAD. I really like how basic attacks also are promoted through MP regain, too because in LAD, you had to equip a weapon with that passive. However, Kiryu being a main party member in this game has his own unique style, Dragon of Dojima, and there really is no incentive besides stat boosts, to move away from using his initial job. His skills, besides Essence of the Dragon God, were never used by me, he just gets way too much use from his basic attacks- the strong brawler basic attack, the two attacks from rush, and the guard break from beast. Overall, a solid combat system that I had a lot of fun with. One last complaint is I wish that the dungeons in Yokohama/Hawaii/DLC were more interesting and preferred LAD's Millennium Tower dungeon.
Jumping in to the story, I really found it nowhere near as memorable as the incredible story that LAD had. I truly feel that Ichiban got overshadowed in this game by the significance of Kiryu's true conclusion. Sure, we have Ichiban and his main presence in the first half while Kiryu is mostly sitting back, but when Kiryu and his respective party take over, I found myself far more invested in that side. Even so, the subplot with Ichiban and Saeko is handled really poorly and would not even change the overall story if it was removed altogether. I just really believe it sours Saeko's amazing character we got from the previous entry in how she acts towards Ichiban. Also, the epilogue cutscene between them was lame. Another point is the really forgettable villains, but Yamai was definitely the best character in this game that wasn't a party member. Chitose and Tomizawa were neat additions to the main cast and I thoroughly enjoyed their individual character developments via the main story and their drink links. I definitely was burnt Joongi and Zhao join the party as late as they do because they were favorites from LAD. I find it funny how they give us a cameo of two Judgment characters as if they were going to do something with them, but alas, not a dang thing. It sucks too considering the really awesome substory we got in Gaiden with Kaito. The Daidoji Faction stuff is just stupid, too, in my honest opinion.
Lastly, as I discussed with my friends in agreement that the game is definitely bloated with content. I was not big on Sujimon and even Dondoko Island, but that may be because they force you to play it rather than dipping your toes into it when you are ready for it. That is a major problem with this game is while having a super amount of side content, they force you to do it and it throws off the pacing at times. However, I am enthusiastic that they have been really good at switching up their SEGA arcade titles and allowing us to play more of their iconic titles like Virtua Fighter 3tb and Daytona USA 2. The karaoke selection is fine, and I am a big fan of the new songs, but they really blueballed us on Seonhee and Kiryu "Pure Love in Kamurocho."
Overall, the game was great from a gameplay perspective with some stuff falling flat and not by any means my favorite story, it has some really cool elements and I hope they improve upon what my complaints were here for main entries going forward. The game felt rushed in certain aspects and there really is a "quantity does not mean quality" point here regarding the grandness of the story, side content, and OST (which only has a handful of tracks that stood out me). It's pretty easy to tell that Gaiden was made after IW. I still thoroughly enjoy this game for what it has to offer and was 100% worth the price tag.
First and foremost, I am going to discuss probably my favorite element in the game, the combat. This system, which highly improves over the previous LAD mainline entry immensely. It is amazing how they improved the basic attack allowing freedom of movement, clear indications of what the outcome of your action will be whether that be proximity, back, or even combo attacks from another party member. The AI here has also vastly improved and the flow of battles feel much smoother. The new jobs introduced are really good and the skill inheritance feature is neat allowing you to choose which skills you want to carry over is a really neat addition from 2020's LAD. I really like how basic attacks also are promoted through MP regain, too because in LAD, you had to equip a weapon with that passive. However, Kiryu being a main party member in this game has his own unique style, Dragon of Dojima, and there really is no incentive besides stat boosts, to move away from using his initial job. His skills, besides Essence of the Dragon God, were never used by me, he just gets way too much use from his basic attacks- the strong brawler basic attack, the two attacks from rush, and the guard break from beast. Overall, a solid combat system that I had a lot of fun with. One last complaint is I wish that the dungeons in Yokohama/Hawaii/DLC were more interesting and preferred LAD's Millennium Tower dungeon.
Jumping in to the story, I really found it nowhere near as memorable as the incredible story that LAD had. I truly feel that Ichiban got overshadowed in this game by the significance of Kiryu's true conclusion. Sure, we have Ichiban and his main presence in the first half while Kiryu is mostly sitting back, but when Kiryu and his respective party take over, I found myself far more invested in that side. Even so, the subplot with Ichiban and Saeko is handled really poorly and would not even change the overall story if it was removed altogether. I just really believe it sours Saeko's amazing character we got from the previous entry in how she acts towards Ichiban. Also, the epilogue cutscene between them was lame. Another point is the really forgettable villains, but Yamai was definitely the best character in this game that wasn't a party member. Chitose and Tomizawa were neat additions to the main cast and I thoroughly enjoyed their individual character developments via the main story and their drink links. I definitely was burnt Joongi and Zhao join the party as late as they do because they were favorites from LAD. I find it funny how they give us a cameo of two Judgment characters as if they were going to do something with them, but alas, not a dang thing. It sucks too considering the really awesome substory we got in Gaiden with Kaito. The Daidoji Faction stuff is just stupid, too, in my honest opinion.
Lastly, as I discussed with my friends in agreement that the game is definitely bloated with content. I was not big on Sujimon and even Dondoko Island, but that may be because they force you to play it rather than dipping your toes into it when you are ready for it. That is a major problem with this game is while having a super amount of side content, they force you to do it and it throws off the pacing at times. However, I am enthusiastic that they have been really good at switching up their SEGA arcade titles and allowing us to play more of their iconic titles like Virtua Fighter 3tb and Daytona USA 2. The karaoke selection is fine, and I am a big fan of the new songs, but they really blueballed us on Seonhee and Kiryu "Pure Love in Kamurocho."
Overall, the game was great from a gameplay perspective with some stuff falling flat and not by any means my favorite story, it has some really cool elements and I hope they improve upon what my complaints were here for main entries going forward. The game felt rushed in certain aspects and there really is a "quantity does not mean quality" point here regarding the grandness of the story, side content, and OST (which only has a handful of tracks that stood out me). It's pretty easy to tell that Gaiden was made after IW. I still thoroughly enjoy this game for what it has to offer and was 100% worth the price tag.