This review contains spoilers
Whenever I'm telling people what I like about Yakuza 5, I describe it as "a game that loves you". It's easily the most ambitious title in the series, with 5 characters each with their own unique location, not to mention all the side content. All this to boot with no DLC in which you'd need to purchase the right to play the section of Saejima in prison or something. Probably the biggest reason I love Yakuza 5 so much is because it bares its bones and gives you hundreds of hours worth of gameplay, just because it wanted to try to do so. For all this fun, you only needed to pay the admission once up front, and the carnival is all yours.
Infinite Wealth is about as ambitious, but unfortunately not nearly as charitable.
Now that I'm done with masturbating Yakuza 5 in the preamble, let's get into the nitty gritty. I'll start with the gameplay for Infinite Wealth. The gameplay is expanded upon in every brilliant way it could have been from Yakuza 7 (Yakuza: Like a Dragon), and all the little quality of life stuff adds up over time to create a gameplay experience that is both engaging and satisfying. This is probably my favorite gameplay loop from the series, I have zero qualms with the actual mechanics of the game, they improved so much from the last game that it's actually kind of hard to want to go back and play Yakuza 7 for me right now. Great work.
The story is really fun and has some of my favorite set pieces from the series, my personal favorite fight being against 3jima at their little oceanside shack. That being said though, man, Ichiban as a character is not taken as seriously as he was in his debut game. The plot with his mother was serious and I enjoy that he was able to see that through, but I think the focus on Kiryu in tandem really took a toll on Ichiban's plot, and in comparison Kiryu's story is so much more compelling. Hardly surprising though, when RGG is presented with Ichiban the newcomer alongside the legendary Dragon of Dojima, who do you think is going to get more attention? It feels as if Ichiban and Kiryu's stories are often working against each other as opposed to with one another. All of the life links and memoirs of a dragon stuff was amazing, but I'd really like to see Kiryu finally retired as a protaganist for good.
To close out this review, I want to touch on something I alluded to during the preamble. This game makes you purchase the ability to be able to do New Game+, as if it's a privilege. To be frank, this is absolutely a scam and unfortunately impacts my enjoyment of this game. This has no precedent in this series, as when you purchase a Yakuza game it should be a given you should be able to do a basic thing like new game +......for free, as controversial as that seems to be now. All my respect to the dev team for this game, the actual people who worked long, hard nights making it for me to be able to play. To the people at SEGA who actively devise new ways to shake down players for their extra cash, I hope you get tiger dropped.
Infinite Wealth is about as ambitious, but unfortunately not nearly as charitable.
Now that I'm done with masturbating Yakuza 5 in the preamble, let's get into the nitty gritty. I'll start with the gameplay for Infinite Wealth. The gameplay is expanded upon in every brilliant way it could have been from Yakuza 7 (Yakuza: Like a Dragon), and all the little quality of life stuff adds up over time to create a gameplay experience that is both engaging and satisfying. This is probably my favorite gameplay loop from the series, I have zero qualms with the actual mechanics of the game, they improved so much from the last game that it's actually kind of hard to want to go back and play Yakuza 7 for me right now. Great work.
The story is really fun and has some of my favorite set pieces from the series, my personal favorite fight being against 3jima at their little oceanside shack. That being said though, man, Ichiban as a character is not taken as seriously as he was in his debut game. The plot with his mother was serious and I enjoy that he was able to see that through, but I think the focus on Kiryu in tandem really took a toll on Ichiban's plot, and in comparison Kiryu's story is so much more compelling. Hardly surprising though, when RGG is presented with Ichiban the newcomer alongside the legendary Dragon of Dojima, who do you think is going to get more attention? It feels as if Ichiban and Kiryu's stories are often working against each other as opposed to with one another. All of the life links and memoirs of a dragon stuff was amazing, but I'd really like to see Kiryu finally retired as a protaganist for good.
To close out this review, I want to touch on something I alluded to during the preamble. This game makes you purchase the ability to be able to do New Game+, as if it's a privilege. To be frank, this is absolutely a scam and unfortunately impacts my enjoyment of this game. This has no precedent in this series, as when you purchase a Yakuza game it should be a given you should be able to do a basic thing like new game +......for free, as controversial as that seems to be now. All my respect to the dev team for this game, the actual people who worked long, hard nights making it for me to be able to play. To the people at SEGA who actively devise new ways to shake down players for their extra cash, I hope you get tiger dropped.