TimBagels
017
Total Games Played
000
Played in 2024
000
Games Backloggd
Recently Reviewed See More
This review contains spoilers
Minor spoilers inside on structure, no specific events referred to.
In 2021 I played Yakuza: Like a Dragon, the 8th mainline installment in the series (though, labeled as LAD7). I had lost my first big job after college, and moved back home with my parents. I felt like I was stuck and had pretty low expectations for my life. So when I say that I connected with Ichiban’s story in LAD7, I really truly meant it. To watch this man at 42, who had lost half of his life to prison for a crime he didnt commit and thrown back into the world at rock bottom, climb back up out of the gutter with his unbridled optimism and kindness for people and life, it was inspiring and left a significant impact on me. Even in your 40s, you can still make something of your life. This was also supported by the immaculate character writing and story of the game, watching Ichiban struggle with his past familial relationships and his criminal past (The series IS called Yakuza, after all) and come out of his hardship with his optimism and faith in others enduring.
I describe all this at the outset of this review to highlight how excited I was at the sequel to LAD7. The story and characters were incredible, but it was the first time the team developing this series had shifted the gameplay from action-brawler combat to a semi-real time turn based RPG. Turn based actions occurring, but the characters would wander around the battle field outside of the players control. It was rough, and clunky, but I saw so much potential. I thought for sure, the next game. The next game if they could carry this quality of writing and merge it with a fully realized system for the gameplay, that would be the perfect Like a Dragon game.
Which makes it disheartening for me to write that Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is a disappointment. There was absolutely care placed into the game, but I feel like it was put into the wrong places. The pacing of the plot is inconsistent, sometimes meandering for chapters at a time, leading to a crunch of too much happening at once in the back third of the game. And even in this crunch of time, there is still padding added in the form of side content and characters taking up time along the main path, and long, repeated segments of fighting your way through a railroaded section of Honolulu. My impression from the game is that the team was thrilled at the opportunity to set their game in Hawaii, but they were unsure of how to actually build a plot in the setting. There is ample opportunity to explore the new scenic location and thinly veiled justifications to parade you through the city to experience every inch of the new local, but it doesn’t feel meaningful enough with how disconnected and flat the beats of the story feel. Ichiban in this game has to share top billing with series previous protagonist Kiryu, in a way that I feel like hurts the overall experience. This is Kiryu’s last big hurrah, but for the fourth time. It feels like the game starts as trying to tell a story about Ichiban, and his attempt to both reconnect with lost family and fufill the wishes of his family that had passed on in the previous adventure. But that intimate focus quickly gets lost in government conspiracies, a piece criticizing digital cancel culture and the attention span of the general public, and the desire of the series producers to market to and give fanservice for the fans of Kiryu. A significant portion of the side content in this game is spent in reminiscing in the past nostalgia of the series, and all of Kiryu’s old adventures. And while I did enjoy these moments (I am not immune to nostalgia), I cant help but feel like these are moments that could have gone in the Kiryu-specific game that had just released 3 months ago, and that these are moments we could have spent fleshing out and spending time with the new lead character Ichiban. No part of the game speaks more to this for me than the fact that our opening moments are spent with Ichiban, but our closing moments at the end are spent with Kiryu, our new lead now an afterthought.
There are other problems I could cite with the game, such as the Spider-Man 3 problem of too many underdeveloped villains competing for screentime, or the weird out of character writing given to several returning and supporting characters. But overall, I’m left feeling disappointed by this outing. Infinite Wealth is a game that is afraid to let go of the past, which is a sad note to leave on. I hope in RGG’s next outing, they will be able to reel in their scope a little and really do something incredible with Ichiban and the cast of characters they've accumulated over the past two entries.
In 2021 I played Yakuza: Like a Dragon, the 8th mainline installment in the series (though, labeled as LAD7). I had lost my first big job after college, and moved back home with my parents. I felt like I was stuck and had pretty low expectations for my life. So when I say that I connected with Ichiban’s story in LAD7, I really truly meant it. To watch this man at 42, who had lost half of his life to prison for a crime he didnt commit and thrown back into the world at rock bottom, climb back up out of the gutter with his unbridled optimism and kindness for people and life, it was inspiring and left a significant impact on me. Even in your 40s, you can still make something of your life. This was also supported by the immaculate character writing and story of the game, watching Ichiban struggle with his past familial relationships and his criminal past (The series IS called Yakuza, after all) and come out of his hardship with his optimism and faith in others enduring.
I describe all this at the outset of this review to highlight how excited I was at the sequel to LAD7. The story and characters were incredible, but it was the first time the team developing this series had shifted the gameplay from action-brawler combat to a semi-real time turn based RPG. Turn based actions occurring, but the characters would wander around the battle field outside of the players control. It was rough, and clunky, but I saw so much potential. I thought for sure, the next game. The next game if they could carry this quality of writing and merge it with a fully realized system for the gameplay, that would be the perfect Like a Dragon game.
Which makes it disheartening for me to write that Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is a disappointment. There was absolutely care placed into the game, but I feel like it was put into the wrong places. The pacing of the plot is inconsistent, sometimes meandering for chapters at a time, leading to a crunch of too much happening at once in the back third of the game. And even in this crunch of time, there is still padding added in the form of side content and characters taking up time along the main path, and long, repeated segments of fighting your way through a railroaded section of Honolulu. My impression from the game is that the team was thrilled at the opportunity to set their game in Hawaii, but they were unsure of how to actually build a plot in the setting. There is ample opportunity to explore the new scenic location and thinly veiled justifications to parade you through the city to experience every inch of the new local, but it doesn’t feel meaningful enough with how disconnected and flat the beats of the story feel. Ichiban in this game has to share top billing with series previous protagonist Kiryu, in a way that I feel like hurts the overall experience. This is Kiryu’s last big hurrah, but for the fourth time. It feels like the game starts as trying to tell a story about Ichiban, and his attempt to both reconnect with lost family and fufill the wishes of his family that had passed on in the previous adventure. But that intimate focus quickly gets lost in government conspiracies, a piece criticizing digital cancel culture and the attention span of the general public, and the desire of the series producers to market to and give fanservice for the fans of Kiryu. A significant portion of the side content in this game is spent in reminiscing in the past nostalgia of the series, and all of Kiryu’s old adventures. And while I did enjoy these moments (I am not immune to nostalgia), I cant help but feel like these are moments that could have gone in the Kiryu-specific game that had just released 3 months ago, and that these are moments we could have spent fleshing out and spending time with the new lead character Ichiban. No part of the game speaks more to this for me than the fact that our opening moments are spent with Ichiban, but our closing moments at the end are spent with Kiryu, our new lead now an afterthought.
There are other problems I could cite with the game, such as the Spider-Man 3 problem of too many underdeveloped villains competing for screentime, or the weird out of character writing given to several returning and supporting characters. But overall, I’m left feeling disappointed by this outing. Infinite Wealth is a game that is afraid to let go of the past, which is a sad note to leave on. I hope in RGG’s next outing, they will be able to reel in their scope a little and really do something incredible with Ichiban and the cast of characters they've accumulated over the past two entries.