This game improves on Yakuza: Like a Dragon in basically every conceivable way except for the story. But I'm going to let you in on a little secret: the story is almost always the weakest part of any Like a Dragon game. It just varies by how much.

To me RGGS is really good at character stuff. In this game specifically I mean stuff like Memoirs of a Dragon, Drink LInks, Table Talks, etc. I'm also referring to character development and relationships between the characters as part of the story (whether friendly or antagonistic). Where they almost always fall down is the driving plot that moves the game along. They are way too ambitious. Infinite Wealth is absolutely on the farther end of that scale and it suffers for it.

That said, I love this game just like I love every other game in this batshit crazy series. The combat flow is so much better in this game and that alone made it way more fun. I also never once felt like I had to go out of my way to grind levels like I did for that one fight in Yakuza: Like a Dragon (you know the one). I enjoyed exploring all three cities, there were tons of great moments in the substories, Bond Bingo was a fun mechanic, I could go on. That's the stuff that makes a Like a Dragon game and it still rules.

Interested to see where things go from here.

Going into this -- by which I mean, a few chapters after I started -- I feared this was going to be atrocious. Fortunately that turned out not to be the case.

Let's start with the bad: the story is not great. It was like, "What if we made Revelation again, but took out the incestuous subtext?" Which, yes, that is a plus, but Revelation is a weak story regardless and this was not much better. I also saw every plot twist coming a mile away and figured out one of the major reveals two chapters in, which just made it way less fun for me as a journey. I really just got to a point where I stopped caring and just wanted it to end. A shame.

The characters. Obviously this being a Fire Emblem game you've got more units than you can conceivably use in a single playthrough without abusing the arena/skirmishes (which I didn't do because I never do), so it's tough to get to know most of them decently enough to form an opinion. But just through the little snippets you do get, I really just found most of them eye-rollingly annoying. I came away with a few that I liked, and I genuinely liked some of the support chains I did get. But overall I just did not vibe with this cast.

The maps and combat mechanics are awesome. I found the Engage mechanic itself in-battle a little bit underwhelming -- fun and cool-looking but not as much of a difference-maker as I might've liked. But using the Emblems as a means to mess with skills was great, and I enjoyed playing around with that. I do wish the map objectives had been more varied, I am pretty sure they were nearly all "kill boss" with one or two "escape" maps thrown in, but there were enough intra-map objectives and hazards that nothing really got too samey.

After how grating I found Three Houses, I almost didn't play this game at all -- I just happened to have a free week between finishing Tales of Arise and the release of Super Mario Bros. Wonder where I thought I could squeeze a game in, so I picked this one. I'm not unhappy I did so, and I genuinely think it's an improvement on both Fates and Three Houses. But I still find it emblematic (HA!) of the issues I have with where the series has gone in the last decade. That's probably a "me" problem and I should accept that what this series gave me in the past isn't coming back. So for now I'm leaving this one unrated. But I'll wrap up by saying that as a longtime fan of the franchise, this one still hit the spot even if it can't live up to the old favorites.