This review contains spoilers
An otherwise great entry into the Like A Dragon series but is often bogged down by its own plot, Infinite Wealth has some fantastic highs making the lows of the story even more jarring.
Starting off with the positives: as almost everyone has said, the combat gameplay is a vast improvement over LAD7. It's consistent and always engaging, with the variety of jobs available I never found myself bored of it. The Hawaii map is a refreshing change of pace, it's large and has tons to do, although I wasn't as attached to it as Kamurocho and Yokohama. The side content is robust and entertaining as it is in most Yakuza games. Couldn't even tell you how many hours I sunk into Dondoko Island and the Sujimon League, this alongside the dating app minigame, crazy delivery, sicko snap and much more other stuff, it's frighteningly easy to lose track of the main objectives. New characters that stole the show for me were Yamai, Chitose and Tomizawa. I never expected to care for them as much as I did but all three of them had satisfying individual character arcs and I really, really hope they return for future entries. As always, when it comes to these games, some of the most emotional and memorable moments came from the substories and I enjoyed almost all of them (aside from the Ichiban's romance substories which I hated in LAD7 and continue to hate in this game as well). I adored the inclusion of bond bingo this time around along with party chats, drink links and table talks. It allows for so much character development in just a few lines of dialogue and makes all of the party members feel so much more human.
Really, I'd say my only problem with this game lies with the plot. The story starts out strong and then starts fizzling out halfway through and fumbles hard in the end. Even though the torch had been passed from one dragon to the other in LAD7, it doesn't feel like it in Infinite Wealth as Ichiban is overshadowed by Kiryu in his own game, especially once Kiryu goes back to Japan and gets a party of his own. As for the villains, I found it really hard to care about any of them. Bryce was more annoying than he was mastermind cult leader, his boss fight was anticlimactic and did not feel like the final boss Ichiban deserved. On the other side Ebina was just as much of a noncharacter but even worse because him being a former cop and Ichiban's half brother were only mentioned in passing and not things that should've been fundamentally important to his character. Eiji had the potential to be more interesting but once again, the latter chapters just had him disappear and then pop up at the end of the story in an apartment in Kamurocho somehow. The whole Daidoji faction side of Kiryu's story was just nonsensical after Gaiden. I'd go as far as to say Infinite Wealth's story overall suffered because of how good Gaiden was. The character development Hanawa went through was suddenly nowhere to be seen, his death was meaningless and his true identity, which was briefly mentioned in Gaiden, was never revealed. The romance plotline with Ichiban and Saeko is so trite and uninteresting, it really sours both of their characters, nothing of value would've been lost if it was taken out of the story altogether. I struggled to form a connection with Akane and Lani, funnily enough the same problem I had with the villains. There just wasn't enough reason for me to care about them. If Ichiban doesn't seem to care greatly about his own mother (which seemed somewhat out of character for him) then why should I? The inclusion of the 3jimas in the story felt so clumsy and awkward. I simply don't believe Daigo would be willing to fight his father whom he's just seen for the first time in years and discovered he has cancer only five minutes prior, so that whole boss fight felt like it was just there for funsies not because it held any plot relevance. Once the plot had concluded, I found myself with a ton of unanswered questions which I can only hope will be answered in future entries.
Despite my complaints, I enjoyed most of the almost 160 hours I spent with this game. With the abundance of side content and all the wonderful characters which have begun to feel like my own friends at this point, I can't be too mad at it. Ichiban Kasuga you will always be famous and beloved by all, the real Infinite Wealth truly was all the friends we made along the way.
Starting off with the positives: as almost everyone has said, the combat gameplay is a vast improvement over LAD7. It's consistent and always engaging, with the variety of jobs available I never found myself bored of it. The Hawaii map is a refreshing change of pace, it's large and has tons to do, although I wasn't as attached to it as Kamurocho and Yokohama. The side content is robust and entertaining as it is in most Yakuza games. Couldn't even tell you how many hours I sunk into Dondoko Island and the Sujimon League, this alongside the dating app minigame, crazy delivery, sicko snap and much more other stuff, it's frighteningly easy to lose track of the main objectives. New characters that stole the show for me were Yamai, Chitose and Tomizawa. I never expected to care for them as much as I did but all three of them had satisfying individual character arcs and I really, really hope they return for future entries. As always, when it comes to these games, some of the most emotional and memorable moments came from the substories and I enjoyed almost all of them (aside from the Ichiban's romance substories which I hated in LAD7 and continue to hate in this game as well). I adored the inclusion of bond bingo this time around along with party chats, drink links and table talks. It allows for so much character development in just a few lines of dialogue and makes all of the party members feel so much more human.
Really, I'd say my only problem with this game lies with the plot. The story starts out strong and then starts fizzling out halfway through and fumbles hard in the end. Even though the torch had been passed from one dragon to the other in LAD7, it doesn't feel like it in Infinite Wealth as Ichiban is overshadowed by Kiryu in his own game, especially once Kiryu goes back to Japan and gets a party of his own. As for the villains, I found it really hard to care about any of them. Bryce was more annoying than he was mastermind cult leader, his boss fight was anticlimactic and did not feel like the final boss Ichiban deserved. On the other side Ebina was just as much of a noncharacter but even worse because him being a former cop and Ichiban's half brother were only mentioned in passing and not things that should've been fundamentally important to his character. Eiji had the potential to be more interesting but once again, the latter chapters just had him disappear and then pop up at the end of the story in an apartment in Kamurocho somehow. The whole Daidoji faction side of Kiryu's story was just nonsensical after Gaiden. I'd go as far as to say Infinite Wealth's story overall suffered because of how good Gaiden was. The character development Hanawa went through was suddenly nowhere to be seen, his death was meaningless and his true identity, which was briefly mentioned in Gaiden, was never revealed. The romance plotline with Ichiban and Saeko is so trite and uninteresting, it really sours both of their characters, nothing of value would've been lost if it was taken out of the story altogether. I struggled to form a connection with Akane and Lani, funnily enough the same problem I had with the villains. There just wasn't enough reason for me to care about them. If Ichiban doesn't seem to care greatly about his own mother (which seemed somewhat out of character for him) then why should I? The inclusion of the 3jimas in the story felt so clumsy and awkward. I simply don't believe Daigo would be willing to fight his father whom he's just seen for the first time in years and discovered he has cancer only five minutes prior, so that whole boss fight felt like it was just there for funsies not because it held any plot relevance. Once the plot had concluded, I found myself with a ton of unanswered questions which I can only hope will be answered in future entries.
Despite my complaints, I enjoyed most of the almost 160 hours I spent with this game. With the abundance of side content and all the wonderful characters which have begun to feel like my own friends at this point, I can't be too mad at it. Ichiban Kasuga you will always be famous and beloved by all, the real Infinite Wealth truly was all the friends we made along the way.