Bio
grotty snotty goblin man

https://rateyourmusic.com/~fartgang

a 3 is a "begrudgingly finish"
a 2.5 is an "i could play something else"
Personal Ratings
1★
5★

Badges


Loved

Gained 100+ total review likes

Well Written

Gained 10+ likes on a single review

Gone Gold

Received 5+ likes on a review while featured on the front page

GOTY '23

Participated in the 2023 Game of the Year Event

Shreked

Found the secret ogre page

Pinged

Mentioned by another user

Popular

Gained 15+ followers

Gamer

Played 250+ games

Roadtrip

Voted for at least 3 features on the roadmap

On Schedule

Journaled games once a day for a week straight

Best Friends

Become mutual friends with at least 3 others

Liked

Gained 10+ total review likes

Noticed

Gained 3+ followers

N00b

Played 100+ games

Favorite Games

The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Azure
The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Azure
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC
Skate 2
Skate 2
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
Divinity: Original Sin II
Divinity: Original Sin II

295

Total Games Played

008

Played in 2024

011

Games Backloggd


Recently Played See More

Persona 3 Reload
Persona 3 Reload

Mar 11

Spyro the Dragon
Spyro the Dragon

Feb 15

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth

Feb 01

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow - Reprise
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow - Reprise

Jan 30

Burnout 3: Takedown
Burnout 3: Takedown

Jan 17

Recently Reviewed See More

up and down on it, worst dungeon experience of mainline persona, worst social management of mainline persona, fantastic story marred by pissass pacing, entire months with maybe 30 minutes of story. definitely an improvement on FES, and yet still shackled to it. director said he didnt want to change a huge amount. surely you can change Suemitsu. no one likes suemitsu

feels too safe, FES has flaws and in attempting to remain faithful Reload has ultimately retained a lot of those flaws

thought it was a pretty cute simple early 3d platformer, 100% playthrough includes some nightmarish shit like Tree Tops with its tony-hawk ass level design. played the japanese version, worse camera, maybe this is secretly an 8 or a 9. i'll never know

RGG have managed this herculean task of working through an audience division of sorts – the previous game appealed far more to an RPG audience and injected new life into a franchise with a new protagonist. Unfortunately, the 7 previous mainline Yakuza games remain this impenetrable wall for a lot of people. They’re big games! It just so happens that in a period where we’re getting more and more must-play smash hits by the month, RGG made the bold play of concluding their previous characters story and building off their new one.

I’m somewhat of a casual Yakuza fan – I’ve played through Kiwami 1 and 2 and played most of 0 and Y:LAD, so to answer the dreaded ‘homework’ question that I’m sure people are pondering – you do not need to play any of Yakuza 0-6 to get something out of this. You’ll get MORE if you play through them (and Yakuza 0 is pretty great, I’d just play that regardless), but they’re not required reading. Yakuza: Like a Dragon is, I’d definitely play through that first.

Infinite Wealth is designed around deuteragonists Ichiban (Y:LAD) and Kiryu (Y0-6), in the same vein as Yakuza 0. By design there’s this sort of changing of the guard happening, not just in the context of the story but also through the gameplay via your split party, which I think is a really novel approach to tackle this sort of story. To some degree you wouldn’t be remiss to assume that some of the praise being lopped at Infinite Wealth isn’t to some extent carried over from past installments – it is. But make no mistake, on the topic of gameplay, Infinite Wealth might just be the best excecuted turn-based RPG ever made.

What RGG have done is they’ve taken their previous system from Y:LAD, a sort of cross between Chrono Trigger and Trails from Cold Steel (I guess), and it’s such a simple change but they’ve added some movement options. This scales up your combat opportunities significantly. No longer are you bound by where your middle aged dumbass ended up at the end of their previous turn. Now I can move around and make this line-based AOE hit everyone I want it to. Now I can move around and hit more party members with this heal. You can apply skills from other jobs to your current arsenal which incentivizes learning other jobs and experimentation. It never feels like you’re ever ‘behind’ because you changed jobs. It’s a really clever system.

This does have some minor caveats. As a result of giving the player more options, you end up with an ultimately easier game. Believe me, this is a welcome change – Y:LAD had one of the most absurd difficulty spikes I’ve ever seen in an RPG, we’re talking Gattuso in Tales of Vesperia, we’re talking Matador in SMT3, where the only solution is to slave away grinding in a tower. This game’s difficulty paradigm is significantly more manageable, so fans of being churned like butter might be a little disappointed here.

Lastly the story, without spoiling too much, it’s pretty fuckin poignant. There’s one specific twist in it, and they’re foreshadowing something, and I’m too stupid to figure out what it is, and it hits? I just fuckn walked to the kitchen and made tea, just thinking like… fuck me. I personally like interrogating twists like this and prodding at them and I’m gonna say it, I think this one’s pretty fuckin fantastic. It’s a beautifully concocted game. I assure you, one of the best RPGs ever made. Genuinely comparable to BG3. Significantly better than Y:LAD.