(This review contains mild spoilers.)
When the original Like A Dragon (Y7) came around I had only played Yakuza 0 at that point, maybe a bit of Kiwami as well. While I thought the combat of the game was great, the turn based combat or this new game appealed to me quite a bit more, and the fact that it starred a new protagonist, one who loved these sorts of games as much as I did, made it easy to jump in and skip a few entries just to see this new thing. I absolutely fell in love with it. While it absolutely had its flaws, I loved Ichiban and his party members, the story was amazing, Yokohama had so much to do in it, they really went all out. I believe Sega claimed they would go back to action if turn based failed but honestly I’m not sure how they would’ve done that without retconning the game out of existence. That’s just how hard they went. Needless to say this is a game I’ve been waiting for since finishing Yakuza 7. I couldn’t wait to see how they improved everything I loved about the first entry. And well …. It's probably the most flawed 10/10 game I ever played, but it's still a 10/10. A lot of the game is better than the first, but there are a lot of what I consider to be rather questionable decisions that I would like to go over, despite very much enjoying the game.
Let’s talk about the story first, since I’m probably going to ramble on and on about the gameplay. Probably the most obvious downgrade from the original. It's still decent, especially during the early chapters, but I think after Kiryu goes to Yokohama, it gets a bit fragmented. Like 2 puzzle pieces that don’t quite fit together, unlike other Yakuza games with multiple protagonists, namely 0. The 2 sides of the story don’t seem to have much in common outside of both antagonists being in cahoots with each other. I don’t think Kiryu’s adventure in Japan added to the overall narrative, even if I do enjoy some of the story stuff he goes through. There are a lot of solid moments here, and for the sake of spoilers, I’ll let you experience them for yourself. All I’ll say is I really enjoy some of the new party members and characters. One final note, I like the idea of the Hawaiian antagonist. Very appropriate for a “JRPG but in the real world” type of game, the execution just wasn’t the greatest.
The turn based combat here is massively improved from the previous game. I didn’t think too much of being able to move your character while selecting skills but it adds quite a bit, mostly during basic attacks. You can get a lot of bonuses from them, such as proximity bonuses, back attacks, teaming up, and MP restoration, some of which were absent from the previous game. I think the jobs here are much better balanced, with pierce and lightning skills having much wider availability, although that's something I have to check. Another major thing they changed is skill inheritance. Before certain jobs just had skills you could inherit once you’ve earned them, now once your bond with another character has reached a certain point (a bond that continues risings even if you don’t talk to them at the bar now, which is great), you can inherit almost any skill you’ve earned from any job. Admittedly I would prefer them revisit the 7 system a little bit so the inherited skills are different for each character, just for some more differences between them outside of stats and default job, but this level of customization is also welcome. Grinding is also much better thanks to the improved dungeons from 7. Randomly generated floor, with lots of useful equipment and its own shop system, while having multiple tiers. It also has its own dedicated battle music. That alone makes it better than 7s pitiful excuse.
They’ve also added quite a few new mini games to Hawaii as well. Crazy Delivery was really fun. I moderately enjoyed Miss Match, if only for the rather humorous outcomes on the lowest subscription tier, but the major stars for me are obviously the Sujimon League and Dondoko Island. Yeah, I’m like the only guy who likes Sujimon, apparently. While the battles can be a little shallow, I really wanted to collect them all from raids, and find really strong ones. I even have a few Kiwami ones.Maybe it's a bit of a simple pleasure, but I find it pleasurable nonetheless. Makes me want to play a Pokemon game after this. Dondoko Island seems to be far less controversial and it's similarly a very cool take on the development sim RPG genre. This game has all kinds, traditional, monster catching and development RPGs. I also spent a lot of my 90 hour playtime here. One of my favorite things about RGG as a development studio is how much effort goes into these alternative game modes and minigames, and Dondoko Island is probably the best example of this yet, it's practically its own game and I love how easy it is to make the island your own. I have some qualms with it, of course, but it's an astonishing sidemode to this game.
And here’s where my problems with the gameplay lie. Notice how I only talked about the activities available in Hawaii. Notice again how I mentioned earlier Kiryu goes to Yokohama. If you haven’t pieced together my problem yet, there’s large chunks of the game's story where you are completely locked out of its best content. Yokohama had all of its activities removed from Y7, with Kiryu not even getting a single substory. Yokohama’s unique content consists of Can Quest, the only minigame from Y7 to survive the apparent apocalypse, and Kiryu’s bucket list, mostly consisting of going to a location and Kiryu going “damn….. Memories”. Occasionally He’ll have fully voiced talks with more important characters and Date calls in with characters from previous games he can meet. These tend to be more interesting but nowhere near what's on offer in the states. I didn;t find this to be too big of a deal, realistically you're only forced to spend a quarter of the game here if that. I just would like some sort of equivalent unique activity for Kiryu.
I have a lot of issues with this game if you couldn’t already tell, but honestly I still really enjoy my time with it, and I absolutely recommend it, although maybe play 7 first. While I'm somewhat on the fence on which game is better, 7 is much more consistent. Is this my game of the year? So far, but Unicorn Overlords and The Thousand Year Door Remake may give this a run for its money. Yakuza/Like A Dragon continues to be one of my favorite franchises, but hopefully my darling Ichiban can have at least one more game to himself. I think he’s got that much in him at least.
When the original Like A Dragon (Y7) came around I had only played Yakuza 0 at that point, maybe a bit of Kiwami as well. While I thought the combat of the game was great, the turn based combat or this new game appealed to me quite a bit more, and the fact that it starred a new protagonist, one who loved these sorts of games as much as I did, made it easy to jump in and skip a few entries just to see this new thing. I absolutely fell in love with it. While it absolutely had its flaws, I loved Ichiban and his party members, the story was amazing, Yokohama had so much to do in it, they really went all out. I believe Sega claimed they would go back to action if turn based failed but honestly I’m not sure how they would’ve done that without retconning the game out of existence. That’s just how hard they went. Needless to say this is a game I’ve been waiting for since finishing Yakuza 7. I couldn’t wait to see how they improved everything I loved about the first entry. And well …. It's probably the most flawed 10/10 game I ever played, but it's still a 10/10. A lot of the game is better than the first, but there are a lot of what I consider to be rather questionable decisions that I would like to go over, despite very much enjoying the game.
Let’s talk about the story first, since I’m probably going to ramble on and on about the gameplay. Probably the most obvious downgrade from the original. It's still decent, especially during the early chapters, but I think after Kiryu goes to Yokohama, it gets a bit fragmented. Like 2 puzzle pieces that don’t quite fit together, unlike other Yakuza games with multiple protagonists, namely 0. The 2 sides of the story don’t seem to have much in common outside of both antagonists being in cahoots with each other. I don’t think Kiryu’s adventure in Japan added to the overall narrative, even if I do enjoy some of the story stuff he goes through. There are a lot of solid moments here, and for the sake of spoilers, I’ll let you experience them for yourself. All I’ll say is I really enjoy some of the new party members and characters. One final note, I like the idea of the Hawaiian antagonist. Very appropriate for a “JRPG but in the real world” type of game, the execution just wasn’t the greatest.
The turn based combat here is massively improved from the previous game. I didn’t think too much of being able to move your character while selecting skills but it adds quite a bit, mostly during basic attacks. You can get a lot of bonuses from them, such as proximity bonuses, back attacks, teaming up, and MP restoration, some of which were absent from the previous game. I think the jobs here are much better balanced, with pierce and lightning skills having much wider availability, although that's something I have to check. Another major thing they changed is skill inheritance. Before certain jobs just had skills you could inherit once you’ve earned them, now once your bond with another character has reached a certain point (a bond that continues risings even if you don’t talk to them at the bar now, which is great), you can inherit almost any skill you’ve earned from any job. Admittedly I would prefer them revisit the 7 system a little bit so the inherited skills are different for each character, just for some more differences between them outside of stats and default job, but this level of customization is also welcome. Grinding is also much better thanks to the improved dungeons from 7. Randomly generated floor, with lots of useful equipment and its own shop system, while having multiple tiers. It also has its own dedicated battle music. That alone makes it better than 7s pitiful excuse.
They’ve also added quite a few new mini games to Hawaii as well. Crazy Delivery was really fun. I moderately enjoyed Miss Match, if only for the rather humorous outcomes on the lowest subscription tier, but the major stars for me are obviously the Sujimon League and Dondoko Island. Yeah, I’m like the only guy who likes Sujimon, apparently. While the battles can be a little shallow, I really wanted to collect them all from raids, and find really strong ones. I even have a few Kiwami ones.Maybe it's a bit of a simple pleasure, but I find it pleasurable nonetheless. Makes me want to play a Pokemon game after this. Dondoko Island seems to be far less controversial and it's similarly a very cool take on the development sim RPG genre. This game has all kinds, traditional, monster catching and development RPGs. I also spent a lot of my 90 hour playtime here. One of my favorite things about RGG as a development studio is how much effort goes into these alternative game modes and minigames, and Dondoko Island is probably the best example of this yet, it's practically its own game and I love how easy it is to make the island your own. I have some qualms with it, of course, but it's an astonishing sidemode to this game.
And here’s where my problems with the gameplay lie. Notice how I only talked about the activities available in Hawaii. Notice again how I mentioned earlier Kiryu goes to Yokohama. If you haven’t pieced together my problem yet, there’s large chunks of the game's story where you are completely locked out of its best content. Yokohama had all of its activities removed from Y7, with Kiryu not even getting a single substory. Yokohama’s unique content consists of Can Quest, the only minigame from Y7 to survive the apparent apocalypse, and Kiryu’s bucket list, mostly consisting of going to a location and Kiryu going “damn….. Memories”. Occasionally He’ll have fully voiced talks with more important characters and Date calls in with characters from previous games he can meet. These tend to be more interesting but nowhere near what's on offer in the states. I didn;t find this to be too big of a deal, realistically you're only forced to spend a quarter of the game here if that. I just would like some sort of equivalent unique activity for Kiryu.
I have a lot of issues with this game if you couldn’t already tell, but honestly I still really enjoy my time with it, and I absolutely recommend it, although maybe play 7 first. While I'm somewhat on the fence on which game is better, 7 is much more consistent. Is this my game of the year? So far, but Unicorn Overlords and The Thousand Year Door Remake may give this a run for its money. Yakuza/Like A Dragon continues to be one of my favorite franchises, but hopefully my darling Ichiban can have at least one more game to himself. I think he’s got that much in him at least.