This review contains spoilers
Like a Dragon: Ishin! synthesizes historical figures from 19th century Japan with lore from the Like a Dragon series in a manner not entirely dissimilar to, say, The Muppets Christmas Carol. Familiar characters, with their character designs from the other Like a Dragon games left fully intact, are re-contextualized as samurai, politicians and immigrants, creating a bizarre but fascinating game of unpacking signifiers.
The use of, say, Katsunori Takahashi's likeness to portray supporting character Takechi Hanpeita, a likeness which was used to portray a major antagonist in Yakuza 0 named Shibusawa, forces the player to ask questions about not only what Ishin is signifying about Hanpeita, but also what it's signifying backwards into Yakuza 0 about Shibusawa. Ishin! creates a framework for the Like a Dragon player to understand the historical figures by re-using these character models, re-deploying familiar faces so that the player can intuit which characters have which ideological values; however, in doing so, the game is also re-negoatiating the parameters of relationships within the Like a Dragon canon.
Hanpeita/Shibusawa is a particularly interesting example of this double-functioning signifier operation. In Ishin!, Hanpeita is Ryoma's (this game's Kiryu stand-in) sworn brother, a populist political revolutionary who ultimately becomes subsumed by the underhanded ideological power he seeks to overthrow. This is a meaningful derivation from Shibusawa. In Yakuza 0, Shibusawa represented this kind of old-school, might-makes-right individualism that Kiryu becomes the antithesis of. In Ishin!, however, the two actualize an ideological synthesis. Ryoma convinces Hanpeita that the path towards righteousness lies in open opposition rather than subterfuge, and Hanpeita implicitly influences Ryoma - and this part is really fascinating - to abandon his no-kill rule to execute the game's true antagonist, which he proceeds to do.
I'm also fascinated by where Ryoma's character ends up. Like a Dragon games play fast and loose with Kiryu's romantic life. He's had two major love interests in total, one of whom dies, the other annihilated from memory after the second game once the series thinks up increasingly elaborate conspiracies for Kiryu to wrangle. Yet, the series gives Kiryu all these vaguely horny minigames where he leers at women online, or through a camera lens, or whatever. This gives Kiryu this weird 'disinterested lecher' quality. He never sexually consummates his romantic relationships, is what I'm saying, in spite of all the ogling he seems to do. But weirdly, in Ishin, after this version of the character manages to kill another man for the first time, suddenly we're shown this happy ending where he goes off to live with a woman he loves. Is that what it takes to actualize a sexual relationship in the Like a Dragon series? Murdering another man with a phallic object?
Ishin's combat also takes a slightly different tact than previous games - it's slower, more methodical, and more radically different from style to style, one more aspect of the game that encourages you to slow down, take your time, think through what's going on. The hand-to-hand combat is a drastic simplification of classic Like a Dragon combat and the gunplay in this game is largely clunky, relying on weird trick shots to compensate for the fact that, y'know, suddenly this martial artist is holding a handgun. The two swordplay-based styles are really neat, though, particularly the 'wild dancer' style, which sees Ryoma fire off rounds from the pistol while pirouetting all over the place with a katana.
The side quests in this one are also pretty good, particularly the little homemaking simulator Ryoma/Kiryu gets to have with Haruka, a character who does not get a historical counterpart, because this series literally cannot imagine a different role for Haruka other than 'adoptive daughter who is pleasant'; she's is a metaphysically unchangeable entity.
There's a lot of weirdness in this game, and I liked it quite a bit. There's more going on in Ishin! than in the lesser mainline games, and because Ishin! isn't tied to the main storyline, it feels like the developers felt more comfortable with their narrative directly stating its political/ideological positions rather than implying them.
The use of, say, Katsunori Takahashi's likeness to portray supporting character Takechi Hanpeita, a likeness which was used to portray a major antagonist in Yakuza 0 named Shibusawa, forces the player to ask questions about not only what Ishin is signifying about Hanpeita, but also what it's signifying backwards into Yakuza 0 about Shibusawa. Ishin! creates a framework for the Like a Dragon player to understand the historical figures by re-using these character models, re-deploying familiar faces so that the player can intuit which characters have which ideological values; however, in doing so, the game is also re-negoatiating the parameters of relationships within the Like a Dragon canon.
Hanpeita/Shibusawa is a particularly interesting example of this double-functioning signifier operation. In Ishin!, Hanpeita is Ryoma's (this game's Kiryu stand-in) sworn brother, a populist political revolutionary who ultimately becomes subsumed by the underhanded ideological power he seeks to overthrow. This is a meaningful derivation from Shibusawa. In Yakuza 0, Shibusawa represented this kind of old-school, might-makes-right individualism that Kiryu becomes the antithesis of. In Ishin!, however, the two actualize an ideological synthesis. Ryoma convinces Hanpeita that the path towards righteousness lies in open opposition rather than subterfuge, and Hanpeita implicitly influences Ryoma - and this part is really fascinating - to abandon his no-kill rule to execute the game's true antagonist, which he proceeds to do.
I'm also fascinated by where Ryoma's character ends up. Like a Dragon games play fast and loose with Kiryu's romantic life. He's had two major love interests in total, one of whom dies, the other annihilated from memory after the second game once the series thinks up increasingly elaborate conspiracies for Kiryu to wrangle. Yet, the series gives Kiryu all these vaguely horny minigames where he leers at women online, or through a camera lens, or whatever. This gives Kiryu this weird 'disinterested lecher' quality. He never sexually consummates his romantic relationships, is what I'm saying, in spite of all the ogling he seems to do. But weirdly, in Ishin, after this version of the character manages to kill another man for the first time, suddenly we're shown this happy ending where he goes off to live with a woman he loves. Is that what it takes to actualize a sexual relationship in the Like a Dragon series? Murdering another man with a phallic object?
Ishin's combat also takes a slightly different tact than previous games - it's slower, more methodical, and more radically different from style to style, one more aspect of the game that encourages you to slow down, take your time, think through what's going on. The hand-to-hand combat is a drastic simplification of classic Like a Dragon combat and the gunplay in this game is largely clunky, relying on weird trick shots to compensate for the fact that, y'know, suddenly this martial artist is holding a handgun. The two swordplay-based styles are really neat, though, particularly the 'wild dancer' style, which sees Ryoma fire off rounds from the pistol while pirouetting all over the place with a katana.
The side quests in this one are also pretty good, particularly the little homemaking simulator Ryoma/Kiryu gets to have with Haruka, a character who does not get a historical counterpart, because this series literally cannot imagine a different role for Haruka other than 'adoptive daughter who is pleasant'; she's is a metaphysically unchangeable entity.
There's a lot of weirdness in this game, and I liked it quite a bit. There's more going on in Ishin! than in the lesser mainline games, and because Ishin! isn't tied to the main storyline, it feels like the developers felt more comfortable with their narrative directly stating its political/ideological positions rather than implying them.