This tiniest of entries into the Like a Dragon/Yakuza canon is more or less a full game-sized expansion to Yakuza: Like a Dragon/Like a Dragon 7, or…well, it’s also kind of an official follow up to Yakuza 6/Like a Dragon 6, too. Not confusing at all!
In spite of the fact that The Man Who Erased His Name only exists to give Kiryu one last big-ass action game before the series gets handed off to all the tertiary characters, casting Kiryu as a secret agent/superhero makes for a hell of a game. The antagonists prove to be way more interesting than they appear at first glance, and the new open area they added outside of Sotenbori is bonkers. They put a Las Vegas on a battleship in the middle of the ocean and you can go there to play dress up and lose money at the blackjack table!!! There’s wild stuff going on in this series, I’ll tell you what.
While I don’t have a whole lot to say about where the plot in this one goes, it ties together some story threads that have been left way too loose in the last few entries, and nearly all of the new characters are way more interesting than they have any right to be. Many of the substories are topical this time, seeing Kiryu do battle with the likes of sociopathic Twitch streamers and navigating a near-disaster caused by Chat GPT (you would be amazed how much better-written these sequences are than you might be assuming). Gaiden is ultimately a game of revisitation, though, of palling around an open city with Kiryu one last time and obliterating some 9-year olds at slot car racing competitions. It’s an extremely fun side story, and it finally follows through on some stuff that the last mainline game starring Kiryu failed to.
In spite of the fact that The Man Who Erased His Name only exists to give Kiryu one last big-ass action game before the series gets handed off to all the tertiary characters, casting Kiryu as a secret agent/superhero makes for a hell of a game. The antagonists prove to be way more interesting than they appear at first glance, and the new open area they added outside of Sotenbori is bonkers. They put a Las Vegas on a battleship in the middle of the ocean and you can go there to play dress up and lose money at the blackjack table!!! There’s wild stuff going on in this series, I’ll tell you what.
While I don’t have a whole lot to say about where the plot in this one goes, it ties together some story threads that have been left way too loose in the last few entries, and nearly all of the new characters are way more interesting than they have any right to be. Many of the substories are topical this time, seeing Kiryu do battle with the likes of sociopathic Twitch streamers and navigating a near-disaster caused by Chat GPT (you would be amazed how much better-written these sequences are than you might be assuming). Gaiden is ultimately a game of revisitation, though, of palling around an open city with Kiryu one last time and obliterating some 9-year olds at slot car racing competitions. It’s an extremely fun side story, and it finally follows through on some stuff that the last mainline game starring Kiryu failed to.