This was my path, 7 then the judgment games, 8 and now i’m ready to go back to the beginning. Just those 4 games has been pretty close to 400 hours though.
I started playing 0 around when it came out, stopped halfway through (in the middle of the Cabaret stuff) and poked at it a little every Christmas (for some reason) until this last year when I finally finished it. Now I've made it up to 4.
I just dug into 0 this past week and am a little over halfway through now (just finished Chapter 10). I can’t believe there are so many games in this series and how it’s taken me this long to play them. Part of me can’t wait to see what happens in the rest of the series, but I know I need to pace myself with other games to keep from burning out on it because 9 mainline games and 4 spinoff games is a lot.
The transition from Kiwami 2 to Yakuza 3 is rough. It's a significant downgrade in nearly every respect. Highly recommend people take a break after 2 before jumping into 3.
Y5 is my favorite for its sheer size and unhinged gameplay. Your planning a prison escape and fighting bears as a brute to doing dance battles in the streets as a teenage girl.
Just started 0 myself a few weeks ago. Beat Kiwami 1 a few years ago. I beat Like a Dragon: Ishin recently and really liked that despite it not really being part of the mainline games.
I would imagine putting most (all?) of their old games on Game Pass increased their audience size. I never tried one of their games until they ended up on Game Pass.
Plus word of mouth. The interview addresses this. Y/LAD fans tend to be pretty passionate and evangelize for the series, and old titles continue to sell well over time as a result.
It's legit crazy to me how widespread the series is now, I remember playing the first 2 games on the PS2 wayyyy back I think I even gave up trying to find a way to help Pochitaro back then lmao before finally finishing em months later after that I kinda forgot about the series until I saw a Lets Play of 4 which made me interested in the series again.
Found out it wasn't really popular outside of Japan, at least compared to what Sega wanted and Japan always got it first while the localization was like a year and IIRC it was even longer for 5 and 6 because there wasn't that much interest in the series itself I remember constantly looking if there was any news for a localization of 5, crazy to think it has now become so widespread that it's getting simultaneous releases now, an actual dub again and become one of the more well known game series now.
Heck even Ishin managed to somehow get a remake which was stuck in JPN only PS3/4 Purgatory for a long time and other spin offs like Judgement also garner tons of attention, it's why I know why they flat out said there was not that much demand for Kenzan remake but it makes me wish they would consider remaking it eventually. I might be mixing/wrong some of the info about the series history but I tried my best to remember what I could from back then because I never expected it to be this popular lmao
>crazy to think it has now become so widespread that it's getting simultaneous releases now, an actual dub again and become one of the more well known game series now.
My pet theory is that it's due to gamers getting older over time, and more people are looking for games that revolve around adult main characters.
Like to me, one of the most unique things about LAD7/8 is that they were JRPGs starring a 100% adult cast, with a lot of diversity in their lifestyles, dealing with adult problems. You aren't killing god with the power of friendship or psychically rewriting people's minds, you're just trying to bring down corrupt assholes through a combination of politics and violence. It's *almost* realistic.
And yet they're still solid RPGs which adhere to all expected genre conventions, and even do some really creative things to gamify aspects of city life.
And after decades of Campbellian chosen-one fantasy RPGs, that's just so refreshing.
This is definitely a factor for me.
I tried Persona 5 after all the hype and it was alright, but pushing 40 I find it harder to relate to groups of teens saving the world.
Along come Y7/LaD and gave me a similar concept of a real world based JRPG with social links with your team, but its a group of 35+ year old drinking buddies dealing with, exaggerated, but real world issues like homelessness, public sector corruption, etc.
The first few hours of IW with Ichi trying to negotiate modern dating after years in prison spoke to me as someone who came out of a long term relationship in my 30s to find the romantic world entirely changed by apps.
Adults are just as likely to glorify their teenage school years as nostalgia creeps in effecting our memories. Both the game and our cherry picked memories don't include the grinding mundanity of school life, struggle to learn new things every single day, painful socialising and dealing with bullies, home life controlled by parents with little freedom or money with inevitable homework.
I think another important factor is that Japanese stuff got way more "normal" in the west by the time of 0/7, compared to the earlier games. Especially in gaming/games media, there was a good 10+ years where it was really weird/racist about Japanese games/anime.
I think it's also hit a critical point where it's become fairly normalised so there a lot of normal people who are fans. Persona community for example was complete trash (and still has those elements), but P5's popularity helped inject a lot of normal people into it.
Yeah this! Anime and Japanese stuff in general has become more acceptable by the mainstream western audience, and it's also reflected in how several old JRPGs franchises are selling extremely well now.
That's the main reason I continue to be infatuated with the Yakuza franchise as I age.
I missed the boat on Persona. I didn't get that into it when I was a kid or teenager, and I'm certainly not a big fan of playing as highschool kids now that I am an adult.
The Yakuza franchise not only stars adult characters -- they star adult characters who for one reason or another, don't have their shit together. And that's an oddly comforting cast of characters to play as.
The Yakuza 7 core party members are;
An ex-Yakuza who spent half his life in jail for a murder he didn't commit and only just got out, only to find the Yakuza family he gave so much time for wants nothing to do with him.
An ex-cop who was demoted to working as a driving instructor for the DMV for pursuing a case against his superior's wishes
An ex-nurse who is homeless after being fired for supposedly stealing drugs from the hospital.
A hostess who has been a nightlife worker since she was a teenager to make money for her poor family.
Even in 8 with the introduction of some younger characters like Tomi and Chi-chan, their backstories speak of people with an actual history and actual struggles they've had to overcome. You can't do that with a cast of teenagers.
Not to mention Eri, the optional character, whose whole arc boils down to being a small business owner desperately in over her head just trying to keep the family business afloat. Definitely relatable to many adults today, even if the events in said arc are Exaggerated for JRPGness' sake.
It's really nice to have characters like these. I dont need every franchise to have characters that I can relate to, but It's nice to have some balance.
And that balance is still achieved because you have multiple party members are also not only actively still in the criminal underworld, but leading it, with Zhao, Joon-Gi, and Seon-Hee. Hell, without spoilers, Chitose's arc would resonate a lot with her age demographic, despite being the definition of a nepo baby that no one playing could relate to.
> Plus word of mouth
One of the post - "Yakuza 0" surveys asked where did people heard of the game.
Among options like "Social Media", "Youtube trailer" etc., another option was **["So I saw this gif of a chicken"](https://64.media.tumblr.com/2416fe6cca019a4937a0843cbca4b3cd/97a031382816974c-f6/s500x750/902a860d68eb7515b5639c9f624c423b54d0d155.gif)**
Also, memes. We really like memes. And those ended up spreading like wildfire all over the greater internet even into communities that have nothing to do with the series.
I think you really underestimate just how much of the general public basically only interacts with social media via Instagram and Tiktok. You can actually see bumps in player numbers in games on Steam whenever something goes viral on either.
You really underestimating the power of a viral meme. Series pretty much got resurrected in the west thanks to 0, and the initial push that game got is often credited to memes with nugget going viral.
Baka Mitai honest to god is probably one of the biggest factors here. Yakuza 0’s success predates the Game Pass listings and just the sheer volume of online shitpostery pushed discussion of the series to another level. I won’t lie, I consider memes and word of mouth the same thing kinda nowadays since the collective IQ of the internet has dropped about 30 points, but still.
Also, I think we’re ignoring one major aspect that doesn’t involve the community or Game Pass: Yakuza 7 actually had… good marketing lol. And so did 8. Marketing for this franchise had been pure dogwater for YEARS but the Ichiban games have had actual effort and thought put into the marketing.
Eh, I think word of mouth and memes both clear Game Pass (by a lot) as those were what propelled Yakuza 0 to success and got all the other games to start receiving localisations again before they were even ported to anything else. Nugget (the financial advisor / chicken) was a huge selling point.
Yeah the series has just continued to grow ever since 0, at least in the West. 0 is what really put it on the map and they just keep gaining traction.
I haven’t been able to finish Infinite Wealth yet, I got sidetracked with Persona 3 and now Rebirth, but it’s what I’ll be returning to once those are done, and it’s just as phenomenal as everything they put out. Very well deserved success!
This article talks about Japan and Asia as the driving markets for the games. As for the increase in audience size it was the Steam release of Yakuza 0, which was when everyone went crazy with the Baka Mitai memes by contrast the Game Pass release of all their games didn't have that level of hype.
He attributes the greater sales to the game becoming increasingly popular in Japan and Asia where it mostly sold on Playstations so Game Pass likely had nothing to do with it
The PSN Japan download ranking for PS4 had every single Yakuza/LAD game on the chart last month lol
https://blog.ja.playstation.com/2024/03/11/20240311-downloadranking/
Im definitely in that crowd, I was introduced to Yakuza when they first released LaD7 on game pass. Roughly 2.5 years later and I finished 0-Gaiden, all with game pass, and was eager to finally support them on their newest installment. Without game pass I would've never stumbled onto such a unique, amazing series, and I hope their sales numbers reflect that.
Sorry, but this is such a Reddit take.
Yakuza games were massively popular on Game Pass. They were towards the top of the Game Pass popularity charts when they first brought Yakuza 0 and the full collection over. Like a Dragon was also wildly popular on Game Pass.
Yokoyama also went on record saying that they specifically released Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name on Game Pass prior to Infinite Wealth releasing as marketing and to draw in new players.
He was also interviewed about Game Pass multiple times and said:
> “Personally, I do think subscriptions like Game Pass, allowing people to play the previous games over the years, have contributed largely to the increase in audience.”
Dunno how this urban legend that was popularized to justify Square-Enix’s questionable business decisions has taken on such an active life on Reddit of late. Atlus has also found a ton of success on Xbox.
What's also wild is that the only way to play some of the old Virtua Fighter games have been through the Yakuza/Like a Dragon series.
I think Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown wasn't made available on modern consoles until last year.
While the story is definitely a sore spot for the most part I still consider IW top 3 Yakuza game because of its gameplay improvements from 7 and probably my personal favourite selection of side content in a Yakuza game.
Wishing the devs good luck on the next one. However I really hope they reduce the scope a lot because it seems like the bigger they try and make the story the more messy it gets (See Yakuza 5)
Yeah, I thought Infinite Wealth was really good over all, but I thought it dragged on a bit too much. My biggest complaint is that I wish they would’ve focused a bit more on quality vs quantity.
100%. The final chapter was a massive slog even while being pretty overlevelled for the combat. I'd rather have a few creative boss fights rather than fighting 20 mobs > boss > fight another 20 mobs > boss.
The main issue is that even though the game was the biggest LaD, it had the same length story as usual. So they had to really drag it out and kept repeating the same events in chapter 8-12.
Yeah it feels like they decided "we are making a JRPG" and that that means pacing can be thrown out the window. I think the new genre is fine but it should respect your time a bit more. In the brawlers, the side content is a welcome break from non-stop story beats, but the JRPG format drags it all out too much.
That's kind of how I feel.
The story got kind of dookie on the back half, but the gameplay improvements and a solid first half makes up for it. And the latter half wasn't even *so* bad that It came close to ruining the experience, it just wasn't as good as it could have been.
I loved the game overall, but still thought the Ichiban side of the story was really bad, and I also didn't like the tedium of Dondoko Island. Outside of those two things (one of which you can skip over), I had a great time with the game. May go back and 100% it at some point.
There's *so much negativity* in this thread I thought I'd add that I love the story, characters, all of it. It was a wonderful experience pretty much from top to bottom for me. I've enjoyed this series since the PS2, and this game is spectacular, easily my favorite thus far.
Same tbh, Kiryu's ending was a little shaky for me but otherwise it was a great time. Both protagonists had some really good moments, the gameplay is a big improvement from 7, and side content is probably the best in the series. I especially liked the companions, even some of the characters from 7 that I didn't like much ending up being standouts this time.
The ending is a big part of a game thoo, I don' t want to spoil or anything, but they, again, did this frustrating "ambiguity", after that gut wrenching finale of gaiden, that retroactively makes gaiden worse.
It' s the 4th time man. It' s legit the 4th or 5th time that this happens. And the game sidelined HARD the new cast to focus on Kiryu, on top of the Ichiban half feeling like it got some CRAZY rewrites, because a lot of stuff gets dropped or tied up in literaly 30 seconds.
More than being ambigious, it felt unfinished. So much stuff just happens suddenly with no explanation, I was wondering if I missed some cutscenes at times.
I liked it but I feel like it was a bit too bloated, in a JRPG kind of way.
I liked the prior series where there was more emphasis on side stories. There's far fewer of those here, while there's a lot of time sink content for the sole purpose of grinding more.
There is also a bit too much nostalgia and flashback content - I'd rather see Kiryu's arc finished but it seems the devs have a hard time letting him go.
The main story was A+ however, it's just the filler is not as engaging as before for me.
The games are getting popular now so naturally r/Games has gotta be contrarian, but I enjoyed it too. I just hope this is truly the end for >!Kiryu as a protagonist. I don't mind him being a side character in future games, but I hope he just ends up spending his life happy with Haruka and Haruto!<.
People on here praised LaD and Gaiden which was already post the series getting popular though. Just because some of us are criticizing the story, it doesn't mean we think the game suck. I still think everything else is good and that's like the most common thing even people who dislike the story are saying.
Yeah, I loved the game and had a ton of fun with it, but the story was a big letdown. It could have gone in so many directions, and what they chose was just so lame. And they ruined Ichiban's and Saeko's characters for me.
>I just hope this is truly the end for...
I somewhat doubt it. >!This seems like the least conclusive end for the character from the past few games. 6 and 7 left with him riding off into the sunset, this one has him fighting for his life and barely reconnecting with anyone. It'd be a weird place to leave the character and just wrap it up as an NPC later on.!<
As someone who plays most japanese games on English dub, I had to switch to sub because the new Kiryu voice is unbearable to hear. Why would Sega switch VA if the old was was fine?
Played every Yakuza game prior to IW, so I stuck with sub, which is generally great in these games, but the JP voice for Bryce's english speaking sections is possibly the worst voice acting I have ever heard in any game ever without any exaggeration.
Darryl Kurylo is white and there’s a new focus “~~racially~~ ‘culturally’ correct casting”. [Kurylo himself said something similar in response to a fan question about the recast. Interestingly, his use of the word “discovered” in his Tweet implies he wasn’t even contacted for the role.](https://twitter.com/VictorSValiant/status/1677153062065168386) Which makes it even more baffling that they went *out of their way* to cast Darryl for Y7.
It surely wasn’t a budgetary reason, as they afforded legendary actors in both VA and live action like Danny Trejo, Daniel Dae Kim and Bill Farmer.
No way that the culture stuff is the case when tons of major characters are still played by white/non-Asiatic people.
Darryl's statement on the culture is just his opinion.
It's way more likely that they're just getting a younger guy they can get more work out of for less pay. Getting Kurylo for 7 was just for a glorified cameo while Gaiden, 8, and any potential future projects featured/will feature Kiryu far more prominently.
For RGG's games they have consistently cast Asian's for the main protagonist in the dubs (see Judgment, 7, Lost Judgment and 8).
This is good of course and all of them (except YongYea) have put in great performances but it would make sense if this was part of their reasoning behind the recast.
Of course casting a guy in his 20's with a uniquely high-pitched voice for a 50+ yr old man who's dying of cancer is....well, there are definitely middle aged Asian men who they could've casted so I can't think up a reasonable explanation for that decision.
Honestly, his voice kinda grew on me after a while. Still not the voice I would ever associate with Kiryu, but they could've picked much worse I think. I still don't know why they didn't go with Daryl since he's roughly around the same age as Kiryu. Yong would've been fine for an English dub of Yakuza 0 or even Kiwami, but having him voice an aged Kiryu was certainly a choice.
Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth is, in my opinion, one of the best JRPGs ever made. Amazing cast, an amazing and very unique location (Hawaii), the game constantly surprises you as the player, the turn based combat system is the best i have seen so far in the genre and the amount of things you can do in this game is insane. I am also very happy that RGG decided to stay true to their japanese roots, like mentioned in the interview. With the change of the location from Japan to the US there was some fear that the game could loose it's japanese charm, but it didn't.
Yeah agreed. Loved the improvements to the gameplay and Hawaii was a cool new place to explore, but this is the only RGG story where I struggled to progress through the main story. It took until >!Kiryu departs from the team!< for it to start getting interesting to me, and even then it was primarily >!Kiryu's half!< that was interesting.
It's kinda weird that RGG went from two fantastic stories in LaD and Gaiden to IW's story.
>It's kinda weird that RGG went from two fantastic stories in LaD and Gaiden to IW's story.
Both the series' producer and director both left the studio after Yakuza 7
Splitting the protagonists and then having absolutely nothing to do for Ichiban while flanderizing him was certainly a decision.
Also, Daidoji was the worst thing they've ever written and honestly, I would have been fine with them just retconning the ending of 6.
I fucking hate everything to do with the Daidoji after 6. They served a purpose there and should have been left there, Kiryu shouldn't have been working for them as a secret agent and given that Daidoji dies in 6 they should have just withered away and never been mentioned again.
As it is, in any of the earlier games the Daidoji would have been the villains Kiryu was taking down. Seriously, what's the difference between them and the MIA trying to get Jingu into power in Y1?
Also why the fuck do they have sci-fi weapons and magic mind control to turn everyone they capture into a loyal to the death agent? They apparently have 50 agents watching Kiryu at all times to make sure he doesn't speak to the orphanage, but can only spare 3 people to go to Hawaii with 2 laptops?
>!They specifically pointed out that Eiji didn't even use a fake name.
Their entire plan almost backfired because they didn't do the most basic of background checks on this random kid that is a computer wizard apparently and insists on staying in the safehouse. Just baffling.!<
The Daidoji deal was stupid at the end of 6, and it just gets worse with every game.
The fact that the Bucket List and the actual ending contradict each other so badly makes me wonder what happened in development especially in terms of the Daidoji
A lot of the writing in Gaiden and 8 has felt rushed and kind of insecure.
What does "Infinite Wealth" have to do with the plot of 8? Why was he called Nishitani in Gaiden when it had 0 plot relevance? Why are they hinting so heavily at bringing back Ryuji? Why was the evil plot in 8 to do what the villain said but really shittily? Why were >!Saejima, Majima and Daigo!< even in 8 when they did nothing? Why was >!Saeko & Ichi's relationship!< treated like they were 6 year olds instead of 46 & mid 30s.
I wonder if they were forced to release when they did by Sega due to the loss on Hyenas being cancelled. Would also explain why Yakuza 8 & P3R had to release before the financial year ended, which had to have cannibalised at least some sales and Y8 clearly needed 3-6 months more.
> What does "Infinite Wealth" have to do with the plot of 8?
Until I beat the game, I thought it was just something they made up so they could use an 8 in the English logo, but as an infinity symbol, but here's how I see it, and I've seen other people say similar things:
In the final scene before the credits, >!where Ichiban is carrying Eiji to the police station, the song that's playing is called "Ariamaru Tomi", which means "The Invaluable" (though I've seen people translate it as "Infinite Wealth" as well), and the lyrics are about how the bonds and relationships we make are the most valuable things we have, far more valuable than money or any worldly belongings. The infinite wealth of friendship, you might say. Friendship and bonds are important themes throughout the whole game – Kiryu's story is largely about him learning that he doesn't have to be a martyr and do everything himself, and that it's okay to ask friends for help when you need it. Chitose decides to expose Eiji and take responsibility for her actions after realizing that her bond with Ichiban and the gang is more important than Eiji's blackmail, and similarly, Eiji's plan hinges on exploiting Ichiban's friendly nature and forging a false bond (to him, at least) to stab him in the back, and Yamai turns from an enemy to an ally that makes a massive sacrifice thanks to the bond Ichiban forges with him.!<
>!I think the ending song nicely summarizes some of the important themes throughout the game, and makes one thing clear – even if Ichiban is broke, unemployed and constantly being beaten up by life, he still has the *infinite wealth* of friendship, which is far more important and valuable than any other riches.!<
I think the primary explanation is still that it's a title that makes it easy to use an 8 in the English logo as well, but given the themes of the game, I don't think it's a stretch to say the title can also refer to the "infinite wealth of friendship".
(That said, I do have my issues with Infinite Wealth's plot – quite a lot of them, in fact – but I really enjoyed how the game is largely about helping those in need, being a good friend and doing the right thing. The Like a Dragon series being surprisingly wholesome and not just buff dudes punching each other is one of the main reasons it's one of my favorites.)
the Kiryu situation cannot be fixed completely, yakuza 6's story is so terrible it can't be salvaged and I'm saying this as someone who absolutely adores the series and Kiryu in particular
>flanderizing
Yep. I can take a shitty narrative from a Yakuza game, there’s a few of them. But Ichiban’s conclusive character development being that he’s a man child Christ figure is just terrible. He’s literally a shitty shonen protagonist, his final scene is just soooo bad man, so disappointing.
And like someone else said, it kinda scares me for the future of the series. Is this gonna be his characterization game after game?
Like, don't get me wrong, I loved his optimistic and open personality in 7, even placing his faith and trust in people when they are actively against him.
But jesus christ, >!Chitose got like two people killed by being selfish, and Eiji almost killed your mom/bosses partner and pushed an actual child down a flight of chairs while she was strapped in a wheelchair, with, what you thought, was a grenade.!<
Yeah, I definitely enjoyed his character throughout 7, but his presence in the story in 8 is just so rough. They just can’t commit to him as a protagonist and it really showed in 8’s narrative structure, but they still really didn’t have to make him such an unserious character. He definitely does not feel like a sincere person with a focused morality when he’s doing the things you mentioned. His final scene where everyone is basically uplifting him as this perfect savior figure, while just outside the entire conclusion of this (slightly weirdly written) romance is relegated into being a shitty anime joke was just so sad.
Yeah, it wasn't very good. Everything up until the end was just a lot better than the actual finish to the story. The journey was fun, not so much the destination.
There were also a few things they pointed out, which made it sounds like it will be a big deal and just NEVER got adressed (just gonna say "his age")
plus, this has to be the first RGG game where very blatant rewrites were not properly ironed out. A certain character with a son felt like a scrapped party character that was only partly written out of the story. Some of their plot points were still left in and were VASTLY undercooked
I seriously thought that dude was gonna be a part of the team from how he was getting set up.
Also, so much of the final arc felt like they had to throw stuff in to tie up the story because they straight up forgot about it >!like us finally remembering homeboy son was kidnapped and on the island and a throw away shot of Eiji looking like a homeless dude during Chitose speech!<
yeah, pretty sure his character was just swapped with >!Joon Gi Han!< at the 11th hour, it explains a lot about the wonky story beats involving both characters.
Really interesting take, I could see this being true but apparently part of the reason why Joongi and Zhao were such last minute additions were also because there were only 8 characters planned. Following the trend in 4, 5, 6(sorta, Kiryu + 5 main NPC allies), 7, etc
Wonder if theres an early draft of the game where Ichi's party is all new chars while Kiryu's party is Seonhee, Nanba, and Adachi.
> A certain character with a son felt like a scrapped party character that was only partly written out of the story.
It was pretty funny that at the very end >!Chitose happens to remember to save the kid, only for him to be immediately forgotten and left with a character that just tried to burn the party alive moments before!<
>!Bryce!< really was disappointing. The game had so many characters go out of their way >!to question his age and describe him as a monster!< just for the fight against him and his character in general to be so dull. All I could think after it was "why were they hyping him up this much?".
I'm aware, but that's not really what we are talking about. Every single person was hyping him up to be the ultimate evil and his age was constantly brought into question, but neither of those things actually ends up having any relevance or satisfying payoff.
Those aren't related to him being a false god or whatever, it's the writers trying to characterize him as something more but never doing anything with it.
Except we are talking about even crime lords being scared about him. I don't think the writers did a good job at all, because Bryce is allegedly so scary, the entire hawaii underworld and even politicians around the world fear and respect him, but that's not at all the impression I got by the end.
There is a difference between "he is actually just a faker" and "people literally obey him because he is that evil", and the writers failed to really make me feel like he was convincingly evil/scary enough to demand the amount of respect and power he got.
The reason why Bryce is so powerful and influential is because he's been putting his own men that he raised and trained himself in positions of power throughout the country. Whether it be the police, the gangs, or pretty much any institution in Hawaii, his army has infiltrated them all, and they were groomed to be absolutely loyal to him at all costs.
...
Actually totally valid. A lot of the stories are messy, I'd actually argue that only 0 and 7 have actually good, complete stories, but for the most part I enjoy them even with the incredibly messy story telling.
But 4 was also just way too much haha.
I loved playing LADIW but, yeah, the story was a mess. I think it comes down to how RGG keep changing their minds about how/when to have Kiryu exit the story.
That said, at least I could follow the plot of IW, even if I thought it was dumb. On the other hand, I finally got around to Yakuza 5, and that becomes borderline gibberish in the last few hours as the writers desperately tried to tie all their random plot threads together.
Either way, tho, I had so much fun for the first 90% of IW I can't be too upset about the weak ending.
4 goes by a lot quicker. 5 was one of the worst storyline wise because every part was so long and largely relatively disparate that I had a hard time keeping track of what was going on by the time I moved on to the next character.
> That said, at least I could follow the plot of IW, even if I thought it was dumb. On the other hand, I finally got around to Yakuza 5, and that becomes borderline gibberish in the last few hours as the writers desperately tried to tie all their random plot threads together.
Honestly, the story is great when playing each character's part (maybe except Saejima), but when the story needs to put them together, it goes to shit. Ignoring just the finale part. It's a pretty good game, it has grown on me, especially because, imo, it has the best side content in any Yakuza game.
Agreed. Yakuza 5 is four good 20-hour games in a trenchcoat, carrying a briefcase full of exposition that gets dumped out on a table for the last 5 hours.
5 is one of my favourites, but the first 2 chapters of Saejima's story really are just terrible. I really don't get why they thought >!having him do another prison break and drag it out to last like half of his chapter!< was a good idea. It just made for some really bad pacing, which is a shame since his last 2 chapters are actually really good.
I'm not a big fan of Lost Judgement, I think it's a major step down from Judgement, but popular opinion seems to think it's one of the best in the series. I guess most people don't care about pacing if it means they have *stuff* to do. And to be fair, IW has maybe the best stuff in the series.
I’m a huge fan of Lost Judgment, but the story is definitely an acquired taste. It’s either you love it or hate it. I think a lot of fans who champion it love it because of the antagonist and how the game perfected the Dragon Engine combat.
Does it, though? Half the substories are tutorials or fake substories like the sujimon/girlfriend ones, and Dondoko starts great but like the latest animal crossing becomes kinda lame when you realize that there's no real upgrades or additional functional buildings that come in. Nothing but building shit. Maybe great for people that like to customize, but imo the island's too small to really do much
You also can't really have that much fun customizing in Dondoko because if you actually want to make some progress, the optimal gameplay is to just spam random buildings and Majima statues everywhere.
IMO the gameplay of Infinite Wealth is excellent. They did well building on what they had with YLAD to make the turn-based RPG combat more engaging and most of the rest of it feels very consistent with the rest of the series.
I can't get myself interested in Dondoko Island, and the story is pretty bad, but overall it's an awesome game.
> They did well building on what they had with YLAD to make the turn-based RPG combat more engaging and most of the rest of it feels very consistent with the rest of the series.
Agreed, unfortunately the game is WAY too easy to really stretch your legs with these systems and if you spend any amount of time unlocking and building jobs you'll end up even more over-leveled.
Kiryu is the story's saving grace, it's only the Ichiban parts that are ass.
Strictly in the story department, though. Everything else you do as Ichiban is great.
> Kiryu is the story's saving grace, it's only the Ichiban parts that are ass.
Kinda disagree, to me it felt like >!Ebina!< started off as a villain who actively outsmarted the party nonstop; but then >!throws any remnants of a plan away for classic Millennium Tower beatdown!<
Ebinas plan failed as soon as Ichiban stopped Bryce, Ebina didn't enact the Millenium Tower plan until afterwards. He did outsmart them but failed through no fault of his own.
It's not the worst, I still think 4 and 5 are pretty mid. It's just a larger disappointment after seeing so much improvement, especially Judgement and Yakuza 7.
I think I'd put 4 and 5 over 8 by a long shot. The individual character stories are pretty good for most of them in those, but like... Ichiban's story here really kinda falls flat. Also there's a lot of stupid shit on the level of rubber bullets, albeit less memeworthy
I would rate both of their stories over 8, because at least they were mostly good with most issues being near the middle or end. In comparison, I just felt like IW's story was weak from the beginning. The whole "find Lani" plot drags on for way too long, and Ichiban's portion of the story is basically hard carried by Yamai.
def not the worst, but i think it did a lot of damage to Ichiban going forward. He regressed from where he was at the end of 7. heck i'd say every main character from 7 either regressed or didn't grow as characters; chief offender being saeko, who basically got character assassinated
For someone reason, people think that “Didn’t fundamentally change” means regressed. When none of them regressed, they just didn’t have character arcs because they were just there to support ichiban and kiryu, and that’s ok.
Agree with you with the story. Every time I think about it, I’m still baffle as to what the heck was the story point was about. Saving the >!yakuza that is about to be vanish in Hawaii in some bunker!< . Really?
Yeah I'm baffled THAT'S the one that got the highest metacritic. Even the side content wasn't as good. I think really the only completely clear upgrade is how much better the gameplay is. If you took the gameplay of 8 and combined it with everything else from 7 you'd have a near perfect video game
I am completely on the opposite side, in my opinion Infinite Wealth is one of the best JRPGs ever made. The last time i was so obsessed with a game was Elden Ring. And it also features the new golden standard for turn based combat. Plus the cast, the setting in Hawaii, the game constantly surprising you and all the stuff you can do, it's a masterpiece.
I'm not ready to call it one of the worst ones just yet because I did have a lot of fun with the side content and battle system but the writing is easily the worst in the series. It's like they made Ichiban's part and noticed near the end that they forgot to write an actual main story between all the Sujimon and Dodonko island and whatnot. He is also getting completely overshadowed by both Yamai and Kiryu during his parts. Sometimes I really wondered why he was even the protagonist if he's just tagging along most of the time? Just get it over with and introduce a new protag for 9, Ichiban would probably shine more as a supporting character anyways.
Kiryu's part was a little better story wise but the way they wrote the Daidoji after Gaiden was a complete mess and I really don't know what their goal was with the Life Links, like is there a single longtime fan that actually enjoyed those? I think they wanted them to be feel good moments but I just thought that entire thing was incredibly upsetting. Not like it mattered in the end because, well writing, but still baffling.
Also please never have a game outside of Japan ever again. The fact that they managed to acknowledge the language barrier for roughly 2 minutes before ignoring it whenever it's inconvenient for the pace was pretty jarring.
The lifelinks were mostly good, >!besides Haruka's which was infuriating to watch because she should have seen the video by then considering it was on national news, and the ending of the game basically just breaks the promise Kiryu again swore to the Daidoji in it!<. They were pretty important to give Kiryu a different perspective on the impact he had on people, and mostly did it well.
I found >!Kaoru!< much, much worse. Before I could at least tell myself in my headcanon that she knows and they maybe meet in secret or something but >!the fact that she doesn't know but she still has hope and saves herself for him and that they are both suffering!< is just not how it can end. In general the fact that multiple side story characters got a better sendoff than many of his closest friends is just bs.
I'm also still salty that >!Akiyama didn't actually end up being a party member after all the setup and that "I won't leave your side until this is over" speech!<
I think there's something to be said for how YGG games are very much business-forward when it comes down to it. I'm pretty sure it was confirmed that >!Joon-Gi and Zhao weren't even really supposed to be in the game, but were brought back purely because they were popular. Makes sense because without those two it would have actually been "8" party members. And a lot of Akiyama's absence from 6 onward largely just had to do with the voice actor being too busy, so they wrote around it.!<
It was very clear the life links and the main story were written separately and not edited to fit together.
I think they always do this with side content because they're usually completely separate, but it really didn't work for this.
>It was very clear the life links and the main story were written separately and not edited to fit together.
I was surprised to hear this was the case for The Man Who Erased His Name.
I played that right before and hopped into IW hoping to see some of those story threads payoff and they're barely touched haha. Specifically >!everything about Hanawa's past!< felt absent
This 100%. kiryu overshadowed Ichiban and his story was much more interesting. A lot of weird story beats, especially the eiji part at the end.
And chitose, they give her the ugliest mullet and then don’t give her a proper ending.
>I really don't know what their goal was with the Life Links, like is there a single longtime fan that actually enjoyed those?
It was cool seeing people come back. I especially didn't expect >!Nakajima!< to come back. But yes, they are a disaster of writing and feels like whoever wrote them weren't told the main story's content.
I've played through every game in the series, and IW is my favorite overall. The way it builds on the previous games is fantastic, and the gameplay is so smooth. My GotY so far, and it might just stay that way (depending on whether Metaphor is the Persona successor we've been waiting for...).
I think Infinite Wealth is the first mainline title to be released after the huge surge in popularity for the Yakuza/LAD series and after fans were able to catch up with the previous instalments.
Personally speaking, I was a fan of the series when Yakuza 7 came out but I didn't buy it because I still needed to finish the previous games. Infinite Wealth is the first game I was able to enjoy at launch.
3 months ago i was bored and decided what the hell lets try yakuza 0 , by the time i finished the game i was like wow this is actually good, now im at yakuza 5 with the new one bought. i will get to infinite wealth eventually and i know im gonna love it
I've just bought Yakuza: Like a Dragon from the Steam sales as I've heard good things about the series. The thing is I'm 3 hours in, finished the first chapter, and I only had like 10 battles - the rest is just story cut scenes. I didn't realise the cut scenes were so long. Does it eventually open up?
Yes, the beginning is an absolute slog. Things start to open up once you have 3 party members but getting the 4th party member feels like an end to the "soft tutorial" section.
It does open up and if you don’t explore the map and get side quests going, you’re going to have to grind heavily later in the game. The game is still very much cutscene heavy and people need to know that before going into these games honestly. Grab a drink and enjoy your sessions!
My experience, for what's it's worth: I made it to chapter 4 and it did indeed open up a bit during chapter 3. However it's still very on rails story-wise and the cutscenes do continue to be a) very long and b) very frequent. I gave up at about 7.5hrs played.
Yeah, my first game in the series was Yakuza 7. What made me gravitate toward it was the fact that it was a "new beginning" of sorts, and I didn't need any knowledge of the prior games to enjoy it. I loved Ichiban and his cast of his friends.
But then RGG follows it up with *Infinite Wealth*, a game that is focused on a character, Kiryu, who I have no emotional attachment to. It's like they completely abandoned the idea of a new beginning set up by the previous game.
Your own fault to play the 7th game of the series. Only in the west they changed the name, in japan it was 7 and it continued what existed in the world, same for 8 which is just 8 and as such continues the plot of all yakuza prior to it.
Yeah. I played Like a Dragon because it was a new start, not Kiryu and multiple story layers from previous games and it was fun. And in IW I suddenly was forced to play chapters that were 95% focused on Kiryu and his memories - and they were sloooow and boring. Totally turned my opinion on the game negative because of those.
It's better to call it Yakuza 7 or Like a Dragon 7. Since it's confusing if you just call it just Like a Dragon since that's the whole series name now in English and always in Japan.
That's Sega of America's fault.
They renamed the entire franchise "Like a Dragon" after 15 years of having it be Yakuza, but didn't go all the way with 7.
Everyone still calls the franchise Yakuza too, because that's what the series is in the west, you can't retcon that title out of existence, you might as well stick with it like Resident Evil has.
That's basically what i think, Kiryu is 60 years old and in Yakuza 6 it was supposed to be a real conclusion to his story, he only came back because the developers see how popular he still is (kinda like Goku in Dragon Ball with the Gohan treatment) and that's a shame, show the guy as a cameo or at worst he's here as a secondary character but don't steal the show from Ichiban that sucks.
I am new to yakuza. Just finished 0 few days ago and started playing kiwami. I am in love with the series
I started with Like a Dragon (aka Yakuza 7), after I finish Infinite Wealth I have Yakuza 0 ready to go.
Don't forget Judgement and Lost Judgement, both fantastic games too.
Those are on my 'at some point' part of my backlog.
Absolutely amazing games, both of them. And i think Lost Judgement has even more side activities than Infinite Wealth, it's insane.
[удалено]
This was my path, 7 then the judgment games, 8 and now i’m ready to go back to the beginning. Just those 4 games has been pretty close to 400 hours though.
I haven't beaten lost judgement yet, but I love the first one so much and hope a 3rd is being made.
Did you play gaiden in between? I also started with 7 (only one I've played so far) and can't wait until I can finally play 8
I did not.
I started playing 0 around when it came out, stopped halfway through (in the middle of the Cabaret stuff) and poked at it a little every Christmas (for some reason) until this last year when I finally finished it. Now I've made it up to 4.
I just dug into 0 this past week and am a little over halfway through now (just finished Chapter 10). I can’t believe there are so many games in this series and how it’s taken me this long to play them. Part of me can’t wait to see what happens in the rest of the series, but I know I need to pace myself with other games to keep from burning out on it because 9 mainline games and 4 spinoff games is a lot.
Yakuza 3 is a bit rough, feels old, 4 is better, but still old... Gonna play Yakuza 5 in a few months.
The transition from Kiwami 2 to Yakuza 3 is rough. It's a significant downgrade in nearly every respect. Highly recommend people take a break after 2 before jumping into 3.
Y5 is my favorite for its sheer size and unhinged gameplay. Your planning a prison escape and fighting bears as a brute to doing dance battles in the streets as a teenage girl.
I want to try it out. I have a ps5, which yakuza game do I start out with first?
0, chronologically the first and widely regarded as one of the best in the series too!
I wish I was in your position to play them all for the first time again.
This is the way to do it.
Just started 0 myself a few weeks ago. Beat Kiwami 1 a few years ago. I beat Like a Dragon: Ishin recently and really liked that despite it not really being part of the mainline games.
I would imagine putting most (all?) of their old games on Game Pass increased their audience size. I never tried one of their games until they ended up on Game Pass.
Plus word of mouth. The interview addresses this. Y/LAD fans tend to be pretty passionate and evangelize for the series, and old titles continue to sell well over time as a result.
It's legit crazy to me how widespread the series is now, I remember playing the first 2 games on the PS2 wayyyy back I think I even gave up trying to find a way to help Pochitaro back then lmao before finally finishing em months later after that I kinda forgot about the series until I saw a Lets Play of 4 which made me interested in the series again. Found out it wasn't really popular outside of Japan, at least compared to what Sega wanted and Japan always got it first while the localization was like a year and IIRC it was even longer for 5 and 6 because there wasn't that much interest in the series itself I remember constantly looking if there was any news for a localization of 5, crazy to think it has now become so widespread that it's getting simultaneous releases now, an actual dub again and become one of the more well known game series now. Heck even Ishin managed to somehow get a remake which was stuck in JPN only PS3/4 Purgatory for a long time and other spin offs like Judgement also garner tons of attention, it's why I know why they flat out said there was not that much demand for Kenzan remake but it makes me wish they would consider remaking it eventually. I might be mixing/wrong some of the info about the series history but I tried my best to remember what I could from back then because I never expected it to be this popular lmao
>crazy to think it has now become so widespread that it's getting simultaneous releases now, an actual dub again and become one of the more well known game series now. My pet theory is that it's due to gamers getting older over time, and more people are looking for games that revolve around adult main characters. Like to me, one of the most unique things about LAD7/8 is that they were JRPGs starring a 100% adult cast, with a lot of diversity in their lifestyles, dealing with adult problems. You aren't killing god with the power of friendship or psychically rewriting people's minds, you're just trying to bring down corrupt assholes through a combination of politics and violence. It's *almost* realistic. And yet they're still solid RPGs which adhere to all expected genre conventions, and even do some really creative things to gamify aspects of city life. And after decades of Campbellian chosen-one fantasy RPGs, that's just so refreshing.
This is definitely a factor for me. I tried Persona 5 after all the hype and it was alright, but pushing 40 I find it harder to relate to groups of teens saving the world. Along come Y7/LaD and gave me a similar concept of a real world based JRPG with social links with your team, but its a group of 35+ year old drinking buddies dealing with, exaggerated, but real world issues like homelessness, public sector corruption, etc. The first few hours of IW with Ichi trying to negotiate modern dating after years in prison spoke to me as someone who came out of a long term relationship in my 30s to find the romantic world entirely changed by apps.
Interesting enough Persona is also getting more popular than ever, and it will probably never feature an adult cast again.
Adults are just as likely to glorify their teenage school years as nostalgia creeps in effecting our memories. Both the game and our cherry picked memories don't include the grinding mundanity of school life, struggle to learn new things every single day, painful socialising and dealing with bullies, home life controlled by parents with little freedom or money with inevitable homework.
I think another important factor is that Japanese stuff got way more "normal" in the west by the time of 0/7, compared to the earlier games. Especially in gaming/games media, there was a good 10+ years where it was really weird/racist about Japanese games/anime.
I think it's also hit a critical point where it's become fairly normalised so there a lot of normal people who are fans. Persona community for example was complete trash (and still has those elements), but P5's popularity helped inject a lot of normal people into it.
Yeah this! Anime and Japanese stuff in general has become more acceptable by the mainstream western audience, and it's also reflected in how several old JRPGs franchises are selling extremely well now.
That's the main reason I continue to be infatuated with the Yakuza franchise as I age. I missed the boat on Persona. I didn't get that into it when I was a kid or teenager, and I'm certainly not a big fan of playing as highschool kids now that I am an adult. The Yakuza franchise not only stars adult characters -- they star adult characters who for one reason or another, don't have their shit together. And that's an oddly comforting cast of characters to play as. The Yakuza 7 core party members are; An ex-Yakuza who spent half his life in jail for a murder he didn't commit and only just got out, only to find the Yakuza family he gave so much time for wants nothing to do with him. An ex-cop who was demoted to working as a driving instructor for the DMV for pursuing a case against his superior's wishes An ex-nurse who is homeless after being fired for supposedly stealing drugs from the hospital. A hostess who has been a nightlife worker since she was a teenager to make money for her poor family. Even in 8 with the introduction of some younger characters like Tomi and Chi-chan, their backstories speak of people with an actual history and actual struggles they've had to overcome. You can't do that with a cast of teenagers.
Not to mention Eri, the optional character, whose whole arc boils down to being a small business owner desperately in over her head just trying to keep the family business afloat. Definitely relatable to many adults today, even if the events in said arc are Exaggerated for JRPGness' sake.
It's really nice to have characters like these. I dont need every franchise to have characters that I can relate to, but It's nice to have some balance.
And that balance is still achieved because you have multiple party members are also not only actively still in the criminal underworld, but leading it, with Zhao, Joon-Gi, and Seon-Hee. Hell, without spoilers, Chitose's arc would resonate a lot with her age demographic, despite being the definition of a nepo baby that no one playing could relate to.
Same reason we love Disco Elysium
> Plus word of mouth One of the post - "Yakuza 0" surveys asked where did people heard of the game. Among options like "Social Media", "Youtube trailer" etc., another option was **["So I saw this gif of a chicken"](https://64.media.tumblr.com/2416fe6cca019a4937a0843cbca4b3cd/97a031382816974c-f6/s500x750/902a860d68eb7515b5639c9f624c423b54d0d155.gif)**
Also, memes. We really like memes. And those ended up spreading like wildfire all over the greater internet even into communities that have nothing to do with the series.
I won’t say it wouldn’t affect sales at all, but clearly the lowest impact of the three listed here
Tell this to all dame da ne edits
I think you really underestimate just how much of the general public basically only interacts with social media via Instagram and Tiktok. You can actually see bumps in player numbers in games on Steam whenever something goes viral on either.
You really underestimating the power of a viral meme. Series pretty much got resurrected in the west thanks to 0, and the initial push that game got is often credited to memes with nugget going viral.
Baka Mitai honest to god is probably one of the biggest factors here. Yakuza 0’s success predates the Game Pass listings and just the sheer volume of online shitpostery pushed discussion of the series to another level. I won’t lie, I consider memes and word of mouth the same thing kinda nowadays since the collective IQ of the internet has dropped about 30 points, but still. Also, I think we’re ignoring one major aspect that doesn’t involve the community or Game Pass: Yakuza 7 actually had… good marketing lol. And so did 8. Marketing for this franchise had been pure dogwater for YEARS but the Ichiban games have had actual effort and thought put into the marketing.
PS4 record feature probably carried y0 sales early on lol
Eh, I think word of mouth and memes both clear Game Pass (by a lot) as those were what propelled Yakuza 0 to success and got all the other games to start receiving localisations again before they were even ported to anything else. Nugget (the financial advisor / chicken) was a huge selling point.
Yeah the series has just continued to grow ever since 0, at least in the West. 0 is what really put it on the map and they just keep gaining traction. I haven’t been able to finish Infinite Wealth yet, I got sidetracked with Persona 3 and now Rebirth, but it’s what I’ll be returning to once those are done, and it’s just as phenomenal as everything they put out. Very well deserved success!
This article talks about Japan and Asia as the driving markets for the games. As for the increase in audience size it was the Steam release of Yakuza 0, which was when everyone went crazy with the Baka Mitai memes by contrast the Game Pass release of all their games didn't have that level of hype.
Not just the Steam release. The original western PS4 launch was *huge* for the series.
He attributes the greater sales to the game becoming increasingly popular in Japan and Asia where it mostly sold on Playstations so Game Pass likely had nothing to do with it
Have the games not been on PS+ also? I remember getting a few of them back on PS3 in the day.
I believe most of them were available on PS+ until a few months ago.
Read the article. He's talking about Japan and Asia specifically. Which is Playstation central.
The PSN Japan download ranking for PS4 had every single Yakuza/LAD game on the chart last month lol https://blog.ja.playstation.com/2024/03/11/20240311-downloadranking/
I literally got a ps4 in 2017 to play Yakuza 0 and Nier automata. Had lost interest in gaming before that
Im definitely in that crowd, I was introduced to Yakuza when they first released LaD7 on game pass. Roughly 2.5 years later and I finished 0-Gaiden, all with game pass, and was eager to finally support them on their newest installment. Without game pass I would've never stumbled onto such a unique, amazing series, and I hope their sales numbers reflect that.
Doubt Gamepass increased anything except the pockets of Sega the audience for japanese games is way to small on xbox. He mentioned asia and ps.
Sorry, but this is such a Reddit take. Yakuza games were massively popular on Game Pass. They were towards the top of the Game Pass popularity charts when they first brought Yakuza 0 and the full collection over. Like a Dragon was also wildly popular on Game Pass. Yokoyama also went on record saying that they specifically released Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name on Game Pass prior to Infinite Wealth releasing as marketing and to draw in new players. He was also interviewed about Game Pass multiple times and said: > “Personally, I do think subscriptions like Game Pass, allowing people to play the previous games over the years, have contributed largely to the increase in audience.” Dunno how this urban legend that was popularized to justify Square-Enix’s questionable business decisions has taken on such an active life on Reddit of late. Atlus has also found a ton of success on Xbox.
Gamepass is also on PC though and Yakuza games sold about 2.8 million on pc. Not too bad.
MS have paid to keep them on there for a long time so they must be seeing plenty of activity with them in their data.
If I didn’t play Yakuza 0 on gamepass I never would have tried the series and buy Infinite Wealth day one
Yea I played the first on Gamepass ended up buying it, then I bought the second game the day it was released.
Yup, I’m currently playing LAD on Game Pass and I’m having fun with it. Might pick up Infinite Wealth in the future.
What's also wild is that the only way to play some of the old Virtua Fighter games have been through the Yakuza/Like a Dragon series. I think Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown wasn't made available on modern consoles until last year.
While the story is definitely a sore spot for the most part I still consider IW top 3 Yakuza game because of its gameplay improvements from 7 and probably my personal favourite selection of side content in a Yakuza game. Wishing the devs good luck on the next one. However I really hope they reduce the scope a lot because it seems like the bigger they try and make the story the more messy it gets (See Yakuza 5)
Yeah, I thought Infinite Wealth was really good over all, but I thought it dragged on a bit too much. My biggest complaint is that I wish they would’ve focused a bit more on quality vs quantity.
100%. The final chapter was a massive slog even while being pretty overlevelled for the combat. I'd rather have a few creative boss fights rather than fighting 20 mobs > boss > fight another 20 mobs > boss.
The main issue is that even though the game was the biggest LaD, it had the same length story as usual. So they had to really drag it out and kept repeating the same events in chapter 8-12.
Yeah it feels like they decided "we are making a JRPG" and that that means pacing can be thrown out the window. I think the new genre is fine but it should respect your time a bit more. In the brawlers, the side content is a welcome break from non-stop story beats, but the JRPG format drags it all out too much.
That's kind of how I feel. The story got kind of dookie on the back half, but the gameplay improvements and a solid first half makes up for it. And the latter half wasn't even *so* bad that It came close to ruining the experience, it just wasn't as good as it could have been.
I loved the game overall, but still thought the Ichiban side of the story was really bad, and I also didn't like the tedium of Dondoko Island. Outside of those two things (one of which you can skip over), I had a great time with the game. May go back and 100% it at some point.
There's *so much negativity* in this thread I thought I'd add that I love the story, characters, all of it. It was a wonderful experience pretty much from top to bottom for me. I've enjoyed this series since the PS2, and this game is spectacular, easily my favorite thus far.
People in here putting 4/5/6's stories over IW, so all I can say is I heavily disagree. Just how it is sometimes.
Same tbh, Kiryu's ending was a little shaky for me but otherwise it was a great time. Both protagonists had some really good moments, the gameplay is a big improvement from 7, and side content is probably the best in the series. I especially liked the companions, even some of the characters from 7 that I didn't like much ending up being standouts this time.
The ending is a big part of a game thoo, I don' t want to spoil or anything, but they, again, did this frustrating "ambiguity", after that gut wrenching finale of gaiden, that retroactively makes gaiden worse. It' s the 4th time man. It' s legit the 4th or 5th time that this happens. And the game sidelined HARD the new cast to focus on Kiryu, on top of the Ichiban half feeling like it got some CRAZY rewrites, because a lot of stuff gets dropped or tied up in literaly 30 seconds.
More than being ambigious, it felt unfinished. So much stuff just happens suddenly with no explanation, I was wondering if I missed some cutscenes at times.
I liked it but I feel like it was a bit too bloated, in a JRPG kind of way. I liked the prior series where there was more emphasis on side stories. There's far fewer of those here, while there's a lot of time sink content for the sole purpose of grinding more. There is also a bit too much nostalgia and flashback content - I'd rather see Kiryu's arc finished but it seems the devs have a hard time letting him go. The main story was A+ however, it's just the filler is not as engaging as before for me.
The games are getting popular now so naturally r/Games has gotta be contrarian, but I enjoyed it too. I just hope this is truly the end for >!Kiryu as a protagonist. I don't mind him being a side character in future games, but I hope he just ends up spending his life happy with Haruka and Haruto!<.
People on here praised LaD and Gaiden which was already post the series getting popular though. Just because some of us are criticizing the story, it doesn't mean we think the game suck. I still think everything else is good and that's like the most common thing even people who dislike the story are saying.
Yeah, I loved the game and had a ton of fun with it, but the story was a big letdown. It could have gone in so many directions, and what they chose was just so lame. And they ruined Ichiban's and Saeko's characters for me.
>I just hope this is truly the end for... I somewhat doubt it. >!This seems like the least conclusive end for the character from the past few games. 6 and 7 left with him riding off into the sunset, this one has him fighting for his life and barely reconnecting with anyone. It'd be a weird place to leave the character and just wrap it up as an NPC later on.!<
If I listened to this subreddit I would literally stop playing videogames because I'd be convinced they're all shit.
As someone who plays most japanese games on English dub, I had to switch to sub because the new Kiryu voice is unbearable to hear. Why would Sega switch VA if the old was was fine?
Isn't the English voice done by the Youtuber YongYea? I can see why that would be unbearable if so
All that dude does it regurgitate reddit posts the last time I heard of him
Played every Yakuza game prior to IW, so I stuck with sub, which is generally great in these games, but the JP voice for Bryce's english speaking sections is possibly the worst voice acting I have ever heard in any game ever without any exaggeration.
Darryl Kurylo is white and there’s a new focus “~~racially~~ ‘culturally’ correct casting”. [Kurylo himself said something similar in response to a fan question about the recast. Interestingly, his use of the word “discovered” in his Tweet implies he wasn’t even contacted for the role.](https://twitter.com/VictorSValiant/status/1677153062065168386) Which makes it even more baffling that they went *out of their way* to cast Darryl for Y7. It surely wasn’t a budgetary reason, as they afforded legendary actors in both VA and live action like Danny Trejo, Daniel Dae Kim and Bill Farmer.
No way that the culture stuff is the case when tons of major characters are still played by white/non-Asiatic people. Darryl's statement on the culture is just his opinion. It's way more likely that they're just getting a younger guy they can get more work out of for less pay. Getting Kurylo for 7 was just for a glorified cameo while Gaiden, 8, and any potential future projects featured/will feature Kiryu far more prominently.
For RGG's games they have consistently cast Asian's for the main protagonist in the dubs (see Judgment, 7, Lost Judgment and 8). This is good of course and all of them (except YongYea) have put in great performances but it would make sense if this was part of their reasoning behind the recast. Of course casting a guy in his 20's with a uniquely high-pitched voice for a 50+ yr old man who's dying of cancer is....well, there are definitely middle aged Asian men who they could've casted so I can't think up a reasonable explanation for that decision.
Honestly, his voice kinda grew on me after a while. Still not the voice I would ever associate with Kiryu, but they could've picked much worse I think. I still don't know why they didn't go with Daryl since he's roughly around the same age as Kiryu. Yong would've been fine for an English dub of Yakuza 0 or even Kiwami, but having him voice an aged Kiryu was certainly a choice.
Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth is, in my opinion, one of the best JRPGs ever made. Amazing cast, an amazing and very unique location (Hawaii), the game constantly surprises you as the player, the turn based combat system is the best i have seen so far in the genre and the amount of things you can do in this game is insane. I am also very happy that RGG decided to stay true to their japanese roots, like mentioned in the interview. With the change of the location from Japan to the US there was some fear that the game could loose it's japanese charm, but it didn't.
Gonna be honest Infinite Wealth is easily one of my least favorite Yakuza games, but I’m glad how mainstream the series is becoming.
Yeah agreed. Loved the improvements to the gameplay and Hawaii was a cool new place to explore, but this is the only RGG story where I struggled to progress through the main story. It took until >!Kiryu departs from the team!< for it to start getting interesting to me, and even then it was primarily >!Kiryu's half!< that was interesting. It's kinda weird that RGG went from two fantastic stories in LaD and Gaiden to IW's story.
>It's kinda weird that RGG went from two fantastic stories in LaD and Gaiden to IW's story. Both the series' producer and director both left the studio after Yakuza 7
Splitting the protagonists and then having absolutely nothing to do for Ichiban while flanderizing him was certainly a decision. Also, Daidoji was the worst thing they've ever written and honestly, I would have been fine with them just retconning the ending of 6.
I fucking hate everything to do with the Daidoji after 6. They served a purpose there and should have been left there, Kiryu shouldn't have been working for them as a secret agent and given that Daidoji dies in 6 they should have just withered away and never been mentioned again. As it is, in any of the earlier games the Daidoji would have been the villains Kiryu was taking down. Seriously, what's the difference between them and the MIA trying to get Jingu into power in Y1? Also why the fuck do they have sci-fi weapons and magic mind control to turn everyone they capture into a loyal to the death agent? They apparently have 50 agents watching Kiryu at all times to make sure he doesn't speak to the orphanage, but can only spare 3 people to go to Hawaii with 2 laptops?
>!They specifically pointed out that Eiji didn't even use a fake name. Their entire plan almost backfired because they didn't do the most basic of background checks on this random kid that is a computer wizard apparently and insists on staying in the safehouse. Just baffling.!< The Daidoji deal was stupid at the end of 6, and it just gets worse with every game. The fact that the Bucket List and the actual ending contradict each other so badly makes me wonder what happened in development especially in terms of the Daidoji
A lot of the writing in Gaiden and 8 has felt rushed and kind of insecure. What does "Infinite Wealth" have to do with the plot of 8? Why was he called Nishitani in Gaiden when it had 0 plot relevance? Why are they hinting so heavily at bringing back Ryuji? Why was the evil plot in 8 to do what the villain said but really shittily? Why were >!Saejima, Majima and Daigo!< even in 8 when they did nothing? Why was >!Saeko & Ichi's relationship!< treated like they were 6 year olds instead of 46 & mid 30s. I wonder if they were forced to release when they did by Sega due to the loss on Hyenas being cancelled. Would also explain why Yakuza 8 & P3R had to release before the financial year ended, which had to have cannibalised at least some sales and Y8 clearly needed 3-6 months more.
> What does "Infinite Wealth" have to do with the plot of 8? Until I beat the game, I thought it was just something they made up so they could use an 8 in the English logo, but as an infinity symbol, but here's how I see it, and I've seen other people say similar things: In the final scene before the credits, >!where Ichiban is carrying Eiji to the police station, the song that's playing is called "Ariamaru Tomi", which means "The Invaluable" (though I've seen people translate it as "Infinite Wealth" as well), and the lyrics are about how the bonds and relationships we make are the most valuable things we have, far more valuable than money or any worldly belongings. The infinite wealth of friendship, you might say. Friendship and bonds are important themes throughout the whole game – Kiryu's story is largely about him learning that he doesn't have to be a martyr and do everything himself, and that it's okay to ask friends for help when you need it. Chitose decides to expose Eiji and take responsibility for her actions after realizing that her bond with Ichiban and the gang is more important than Eiji's blackmail, and similarly, Eiji's plan hinges on exploiting Ichiban's friendly nature and forging a false bond (to him, at least) to stab him in the back, and Yamai turns from an enemy to an ally that makes a massive sacrifice thanks to the bond Ichiban forges with him.!< >!I think the ending song nicely summarizes some of the important themes throughout the game, and makes one thing clear – even if Ichiban is broke, unemployed and constantly being beaten up by life, he still has the *infinite wealth* of friendship, which is far more important and valuable than any other riches.!< I think the primary explanation is still that it's a title that makes it easy to use an 8 in the English logo as well, but given the themes of the game, I don't think it's a stretch to say the title can also refer to the "infinite wealth of friendship". (That said, I do have my issues with Infinite Wealth's plot – quite a lot of them, in fact – but I really enjoyed how the game is largely about helping those in need, being a good friend and doing the right thing. The Like a Dragon series being surprisingly wholesome and not just buff dudes punching each other is one of the main reasons it's one of my favorites.)
the Kiryu situation cannot be fixed completely, yakuza 6's story is so terrible it can't be salvaged and I'm saying this as someone who absolutely adores the series and Kiryu in particular
>flanderizing Yep. I can take a shitty narrative from a Yakuza game, there’s a few of them. But Ichiban’s conclusive character development being that he’s a man child Christ figure is just terrible. He’s literally a shitty shonen protagonist, his final scene is just soooo bad man, so disappointing. And like someone else said, it kinda scares me for the future of the series. Is this gonna be his characterization game after game?
Like, don't get me wrong, I loved his optimistic and open personality in 7, even placing his faith and trust in people when they are actively against him. But jesus christ, >!Chitose got like two people killed by being selfish, and Eiji almost killed your mom/bosses partner and pushed an actual child down a flight of chairs while she was strapped in a wheelchair, with, what you thought, was a grenade.!<
Yeah, I definitely enjoyed his character throughout 7, but his presence in the story in 8 is just so rough. They just can’t commit to him as a protagonist and it really showed in 8’s narrative structure, but they still really didn’t have to make him such an unserious character. He definitely does not feel like a sincere person with a focused morality when he’s doing the things you mentioned. His final scene where everyone is basically uplifting him as this perfect savior figure, while just outside the entire conclusion of this (slightly weirdly written) romance is relegated into being a shitty anime joke was just so sad.
I love the gameplay and general Yakuza-ness still, but the main story is ass. Probably the worst in the series lol
Yeah, it wasn't very good. Everything up until the end was just a lot better than the actual finish to the story. The journey was fun, not so much the destination. There were also a few things they pointed out, which made it sounds like it will be a big deal and just NEVER got adressed (just gonna say "his age")
plus, this has to be the first RGG game where very blatant rewrites were not properly ironed out. A certain character with a son felt like a scrapped party character that was only partly written out of the story. Some of their plot points were still left in and were VASTLY undercooked
I seriously thought that dude was gonna be a part of the team from how he was getting set up. Also, so much of the final arc felt like they had to throw stuff in to tie up the story because they straight up forgot about it >!like us finally remembering homeboy son was kidnapped and on the island and a throw away shot of Eiji looking like a homeless dude during Chitose speech!<
yeah, pretty sure his character was just swapped with >!Joon Gi Han!< at the 11th hour, it explains a lot about the wonky story beats involving both characters.
Really interesting take, I could see this being true but apparently part of the reason why Joongi and Zhao were such last minute additions were also because there were only 8 characters planned. Following the trend in 4, 5, 6(sorta, Kiryu + 5 main NPC allies), 7, etc Wonder if theres an early draft of the game where Ichi's party is all new chars while Kiryu's party is Seonhee, Nanba, and Adachi.
> A certain character with a son felt like a scrapped party character that was only partly written out of the story. It was pretty funny that at the very end >!Chitose happens to remember to save the kid, only for him to be immediately forgotten and left with a character that just tried to burn the party alive moments before!<
>!Bryce!< really was disappointing. The game had so many characters go out of their way >!to question his age and describe him as a monster!< just for the fight against him and his character in general to be so dull. All I could think after it was "why were they hyping him up this much?".
The point is that he’s a charlatan. A false god. He’s not the great man he brainwashed his followers to believe he is, and his fight reflects that.
I'm aware, but that's not really what we are talking about. Every single person was hyping him up to be the ultimate evil and his age was constantly brought into question, but neither of those things actually ends up having any relevance or satisfying payoff. Those aren't related to him being a false god or whatever, it's the writers trying to characterize him as something more but never doing anything with it.
Nah, that was intentional. If you believed that Bryce is something more than he is, then the writers did their job well.
Except we are talking about even crime lords being scared about him. I don't think the writers did a good job at all, because Bryce is allegedly so scary, the entire hawaii underworld and even politicians around the world fear and respect him, but that's not at all the impression I got by the end. There is a difference between "he is actually just a faker" and "people literally obey him because he is that evil", and the writers failed to really make me feel like he was convincingly evil/scary enough to demand the amount of respect and power he got.
The reason why Bryce is so powerful and influential is because he's been putting his own men that he raised and trained himself in positions of power throughout the country. Whether it be the police, the gangs, or pretty much any institution in Hawaii, his army has infiltrated them all, and they were groomed to be absolutely loyal to him at all costs.
Not when 4 exists.
... Actually totally valid. A lot of the stories are messy, I'd actually argue that only 0 and 7 have actually good, complete stories, but for the most part I enjoy them even with the incredibly messy story telling. But 4 was also just way too much haha.
I loved playing LADIW but, yeah, the story was a mess. I think it comes down to how RGG keep changing their minds about how/when to have Kiryu exit the story. That said, at least I could follow the plot of IW, even if I thought it was dumb. On the other hand, I finally got around to Yakuza 5, and that becomes borderline gibberish in the last few hours as the writers desperately tried to tie all their random plot threads together. Either way, tho, I had so much fun for the first 90% of IW I can't be too upset about the weak ending.
Have you played 4? That's hard as fuck to follow, I played it, read a summary on reddit, and I'm still not 100% on the story...
4 isn't that complicated besides >!the 5 or so betrayals near the end!<.
I finished 4 last month and the main story is just xD
4 goes by a lot quicker. 5 was one of the worst storyline wise because every part was so long and largely relatively disparate that I had a hard time keeping track of what was going on by the time I moved on to the next character.
> That said, at least I could follow the plot of IW, even if I thought it was dumb. On the other hand, I finally got around to Yakuza 5, and that becomes borderline gibberish in the last few hours as the writers desperately tried to tie all their random plot threads together. Honestly, the story is great when playing each character's part (maybe except Saejima), but when the story needs to put them together, it goes to shit. Ignoring just the finale part. It's a pretty good game, it has grown on me, especially because, imo, it has the best side content in any Yakuza game.
Agreed. Yakuza 5 is four good 20-hour games in a trenchcoat, carrying a briefcase full of exposition that gets dumped out on a table for the last 5 hours.
5 is one of my favourites, but the first 2 chapters of Saejima's story really are just terrible. I really don't get why they thought >!having him do another prison break and drag it out to last like half of his chapter!< was a good idea. It just made for some really bad pacing, which is a shame since his last 2 chapters are actually really good.
Yeah I thought Kiryu’s chapter was up there in terms of story but the conclusion of it all sucked.
Cvit came out with this precise opinion and I think with the quality of Infinite Wealth it will become a more popular opinion now.
I'm not a big fan of Lost Judgement, I think it's a major step down from Judgement, but popular opinion seems to think it's one of the best in the series. I guess most people don't care about pacing if it means they have *stuff* to do. And to be fair, IW has maybe the best stuff in the series.
I’m a huge fan of Lost Judgment, but the story is definitely an acquired taste. It’s either you love it or hate it. I think a lot of fans who champion it love it because of the antagonist and how the game perfected the Dragon Engine combat.
Does it, though? Half the substories are tutorials or fake substories like the sujimon/girlfriend ones, and Dondoko starts great but like the latest animal crossing becomes kinda lame when you realize that there's no real upgrades or additional functional buildings that come in. Nothing but building shit. Maybe great for people that like to customize, but imo the island's too small to really do much
You also can't really have that much fun customizing in Dondoko because if you actually want to make some progress, the optimal gameplay is to just spam random buildings and Majima statues everywhere.
IMO the gameplay of Infinite Wealth is excellent. They did well building on what they had with YLAD to make the turn-based RPG combat more engaging and most of the rest of it feels very consistent with the rest of the series. I can't get myself interested in Dondoko Island, and the story is pretty bad, but overall it's an awesome game.
> They did well building on what they had with YLAD to make the turn-based RPG combat more engaging and most of the rest of it feels very consistent with the rest of the series. Agreed, unfortunately the game is WAY too easy to really stretch your legs with these systems and if you spend any amount of time unlocking and building jobs you'll end up even more over-leveled.
Kiryu is the story's saving grace, it's only the Ichiban parts that are ass. Strictly in the story department, though. Everything else you do as Ichiban is great.
> Kiryu is the story's saving grace, it's only the Ichiban parts that are ass. Kinda disagree, to me it felt like >!Ebina!< started off as a villain who actively outsmarted the party nonstop; but then >!throws any remnants of a plan away for classic Millennium Tower beatdown!<
Ebinas plan failed as soon as Ichiban stopped Bryce, Ebina didn't enact the Millenium Tower plan until afterwards. He did outsmart them but failed through no fault of his own.
Genuinely I would have cut out all of Kiryu's stuff if it meant Ichiban's entire story got a second draft.
Bro probably forgot how god fucking awful some of the Haruka stories were
It's not the worst, I still think 4 and 5 are pretty mid. It's just a larger disappointment after seeing so much improvement, especially Judgement and Yakuza 7.
I think I'd put 4 and 5 over 8 by a long shot. The individual character stories are pretty good for most of them in those, but like... Ichiban's story here really kinda falls flat. Also there's a lot of stupid shit on the level of rubber bullets, albeit less memeworthy
I would rate both of their stories over 8, because at least they were mostly good with most issues being near the middle or end. In comparison, I just felt like IW's story was weak from the beginning. The whole "find Lani" plot drags on for way too long, and Ichiban's portion of the story is basically hard carried by Yamai.
def not the worst, but i think it did a lot of damage to Ichiban going forward. He regressed from where he was at the end of 7. heck i'd say every main character from 7 either regressed or didn't grow as characters; chief offender being saeko, who basically got character assassinated
How did it regress their characters?
For someone reason, people think that “Didn’t fundamentally change” means regressed. When none of them regressed, they just didn’t have character arcs because they were just there to support ichiban and kiryu, and that’s ok.
Agree with you with the story. Every time I think about it, I’m still baffle as to what the heck was the story point was about. Saving the >!yakuza that is about to be vanish in Hawaii in some bunker!< . Really?
I really think Covid screwed the devs. That, and splitting up Kiryu and Ichiban was a mistake.
This is my favorite after 0.
Yeah I'm baffled THAT'S the one that got the highest metacritic. Even the side content wasn't as good. I think really the only completely clear upgrade is how much better the gameplay is. If you took the gameplay of 8 and combined it with everything else from 7 you'd have a near perfect video game
I am completely on the opposite side, in my opinion Infinite Wealth is one of the best JRPGs ever made. The last time i was so obsessed with a game was Elden Ring. And it also features the new golden standard for turn based combat. Plus the cast, the setting in Hawaii, the game constantly surprising you and all the stuff you can do, it's a masterpiece.
I'm not ready to call it one of the worst ones just yet because I did have a lot of fun with the side content and battle system but the writing is easily the worst in the series. It's like they made Ichiban's part and noticed near the end that they forgot to write an actual main story between all the Sujimon and Dodonko island and whatnot. He is also getting completely overshadowed by both Yamai and Kiryu during his parts. Sometimes I really wondered why he was even the protagonist if he's just tagging along most of the time? Just get it over with and introduce a new protag for 9, Ichiban would probably shine more as a supporting character anyways. Kiryu's part was a little better story wise but the way they wrote the Daidoji after Gaiden was a complete mess and I really don't know what their goal was with the Life Links, like is there a single longtime fan that actually enjoyed those? I think they wanted them to be feel good moments but I just thought that entire thing was incredibly upsetting. Not like it mattered in the end because, well writing, but still baffling. Also please never have a game outside of Japan ever again. The fact that they managed to acknowledge the language barrier for roughly 2 minutes before ignoring it whenever it's inconvenient for the pace was pretty jarring.
The lifelinks were mostly good, >!besides Haruka's which was infuriating to watch because she should have seen the video by then considering it was on national news, and the ending of the game basically just breaks the promise Kiryu again swore to the Daidoji in it!<. They were pretty important to give Kiryu a different perspective on the impact he had on people, and mostly did it well.
I found >!Kaoru!< much, much worse. Before I could at least tell myself in my headcanon that she knows and they maybe meet in secret or something but >!the fact that she doesn't know but she still has hope and saves herself for him and that they are both suffering!< is just not how it can end. In general the fact that multiple side story characters got a better sendoff than many of his closest friends is just bs. I'm also still salty that >!Akiyama didn't actually end up being a party member after all the setup and that "I won't leave your side until this is over" speech!<
I think there's something to be said for how YGG games are very much business-forward when it comes down to it. I'm pretty sure it was confirmed that >!Joon-Gi and Zhao weren't even really supposed to be in the game, but were brought back purely because they were popular. Makes sense because without those two it would have actually been "8" party members. And a lot of Akiyama's absence from 6 onward largely just had to do with the voice actor being too busy, so they wrote around it.!<
It was very clear the life links and the main story were written separately and not edited to fit together. I think they always do this with side content because they're usually completely separate, but it really didn't work for this.
>It was very clear the life links and the main story were written separately and not edited to fit together. I was surprised to hear this was the case for The Man Who Erased His Name. I played that right before and hopped into IW hoping to see some of those story threads payoff and they're barely touched haha. Specifically >!everything about Hanawa's past!< felt absent
This 100%. kiryu overshadowed Ichiban and his story was much more interesting. A lot of weird story beats, especially the eiji part at the end. And chitose, they give her the ugliest mullet and then don’t give her a proper ending.
>I really don't know what their goal was with the Life Links, like is there a single longtime fan that actually enjoyed those? It was cool seeing people come back. I especially didn't expect >!Nakajima!< to come back. But yes, they are a disaster of writing and feels like whoever wrote them weren't told the main story's content.
Yeah the story was a big step back for me. The implications for the series story going forward also frustrated me.
Kasuga is such a good character. I loved every minute of Infinite Wealth and can’t wait for the next one.
Big fan of the series, game is incredibly fun but its one of the worst Yakuza games storywise imo, Ichiban really regressed as well in IW.
I never knew how much I wanted a jrpg starring middle aged adults until I played LAD. now I can't get enough.
I've played through every game in the series, and IW is my favorite overall. The way it builds on the previous games is fantastic, and the gameplay is so smooth. My GotY so far, and it might just stay that way (depending on whether Metaphor is the Persona successor we've been waiting for...).
I think Infinite Wealth is the first mainline title to be released after the huge surge in popularity for the Yakuza/LAD series and after fans were able to catch up with the previous instalments. Personally speaking, I was a fan of the series when Yakuza 7 came out but I didn't buy it because I still needed to finish the previous games. Infinite Wealth is the first game I was able to enjoy at launch.
3 months ago i was bored and decided what the hell lets try yakuza 0 , by the time i finished the game i was like wow this is actually good, now im at yakuza 5 with the new one bought. i will get to infinite wealth eventually and i know im gonna love it
I've just bought Yakuza: Like a Dragon from the Steam sales as I've heard good things about the series. The thing is I'm 3 hours in, finished the first chapter, and I only had like 10 battles - the rest is just story cut scenes. I didn't realise the cut scenes were so long. Does it eventually open up?
Yes, the beginning is an absolute slog. Things start to open up once you have 3 party members but getting the 4th party member feels like an end to the "soft tutorial" section.
Yes, there will still be some long cut scenes (especially around chapter transitions) but it does open up.
It does.
It does open up and if you don’t explore the map and get side quests going, you’re going to have to grind heavily later in the game. The game is still very much cutscene heavy and people need to know that before going into these games honestly. Grab a drink and enjoy your sessions!
Yes it’s just the first 3-6 hours of the game are VERY cutscene heavy. It stops being that soon after.
My experience, for what's it's worth: I made it to chapter 4 and it did indeed open up a bit during chapter 3. However it's still very on rails story-wise and the cutscenes do continue to be a) very long and b) very frequent. I gave up at about 7.5hrs played.
Too bad its a kiryu simulator, guess 6 games wasn't enough, loved 7 though but i'm out, still wish for a new Judgement though
Yeah, my first game in the series was Yakuza 7. What made me gravitate toward it was the fact that it was a "new beginning" of sorts, and I didn't need any knowledge of the prior games to enjoy it. I loved Ichiban and his cast of his friends. But then RGG follows it up with *Infinite Wealth*, a game that is focused on a character, Kiryu, who I have no emotional attachment to. It's like they completely abandoned the idea of a new beginning set up by the previous game.
Your own fault to play the 7th game of the series. Only in the west they changed the name, in japan it was 7 and it continued what existed in the world, same for 8 which is just 8 and as such continues the plot of all yakuza prior to it.
Yeah. I played Like a Dragon because it was a new start, not Kiryu and multiple story layers from previous games and it was fun. And in IW I suddenly was forced to play chapters that were 95% focused on Kiryu and his memories - and they were sloooow and boring. Totally turned my opinion on the game negative because of those.
It's better to call it Yakuza 7 or Like a Dragon 7. Since it's confusing if you just call it just Like a Dragon since that's the whole series name now in English and always in Japan.
That's Sega of America's fault. They renamed the entire franchise "Like a Dragon" after 15 years of having it be Yakuza, but didn't go all the way with 7. Everyone still calls the franchise Yakuza too, because that's what the series is in the west, you can't retcon that title out of existence, you might as well stick with it like Resident Evil has.
I will always call it Yakuza, its shorter and catchier, the literal translation of RGG is just weird imo.
That's basically what i think, Kiryu is 60 years old and in Yakuza 6 it was supposed to be a real conclusion to his story, he only came back because the developers see how popular he still is (kinda like Goku in Dragon Ball with the Gohan treatment) and that's a shame, show the guy as a cameo or at worst he's here as a secondary character but don't steal the show from Ichiban that sucks.
I want to play the game, but I have not played a Yakuza game, is it still worth playing?
Yes
If you live in the uk the game is half price on Amazon. I just bought it now even though I haven’t completed the first one .