Yakuza: Like a Dragon - Review

I'd never played a Yakuza again before, the series just seemed to be so Intense that I could never find a good time to jump in thankfully Sega have decided to change things with Like a Dragon. the question that I had going in was would this be a game worthy of what was a storied series or would the game be too much for someone new to the series.

The game tells the story of Ichiban Kasuga, A low level enforcer for the Arakawa family, which is a member of the Tojo family. Ichiban seems to have a very strong moral compass despite being a gangster, which is proven in the opening moments of the game as he has the money scams from kids returned to them. The opening moments of the game try to provide a sense of the character of Ichiban and this is where it really annoyed me because he's dense not that he just isn't smart in any way, he just takes everything at literal face value. By the time he went to prison, after taking the fall for somebody else, I honestly didn't want to continue playing the game because each time somebody said something his reaction would be one of two playing dumb or leaping straight to anger that somebody would say something bad about his boss it just wasn't a great start. Fast forward 18 years later and having been released from prison, his character is identical refusing to hear anything bad about his former Yakuza boss and that ends up with him getting shot and left for dead in a trash can.

It was at this point that I decided I needed to push on I needed to plough through and hopefully things would start to make more sense and I'm glad I did because eventually the gameplay started making up for the idiocy of the main character. Waking up in Yokohama, served as a restart on the game for me not only with Ichiban having to be taught how to live on the streets but it started providing more for me to do given this is about 2 1/2 to 3 hours in, it was honestly about time. The big mission is to return Kamurocho and discover why he was shot but in order to do that he needs friends and he needs money and this is where the missions come into play. The main story missions are linear they tell you to go from point A to point B and while they entertaining, the side missions how are you likely spend more time.

Of course, getting from point A to point B in any of the missions will have you encountering hooligans, gangs, Yakuza members and just the most random assortment of people that decide they want to pick a fight. Something that the games have done in previous iterations is focused more on beat em up style gameplay, more akin to double dragon than anything, this time around it's RPG. Which is very cool because Ichiban is a fan of Dragon Quest, with many, many references to the iconic series being used, but it also serves as a more welcoming approach to somebody new like myself. Because I didn't have to worry about button presses for combination attacks or anything like that I could focus more on what attack would be ideal for that type of enemy. Perhaps a little odd is that out of nowhere he decides that enemies are transforming at the start of battles, which serves to be more of a medical concern to me than a gameplay thing but it did provide more variety and is the standard street thug.

The problem that I had with the number of people that you have to find at any given time is that as you wander the streets there are enemies everywhere but thankfully the game has allowed for that option because you can auto play battles. There was a period when I was trying to get to a destination, where I fought 11 times in a row, because in order to try and avoid fights I usually ended up in them and after about the third I enabled order battle and let the game take care of it for me. I was still able to get experienced and the characters in the party were able to level up which was great, but I was starting to get really annoyed at having to fight every few minutes. One of the big things the Yakuza series is known for is its variety of distracting activities and Like a Dragon is no different, there's bars to go, karaoke, pachinko parlours and more; one of the newly listed activities is dragon kart, which the name should give it away exactly what this activity does. Exploring the city and finding these locations was fun and it helped break up the monotony of having to fight so many people in a row, so I spent a lot of time here. There are even more related to earning money like collecting cans on a specialised bike, whilst you attempt to avoid other homeless people doing the same, or if you fancy yourself a bit of a coin collector you can wander town and scrounge under vending machines for cash.

Being that the game is very RPG heavy, cash is something you need in order to progress because you can pop into shops to buy items for healing in battle, recovering your magic power or even finding items that you can use in battle to deal some big damage. Some missions will reward you pretty handsomely and others not so much, but because every time you fight you end up with a little bit more money it does make things easier if you engage in more battles which is honestly a bit of a letdown that the game does that. Some side missions reward you with more than money, Sujimon being an example, which is a welcome change from the money levels.

When it comes to the games presentation things are unique and it's neither a good nor bad thing, the main characters are detailed they show expression on their faces and they feel real. Though the ancillary characters that you might see on the streets however not so much, even worse is the battles you're constantly entering with gang members and such, there's really only a handful of looks that they have and while the names may change the looks stay the same. Ichiban stands out at any time thanks to his bright red suit and he's unique perm, and other characters such as Nanba also managed to maintain solid looks. Of course Yakuza is a series that has also been defined by the city the game takes place in, and Isezaki Ijincho is pretty amazing, but more so at night.

As I said before the characters that wander the streets did not the greatest, the basic models that duplicate far too often, there were many times when I would see the same character model walking in the same direction as me and coming towards me. Even more bizarrely whenever there was a cutscene or an interaction between the characters those playing yet in real time the background characters once they got within a set range would turn around and walk back the other way almost as if they hit the end of their pre-set animation and would repeating their loop. The first time I noticed it Ichiban was talking to a police officer and I just assumed the person was avoiding them and I thought this was a pretty cool little addition but then it happened in every conversation after that and I realised that's the game's way of ensuring that no background characters walk into the shot.

On the audio side the voice acting is pretty spectacular, there's a host of characters that appear to be minor but the quality of the voice work for them is actually really good. some of the characters but that you interact with more consistently a voiced with a lot of heart, which makes connecting to them very easy even if they appear to be a slimy 2-bit hustler to begin with. Of course ichibon is the main character and he's the one you will see all the time, and somehow the voice matches and also doesn't match but this comes back to the character being dense. There are times when the voice is heartfelt and empathetic to situations and then there are other times where things just sound like pee wee Herman in the stupidity levels. Playing in Japanese is honestly no different and I put this all down to how the character was written not the voice work itself and while I would highly suggest playing in Japanese, I understand that won't be for everyone.

An interesting thing with the subtitles is if you play with English audio the subtitles are looser than they might have been otherwise whereas if you play with the Japanese audio the subtitles are more of a direct translation of the Japanese script, which can actually change a few things in very minor ways. The game score is fine, but I'll be honest I can't recall anything about it when you enter the city at night or during the day there's enough beauty in it the score feels like it should belong but there's no single piece of music that made me realise I'm enjoying this score. The sounds of the city however are welcome there's a cadence and rhythm to a large city that when video games replicate the visuals if the sound doesn't match the disconnect between them is impossible to overcome thankfully they have managed to keep this connected. One word of note though the background words the background speaking that you were here is all in Japanese regardless of your preferred audio method so hearing people speak Japanese well the main characters speak English will happen.

As I said at the start the Yakuza series seemed very daunting for someone to get in to, especially with the number of games that had been made, having now played the newest entry I can't see myself going back. While the constant battling is draining, when I wanted to battle I was able to do it my way and not have to worry about button mashing or complex combos. The side missions and side activities were varied and kept me entertained especially when Ichiban started being a dunce, though I can't wait to see what other folks think of those. If you are like me and new to the series this is a solid entry point if you're a fan of the series this may take some getting used to but I still think it's something that you should try even if the main character is stupid

The Score

8.0

Review code provided by Xbox

The Pros

+City is fun to explore and filled with some unique characters

+Combat is solid and being able to direct where attacks go is great...

The Cons

-... though the sheer amount of battles gets drainging very quickly

-Ichiban is a dumb character and hard to enjoy time with him, from time to time