Some twenty years ago when I first played through the original Yakuza on PS2 I had no expectation that the series would garner such a following that it would become as recognizable and as sought-after as it is today. Many likened the Yakuza games to a more PG-13 version of GTA, and I suppose that’s a fair way to put it. Personally, I prefer this franchise much more than GTA. Regardless, it’s well-known that Ryu ga Gotoku Studios chose to move away from the Yakuza naming and changed the series name to Like A Dragon (LAD) beginning with the current console generation. In just those few years, we’ve been treated to four full length LAD titles, including Ishin! and The Man Who Erased His Name just a few short months ago. Now, enter LAD: Infinite Wealth, the one Ryu ga Gotoku Studios refers to as their magnum opus of the franchise thus far given that it melds the stories of the series’ two superstars, Ichiban Kasuga and one of my personal all-time favorite fictional characters, the Dragon of Dojima himself, Kazuma Kiryu.
I recall when LAD first came out that I realized I needed to get used to the idea of Kazuma Kiryu going away, although thankfully that hasn’t happened. With Infinite Wealth, Kazuma still plays a huge role, although the first several hours of the adventure have you playing as Ichiban. Kasuga-san is trying really hard to leave his Yakuza days behind and embrace normal, civilian life — carving out an honest living, not using his fists to get his way, and even trying to land a steady girlfriend. He’s got himself a seemingly stable job at a local job shop, from where he tries to help other former Yakuza members land a gig in the real world. Events that occurred in the previous game saw the end of the two largest Yakuza clans, the Tojo and the Omi, leaving several thousand Yakuza scrambling to find a way to earn an honest living. Ichiban sees this as a way to honor his former, late clan patriarch, so he’s happy to provide this help.
Unfortunately for Ichiban, events begin to unravel rather quickly and suddenly he finds himself resorting to fisticuffs and sneaking into enemy territory again with the help of some buddies from a previous adventure. The in-game cutscenes and dialog amongst the characters are as good as ever, and as plentiful as ever. If you have never played a Yakuza/Like a Dragon or one of the two excellent spin-off games in the Judgment series, you’re in for a treat if you enjoy well-crafted stories and developing characters and character relationships. LAD: IW lends itself very much to this whole idea to strongly encourage players to make and nurture strong intra-character bonds. Personality traits like Kindness, Passion, Charisma, Confidence, and a couple of others are part of a broader character profile and RPG tree, if you will, that drive these relationships and have a direct effect on your perks and buffs in combat.
Story, characters, and relationship building amongst characters, combat, and plenty of distractions are pillars of the games developed by Ryu ga Gotoku Studios. No other game in the franchise has invested as much detail, opportunity really, for players to dive into than you have in LAD: IW. So many interactions that you might just take for granted are avenues for opening up extra conversation between characters, additional stats and the bonuses thereof, and increased teamwork in battle. Events like sharing a meal with your party members to throwing darts at a bar, to purchasing them a thoughtful gift offers players lots of ways to explore and expand their time in game. A few hours in, an NPC gives you access to an app on your phone that’s a sort of social media app that let’s you become friends with people that you bump into while roaming around the streets of Hawaii. Yes, that’s right — LAD: IW is the first game in the massive franchise to take place outside of Japan, though you will still spend many hours in Japan and you’re able to visit many familiar storefronts, back alleys and what have you. The story is so robust and such a vital part of enjoying the game I don’t want to spoil anything, but suffice it to say that the adventure takes Ichiban to Hawaii for an important mission, and his path with Kiryu crosses there.
To call LAD: IW sprawling would be apt. It’s as big or perhaps much bigger than any game in the franchise I have played. You can move about pretty efficiently though thanks to the excellent mini-map that allows for waypoint setting, and the numerous taxis about that help you fast-travel. Regardless of where you go or what time of day it is, there’s always something to keep you busy and entertained. Now, like the rest of the games in the series, there’s a lot of the sideshow distraction stuff that I avoid, not necessarily because it isn’t fun (ok — so mahjong isn’t fun, but has been included in every game in the series I think), but because I simply don’t have enough time in real life to manage my own cabaret club, or chase after high scores at a local arcade, or visit every restaurant and try every dish, or even find hidden food combination perks. You quickly realize in these Ryu ga Gotoku Studios games that there is a lot of content, and while it’s all well made, a significant portion of it is absolutely safe to pass on. With LAD: IW, one of the major new “distractions” is Sujimon. This is a take on Pokemon that has you finding, collecting, training, and battling teams of characters. I’m not a Pokemon fan as it is, so this gameplay element had no value to me. Delivering food in style is another optional adventure you can get into, as is restoring a local landfill to prominence and making it a place for NPCs to visit. As always with these games, there is a ton of stuff to do, and it’s up to you to decide how much of it you want to get immersed in. Oh, getting to play very quality emulations of Sega Bass Fishing, Virtua Fighter 3tb, and SpikeOut: Final Edition is really cool. I stumbled upon SpikeOut at one of the arcades early in the game and spent the next hour or so playing through it to completion, before moving onto Virtua Fighter for a while. I love that Sega and Ryu ga Gotoku Studios honors these Sega classics and includes such quality emulations of them for players to stop by and enjoy.
Combat in LAD: IW is a further evolution of the turn-based combat first introduced with LAD a few years ago. I remember griping about this change originally — I was so used to just the arcade-y, button-mashing way of the first half dozen games in the series that I didn’t want to change. However, the turn-based combat does lend itself to a lot of creative and satisfying means of pulling off really cool, elaborate, and sometimes outright silly actions during battle. I love the creative spark by the devs of changing the everybody street thugs into goofy characters out of Ichiban’s imagination — from swimmers with floats to zombies to oversized versions of characters, the creative freedom here is smart to cutdown on the potential for fatigue of seeing the same enemies over and over in the numerous battles you will encounter.
LAD: IW continues to utilize a Job System for the playable characters as well. I think there are nearly twenty different Jobs that players can assume the title and role of during the course of the adventure. These add another layer of gameplay and robustness to the experience that just further adds to the amount of creativity and opportunity for players to really explore and play around. I have dabbled in several of these jobs, but I’m more interested in seeking out the substories and side quests more than anything, as these tend to be high quality, well rewarding from a money/item/stats perspective, and are often just charming in their creativity.
As far as presentation goes, it’s no surprise that the sights and sounds of this latest LAD title are excellent. As always, I utilize the Japanese audio track with English subtitles, as I find that the most authentic and enjoyable way to play, even if it does make me a little sleepy to read tons of subtitles. Graphically, I’m confident this is the best looking game in the series to date, the art direction and technical fidelity are excellent, and I’m not sure that the wide color palette used here has ever been rivaled, either. Oh, players can mix-up their own soundtrack by acquiring in-game tunes and using L1 and the d-pad to play various music tracks, I thought this was cool and added nicely to the sandbox adventure.
Bottomline, Ryu ga Gotoku Studios has another huge hit on their hands with Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. Rich, complicated stories and characters, with intriguing developments for individuals as well as bonds between characters greatly adds to the mystic, while a slew of mostly-optional side gigs further compliments the outstanding team-based combat. For many of us, the Yakuza/LAD series has become as comforting as a warm chicken pot pie on a cold day. I have spent more hours roaming the streets of Japan (and now Hawaii) in this franchise than perhaps any other game world ever. These games are familiar, enjoyable, and even though the gameplay does not vary much from one adventure to the next, the quality, accessibility, pacing, quantity, and fun of playing these games continues to pay dividends. At the end of the day, whether you’re a series veteran or a curious newcomer, you cannot go wrong with Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth.
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