One of my personal favorite franchises that was born out of the PS2 era and is as strong as ever is Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s ‘Yakuza‘ or as it’s now known as, ‘Like A Dragon.’ This epic series has spanned multiple console generations and has even seen a spin-off series (Judgment) that is doing very well for itself. A few titles remain Japanese exclusives as well, such as the PSP titles, but fans of the franchise in the West no longer have to wait for Sega to decide if they’re going to translate new entries into the series, thankfully.
While the main story arc of the face of the series, Kazuma Kiryu, is over, we still get to experience him in the latest game in the series that just came out. Known as Like A Dragon: Ishin!, the game takes place in the 1860s and stars as both Sakamoto Ryoma and Saito Hajime (same guy, just one is a false name), who has the look and voice of Kazuma. There is just something familiar and steadying about Kazuma that makes him a welcome site when I sit down to play these games. Anyway, as fans of not only the series by of Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio games know, they are huge on characters, and Ishin! doesn’t disappoint here. There are roughly thirty developed characters throughout the game, including many familiar faces taking on fresh roles, like Goro ‘The Mad Dog of Shimano’ Majima (now as Okita Soji), and Yakuza 2‘s Ryuji Goda as Saigo Kichinosuke — and the list goes on from there. For those who either haven’t played the series before, or who have, many of these faces and voices are like fan service and fun to see in this alternate timeline role.
The story of Ishin! is pretty complex, not uncommon for RGG Studio games, and involves a lot of crime, power grabs, and politics. You take the role of a young samurai, Sakamoto Ryoma and, within the first few minutes of the game, find yourself under the powerful thumb of the local police force after helping a young mother and her child. The mysteries and intrigue run deep and wide in Ishin! as again is typical of a RGG Studio game, and Ryoma takes on an alias name to infiltrate the regime to discover the truth and ignite a change in Japan’s political and power landscape. Based loosely on true events of the Edo period related to the Shinsengumi, Ishin! weaves a combat-heavy tale through a portion of Japanese history that I had no previous knowledge of. There’s a lot of dialog and text to keep up with, but one aspect that I believe is new to RGG Studio games is how they have a glossary built into the conversations so that you can refresh your memory of what important terms are during the course of a dialog sequence. For those of us with super busy personal lives that might go a week or more without playing anything, it’s really useful to be able to get back into the game and not feel lost in its enveloping story and details thanks to the quick-access glossary.
Ishin! is a large game that takes place across two large areas, Kyo and Tosa. Each place is large and offers a lot of NPCs to chat with and plenty of mini-games and side quests and things to get wrapped up in, which is something I have always found to be a danger in the RGG Studio games because they can be such time-sinks. With Ishin! players can purchase a farm and tend to it, doing all sorts of micro-managing tasks and time-burning things. A variety of optional side quests will litter your game map as well as you zig-zag all around town or take the equivalent of taxis from the Yakuza games to fast travel around. Sure, some of these side quests are satisfying, silly, serious, funny, or some combination of all of these, but personally, I have become more discerning over the years as to “what do I really want to spend my time on?” For the sake of Ishin!, and just not being as big of a fan of the the time period, story, or the visual atmosphere (I prefer a modern, neon-lit city setting more than a nature-colored, 1800s setting), I found myself focusing much more on the story missions this time around than in any other RGG Studio game I have played to date. This isn’t because the quality of these side missions is bad, it’s just that I wasn’t enjoying myself in the Edo Period as much as I do in modern periods, and, as an aside, life is too busy to be burning hours on a lot of this optional content.
I found myself enjoying the combat for the most part, and there are four different styles of fighting this time around, those being Swordsman, Gunman, Brawler, and Wild Dancer. Swordsman seemed the most natural and appealing to me and the combat is fluid and cool-looking, though I like Brawler a lot as well. Wild Dancer combines both gun and sword, and is sort of like that more skilled kind of style that can be satisfying, but also kind of indifferent. The gunplay is alright; infinite bullets and spongey, dumb enemies make it less appealing, but I appreciate that at this time in history guns were becoming ‘a thing’ and the way of the samurai was beginning to fade. Still, I personally enjoyed the swordplay much more than using guns. On the other hand, the crafting system of Ishin! is pretty grindy, and its not the only game that I struggle with when it comes to finding materials and crafting — that can be really monotonous to me. In my experience, crafting is not essential to playing through the game, at least not on the default difficulty.
Another twist to the combat comes in the form of a sort of side-game that uses helpers that assist you in battle. These characters are actually cards, though, and you can build your deck of four to tackle various challenging missions. I found this semi-interesting but not compelling enough to spend any more time on then I had to because it felt like just another optional gameplay element that would tie me down from actually completing the main game for several more hours.
In sum, Like A Dragon: Ishin! is a cool game with a lot to offer for those curious about the series or those who love it but want a fresh take on the characters, setting, time period, and combat. Much of what makes RGG Studio games so great is here, and there is no shortness of characters, story, and content for players to sink themselves into if they so choose. I enjoyed my time with Ishin!, and while I prefer the more modern settings the series is known for, I tip my hat to RGG for stepping out into this time period to take a fun look at a piece of Japanese history.
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