Published , by Lexi Luddy
Published , by Lexi Luddy
The Like A Dragon series (formally Yakuza in the West) is at the peak of its glow-up. From a franchise where most games were localized for international audiences a year after their initial release in Japan to one of Sega’s headline series with three games releasing in the span of 18 months, we’re a long way away from the days of Michael Madsen voicing Shimano. Most tellingly after almost 20 years, the series’ name has been united across regions as the same one as the development team: Ryu Ga Gotoku/Like A Dragon. Fittingly, Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth feels like a confident culmination of over 20 years of Yakuza games.
We had the opportunity to play the game at EGX in London, and in the short demo we sampled, the game is already shaping up to be as worthy a successor to the Yakuza series as Ichiban was to The Dragon of Dojima himself. The demo began as our lovable-idiot-with-a heart-of-gold, Ichiban Kasuga, met up with Kiryu in Hawaii after also befriending local taxi driver, Eric Tomizoma, and Chitose Fujinomiya, a maid Ichiban believes supports his mother. Kiryu’s mother, Akane Kishida, who only received a brief mention in Yakuza: Like A Dragon, is the driving force behind the game’s story and the reason he travelled to the USA. Like A Dragon narratives are usually sprawling affairs, and this setup and the powderkeg of factions at play seem prime for melodrama.
Infinite Wealth’s combat is still turn-based like LAD’s, but with some notable changes. On top of the previous basic attacks, skills, Poundmate summons, and Essences/Heat moves, you can now take slightly more control of each character’s position in combat by moving them within a small area. This change has a substantial effect on the flow of combat, as now you can line up enemies and hit them with a single attack or move closer to an environmental object that party members will pick up on their way to beat the crud out of enemies. Both hitting enemies with AOE attacks and picking up weapons were in the last game. However, you’d rarely see these mechanics since you had no control over your position in relation to these objects and couldn’t line up your foes. It adds a welcome bit of agency to the already-fun turn-based battles, and it makes comboing and clearing out enemies much faster and more effective.
Combat also feels more varied thanks to characters' different playstyles. While the job classes from the previous game remain, characters – and Kiryu especially – play very differently to everyone else. He has his Yakuza 0 fighting styles – Brawler, Rush, and Beast – and he charges up his Heat with each turn-based attack until he can literally smash the RPG’s HUD and break out into real-time combat. His moveset is obviously more limited than what it was in one of his action games, but it still feels snappy and tight, and clearing through enemies that are too scared to move is immensely satisfying. The final layer of combat is a combo system, which, when charged up, allows the character whose turn it is to pair with another party member for an attack with a snappy animation and a lot of damage. If you hold onto your charge for long enough, you can team up with a third party member for more damage. All of these mechanics combine in surprisingly fast turn-based action with great flow.
Even in a 20-minute demo, Infinite Wealth was full of the series’ trademark melodrama and humor. The one cutscene we saw showed our gang tracking a dirty Hawaii beat cop to a local bar, where he proceeded to threaten us before starting a brawl. This scene really encapsulates how good the series has gotten at going from deadly serious to goofball humor without tonal whiplash. After you confront this obviously dangerous man in a position of authority, you all break out into a battle where everyone takes turns attacking. Kasuga is fighting in the style of a surfer dude, Chitose is beating men up as Geo-Dancer, Eric is slinging Taxi spells around, and Kiryu looks like he just came off the set of Seven Samurai. This scene culminates with Ichiban stopping Eric from getting shot, only for Kiryu to joke that he’s getting bald spots from all the times he’s dodged bullets next to his head.
Seeing new shades to these characters that we’ve spent so much time with adds an extra depth to them. Kiryu is still Kiryu, but he’s a very different person to the man from 20 years ago and more open to human connection. While Ichiban is still just as much of a doofus as he ever was in what we saw, we hope his character sees just as much development as one of the dual-protagonists of the game. Ichi’s starry-eyed nature and positivity of course leads to lots of zany, but ultimately warm-hearted substories the series is known for.
The four we saw included him acting as a go-between for two school lovebirds, a Pokemon Snap-esque mini-game called Sicko Snap where you were tasked with photographing, you guessed it, almost nude sickos thrusting and gyrating around Hawaii, and a surprisingly fun and deep fast food delivery mini-game that feels like a modern cross between Tony Hawk and Crazy Taxi. The final substory saw us landing a gig as a waiter at a Hawaiian restaurant for a day, and that one really jumped the shark. The mini-puzzle tied to delivering food was fun, but it's simply unrealistic that any service staff in the USA would be paid a flat $300.00 wage for a day’s work.
Despite having seen most of what this demo had to offer there is still loads we haven’t gotten to mention; new Hawiian-spired music stings when completing substories, Ichiban trawling for treasure on the beach by going for a swim, a plethora of new karaoke songs that throwback to the events of previous game, and the gang being able to ride segways. There is a lot to Infinite Wealth already.
Yakuza: Like A Dragon had an incredibly impactful and emotional story and if the sequel can capture even half of that game’s magic, Infinite Wealth will be a rollercoaster ride with some of the most lovable losers in video games.