Infinite Wealth. Limited Time
Reviewed on PC. 65 hours played. I'm going to call this game IW and Yakuza 7: Like a Dragon YLAD to try to keep the titles from being confusing. You can tell me how successful that is.
The Judgement series and this game's predecessor do pose a question that maybe needed answering but is hesitantly never addressed: Is there such a thing as too much Kiryu? Can you hold this series back by constantly featuring him? In Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth you might be asking those questions but not in any way that RGG studio intends, and it puts a damper on enjoying Infinite Wealth's refinements to its overworld and gameplay.
There are a great many ways where you'll be having more fun than YLAD. At the top of the list is the combat system; small quirks that felt almost like abusing the engine become front line features. Knocking back enemies into your allies for bonus damage has you thinking about positioning, with stage hazards coming into play and the strength/weakness system designed to be spread out among your party, getting in a little extra boosted damage. One of my main criticisms of YLAD was that it for sure felt like a studio making its first RPG, and those feelings have outright vanished with IW. The precarious and bumpy ramp of player and gear leveling from the first game has been smoothed just enough, where I think most players will want it in to say it's quite possible to break your character for the better, but you'll be putting in significant effort to do that. Those just along for the story will be able to fight just fine through the whole deal, and fully complete everything that ships with the base game. The usual arsenal of bats, swords, canes and microphones drip feed in through the first half of the game and come on strong around the time you're looking to optimize your bat swingin' in the first place.
While Yokohama was by no means a bland place to explore, Honolulu is gorgeous. Gains to RGG Studio's technical expertise since Lost Judgement 2 and Like a Dragon Gaiden are better implemented here, with special praise given to the luminosity differences between natural, refracted, and different kinds of artificial light. This isn't just good texture work for RGG, this is good texture work for anybody with a smart procedural engine filling in the gaps and a very real reason to play this on newer consoles or PC. Getting around the maps with the help of your trusty Not-A-Segway makes the further spread out American cityscape less of a hassle. Clearly marked shops, the ability to access an upgrade recipe guide while farming, and lots of nice little thoughts hone the entire experience, which is not something you can bank on with RGG games. Full points, there.
Fans of the previous minigames will be enthused to hear that well, most of them haven't changed. It's that darts engine, it's that shogi engine, it's that mahjong game, a few show up, a few like bowling (maybe I just didn't find bowling?) bow out. New games do make their way in; slinging burgers as an Uber Eats driver tries to split the difference between YLAD's Dragon Kart and the returning Can Crusher, but I didn't find either to hook me before and not much has changed. You'd never have enough cash in YLAD without running the Ichiban Confections minigame, which has been replaced by the not nearly as vital Dandoko Island. Even as someone that loves stick and rock crafting games, someone who four star'd their Animal Crossing Island, I have to say I mostly bounced off of this one too. Without the huge depth of available choices, the decorating aspect doesn't live up to any game it's copying, but the annoying cashout benchmarks and weird laborious tricks to make money remain. That's not the choice to make, for me. Is it deeper than Watching Number Go Up? By leaps and bounds. Is it more fun to do? Well, I'm not totally sure, and the whole experience living in that zone does bum me out a little bit.
Where this game's improvements don't let it surpass YLAD however, are in story. And for once in an RGG game, it has little or nothing to do with how well the new characters land. Eric Tomizawa, the wrench slingin' cabbie is a low grade lowlife finding himself with nothing in his mid 30's, and falls into Kasuga's Friendzone Harem (tm) with full aplomb. Chitose now extends RGG's streak of writing two believable female characters to two entire games! Yeah that's not a medal performance over the set but I'm still taking wins where I can get them; the Millennial/Zoomer banter between the two brings some of the heartiest chuckles the script offers. Few of the villains and side characters truly stake out their own roles but don't leave you too bored, a downgrade but not anything to be concerned over. Where the concern lies is with about every returning character the game has to offer outside of Ichiban and Saeko, partially referring to the last game's adventuring party but sadly, mostly focusing on Kiryu.
It's a weird choice to make the Ichiban series of games a Kiryu museum considering no other factor. There's a big desire to reminisce, with the Dragon of Dogima falling victim to cancer. There were many moments of said memory lane cruising I enjoyed. But even for someone this many players are this invested in, it's not hard to say that maybe RGG went just too far. For a man who erased his name, almost every inch of Kiryu's side content is about being Kiryu Kazuma. I hope you had an attachment to helpful character X from game Y because you're going back there thinking about them. Even the writing in the reminiscing moments in the scavenger hunt portion seem to indicate that THEY know it's being laid on too thick. There's one that highlights a building none of the games have ever gone into, just to highlight that it's a building the games have never gone into. Did I laugh? Yeah, but not because they wanted me to in that manner. It's a me thing sure, but god it's an absolute browbeating. Three separate systems of nostalgia drive you to Resurrect the Dragon, who I was told is dying, and I was told is already dead. The worst continuation stories cheapen the previous, and I feel worse about so many characters after this. I feel like my fanservice tolerance is through the roof on this man but sadly I've been proven so incredibly wrong.
Until the final acts, the main story serves your progression incredibly well, but leaves things in an unsatisfying position. You can see modern Japanese politics play out in a way that sends more of a direct message than the game's tried to send in years. Previous games poked at the Liberal Democrat Japanese government with Bleach Japan, but the nuclear allegories and direct focus on punitive laws that prevent criminal reintegration are shouted even louder. Our Heroes play their parts, and don't act too unexpectedly, but there's not much opportunity for you to agree with them, apart from watching Kasuga try to lay down his romance game and feeling a powerful secondhand morbidity that chilled me to my marrow. I skipped a scene, I did. Hopefully if I'm ever enhanced interrogated the torturer won't have read this review, because I think I may have gotten physical hives. You idiot, Ichiban, I love you. You idiot. Many of these things added up making me feel like things were more stale with this cast; I feel like in many ways they might be lucky the mechanical improvements are so distinct and I'm curious to see what others have to say as they cross the finish about the taste they were left with. It kinda feels rushed, or at least you hope it feels rushed, because it would be quite the fumble if that wasn't the reason why. One of the best translation teams on the planet might be patching some of these leaks as well.
Post-game Premium Adventure content is available. including a little bit of DLC. But remember the sin that Mass Effect party DLC committed where you found yourself wishing the character dialog was that good in the regular game? So far, the clips and banter in the add-on content leave me feeling the same way. You guys couldn't be talking like this before? People have to pay extra to hear you talk like this? New game plus whatever, this game has some high bars to clear if you really want to max out all the jobs and gear, but the soul of what makes this series different than before? Smells corporate in a way that harms the creative. A bummer even though it's good.
Yakuza: Like a Dragon was a joy to play for different reasons than this game but both miss the mark of joining the absolute top tier of RGG's releases alongside Yakuza 0, Yakuza 2 and Lost Judgement. None of my criticisms actually stopped me, because I was always having enough fun to keep plugging away. If you were already a JRPG person and were put off by the rough edges before, I can recommend this one strongly. I wouldn't turn anyone away from the game period; but after such a promising debut, there's a sense of shortfall that might be part unreasonable expectation, but might also keep it from being the classic I think its predecessor will be remembered as.
