Time for the big Yakuza: Like a Dragon review.
I'm glad they decided to create a new area for the game. Yokohama's Ijincho district is quite a big place and offers some variety from the usual Sotenbori and Kamurocho. Yet it feels a little empty compared to those places. Some more stores and minigames would've been nice.
Story-wise the game starts off slow but I found it to be enjoying... up to chapter 12 where IMO almost everything falls apart.
Spoiler!
I don't get the part where Arakawa, Daigo and Watase decide to dissolve the Tojo and Omi clan. There's no point in doing that, especially for the Omi clan. All this talk about Arakawa's great plan that he already had back then around the time Ichi went to prison. Dissolving the clans and become regular civilians. What is that supposed to achieve exactly? Absolutely nothing. And the main cast doesn't even question it.
It was obvious that Arakawa was dying soon after that. I called it at the end of the scene at the pier. Surely enough, he was dead in the following cutscene.
Then you have the usual Yakuza story bullshit where everyone is related to everybody. I'm supposed to believe that there were two babies in those lockers on the same day, one in locker nr. 99 and one in 100? That was just idiotic. Reminded me a little of Dragon Ball where Goku was crying right next to Broly as a baby, yet not nearly as cringy.
Also the ending cutscene where Ichi keeps talking to Masato that they're still family and that he could come back was far too long and stupid. And of course right when he got through to him, he gets stabbed by Kume. Bullshit ending.
What I loved about the game was the English voice overs. That was something that always pissed me off in previous Yakuza games. Not only does it have them, the cast is absolutely fantastic. Adachi's voice being my favourite.
Spoiler!
Kiryu sounds a bit weird though. His voice is a little too deep when you compare him to the original.
The battle system is fun, the main characters are likeable as well. Yet the game still has lots of flaws. All of them are pretty minor yet when combined they do have a noticeable impact on the game.
- Enemy spawn. Image you want to walk from one end to the street to another. Some don't have enough space to dodge enemy groups so you're pretty much forced to fight them. After they're gone, another group can spawn just a few meters in front of you. And again and again.
- No indication of enemy stats. Some can have a huge health bar and yet go down in one hit while others have small health bars and can take 5 attacks without going down, all in the same battle, even the same level. What's the point? Also no symbols to see their resistance. Sorry but I can't remember all 252 different enemy types and their resistances.
- Taxis. Why do you have to find and use them in Ijincho to make them available. Why isn't it enough to just see them from a few meters. Annoying and honestly it took way too long for me to realise that. At first I thought I could only use taxis in certain sub regions because I haven't progressed far enough in the story.
- It's a nice idea being able to craft and improve weapons but at the same time it's disappointing that you can only improve one certain weapon of a job and not the rest. Or hell ANY armor.
- Ichi's personality stats system feels underused.
- The need to level each job individually is painful and slow. Jobs also have a bigger impact on stats than your regular level so I never wanted to change my job.
- camera in battles can be too slow when switching from one guy to another which might result in you not being able to block at the correct time.
- no save points in the majority of "dungeons", which can take an hour to beat. Then add 30min of cutscenes and you're forced to play for 90min without saving. At that point you're praying that there won't be a power outage or console shutdown due to overheating etc.
- don't trust the power description of your attack when you select them. I Saeko's case, her first water magic attack (light damage) was far stronger than both water magic attacks that you unlocked later even though they were supposed to do more damage and also used more MP. This is true for every character.
- It's extremely hard to judge how big the AOE of such a type of attack will be as there is no indication. Constantly moving enemies doesn't make it any easier
Due to all these things, I can't give it a 9 or anything higher than that. I very much enjoyed my time with it (roughly 65 hours) and I'm glad they didn't use the same old fighting system of previous Yakuza games.
8.5/10