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Introduction
A few years ago, I finally gave the Yakuza series a try with Yakuza 0, the earliest game in the series chronologically, and I absolutely loved the juxtaposition of intense crime drama and wacky sense of humour in the mini games and side quests. Gradually since then I’ve played my way through the rest of the numbered Yakuza games, thoroughly enjoying the journey of Kiryu Kazama through his time in and out of the Tojo Clan. Yakuza: Like a Dragon marks the start of a new era for the Yakuza, with a new main character and a shift from the beat-em-up genre to the world of RPGs. Mild story spoilers ahead for the opening portion of the game and some side quests.
The Rise of a Hero
Yakuza: Like a Dragon centres around Ichiban Kasuga, a loveable larger than life yakuza who takes the fall for a member of his family. He serves his time in prison to come back to his family, only to find that the situation on the outside has changed. Left without anywhere to go, Kasuga ends up building his way up from rock bottom, making new friends - and enemies - along the way. The opening chapters of the game take a little while to get through, but I found it to be a perfect introduction to Kasuga. Kiryu is one of my favourite characters in a series, but Kasuga and his upbeat disposition feels like such a breath of fresh air. Without going into plot details, the main story of Like a Dragon is fantastic, with familiar themes of honour and a tendency to throw curveballs that the series is known for. There are some recurring tropes to those who are familiar with previous games, which I found to be endearing more than anything else. The overall plot was excellent, with some hard hitting revelations and genuine laughs throughout. While I would not say that players must have played previous games in the series, there are some moments that will resonate more if you have. That being said, if you want to get into the series without playing every other game, this is a fairly natural starting point.
The Distractions of a Hero
As to be expected from a Yakuza game, Like a Dragon is absolutely full of side activities, such as minigames, bonkers side quests, and even a kart racing mode. I had such a great time playing through these, some of the side quests were the best the series has had so far. There were many side activities that had me initially bewildered and then openly laughing away at the absurdity of the whole thing. There’s a few side quests that involve a mascot costume previously worn by Kiryu which made me laugh every time. The mini game concepts are suitably wacky; one of the weirdest is about trying to stay awake in the cinema by batting away sheep headed ‘REM Rams’. You can also unlock summons for Kasuga (the brilliantly named ‘Poundmates’) through some side activities and these are worth doing just to see these bonkers moves - plus some are incredibly useful later in the game.
Like a Dragon Quest
Like a Dragon is the first game in the main series to shift genres from brawler to turn based RPG, a gameplay change that I had been very looking forward to playing. This on the whole works really well and adds greater depth to the combat. This is explained in game by Kasuga being a big Dragon Quest fan, a detail that I really enjoyed. For the initial few chapters of the chapters of the game, your party members stick with their character-specific jobs - for instance, Nanba’s job is ‘Homeless Guy’ which is akin to a mage. Later on, you unlock the ability to switch characters to new jobs and diversify the skills that your party has. Each job gains special moves that can be fantastically over the top, especially the super move style ‘Essence of’ skills. While I really enjoyed the wealth of options available for jobs, there are only a handful of skills that can be unlocked that carry between them so you are generally best off returning to the character specific jobs once you’ve unlocked those.
It is also worth mentioning the difficulty of Like a Dragon. I found the game to be easy enough in the early game as you can rack up the money and experience whilst clearing side quests. However, there is a substantial difficulty spike in one of the later chapters which will absolutely destroy an unprepared party. With sufficient preparation and levels, this is certainly an achievable task, but it caught me off guard and took several attempts to clear. I can easily see that section becoming frustrating for players that hadn’t cleared a lot of beneficial side content beforehand.
Essence of Presentation
One thing that I enjoyed when playing Like a Dragon was the overall presentation and style. The battle themes are all energetic and upbeat and, as is often the case in Yakuza games, the tracks for minigames and even just individual menus get stuck in your head. There are little jingles for level ups and characters joining the party that are so clearly inspired by Dragon Quest which always made me smile.
The animation for abilities and ‘Essence of’ moves are satisfying to pull off, ranging from swinging baseball bats and flinging CDs, to unleashing a group of crawfish on enemies. Part of the fun I had in levelling up different jobs was to see the ridiculous moves I could get. There are some odd animations during battle, like characters running in place against a small wall, but the game automatically moves them next to their target if something like this prevents the battle from progressing.
Critical Hit
I had such a fun time with Yakuza: Like a Dragon. The story does a great job of introducing a new cast of characters while maintaining the feel of other games in the series. This combined with the craziness of side content made this one of the funniest games I have played in a long while. Once you have got through the earlier story stages and gain access to more of the RPG and side content, this is one of the best RPGs to come out in recent years and I am very excited to move on to the next one.