As a series, Yakuza has been about telling drama-filled stories in the world of Japanese organized crime while pivoting to wacky, offbeat shenanigans on a dime. Along the way, long-time protagonist Kazuma Kiryu would smack some local mobsters over the head with a nearby bicycle in proper action RPG fashion. The fast-paced beat-em-up combat was as much part of the series’ DNA as anything else. That’s why it came as a shock to most when they announced the seventh mainline entry in the series Yakuza: Like a Dragon would switch things up to a more traditional JRPG turn-based combat system. It’s a gamble that mostly pays off. Save for some late-game grinding that felt out of place in a modern game, every moment of Like a Dragon was a pure delight, and it felt good to be back in the underworld of the Tojo clan.
Yakuza: Like a Dragon (PC [reviewed], PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X)
Developer: Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio
Publisher: Sega
Released: November 10, 2020 (PC, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X), March 2, 2021 (PS5)
MSRP: $59.99
A new combat system isn’t the only change with the latest entry in this long-running series. A new protagonist, Ichiban Kasuga, grants a fresh perspective on Yakuza’s world, partly because he’s such a departure from the stoic loner that was Kazuma Kiryu and partly because he was in jail for most of the events of the last six Yakuza games.
The game’s start sets up a pretty sweeping adventure for Ichiban, beginning eighteen years before the majority of the game occurs. After a Yakuza from an enemy faction, the Omi Alliance is murdered by a member of the Tojo clan Ichiban takes the fall for a higher ranking member at the request of his family Patriarch and father figure, Arakawa. He serves eighteen years and is let out into a world he doesn’t recognize. The Tojo clan is no more, and Arakawa has joined with the Omi and doesn’t seem to have any interest in meeting with his former underling and friend.
From here, Ichiban finds himself at the center of a conspiracy in the heart of Injincho, Yakuza’s new setting. Here he’ll gather allies to join his party and investigate multiple crime organizations trying to find the truth behind Arakawa’s apparent betrayal and how he survived what should’ve been a fatal encounter with the Omi a few days prior. In typical Yakuza fashion, the story is filled with some surprising twists and turns and a balance of dramatic and wacky that only this team seems capable of pulling off.
Not many games can have your protagonist dramatically pleading for forgiveness from a respected mentor and fighting a monkey in a bulldozer the next, but that’s just what makes these games so damn unique.
Like a Dragon marks an excellent introduction to the series for newcomers and pays one hell of a tribute to what came before. In the narrative’s final hours, it plays a tricky balancing act of trying to pay off all the plot threads that have been laid over the fifty-hour game and subtly giving a proper sendoff for characters past that long-time fans may have been curious about. These moments are powerful and fun but not so out of place or long-winded that they leave new players scratching their heads.
Ichiban works as a protagonist because he operates in ways Kiryu never did. For as many allies as Kiryu had, he was a loner, and a party-based game would’ve felt strange with him in the pilot seat.
Visually The PC version of like a Dragon is the most stunning depiction of the series yet. Injincho is a decidedly different city than Kamurocho. There’s a lack of neon, but this place still has a lot of charm.
Combat is the most significant departure for the series has some fun with its execution and justification of turn-based combat coming to the world of Yakuza. Early on, Ichiban establishes himself as a massive fan of the Dragon Quest series. According to our hero, the world is just one big JRPG, so he’s always out questing and looking for ways to level up. For Ichiban, combat works like an old JRPG because that’s just how he sees the world. After the first few hours of play, enemies and party members even start changing visually once you enter combat. Instead of just fighting suit-wearing thugs all the time, enemies transform into over the top visual gags like menacing hair stylists armed with scissors or creepy old men crawling around in garbage bags. Likewise, a job system is unlocked for your party members that change their appearance in combat and helps them to unlock new abilities.
Each party member has one unique job and a plethora of others that are tied to gender. For example, only male characters can take the bouncer job class while only females can become the dedicated healing class Idol. This distinction only feels out of place, considering there are only two female party members in the game, and one of them only joins the party if you do the right series of side missions. For those who don’t engage with substories, it’s basically a requirement to lock Saeko into the Idol job for most of the game.
You’ll find yourself changing jobs often as some abilities will stay with your character even once they switch jobs, so you’ll want to give them as wide a selection of attacks and buffs as possible. While it’s far from a deal-breaker, the fact that you can’t change jobs without physically returning to Injincho’s Hello Work employment office can be a bit frustrating. Especially late-game when you’re hopping between multiple cities to get there. Your equipment menu is easily accessible through Ichiban’s phone, so it seems arbitrary to gate this feature off to a single physical location on the map. Even having multiple offices across the city would’ve done a lot to mitigate the issue.
Outside of beating up thugs and perverts, the streets of Injincho are filled with substories and side activities to engage in. Returning activities like hostess clubs and Karaoke now serve a bigger purpose than games past since Ichiban now comes with a full set of Persona-style social stats. Specific jobs are gated off before Ichiban can reach a certain social standing with things like kindness and confidence. Choices you make throughout the game can boost these stats as well as doing recreational activities like Karaoke. Party members will also have specific jobs gated off until you fill up your relationship meter with them. Taking your party out to restaurants, hostess clubs, or singing with them at Bar Survive are among the easier ways to raise these stats. With each relationship level, you gain each character has a pretty well-handled side story that gives you some perspective on who they were before the events of Like a Dragon.
While Yakuza’s charm and quirkiness have me more than enamored with this game, I would be remiss not to mention the more glaring shortcomings. This is a videogame filled with grind. While it’s mostly relegated to side content like the business management substory I spent all of five hours grinding out or the in-depth crafting system that requires hours of grinding to get the best gear for each of your characters. These moments are a lot, but since you can avoid them altogether end up feeling inoffensive to those merely looking to get to the finish line.
However, in the game’s final hours, a sudden and strange difficulty spike almost stopped me dead in my tracks. The last handful of end game bosses will pulverize your party if you’re unprepared. I engaged with nearly all of the side content and still found myself forced into a pretty substantial late-game grinding session. The silver lining is you’ve just been presented with some new areas ideal for grinding out levels when these issues crop up, but it still feels out of place in an otherwise phenomenal game.
Verdict: Yakuza: Like a Dragon is damn close to being perfect. It has everything the series has done so well up and until now packaged up with a risky and bold change to combat that mostly pays off. Ichiban Kasuga and friends make for a great new cast, and I hope we’ll be seeing more of them in the future. The changes paired with what already made Yakuza great make this feel like a refreshing change of pace for the series, even if late-game spikes in difficulty can make it a bit of a slog.
Buy it
Author: Rich Meister
[This review is based on a retail build of the game purchased by the reviewer]