Yakuza: Like a Dragon Review - Persona 5, but with organised crime.

 

By Sam Coles:

The Yakuza series is a game franchise I have fallen in love with over the past few years, it is a series that has always struggled to gain an audience in the west. However in 2017 its popularity exploded onto the scene with Yakuza 0, and here we are now with a new instalment which is a soft reboot of the series. We no longer play as the hardened veteran The Dragon of Dojima and the game is no longer a brawler, this time it is a turned based role playing game. Does this work for this franchise? To put in short terms, yes!

The story starts off in the year 1999 where we take control of a young Yakuza member named Ichiban Kasuga, or Ichi as he is affectionately called by his friends. He is ready for the new century; however things take a turn for the worse as his boss asks him to take the blame for a murder so he can protect one of his most trusted captains. Ichi is then sent to prison for 20 years and expects a fan fare welcome as he gets out, but no such luck so he tracks down his old boss. Unfortunately he is not welcomed back with open arms, he is shot and left for dead but fortunately he is nursed back to health by a homeless man named Nanba who was once a nurse. They slowly form a bond and become close friends as Nanba shows him the ropes of surviving the homeless lifestyle, where he then helps him go on a quest to find out why his former employers turned on him.

Like the other Yakuza games the story is very dark but has goofy moments, however in this game there are more goofy and fun moments which I welcome with open arms. They do include English dub in this game, but I’m sorry it’s not very good so I stuck to Japanese with English subtitles. Ichi is a loveable character he is extremely loyal, but he is a bumbling idiot and I can’t help but love him because of it. His Japanese voice actor brings this across more than his English counterpart, and it is brilliant as he references Dragon Quest for the 50^th time.

This time the gameplay goes into a new direction as this is a soft reboot of the series, it is no longer a brawler but a turn based RPG. Now I know this would turn a lot off and I’m usually one of those people, but unlike other turn based games there is more interactivity then one would expect. If you are familiar with Persona 5 then the UI layout will be instantly familiar to you, with the buttons for different menus splayed out on the left hand side of the screen. Think of it as a hybrid between Persona 5 and Paper Mario (yes hear me out), you have the standard fare of turn based attacks but you can block, dodge and increase damage with attacks with will timed button presses. It’s great as it makes the combat feel less stagnate compared to other games within the genre.

Like other Yakuza games there are slew of side stories and activities to partake in, where you can play classic arcade games, drink, play darts, pool and more than I can handle sometimes. Again like usual it is a nice change of pace from the main scenario, and again is always oddly engaging to take part in these side stories and activities as they can be stranger than what you find in the main story.

Presentation wise it looks fantastic and I was playing on a standard Xbox One, the Dragon Engine once again shines showing a huge amount of detail. What I like is the presentation with Ichi’s over active imagination when you engage in fights, enemies will transform into more fantastical characters as he thinks that he is in a real world RPG. It’s a nice touch and adds to Ichi’s childlike buffoonery. The pure spectacle of the combat is what truly shines with the visuals, with particle effects flying everywhere when Ichi winds up a punch before hitting them like a sledgehammer. Not only that the summons are a joy to watch, which these can range from lobsters attacking your foes to Goro Majima running down a skyscraper as he throws thousands of knives which then electrify the ground. It’s over the top and that is what makes both the gameplay and presentation excellent.

Are there any issues with the game? Well to be honest nothing really got in the way of my experience too much, but I suppose I should talk about the one issue that sticks out like a hairy crisp in a bowl and that is the framerate. The framerate does stutter from the time to time on the Xbox One platform, this happens mostly in combat when particle effects take up the majority of the screen not only that it happens in the cutscenes too. This doesn’t happen too often and honestly I have myself to blame for playing it on a 7 year old piece of hardware, but worth mentioning.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon is a fantastic step in a different direction for the series, it still retains the dark serious crime drama narrative but this time turns the goofy metre all the way up. The turn based combat really suits the series and is a breath of fresh air, as we have had the same brawler combat for about 15 years at this point. Ichi is an endearing character where he is extremely loyal, but he is also a bumbling idiot which makes him more lovable. If you are looking for a J-RPG with a crime drama flare, then this is the game for you.