Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth

This is a repost. Now with pictures!

The 8th numbered Like a Dragon game, even though it’s not actually numbered. This is the sequel to Yakuza: Like a Dragon. A somewhat grounded JRPG where you take on the role of Ichiban Kasuga, a 40-something man having recently found his footing in life. But when the game starts, the rug gets pulled out from under him. He gets a new task, though, and that is to go to Hawaii! The exact details of the task will have spoilers for the previous game, so I won’t go into it much, but get ready for some more wild, heartfelt and heartwrenching adventures.

Read my thoughts on the previous game here.

Find it on Steam.

Due to the game taking place in Hawaii, the English dub feels more fitting this time around. In the Japanese version, a lot of people Ichiban interacts with just speaks perfect Japanese even though some of them have no reason to. In the English version, Ichiban learns great English over the course of a day and communicates fluently after that. I still like the English dub and it feels fitting for the characters.

New party members this time include Eric Tomizawa, a taxi cab driver that’s down on his luck and forced to work for criminals. And Chitose Fujinomiya, the daughter of a rich family that is trying to make it on her own rather than using her family’s money. And they are both introduced as utter jerks to Ichiban, which shows off Ichiban’s kindness and ability to make friends as he gets both of them to join his quest. Ichiban is still a fun character to see and experience Hawaii with. He’s just upbeat and bright.

The battle system has been refined greatly this time around. It is still turn-based party combat. The previous game, characters moved around by themselves. Now, you can move your character around within a range. This allows you to position your area of effect attacks better as well as move over to use random weapons scattered on the ground. Also, area of effect attacks have range indicators now.

The most satisfying part of combat are knockback attacks, though. You can knockback enemies into each other, or knockback enemies into your allies, who’ll then perform a follow up attack. It looks fun and is fun to perform.

Also, you can now stealth past enemies! In the previous game, they had 360 degree vision. Now their vision cone is accurate. If you are walking and keeping your distance, they don’t notice you. It can be annoying getting around them, but you can also instantly win against enemies that are too low of a level.

The story of this game can feel repetitive. And I mean within itself, not to other games. There are several events and setups that seem to happen multiple times. Two chapters even started the same way, and a different two ended the same way. Overall, the game can feel like it drags sometimes. The ending can feel a bit rushed, too. There could have been more scenes with the villains to get more interaction between them and the heroes. I did enjoy the villains of the game, though. They were made good foils to the main characters.

There is a later, optional, part of the game that relies a lot on you having played all the previous Yakuza games. They’re basically memories of past events. While I haven’t played any of those games and don’t have the full context of the memories, I did still like it since the characters treated it as deeply important and worthy of consideration.

There are also great side activities in this game. There is an entire Pokemon ripoff, and an Animal Crossing ripoff, and you can use the Pokemon ripoff team to work in the Animal Crossing ripoff. It is fantastic. I still need to fully dig into both of those modes, but they both come with amusing stories fitting the Like a Dragon world.

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is a fun followup to Yakuza: Like a Dragon. Explore Hawaii on your segway and make new friends. With a better combat system, enjoy knocking around the random enemies you’ll run into. The story may feel repetitive, but it is still fun to get through.

Find it on Steam.