It’s hard to think of another series that I’ve developed such a
love-hate relationship with as Sega’s long-running Yakuza franchise.
Originally debuting in Western territories in 2006(!), the
original Yakuza began the tale of Kazuma Kiryu, with a focus on lengthy
cutscenes, a vibrant and explorable city loaded with sidequests, beat-em-up
gameplay, and a ton of style. Though it was met with popularity in Japan almost
instantly, its debut on the near-dead PS2 at a time when Sega West’s marketing
was almost nonexistent meant that Yakuza hardly had a chance to make a blip on
Western shores.
As it boomed in Japan, Yakuza went on to enjoy somewhat of a cult
status over the years in the West, primarily among Sega fans, with some
installments not seeing Western release until years after their Japanese
counterparts (if at all). Despite all this, the series has enjoyed a resurgence
in Western territories in recent years, with Yakuza: Like a Dragon being
granted its biggest marketing push yet, with the return of English voice acting
for the first time since the original game after being inexplicably left out of
the series for what was essentially 14 years.
It makes sense that Yakuza: Like a Dragon (known as Ryu Ga Gotoku 7 in
Japan) would be seen as a chance by Sega’s Western divisions to start things fresh;
with Kazuma’s story ending in Yakuza 6, Like a Dragon sees the introduction of
a brand new cast of characters, and opts to take place mostly in an entirely
new city, with a shift from brawler-style combat engine to a turn-based battle
system.
It’s an ambitious shift to say the least, one that in several ways
winds up working surprisingly well. Though Yakuza: Like a Dragon’s presentation
still feels outdated in many ways, something that’s become a bit of a theme
with this series, its take on turn-based combat is surprisingly modern and has
real potential, not even just for this series, but for turn-based battle
systems in general. It’s easily Yakuza: Like a Dragon’s biggest surprise, and
while it’s a bummer that the rest of the game aimlessly sputters along, its
combat system will hopefully breathe some new life into turn-based RPGs, and
that alone is something that’s deserving of praise.
Despite having played the Yakuza series from the beginning, I’ve over the years began to develop a love-hate relationship with the games. As with most series’
that receive annual sequels, the amount of innovation and invention from game
to game varies wildly. For every Yakuza game that seems to take substantiative
steps forward, (Yakuza 6 being the most recent example) there are then several
others that feel like retreads, with gameplay that just, for the most part,
hasn’t changed much at all since 2006 and which has, on many occasions, put me
to sleep as I was playing. It’s in this way that the Yakuza series has always
felt so strange, its presentation varying from genuinely impressive cutscenes
and a truly staggering number of sidequests to take on and things to explore,
to feeling so outdated in its use of (up until incredibly recently) archaic
save point and item management systems, an over-abundance of voice-less text
boxes, and gameplay that consists almost entirely of being told to walk from
Point A to Point B across town and getting in battles along the way.
Yakuza 6 took some major presentational steps forward in the sense
that it eliminated the text box cutscenes (which have sadly made a return for
Yakuza: Like a Dragon) and moved the interface from being overly-focused on a
clunky Start Menu to instead consisting of a sleek and modern in-game Smart
Phone design (again, sadly walked back in Yakuza: Like a Dragon). Other
elements from Yakuza 6 that I hoped would’ve continued to stick around, such as
its more focused narrative with at least some sense of pacing, have also fallen
by the wayside in this 7th installment, which features a fairly revolutionary
take on the turn-based battle system but which otherwise feels like its
gameplay could have been swapped in from any of the series’ weaker entries. Along
with the truly unfortunate addition of level grinding and the introduction of a
brand new city that feels like little more than a traversable highway with barely
even a handful of shops to interact with, this new tale ended for me as a
bland, forgettable adventure.
Yakuza: Like a Dragon stars new character Ichiban Kasuga, who, in
a fairly similar way to Kazuma Kiryu, takes the fall for someone else and
serves time in prison at the start of the game, being ultimately released into
an entirely different world. Ichiban’s a compelling character; both funny and
instantly likable, he presents a solid anchor for the rest of the game. Left
for dead and awakening in a homeless camp in the city of Yokohama, Like a
Dragon gets off to a very strong, albeit oddly-paced, start. Ichiban’s mentored
by Arakawa, the patriarch of Ichiban’s Tojo Clan family, who has a tragic but
fascinating backstory, and his bond with Ichiban feels incredibly real. The
initial scenario presented is compelling, but the plot ultimately and very
quickly falls into a haze of seemingly disparate parts that don’t manage to
form cohesively into a whole. It jumps haphazardly from a fairly bland
counterfeit bill investigation to a long series of tedious odd jobs, to an
unintentionally goofy anti-crime group known as Bleach Japan, to ultimately an
anti-climactic political election that comes out of nowhere and suddenly takes
center-stage, with none of these elements leading anywhere satisfying.
Characters introduced earlier on in the story are entirely forgotten by the
end, with, this being an RPG, much of the focus being instead devoted to your main
party members. Much of their development takes place in optional conversations
in the Survive Bar, an aspect of Yakuza: Like a Dragon that wields promise, but
one that similarly devolves into a series of forgettable anecdotes and truly
endless dialogue sequences.
Though I generally wouldn’t put so much weight on a game’s
storyline, Yakuza: Like a Dragon doesn’t offer much choice, as outside of
battle, sitting through cutscenes and dialogue boxes is where you’ll spend the
vast majority of your time as you progress through the story. Yakuza is
certainly no stranger to long cutscenes, but Like a Dragon’s are almost
stunning in their inability to end. There’s not a single cutscene or dialogue
sequence, even minor ones, that wouldn’t have been vastly improved by being 10
minutes shorter, and that’s almost a generous estimate. Even though much of the
dialogue is well-written and truly well-acted, and even when legitimately interesting
events are taking place, there’s no sense whatsoever that the developers were
concerned about pacing or about the scenes flowing naturally. It isn’t that I
don’t like a good story, and as a kid I loved almost any game that featured
long cutscenes. But in 2020/2021, long cutscenes on their own aren’t as
impressive as they were, say, back in 2006. And in a story, especially one that
demands so much of your time, it’s important that all of its elements actually
have something real to say, some ability to justify us sitting there for 20-30
minutes at a time listening to the characters ramble on and on. Despite me
having been compelled by several Yakuza stories in the past, Yakuza: Like a
Dragon’s plot failed to hold my attention throughout, and with the fact that
the story’s such an inescapable part of what the game is, it’s hard to just let
that slide.
Though many entries in the Yakuza series have taken place in new
cities in addition to its iconic Kamurocho Red Light District, Yakuza: Like a
Dragon makes the much-needed decision to take the most decisive break yet from
that city’s vibrant but by this point torturously familiar neighborhoods and
alleyways. Only small bits of Like a Dragon take place in Kamurocho, with much
of the attention shifting to the Ijincho
district of the city of Yokohama. It’s a positive change theoretically, but
consisting of what feels like a collection of wide and empty highways and
thoroughfares that you’re forced to traverse across, with very few buildings to
enter and a nearly non-existent sense of life, Ijincho feels very
under-utilized by the story and for the most part just sits there, serving as a
dungeon to walk through on your way from cutscene to cutscene or text box to
text box. Though the plots of previous Yakuza entries took the player through
packed, vibrant bars, nightclubs, and karaoke venues, into intense underground
fighting arenas, and into chases across city rooftops, Yakuza: Like a Dragon
does almost none of this. Ijincho’s nightlife consists of a “bar district”
that’s simply a narrow street with about 5 buildings, almost none of them open for
you to either explore or to have its plot take you through them. In fact, by
and large, aside from the main bar your characters hang out at and one or two
other locations, Yakuza: Like a Dragon makes almost zero use of any of Ijincho’s
buildings or neighborhoods, other than to have you trek through them. There are
little ethnic enclaves sprinkled throughout, none of them playing any sort of
role in the story but at least feeling like something, but for the most part
Ijincho feels big but empty and not especially visually appealing. At one point
you revisit a tiny section of the city from a previous Yakuza game, and the
sense of life and vibrancy you’re hit with almost instantly upon stepping foot
there in comparison to the quiet, lifeless Ijincho district is nothing short of
startling. The story even robs Yakuza: Like a Dragon’s new city of being the
site for the game’s finale, which, while expected, is still
disappointing and serves to cement Ijincho’s status for now as simply an
underdeveloped backdrop.
It turns out that the new battle system, in spite of the
hours upon hours you’re forced to level grind in order to complete the main
story, is Yakuza: Like a Dragon’s saving grace. Though turn-based, it feels
exciting, fresh, and actually very entertaining. Characters can knock into
others and damage them as they rush over to attack the selected enemies. Button
prompts as you attack and to defend are crucial, objects on the ground that
your character approaches as they attack the enemy can be used, and the
over-the-top special moves and the way the enemies taunt your characters are
hilarious. I wouldn’t have expected to like it the way I did, but quite
honestly it’d be hard for me to return to the repetitive button mashing
beat-em-up battle system of the previous entries after experiencing this one.
If they can get the level grinding under control and create a job system that
doesn’t actively dissuade you from using it by forcing you to start each new
job at Level 0, I think it’d be great path for this series to continue down.
The way the turn-based battle system’s referenced into the story, with Ichiban
explaining that he was trained to fight all his life by studying the Dragon
Quest series, (so of course he fights in a turn-based way) is actually a very
endearing/funny bit of writing. The emphasis on MP and using Abilities over the
series’ previous tendency to force you to constantly purchase and flood your
inventory and item boxes with recovery items is a good improvement as well.
Another area that Yakuza: Like a Dragon excels in is in its
performances. It marks (finally) the return of English voice acting to the series,
and the actors almost universally offer incredible performances. Major props
especially to the voices of Ichiban and Arakawa (voiced surprisingly well by
George Takai) but almost all of the performances are great across the board.
Japanese voice acting’s also available for those who prefer that, which is a
nice touch, but the dub’s excellent and definitely the way I’d personally
recommend the game be experienced. The music on the other hand’s very
forgettable, and I can’t remember a single track from the game as I write this.
In the end, Yakuza: Like a Dragon, despite making changes
I’d hoped the series would make for years such as featuring a brand new cast of
characters and a more decisive move to a new setting, ultimately frustrates and
disappoints. Any time the story begins to feel like it’s picking up steam, the
game forces you to stop dead in your tracks to either have to grind for cash in
order to progress, or to level your characters up in a “battle arena” that has
all the personality of an elevator shaft, just to beat boss battles that are
far above and beyond the difficulty of the enemies in the city streets or in
the “dungeons” leading up to them. Steps back in presentation and interface
from the much more modern-feeling Yakuza 6 are equally disappointing, as is the
emphasis on truly never-ending cutscenes detailing an under-developed plot in a
bland new city that fails to develop any attachment to the player in the way
that several previous Yakuza cities have. By far its biggest change and the one
that pays off the most is the switch to a turn-based battle
system, which is a ton of fun and something I’d love to see refined and brought
back in future Yakuza installments. It’s just a shame that it exists in such a
grindy, otherwise forgettable adventure. In dropping the “7” from the title for
its Western release and with its excellent English dub, it appears that Sega
sees this as a jumping in point for new players. It’s hard for me to recommend
this fairly sleepy game as a starting point, however, and though it has some
very promising new ideas, Yakuza: Like a Dragon is ultimately best suited to
die-hard fans of this long-running series. And I’m sure they’ll enjoy it, as
they’ve enjoyed all the others.
2.5/5
Note; this review is based on the base PS4 version
