I’m no stranger to the Yakuza games; I can never get enough of ‘em! I’ve been a fan for over 10 years and the team at RGG studio has always been able to surprise me. Like A Dragon Gaiden, however, is not a game that surprised me. If you’ve played Yakuza: Like A Dragon, the plot will very familiar to you as it takes place directly before (and during) the events of that game. This budget entry into the series is more of an explanation of what Kiryu was doing for all those years between Yakuza 6 and Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth, but padded into an experience that drags on for way too long, while explaining some things that we already knew.
Fans of the franchise may feel underwhelmed by Like A Dragon Gaiden, especially if one of the selling points of the title to you is the demo for Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth. Speaking of which, you only unlock the demo by beating the game, which will take you about 8 hours if you go through just the main story without doing many of the side missions. Locking the demo behind the completion of the game is a bad move as it bloats the file size of the game unnecessarily. The install for the game ended up being over 80gb – larger than any previous RGG studio game! This is supposed to be a shorter, budget entry that ended up larger in file size than any other game in the series.
The Reviewer Who Almost Fell Asleep
Like A Dragon Gaiden’s story focuses on Kiryu after the events of Yakuza 6, in which Kiryu has given his life to protect the children of Morning Glory. Working with the Daidoji, an underground secret organization, he erases his past and becomes Joryu. Now as an agent of the Daidoji, he does their bidding in exchange for a faked death and new identity. Things start to go very wrong when people suddenly figure out that Joryu is just Kiryu with glasses. The first three to four hours of the game can feel like a slog, with new gameplay elements taking too much time to be introduced to the player to expand his new fighting style. The longest chapter in the game does not have much to add to the plot, to the point where I actually almost fell asleep.
The new fighting style is genuinely a lot of fun! The Agent fighting style feels diverse by being as over the top as possible. You have multiple new gadgets to play with: Spider, Hornet, Firefly and Serpent. The Spider gadget is like a grappling hook that you can use to get items for NPC’s. You can also use it in combat to drag enemies/items across the fighting space. Hornets are drones that you can call in to stun the enemy for a very short amount of time. Fireflies are a cigarette that is an explosive device that can wipe of large groups of enemies very quickly. The Serpent are rocket shoes that let you move around quicker during a fight. These elements all blend together to help create a style that feels so damn good to use and makes you feel like an action hero. It’s just a shame that you don’t get all the gadgets from the start because it makes the style feel underwhelming when you first use it.
The second fighting style, the Yakuza style, is just the same exact one from Kiwami 2. If you’ve played a Yakuza game before, it’s the same animations and movement. I still used this style the most because the Agent fighting style is so underwhelming before it’s fully unlocked.
The substories are always a highlight to me, because the writers have such crazy ideas and it creates the funniest and most memorable parts of any Yakuza game. Like all of the major minigames in previous entries, the main focus here is in the coliseum game mode. You’re even able to control different characters aside from Kiryu, though sadly characters like Majima, Saejima, and Daigo are paywalled as DLC. Some of the substories in the game will directly benefit you in the coliseum, involving recruiting new fighters that you can fight as, or fight with. It’s the best version of the coliseum in any Yakuza game, and it feels fresh for it.
The Developer Who Should’ve Made This Part Of Infinite Wealth Instead
It’s hard for me to truly be let down by a game, but all the way until the final few hours, I was not having fun. A thought in the back of my mind that kept nagging at me, “What is the point of this existing? What purpose does this serve to introducing Infinite Wealth?”. There was no answer. The biggest reason for this existing was to show players what Kiryu was doing before Infinite Wealth, but it feels drawn out to an unbearable degree. The first four hours of the game could’ve been entirely removed, and it would have made more sense (along with a better paced plot!) than what we ended up with.
The last four hours of the game are what made it all come together, all the abilities unlocked, all important characters introduced, it starts to get going and it gets good. Those four hours felt incredible, with fights that didn’t outstay their welcome, and narratives that weren’t trying to serve some purpose outside of the main plot. This was the part of the game that truly felt like a Yakuza game. The plot didn’t improve much but it still felt like things were happening and moving along at an acceptable pace. The final chapter of the game is one of my personal favorites in the franchise, and I was almost in tears at the end. I let it sit with me for a couple of days, and the final chapter is still the most memorable part of the game in my brain and the only one I can look back on fondly when compared to the rest of the game.
In an interview with developers at RGG Studio, they revealed that Gaiden was originally conceived as a DLC to Infinite Wealth in the same way Lost Judgment had The Kaito Files. They decided to make it a standalone entry and were working on it at the same time as Infinite Wealth. I think that if they kept it as additional content, it would have looked at it a bit more fondly. I wouldn’t recommend this at full retail price. However, it’s on Game Pass for Xbox and PC, which I would recommend if you’re interested and have about 8-10 hours to kill.
Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name
Played on
PC
PROS
- New fighting style is fun
- When the story gets going, it's great!
CONS
- Half the game is a snoozefest
- When the story isn't going, it's unenjoyable!
- Should've just been DLC for Infinite Wealth
