In my memory, I spent the summer of 2011 playing Yakuza 3 and 4 back to back. Picked up 3 in a bargain bin, loved it, and immediately went and played 4. That's my memory, at least. Going back and looking at my old blogs from then (which I don't recommend, I don't think there's anything bad in them so much as it's just embarrassing to see some of the dumb internet speak I used), I seem to have misplaced several months. Apparently I played Yakuza 3 over spring break from college, and it wasn't until the summer proper that I played 4.
Not that it really matters, thirteen years later. At least not beyond establishing it's been long enough since my first introduction to the series that I don't remember it clearly. Gone from a concrete series of events to a vague blur overlooking what really happened, and replacing it with a fun story. “The summer of Yakuza, where I started by finding one in a bargain bin, but got so into them I put sixty hours into each, back to back.” Enough of it is true, though. I found Yakuza 3 for about $15 in a bargain bin, and in no way I did I expect to fall in love with the series over the following decade plus.
For the 2011 Moosies, Yakuza 4 was my “Number VI” game of that year, and while I wasn't writing novella length treatises at the time, I did have this to say. “The fact that Sega keeps bringing the Yakuza games to the US is crazy. They don't sell well, and they're kinda messed up and backwards in some ways.” I later went on to praise Yakuza 4 for its story and great characters, but, in retrospect, it's funny how I didn't realize I was sort of predicting where the franchise was going in the US.
Which is to say, away. I'm pretty sure Dead Souls flopped even by the standards of the series at the time, and we entered the dark age of western Yakuza releases. Yakuza 5, a second alternate universe samurai game, and Yakuza 0 all released in Japan before Sega finally deemed Yakuza 5 worthy of a release in late 2015...as a downloadable only PS3 game. The series would come roaring back with a proper release of Yakuza 0 in 2017 (including a physical version that came with a metal business card case), and that's when people beyond the sickos like me started paying attention.
It was slow, and not without hiccups (I still maintain Yakuza 6 is bad), but the series has been gaining popularity ever since. In the span of a decade, we've gone from feeling certain we were never getting another western release from this series, to having them release day and date with Japan, complete with full English dubs to complement the original Japanese! Not only that, but Infinite Wealth sold a million copies in the first week! 2011 me never would have believed it was possible.
It was so funny to go back to what I first wrote about Yakuza 3, and see I wished there was an English dub, even if I “grew to really like the Japanese voice acting by the end.” Particularly because when Judgment released in 2019, the first game from RGG studio since the original Yakuza on PS2 to feature a full English dub, I decided to play it with the dub. A lot of reasons for that, mostly because I was raised on old Godzilla movies and highly edited for the west anime (jelly donuts in Pokémon and the Home For Infinite Losers in DBZ). But also because I was pretty miffed at the unceremonious recasting of voice and face post release (in Japan) of actor Pierre Taki simply because he took a drug test that said he used cocaine. In my head, it felt better to play with the English dub where it was going to be a different actor anyway, but not that it really matters.
Set in the same world as Yakuza (RGG Studio beating Remedy to a connected game universe by months), but with a new cast of characters, it wasn't going to bother me. Not like Kiryu was going to show up in the game, because by this point, even as angry as I was with how Yakuza 6 went, I'd become so attached to Kazuma Kiryu, and very specifically to Takaya Kuroda as Kiryu's voice. There are a lot of iconic voice actors, and a lot of them are so very specifically because of video game characters they've played. Kuroda as Kiryu is for me, and all the old-heads amongst the Yakuza fans, absolutely one of them.
Then, a year later, another momentous occasion for RGG Studio, as they released the next main chapter in the core series. They even dropped the numbering in the west as it was seen as the perfect chance to bring in new players. Yakuza: Like a Dragon, a soft reboot that continued the overarching story, but focused on new characters like Ichiban Kasuga, and changed the style of game from action adventure with beat'em'up combat, to a full on turn based JRPG. It was bold, and worked shockingly well, certainly better than I expected.
And, because at the time I felt confident that the old guard of the series was in retirement, I played with the English dub. Which was great! Kaiji Tang as Ichiban is absolutely perfect in the role, and honestly I felt the whole English cast was great too. I'd be lying if I didn't say that George Takei as Arakawa was a factor too. Hearing a veteran actor like him in an emotional role like that made it hit all the harder for me.
Of course, it turned out that the series mainstays did appear in that game, but only briefly. Kiryu does show up, but really only twice, once as an especially brutal boss fight, but he didn't have much dialog. So I didn't feel bad about not hearing Kuroda in the role, even if the English actor wasn't great (though I do think it's nice that they got back the actor from the first game's English dub, Darryl Kurylo, that was a nice nod).
Again, I can't emphasize enough just how perfect Kaiji Tang is as Ichiban, and I'm sure the Japanese actor is equally perfect! Just how Kuroda is perfect for Kiryu. Well, not quite the same way, because Kuroda has been Kiryu (or samurai Kiryus), in main roles, across twelve games, not counting three remakes. 0 through 6, two samurai games, Dead Souls, Gaiden, and now Infinite Wealth. Thirteen if you count his cameo in Y:LAD, and a whopping SIXTEEN if you count the remakes (I don't know how much, if any new dialog was recorded for those). All across nineteen years. You spend that much time playing a character, and I have to imagine the actor has as much influence over shaping the character as the writing, animation, etc. As opposed to Ichiban, who's only been in two games, and had multiple actors playing him from the get go.
Last year, playing Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, a new game with Kiryu as the lead for the first time since 2019 (when I played Kiwami 1 and 2), it hit me. The nostalgia, and honestly just how good Kuroda is as Kiryu. There's a scene at the end where Kiryu is absolutely sobbing, and I don't know how to describe what it feels like other than to say it feels like the sort of performance you can only get after playing a character for as long as Kuroda has. It's heartbreaking, but it's perfect.
Prior to LADGTMWEHN, I was really worried about how Kiryu was being brought back to the forefront after he very clearly passed the torch to Ichiban in Y:LAD. Coinciding with longtime series producer Toshihiro Nagoshi leaving the studio, it felt like an act of desperation. Maybe the people left with the reins weren't sure what to do, so they fell back to bringing Kiryu back out of retirement, with his own spinoff, and coming back to the forefront to be co-protagonist of the next main entry in the series. But, when LADGTMWEHN ended up being good, I had some renewed faith. Yes, it was goofy and fanservicey, but they also knew the right way to tug at the heartstrings.
So all this preamble, multiple pages longer than I intended, brings me to the present, with Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. I wasn't sure, with how busy the first few months of the year looked, if I was going to get this game right at launch, but even after just playing the demo, I knew this one was going to be special. I couldn't tell you what exactly it was, just a vibe that I was in for a good time.
Not only was that vibe one hundred percent spot on, but I can say with confidence that this does not feel like a game born out of desperation or floundering because of long time creatives leaving. If anything, this is the boldest, and most confident this series has ever felt. In many ways, I think it's the best game this studio has ever made! Is it my favorite? Well, it's not my favorite story of them, even if I still think the story is quite good overall. That's the sort of question that I'll need time to ruminate on, especially when Y:LAD is a game that I've only grown to appreciate more in the years after finishing it.
I said that I was shocked at how well RGG Studio's first attempt at a turn based JRPG went, as the combat was surprisingly fun, and deeper than expected. Perhaps it shouldn't have been surprising, because to an extent, what they really did was strip out the parts of the fights where you mash through basic combos, and instead focused on the wild special attacks. It wasn't perfect by any means, and I'm happy to say that my biggest issue with it was addressed in Infinite Wealth.
My issue with Y:LAD's combat was that it was a game where your characters' positioning mattered relative to that of the enemies, but there was no way to control any of it. Things like characters being able to use objects in the environment as weapons if they were close to them, or not being able to do basic attacks against enemies in the back, because those in the front would block you. Decent ideas, but frustrating when you have zero control over where your current character is, especially because everyone just wanders around during fights.
Infinite Wealth, however, lets you move! Each character has a radius around them, and they're free to move wherever in said radius before locking in their action. These vary from character to character, what jobs they have equipped, and increase in size when they level up enough. It's still not perfect, though. Enemies and allies still wander around with minds of their own, and there's no way to control where allies are, only the specific character whose turn it is.
That's not a huge deal, but it is important. Skills that heal in a radius around the user can be used on the entire party...if they happen to be close together. I also spent quite a few hours not realizing you can target other party members, I thought you had to be within movement range. That helps a lot!
To go along with controlling movement, there's an explicit emphasis on getting into the right position for attacks. Certain skills have a radius that hits anyone caught in it, go in a straight line, or hit a specific arc. But even just basic attacks have a strategic element to them now. Back attacks have guaranteed crits, and most enemies get knocked around even from basic attacks to the front. Knock them into walls, or other enemies, and they take damage. Weapon attacks with junk in the environment can have elemental effects, if say it's a bottle of beer thrown at them, or an electric sign with the current still running.
Best though, is knocking enemies into allies, because then the ally will attack too, sending the enemy flying in another direction, and ideally into another enemy, or at least a wall. I dunno if they can be hit by a third ally in this chain, after 107 hours I don't think I ever saw that happen. As the story goes on, and the party members get their Drink Links leveled up, they start being able to do extra follow up attacks (where they run up and hit enemies after they've stopped bouncing around), and combo attacks where both characters do a basic attack in unison.
It can be a little iffy sometimes on when they do and don't actually do these things, I'm not sure if there's some hidden mechanic where they can only do the combo attack so many times, or some other factor as to if they follow up or not. But doing the combo attacks can be key, not just for doing more damage, but keeping everyone's MP up. Yes, there are items that can refill MP, but true to JRPG form, you can give into the impulse to just hoard items instead of actually using them. Why chug iced tea and beer to refill MP when basic attacks give a little back too? Why attack with a single person when a combo attack does more damage, AND refills MP for both of them? What if I said it also refills MORE MP for each of them than just a single attack would?
It's a fun system, and it plays into the strengths of this franchise. It may be a JRPG, but it's still a JRPG set in more or less modern day Earth, both in Japan and the United States. These are just dudes Ichiban and company are fighting, not goblins or slimes. You know what has long been fun in this series? Knocking dudes around, and into each other, so incorporating that so strongly into the basic attacks is brilliant, and most importantly, as fun as ever, if not more so! It's a lot easier to strategize in a turn based game, after all.
The special skills are as flashy and somehow even more ridiculous than ever. New character Eric Tomizawa (who I only ever refer to as Eric because I think it's super funny to have a main character in this series named Eric) is a cab driver, and his unique job skills are all car related. So it's stuff like throwing a bucket of soapy water on an enemy and scrubbing them with a brush, which then makes them more susceptible to electric attacks...which he can do with a car battery! It's not just funny, he's extremely powerful in combat, and also quickly became one of my favorites in the game.
He's so endearing, partly because he's just a normal guy. Yes, he has a tragic, genuinely heartbreaking backstory, but at the end of the day he still comes off as the most normal person in a game full of lunatics and sickos. I love Ichiban, but he's one of the goofiest goofballs to ever goof. Kiryu is iconic, but at times he feels like a video game character from a bygone era where stoicism was more important than anything else. Eric, though? He's just a dude. We all know someone like him in real life, I doubt many of us know an Ichiban, as much as we wish we did.
My only issue with the combat side of Infinite Wealth is that it's too easy. Or more accurately, I was able to accidentally over level just by playing the game normally. Y:LAD wasn't the hardest game out there, but it got pretty challenging in the back half. The Majima + Saejima tag team and Kiryu boss fights both took me multiple attempts, and forced me to really evaluate my party lineup, jobs, etc. I had to understand the combat, and know how to use it effectively to get through those fights. I had to use buffs and debuffs!!
That's not to say that's impossible in Infinite Wealth. This game is absolutely still hard when under leveled, or downright impossible if you're trying to fight a level 60 Legendary Sujimon when your party is all around level 30. The issue is there's so many enemies around Honolulu (and Yokohama) that without intending to, I got to a point where I was over leveled until literally the final boss. Even then, I was at level with him, so it felt a bit more challenging, but still not super hard.
Not that I really wanted the whole game to be brutally difficult, but it would be nice if there was a difficulty option to make it a bit more challenging. I'm not a game designer, but I think literally all they would have to do would be to increase the levels of the enemies. Obviously how much to increase them would take balance and work, unless it was just setting everything to the party's level. At which point that would kind of negate the point of leveling, so I dunno. Game design and balance is hard! I'm not a game designer!
Though as a side note, I've been playing FF VII Rebirth on “Dynamic” difficulty. Based on what I read online, it scales enemies up to match Cloud and friends, to prevent over leveling. So it's not like this is some radical, unfeasible idea. It's been fun so far, but I don't really know what it's actually changed, if anything. If the game displays what levels enemies are (at least outside Chadley's simulations), I've not noticed. It's definitely had both plenty of regular enemies that I mopped the floor with, and bosses that were so difficult I barely managed to scrape by. That said, Remake was a pretty challenging game at times, so as long this game is also pushing me to really explore all the combat has to offer, that's what I want.
The thing is though, a friend told me that apparently the NG+ DLC does have difficulty options, which is... First off the idea that new game plus is paid DLC, when it's just been a feature in all the other games, that's insulting. Second, I don't know who has the time to replay this hundred plus hour game. Granted, this is the first time I've played one of these games, and ended it kind of wanting to get the Platinum. It's doable! I think it'd be grindy to get Ichiban up to level 70, but still, doable.
Am I though? Probably not, because I had a copy of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth waiting days for me to finish Infinite Wealth, and by the time I finish that, Dragon's Dogma II will be out! I get it, games are expensive, and I know I'm splurging by getting multiple $70 games in the first few months of the year. Lots of people can't afford to do that. I'm sure there's people out there for whom Infinite Wealth is the one game they could afford for a long while, and I hope they enjoy it. I still think it's insulting to charge extra for a basic feature like that, and to charge extra for difficulty options! Ones you can't even use until finishing the game!!
I just hope this doesn't become a standard thing. It's one thing when games add NG+ as a free update. That isn't that bad, but I'll be bummed if this keeps happening.
Back to the good things about this game. Infinite Wealth is the first time the series has left Japan, and they went all the way to scenic Hawaii! I've never been there myself, so I can't say how accurate it is or isn't, but seeing images comparing real life stores and locations to their recreations in game, it feels like they put the same effort into bringing that level of detail the series is known for. I joke about how they set it in Hawaii so they could use location scouting as an excuse for a vacation, but this attention to detail doesn't come without putting in hard work.
It's also just fascinating to see their take on an American city, even if it is one that is admittedly closer, both in terms of population and physical geography, to Japan than just about anywhere else in the country. Whether it's the huge streets with a constant stream of cars (at least the main ones), or the vastly more diverse NPCs, Honolulu feels completely different from any other location RGG Studio has done before. Yokohama already felt bigger and more open than Kamurocho, but Honolulu, true to being an American city, feels appropriately sprawling in comparison. I know real life Tokyo is enormous, what I'm getting at is more of a sense of openness compared to the cramped alleyways of Kamurocho.
But it still feels like a Like a Dragon city, and that's a good thing. There's faux-Segways to travel faster, and it's fun to cruise around while listening to disco from Yakuza 0, or songs from other Sega games. “Take Over” and “Let's Go Away” being my favorites for that, but weirdly the battle theme from SMT V made me want to play Vengeance when that releases (like I don't have enough JRPGs to get through as it is). I definitely ended up using the taxis to fast travel more than ever before, but I also spent a lot of time just moseying around too. It's big, but not so big that you can't still walk from one end to the other, so in that way, I think it feels true to this series' cities.
And it's just so vibrant, fun, and full of life! There's a huge beach, covered in people sunbathing, swimming, and hanging around. There's dark alleys with minibosses lurking, but there's fire breathers and hula dancers, people playing ukeleles, there's dogs and cats, there's even kids! It's bright, and colorful! There's people of all shapes and sizes, and again, it's racially diverse in a way that an American city should be. It feels silly in a way to type this all out, but like, the other cities in this game don't feel this vibrant. They have their own identities, because Tokyo and Yokohama are very different from Honolulu, but I really appreciate what they went for here.
So much so, that I hope the franchise keeps heading to new countries in the future. Whether that's sticking to places relatively close to Japan (like China or South Korea), or going somewhere farther away, like Latin America, or even Europe, I'd love to see RGG Studio tackle newer, even more different cities. Heck, I'd even take another American city.
I'd take just coming back to Honolulu, or going to another place in Hawaii. Again, I joke with friends about how their next game is going to be Judgment 3, with the Yagami Detective Agency's biggest case yet, taking them all the way to Hawaii, to keep the tradition of reusing any and everything alive. We'll see, but I think it'd be a waste if the series goes back to only Japan.
It wouldn't be an RGG Studio game without a plethora of side stuff to do, and Infinite Wealth is absolutely one of the best in the series history there. Tons of substories (side quests), and while there's not really anything revolutionary going on in any of them, most of them are really good. I could argue that in a few cases they lean a little too heavily on bringing back bits from the substories in Y:LAD, but that would be dishonest. Yes, it's a little silly to have the scientist with the giant robot vacuum cleaner in Hawaii, and have it go how you would expect after that previous game, but it's still funny.
Plus, there is another thing with that vacuum in another side story that did not feel like it would be related, but was so funny when it happened. And don't get me started on what happens with those excavators on the beach. One of the silliest, dumbest things I've ever seen in a game, and I was absolutely cackling when it did.
Plenty of the substories are wholly new, and they span from also funny and goofy (the one with Joseph the bird is another favorite of mine), to the usual sappy melodrama, like helping a kid sell lemonade so he can by a present for someone before she leaves town. Some of them have some story turns that are a little...questionable (like the mother who turns herself in to the police and leaves her kid with some guy she was friends with when they were kids), and I do occasionally roll my eyes at how painfully hetero this series continues to be. Outside of a pair of lesbian crustaceans (not a joke, they are literally a crawfish and a hermit crab), every romance or couple in this game is hetero. I wouldn't bring it up if there weren't a lot of them. Again, nothing new for the series, but many substories end in some sort of, “and they were a perfect match for each other all along!”
It'd just be nice if once, just once in one of these games it might be a nice queer couple. I won't harp on this for long, but I know while this series has managed to get itself away from the queerphobia (mostly transphobia) that would rear its head in earlier games, it's also gotten away from the occasional bright spots of queer positivity it used to have. My guess is that they are too skittish because they don't want to do anything harmful, so they just stay far away from it, and again, it's frustrating.
Good combat, and substories, but it still wouldn't be Like a Dragon without minigames. The arcades are still there, even if they lack the Sega branding now (I guess this happened in real life too?), but I didn't love the selection in this game. The newer minigames fair better, though. Ever wanted to do sick tricks while delivering food? What about playing Pokémon Snap, but instead of Pokémon you were taking pictures of buff men posing on the streets of Honolulu?
What about playing Pokémon, but instead of Pokémon they were Sujimon? You know, Super Jittery Men! Apparently in Japanese Sujimon is a play on a slang term for thug, which makes more sense (this is a rare misstep for the localization, I think). The goofy classification system for the enemies from Y:LAD returns, now with the addition of the Sujimon League. Secret, underground fights, and the organization running it as corrupt as they come. So it's up to Ichiban to become a Sujimon Trainer and through the power of friendship (with his Sujimon), become champion and take the corruption out of illegal underground fighting.
Okay, the Sujimon battles aren't all that deep, it's mostly just a matter of rock-paper-scissoring the types right, and making sure your Sujimon are appropriately leveled. But...they kind of went and put a whole second JRPG inside their JRPG. It's small, and simple, sure, but it's bananas that it's here at all.
And the Sujimon can also be tasked with helping out at the other game inside a game...Dondoko Island.
So, here's my theory about how this came to be. Yakuza: Like a Dragon released in Japan in January 2020, right before The Pandemic really started. The western release was later in November, but I don't know how much of those extra months was work RGG Studio had to do, or how much was just the localization (or how much of that is overlap). Anyway, point being, Infinite Wealth was made entirely post Pandemic. Or, during, depending on one's views on what's going on out there (Covid is still a threat, be careful, mask where appropriate, get vaccinated/boosted!).
I feel, that the entirety of RGG Studio lost their minds and played an obscene amount of Animal Crossing New Horizons in the early months of The Pandemic. Then, in their collective delirium, decided they could do that too. The result...is Dondoko Island.
After saving a sea turtle from poachers, Ichiban finds himself kidnapped by mascot Gachapin (apparently a pre-existing character) and taken to an island that was formerly a resort, but is now littered with trash dumped by waste disposal pirates. When a depressed (and horny) old man and two despondent mascots tell Ichiban the history of the island, he takes it upon himself to clean up the trash, rebuild the resort, and fight off all the pirates.
It's deeper in some ways than I expected (there's lots of different things to place), but still a miniature game, after all. But I still saw it through to the end! Same with the Sujimon League, of course. Oh, that brings me to the thing that really made me think RGG Studio lost their minds.
So, the Sujimon can work on the Dondoko Farm, growing vegetables, cleaning up trash, training, etc. But you can also...pet them? To build friendship?? I think this is just to further them parodying Pokémon, because I know that became a thing in the DS era, but like...it's still odd to be doing that with dudes instead of Pokémon.
You can use the touchpad to pet them so that's what I did.
At this point I've covered the combat, and the breadth of side stuff, so all that really leaves is the story. I'm not going to write out a whole synopsis, but I do have some things to say about Kiryu's presence in the game, and some...thematic stuff, I guess? No direct story spoilers, but some stuff about the structure of the back half of the game. Go play the game if you're worried, it's great! If my thousands of words prior didn't illustrate that, haha.
So, in the first half of the game, Kiryu is just another party member. He has unique mechanics (swapping between his three fight styles from 0), but otherwise the game doesn't treat him any differently than anyone else. Except for his not having a Drink Link with Ichiban, or showing up in restaurant conversations, or I think in Walk and Talks. Which felt odd to me, until...
About two thirds of my way into the game (so like 60-ish hours), Kiryu leaves Hawaii, and goes back to Japan. At first I thought it might just be they were writing him out of the story, but it was actually the exact opposite. At a point, again, two thirds of the way into the story, the structure changes, and it begins alternating perspectives for each chapter. One with Ichiban and his party, and the next with Kiryu and his.
This series has done this before, most notably with 0 switching between Kiryu and Majima every two chapters. But that did it from the start, not this deep in. This also made the cover art for the game make way more sense, with Ichiban and his party in one half of the infinity sign, and Kiryu and his on the other. It also reminded me that this was announced years ago, that or leaked that the game was going to swap between two different parties in different cities, but I had forgotten.
Game play wise, it works fine. They each have similar characters that fill similar roles, even if it's bizarre that two of them don't show up until comically late into the game. I didn't get Joongi Han until ninety five hours into this game. And considering he was my go to in the previous game, that was a bit disappointing. Particularly because, since I had accidentally over-leveled and he came in at the level the game thought I should be at, he was always behind on that. But I still like him, he's still good.
Anyway, the game takes on a bit of a different tone with Kiryu as the lead. This is no longer the same Kiryu from the early games, he's older, wearier, and truly believes in his heart that he's only caused pain and suffering to the people around him. To the people he cares about. That's why he went and faked his death, erased his name, and tried so hard to distance himself from his loved ones.
That worked fine for a while, even if it was torture for him emotionally, being the most stoic man who ever lived, he still managed to carry on. It was destroying him on the inside, but as long as he could keep working, and keep fighting, that was all he needed.
But now, for reasons I won't spoil, that isn't enough any more. He isn't strong enough to carry the burden alone, and he has to rely on others to complete the job he's set out to do. But these aren't just randos, these are, importantly, Ichiban's friends. And what does being friends with Ichiban do? It means his endless font of positivity has rubbed off on them, and they want to do for Kiryu what Ichiban did for them.
And if that means practically forcing themselves to be Kiryu's friends, to help Kiryu work through whatever regrets he has, then so be it. So, that means that while Kiryu and friends are working toward uncovering and dealing with the bad guy's plans, they're also trying to tick off anything Kiryu might have on his bucket list. Doing karaoke, just hanging out, whatever!
In addition to that, instead of substories, Kiryu has memoirs. Most of them are just little one off bits where he reminisces about people he knew, places he went, or even dreams he had about zombies or being a samurai. They're kinda sappy at times, and downright silly at others (“the best combination ever” being his old friend Date and...helicopters), but they're endearing. They know how to tug at the heartstrings. In one of them Kiryu refers to Saejima as a man, “as big as an ocean, and with a heart just as vast,” and something about that made me tear up a little.
Some of the memoirs are more involved, with full voice acting, and even fights, so those feels like proper substories. Then, there's the stuff with Date. He forces himself back into Kiryu's life, with the intent of helping Kiryu get past specific regrets he has, by letting Kiryu check in on people he hasn't seen in years. At first discretely, without the others knowing (because Kiryu is supposed to be dead), but later, bending or breaking that rule by fully speaking with long lost friends.
In the older games, Kiryu often felt like he was there as a bit of a cypher for the player. He didn't have a lot of his own characterization, other than being stoic and helping people in need, even if he would grumble about it silently. As the games went on he certainly became more of an actual character, but in a lot of ways I think this introspective, regretful Kiryu is the most interesting he's ever been. It's sad, but it's a sadness I can share in because I played all those games, I understand why he has so many regrets. It's true, some of his actions did hurt people he cares about, and I get why that's all he sees when he thinks about his life.
This part of the game is so touching because it's about someone who had all but given up on his life, but through both his new friends, and old ones, realizes that he lived a good life after all. Maybe some people were hurt along the way, and some were definitely lost, but the good he brought into the world? All the people he helped, whether it was some random weirdo on the street, or someone whose life he saved? Kiryu did so much more to help than any person could be asked to do.
And it's not just in the story, there's a game side too, where all this stuff feeds into upgrading his Dragon of Dojima job, and enhancing all three styles within it. Not only does all this help him emotionally, it literally helps bring him back to life, back to the old him. As someone who's been going along with Kiryu's adventures for a very long time now, all that nostalgia, all this...it got me feeling really emotional, and I'm glad it works. It could have very easily felt like cheap fanservice, or like I said, a desperate move to keep people in because they didn't have any new ideas.
There is one thing though, that astute readers probably picked up on, but I haven't directly addressed yet. I mentioned how much Takaya Kuroda is Kiryu in Japanese, but also how much I love Kaiji Tang as Ichiban in English. If I have an attachment to both, which language did I go with?
Well, the answer is...mostly English. See, prior to playing the game, I played the demo, and got a taste for the English Kiryu, and... You know when I write about voice actors, I always try to be positive. Especially if I bring up an actor by name, even if I'm criticizing some aspect of the performance, I still want to be positive about it, because I think voice acting doesn't get the credit it should (nor do the actors typically get paid as much as they should).
All that said, Yong Yea as Kiryu in English is...not good. Even outright bad in a lot of ways. I'm not saying every line is bad, but compared to Kuroda who helped define the character...it's not even close. But also there are definitely times where Yea's performance 100% drags down scenes, and if I hadn't changed the language back and forth during Kiryu's parts of the game, I probably would be even more negative than I am now.
Prior to playing the game, I told myself that I would look up any particularly emotional scenes with Kiryu after the fact, and I did that for the ending, but like I said, I ended up switching quite a few times. Which is a hassle, since the game needs to reload and go back to the main menu to switch. Any time I felt like something emotional, or whatever was coming up, I switched. Or even if it was as simple as the gang going to do karaoke, because while Kuroda has a genuinely amazing singing voice (I could listen to his Baka Mitai forever), Yea...had to be auto-tuned. Though, I'm not sure what's up with that, because some of English Ichiban's songs are auto-tuned too, but they weren't in the previous game, and I thought his singing voice was perfectly fine. Not as good as Greg Chun's great Baka Mitai for Nanba, but perfectly fine.
All those scenes with Date, too. I can't imagine going through those with Yea, or honestly whoever the English voice of Date is. Not that the snippets of English Date I heard were bad, just different. Which is the thing, right? I'm so attached to Kuroda as Kiryu that any English voice actor wouldn't be the same, but I wouldn't dedicate this much space to it if they at least cast someone good. Like, Matt Mercer as Majima isn't the same, but he's not bad by any stretch.
But Yea?
I don't understand how they flubbed up the casting this badly. Everyone else in the main cast is bare minimum good, but mostly great. All the returning actors are as good as ever (or better than I remembered, since Robbie Daymond's Zhao awakened something in me, haha), and the new ones are great too! Matt Yang King is particularly so as Eric, and Suzie Yeung is good as Chitose too!
So that's why I didn't just play in Japanese either, I love the English cast of this game. Not to say I wouldn't also love most of the Japanese cast too had I played Y:LAD in Japanese...but if I'm being honest, I like the English voices for most of them better. Saeko in particular, I don't care for in Japanese. But since I'm not actively mad at her casting, I'm not going to write paragraphs about it.
So, yeah. I spent the back half of this game switching languages, which was a hassle, but I think ultimately the best compromise I could find for myself. And I know I'm in a minority here, most of the old guard of Yakuza fans just played in Japanese, I'm sure. Not to say a bad performance wouldn't still be bad. Newer fans who just played in English since these games default to it, or whatever reason deserve as good an experience as the people who played in Japanese. And I hope the Chinese voice acting is good too!
For my bizarre situation, I could blame Japanese society being so unforgiving of drug use, and Pierre Taki's recasting for setting me down this path...but that would be a lie. 2011 me wished Yakuza 3 had an English dub (at least at first), because for better or worse, that's just what I lean toward. At least for games and anime, for whatever reason in live action I tend to prefer the original language. Don't ask me why, I don't understand how my brain works!
Anyway, hopefully this time RGG Studio can actually commit to retiring Kiryu from the series. At least from being more than a cameo, so this problem won't happen again!
I know I usually don't like to end on sour notes, so instead I'm going to end by saying that I'm really excited by the future of this series. I was worried that with some of the creatives leaving, this might be a moment where they floundered, but if anything they thrived. No, it's not the best story they've ever told, but the core game is probably the strongest they've ever made. And don't get me wrong, I still really enjoyed the story! The actual A Plot Narrative is engaging, and full of twists and turns, but honestly Kiryu's journey from having given up on life to finding a reason to keep going, that's emotionally resonant.
But also, Ichiban really is just one of the best characters...ever? He is just so endlessly optimistic, and always willing and able to see the good in people, even when they don't see it themselves. He's just a fun character to inhabit, to see interact with others, and even just look at. I love his big goofy hair! It suits him perfectly.
We could all use an Ichiban in our lives, and I hope he and his friends have many adventures to come.
Thank you for reading! I'm glad to be in a pretty good writing groove, but it'll be a bit before the next one. I'm like 30 hours into Rebirth, yet I'm sure I have a long road ahead as that untold story continues...
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