Yakuza: Like a Dragon Has It All

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Excitement quickly turned to hesitance when Sega and Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio revealed Yakuza: Like a Dragon, known as the equivalent to Yakuza 7, Ryu Ga Gotoku 7, in Japan. From its initial appearance, the game looked to continue the Yakuza formula the series vocal fanbase enjoyed from previous games and spinoffs. But it would involve new main character Ichiban Kasuga, and primarily take place in the new city of Isezaki Ijincho — based off the Isezakicho district of Yokohama, Japan.

Those same fans got nervous when the developers revealed that battles would be turn-based this time instead of in real-time, with Kasuga travelling in a party, showing how the series was going full RPG. Some of them came around to it after considering the possibilities, seeing streamed demonstrations, and playing the demo, but others who adored the one-man army that was previous protagonist Kazuma Kiryu weren’t liking this.

This is partly why Sega has bent over backwards in the time between the reveal and its release in Japan and Asian territories yesterday to show how this game not only inherits the spirit of previous Yakuza titles, but also how it’s much more than that. It feels like they threw in every feature they could think of and had the resources for in this game, to highlight how it’s still an appealing Yakuza game despite the key gameplay change to the audience. It might be the most robust and outright zaniest game in the franchise thus far.

The turn-based battles look nice and fast from later Sega streams and from players who got their hands on a Japanese copy, which have noticeably been sped up since the Tokyo Game Show showing. All the battles we’ve seen involve the party fighting regular humans, but they can take goofy appearances thanks to Ichiban’s wild imagination, as influenced by his favorite Japanese RPG series: Dragon Quest. (Really, it’s flat-out mentioned in the game.) The characters themselves can take on several classes, with the jobs changing their appearances. It’s a pity some of them are restricted to paid DLC, but at least most of them aren’t. Even zanier are the summons, which include a Giant Enemy Lobster and returning side character Gary Buster Holmes.

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There are enemies on the streets and bigger bosses, but the game also inherits another RPG feature by having dungeons, which appear to take the place of the battle arenas from previous games. Just how robust these dungeons are will be determined as more people make their way through it — they may not be on par with what the average DQ game contains. But they’re bound to add to the already-robust length of recent Yakuza games and spinoffs.

What will also increase that length? The plethora of minigames. Karaoke (following its absence in Judgment) and arcade games like Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown have returned. Others are new, like kart racing, a game where players will have to keep Ichiban up while watching a movie, and PachiSlot. To no surprise, some field activities reference Dragon Quest, like Tug-Tug services where certain people will provide a special service (it’s a reference to DQ’s Puff-Puff services — bound to bring the fanservice). There’s also party chat, where the party members can talk to each other about what they’ve done and what they can do next, in another feature taken from DQ games. This means other Sega offices will be even more text to translate than usual for this installment.

The other kind of fanservice is present, too: Popular returning characters. I previously posted about how Sega couldn’t let Kazuma Kiryu go, but that’s more the fault of some fans. He doesn’t appear to have aged a bit despite turning 50 as of this game’s timeline. Goro Majima and Taiga Saejima are also in the game, as is Daigo Dojima. Even better: These characters can also be used as summons. Daigo’s in particular stands out, where he can summon several dead characters in the series, including Shintaro Kazama (Kiryu’s father figure), Futoshi Shimano, and even his father Souhei Dojima.

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As great as the game’s advertising campaign has been, one aspect has been lacking more than I expected: Helpful promotion from the Dragon Quest team. The game doesn’t even try to hide how it’s inspired by DQ, and considering that the average mainline DQ game sells around five times what a Yakuza game sells, it could use the help. But there’s been nothing outside a joint interview between DQ creator Yuji Horii and Yakuza series producer Toshihiro Nagoshi in the latest issue of Japan’s Famitsu magazine, and the two taking a picture together at TGS. There hasn’t been a peep about it from the official Dragon Quest social media accounts, or Horii’s Twitter account either. It’s not too late, but I was hoping they’d help some brothas out, so to speak.

Nagoshi said in an interview that if the move to turn-based battles in Yakuza: Like a Dragon didn’t pay off for the franchise, the team would go back to what worked before. But for their benefit, I sincerely hope this is successful. This development team has worked on the same kinds of games with slight twists for well over a decade, and they deserve to have a different kind of success. The game released yesterday in Japan and other Asian territories, but we’ll have to wait until the middle of next week to see its launch sales. Meanwhile, the game is planned for release in western territories sometime later this year. Hopefully it won’t take too long.

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