HAWAIIAN SOUL-SEARCHING
Also for: Playstation 4, Windows, Windows Apps, Xbox One, Xbox Series
If Ryu Ga Gotoku studio's Yakuza- and
Like a Dragon-series has taught me anything, it's that I should stay
away from Japan or I'll get accosted by delinquents, yakuza and assholes at
every turn. With Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, this irrational fear
has now spread to include Hawaii, which turns out to be just as dangerous for
any man leaving the comfort of his hotel room.
The hero, Ichiban Kasuga, starts out working at an employment agency in
Yokohama, helping retired Yakuza get a new lease in life. One day disaster
strikes as he gets fired, after a dishonest VTuber exposes him for alleged
immoral work ethics. He also fails spectacularly at courting his love
interest, Saeko, who was a companion in the previous game, Yakuza: Like a Dragon. As he hits rock bottom, a former Yakuza-boss reveals that his mother, who
was supposedly dead, is alive in Hawaii. With little reason to stay in
Yokohama, he sets off for America's 50th state.
He teams up with Kazuma Kiryu, the hero of the older, "Yakuza"-titled entries,
as well as other new and old friends. They go on a long, desperate search that
later turns out to involve a religious cult. It's a story about the aftermath
of the Yakuza dissolution, and what happens when authorities fail to integrate
the criminals into society. As a location, Hawaii is a breath of fresh, humid
air; a troubled paradise with beautiful scenery, including palmtrees by the
ocean, beaches, flip-flops and Hawaiian shirts wherever you look. The cuisine looks as enticing as ever, and it's great fun to partake in Hawaiian culture.
Before that happens, Infinite Wealth takes a while to find its footing. The introduction crams in a
lot of bewildering exposition while keeping gameplay at a minimum. This is
usually the case with this series, but here it reaches the point where it's
teetering on the edge of badness. Five hours in, and it's still cutscene after
cutscene. "Is this gonna lead somewhere?", I remember saying to myself.
Luckily, it does.
As usual, the main story is confusing and unfocused, taking many detours that
feel unnecessary in hindsight. It's not the strongest. But the plot itself is
overshadowed at every turn by the exceptional characterization, dialogue and
voice acting (I chose Japanese dub). Apart from Kiryu and some returning
characters, you team up with the disenfranchised cab driver Tomizawa and the
deceitful ballerina Chitose. Others later join the fray, especially after
Kiryu breaks off to become a second protagonist, with his own set of
companions.
As opposed to the its action origins, Like a Dragon is now an RPG-series
through and through, and a couple of bars act as party strongholds where you
deepen the bond with your companions. It's fun building the teams, learning
about their unexpected passions and darker emotions as you chat them up during
bar hangouts. Although I spend most of the time reading and listening to
dialogue, I actually feel more involved than I do in combat.
Since the series switched to "Like a Dragon"-titles, combat has evolved into a
turn-based tactical affair, motivated by Ichiban's love for JRPG:s (Dragon Quest
in particular). Three of his companions fight alongside him, unleashing
regular and special attacks with all the tools of the genre trade. Status
effects, area effects, summons, magic, items, equipment, upgrades and components - it's all
here. On the battlefield, Like a Dragon emphasizes character placement and
team effort. You get bonuses for proximity as well as attacks from behind, and
if your blows push the enemy towards a companion they get a free hit in as well.
It all revolves around a neat JRPG job system, where you unlock new
ones by partaking in sightseeing activites. Every character can switch jobs
freely, specializing in defense, healing, damage dealing, magic, crowd control
or whatever. A new feature allows you to transfer skills from previous jobs to
incentivize experimentation. Since I never put much effort into combat
strategies, nor had any reason to, I mostly stuck to the default ones, making
the system a wasted opportunity.
Although the combat is a decent, relatively fast-paced mechanic with lots of humor and many fun
animations, my involvement cannot avoid stagnation over the game's long
runtime (my playthrough reached 89 hours). It goes for quantity over quality. Enemies are everywhere and whilst fun in a visual
and thematic sense (monsters are called beerserkers, nicotine liches, maneating
loan sharks and more), they're not challenging enough to warrant much
effort and experimentation.
Areas are level-gated, prohibiting free-roaming by making overleveled enemies
virtually unbeatable. Thankfully, the same goes for them; if you're overleveled
you beat enemy groups automatically by a simple button-press. Because of this,
I never built up many strategies for boss encounters. I simply went with the
flow, acting on pure instinct.
This puts the damper on the two "optional" combat dungeons. Remembering my bad
experience with the previous game, I finished these as soon as I possibly
could this time around to accelerate my character level growth and
consequently, I avoided all possible difficulty spikes. That being said, the
dungeons are just dull, flavorless filler. For as long as they last, they rid
the game of all fun. Going forward, I hope RGG studio removes them entirely.
Instead, my deep involvement with the series remains tied to the characters,
the writing and the grip it has on the emotional storytelling. I particularly
enjoy Kiryu's sections back in Yokohama and Kamurocho, in spite of the plot
taking a loosely motivated detour to get there. It's funny, sad and nostalgic
to witness him reminiscing about old friends and locations.
When he
accidentally bumps into them, he cannot reveal his true identity, since he's
supposed to be dead. But his effortless disguise fools no-one. It sometimes
leads to hilarious situations where both of them talk about Kiryu in third person; the
other one knows he's Kiryu, who in turn knows the other one knows. Naturally,
it's tragic as well, as this story is shaping up to become his final farewell
(although I've said that about his two or three previous entries.)
Ichiban's quest in Honolulu is not as strong, but his map is full of amazing
side activities. Some are new, some recycled from the last game. The usual
mainstays remain at the same high level of quality. Karaoke, golfing, batting
cages, darts, as well as the ones I rarely partake in; gambling, mahjong and
shogi. New stuff include a Crazy Taxi-ripoff and a fun photo op-game
where you try to snap some shots of perverted, muscular dudes whilst riding a
tram. Dating is now a super-fun chat app that ends up in a physical encounter
if you adjust your profile right and don't flunk the typing mini-game. The
SEGA arcade offerings, however, are probably the worst yet:
SEGA Bass Fishing, SpikeOut and Virtua Fighter 3tb.
Two disappointing major side activities include a Pokemon-style
collectathon-and-battle-mini-game of enemy "Sujimon", and an Animal Crossing-style Dondoko
Island resort management simulator. I merely dabbled a little with both of them. Although
I found them to be solid mechanically, they weren't fun enough to motivate
finishing the stories. It just took too long to no substantial reward.
If the story is the heart, exploring the cities and discovering the side
content is the soul of the Yakuza-experience. It all amounts to the usual zany
mixture of feelings, often humoristic, sometimes sad, occasionally angry,
quite possibly all at once. No holds are barred; Ichiban is an extroverted
character wearing all feelings on his sleeve. The game reflects that. When
he's in love, he has to shout it across the rooftops. When he's depressed,
he's down the drains. When he's angry, he brandishes his electrifying bat. The
neat thing about him is he uses it all for good, like the hero he wants to be.
A major difference from Kiryu, however, is that he's that way naturally, in main quest
as well as side content. Kiryu, on the other hand, is and was always a stoic,
contemplative character with a straight-faced facade. Exploring his substories
always felt more rewarding, as it revealed some surprisingly relatable aspects
of his personality. Ichiban's substories are generally great fun - I
particularly liked one involving a random shaman and a video-recording rock
band - but doesn't extend his character traits very much, since he acts just like he does in the main quest.
That's why I have some reservations for this series going forward. I preferred
Kiryu's more mysterious, reserved personality, and the contrast of throwing
him into crazy situations. I'm seeing myself tiring of Ichiban way quicker.
The writers throw everything bad at him to see if it sticks, and it seems
everything does. In spite of that, he's almost annoyingly hell-bent on being the good guy. It's no small feat that he actually kinda works as a
character in spite of that, but I don't see him developing much further.
Maybe it doesn't matter. Ichiban's main function is probably acting as a magnet for interesting people. Most of his companions - I'm not the biggest fan of Joon-Gi and Zhao, who've been late additions in both games - are absolute bangers;
real, complex characters that are great fun to be around. Turning the franchise into an RPG, which allows for an extended roster of companions, might turn out to be the masterstroke RGG studio needed.
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