Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth – Before You Buy

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth (PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S) is a big step forward for the classic Yakuza franchise. How is it? Let’s talk.
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– [Falcon] Welcome back to another episode of “Before You Buy,” the show where we give you some straight up gameplay, and our first impressions of the latest games releasing. Hi folks, it’s Falcon, and today, we’re looking at “Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth,” or just “Yakuza 8” for short.

I mean, we’re not calling it that anymore, ’cause that’s not officially the name of the game anymore. But, yeah, everything about this game seems like a contradiction. It’s the second biggest RPG sequel for a series known for its action. It’s a very Japanese game that mainly takes place in the United States,

And the story swings from the most melodramatic craziness to the most mundane stuff imaginable. It is the kinda game that sounds like would be a mess on paper, but it all somehow comes together to make something great. So here’s the lowdown. “Yakuza 7” drastically altered this series

With a new protagonist and a new genre. It was pretty bold. The new protagonist, Ichiban Kasuga, is a worthy follow-up to Kiryu, and the way the game played with RPG conventions while still being essentially a “Yakuza” game at heart was super interesting. The turn-based combat was divisive among people,

But I personally enjoyed it. I am already like a big JRPG weirdo, so it was a pretty easy switch for me. Also, we did get like a side title, the “Weird Kiryu” starring, “Like A Dragon Guide and the Man Who Erased His Name,” which was short and shockingly well-received.

The developers of that were kinda worried that because it was a shorter game people wouldn’t like it, but it was actually part of the reason why it got the praise that it got. And there was a little controversy, but not a lot. But that game also feeds into this game

And this new entry fully embraces the series Japanese title of “Like a Dragon,” and takes the things that made “Yakuza 7” such an interesting experiment and expands on them. It’s a pretty exciting new ways actually. The combat is, it’s still pretty simple as far as turn-based battles go,

But it is more strategic and active. The mini games are some of the biggest and most entertaining side activities the series has seen yet. And the new setting of Honolulu, it was a great idea. In all seriousness, it really works. With all that said,

I don’t know how to describe this game as like a thing. Like if you said, “What is this game?” I would not really know what to say. At its core, obviously, it’s an RPG, you gather a party, battle enemies, and turn-based combat, equip weapons in armor, all the RPG staples.

There’s even a job system. The difference, of course, is that rather than being set in some far off fantasy world, these games are set in the real, well, at least a certain version of the real world, I should say. It’s mostly like our world, except every road is packed

With roaming thugs wearing ridiculous costumes that will throw down with zero provocation and every second person is some bizarre eccentric that needs your help funding their giant vacuum cleaner robot or something. Just to name an example. It’s weird enough when you’re doing it in Japan, but there’s some excuse there,

Like, the really densely populated, almost cyberpunk looking areas of Japan, feel a bit like a fantasy place. Like, obviously, not all of Japan looks like neon signs and all that, but the really, really urban areas do. And that can feel a bit like a far-off fantastic world, if not completely like one.

But, Honolulu, (chuckling) it doesn’t work like that. Certainly, I’ve never been to Honolulu and it is actually probably just about as foreign of a place, in all honesty. It is kind of still very odd. The new city here is the biggest one in a “Yakuza” game. Not to say that it’s very big,

It’s only a few square miles at most, but the amount of detail in the environment is beyond fantastic as per usual. Even though you’re only confined to one district, it really feels like you get the full Hawaii experience. There’s a luxury resort beachfront, there’s a Chitsy Mall, there’s a rundown slum.

It all looks really great and it’s a lot of fun to explore. I mean, we’ve spent so many years in Kamurocho and other Japanese cities, it really feels like something new for the series and they really hit it out of the park. I’m not gonna get into the story much,

Because, well, a, spoilers are not great, but also it’s not hard to spoil, I guess. But the general overview is you play his lovable loser, Ichiban Kasuga, former Yakuza, who’s trying to put his life back on track after the events of “Yakuza 7.”

He got sent on a mission to Hawaii by his former associates. He got stranded, he meets up with Kiryu, the “Legendary Dragon” of Dojima, and former series protagonist, and things kick off from there. As you’d expect, there’s the usual assortment of thugs and low lives you have to deal with,

Including a mob boss, memorably played by Danny Trejo. But the real heart of the story is your new party members. Forming friendships with your allies is a major part of the gameplay and becoming better friends with allies isn’t just for story. Forming greater bonds actually increases your effectiveness in combat.

And after a while, it does legitimately make a huge difference. So it feels particularly good that it affects both story and mechanical elements, because these friendships are actually where a lot of the game’s best writing comes in. There’s conversation points all over the city, where you get these little dialogue

Interactions with your party. And unlike in most RPGs where these moments are tedious and boring filter, I actively hunted these conversations down, not only because this actually helps you mechanically speaking,, but also because the dialogue’s genuinely good and at times, very legitimately funny. My personal favorite newcomer is probably Eric Tomizawa,

An American Japanese taxi driver who spends most of the game utterly overwhelmed and baffled by the craziness going on around him. He’s a great character, just a regular gig economy guy who’s also a low-level criminal. And in a lot of Japanese games, the American guy can really be a stereotype,

But, Tomizawa feels so specific and real with his problems the way he talks to people. He’s a really good addition to the cast. All the characters are great though, and half of what makes ’em so fun is how unusual they are compared to your standard RPG protagonist. Your party members in this game

Are all criminals and losers, almost all of them over 30, some of them pushing 50, and their problems are usually a lot more relatable than two youths who prove their metal and get trained as part of an ongoing decades-long effort against a cosmic threat. “Sea of Stars” is a great game

For reasons other than the story and the characters eventually become relatable and somebody you actually care about. But, man, I am tired of people not making stories that pertain to something. “Like a Dragon 8” is just the absolute antithesis of this. But I will say that doesn’t stop the game

From going completely nuts sometimes though. I’m not gonna spoil anything, but some of these bosses have to be seen to be believed. It does take a while to get there though. “Yakuza” games normally have pretty slow opening chapters and if anything, this game is probably actually worse about it.

It takes about four or five hours to really get into the meat. And even with this being the sequel, there’s a lot of setup and character development early on that can kinda drag. ‘Cause again, you’re introducing a whole bunch of people that have no precedent in this world

And it can actually take a while before you really get to play the game, so to speak. At least once you’re actually in Hawaii, things pick-up considerably though. The story ramps up a lot leading into the final chapters too. This game takes its sweet time introducing gameplay concepts and side content,

Which can be frustrating, but I’ll say this, like if you’re a fan of the series, it’s not really any kind of left turn, like the pacing the game is pretty on par with the rest of the series, but at least the RPG combat system has been improved. Even though the game’s still turn-based,

There’s a lot of significant changes to how combat works. For one thing, you can actually move around when it’s your turn, which is great, for when you wanna line up a special attack or get close enough to heal allies. Positioning is so much more important in this game,

And it actually adds a layer of real strategy to it. You can now attack enemies from behind to do bonus damage. Stan, you’re another ally, you have high friendship with to do a double attack, hitting enemies in certain directions is actually important. You can knock an enemy into an ally,

And the ally gets a free extra hit. If you’re standing near a weapon or an object on the ground when you attack, you’ll just use that weapon. It’s nice. It’s pretty cool, honestly, Kiryu takes these changes even further with classic heat actions that can be done exactly how they worked in old games.

He even gets a power up where you get direct control and you can do beat ’em up stuff just exactly like the old games. All these changes make the battles a lot more dynamic and interesting to fight. It’s still not the most complex battle system of all time,

There aren’t exactly a lot of complex dynamics that you need to master. But what’s here is really fun and satisfying and it starts off easy, and by the end, it actually progresses to a real challenge. Between the fights, there’s a ton of activities you can get up to. You can deliver food,

Pick up the trash, give a little scooter a test drive. There’s tons of crap to do. There’s little randomly generated dungeons. You can go explore to loot and grind for experience. There’s unlockable jobs, side missions, and it’s all mostly pretty fun. “Yakuza” games always have some kinda major side job.

“Seven” had business management, for example, and this game really goes overboard there. With not just one, but two massive side games that practically feel like new games on their own. There’s the “Sujimon League,” which expands the whole Pokemon parody, introduced in “Yakuza 7” and in this baffling bizarre gameplay mode in “Dondoko Island,”

Which is literally just animal crossing. The entire “Sujimon” thing just utterly defines this game’s bizarre sense of humor. See, when you encounter enemies in this game, they transform into “Sujimon,” these ridiculous criminals creeps and perverts. In the previous game, all you did was catalog them,

But this game turns the entire thing into this hilariously on the nose Pokemon parody with all these familiar sounding music and catchphrases. It’s ridiculous. Now as you’re wandering around the world, you sometimes get the chance to catch a Sujimon by giving them a gift and magic and button, begging them to join you.

You level them up, battle all their trainers, and eventually work your way up in the “Sujimon League.” Everything about these things is so bizarre. They’re literally just people, but they game treats them like mindless animals that are used up and discarded like. And the entire side scenario of the story plays up

The strangeness for maximum comedy. It’s surreal and it’s genuinely really funny. The entire point is to level up these captured Sujis, collect all the badges and defeat the discreet four in this simplified three on three battles. The actual combat, pretty basic actually, but that keeps things from being too tedious.

“Dondoko Island” is even crazier. It’s basically just a second game. It takes a while to get there, but eventually, you end up on this resort island that’s in utter disrepair. It’s up to you to clean up the trash, build new facilities and make the island profitable again,

Which could have been pretty dry and dull in any other game. But this game, I mean, obviously it takes it in an appropriately weird direction. To remove trash and break down resources, you beat everything with a baseball bat. And when building your resort, you have to deal with these Captain Planet villains

Who are trying to dump garbage on the island. Mostly just because they’re evil. Periodically, they’ll try to destroy your guest lodging. So while you’re running around trying to make the resort nice for your guests, you also have to beat up invaders with a baseball bat while these creepy mascot characters

Quote, unquote, “assist you,” it’s completely insane, but it’s honestly really, really fun. It’s animal crossing on crack. Oh, it’s way faster. It only takes about 10 hours or so from beginning to end to finished “Dondoko Island.” But for people who just mess around with the editor,

You could spend way more time there, I think. There’s even a share function so that people can visit your resort online just like “Animal Crossing.” It’s easily the most elaborate side game in the entire series. It can be tedious clearing out trash all the time,

But overall, I had a lot of fun with this side game. It’s also a great way to make some easy money and money is, you know, valuable, duh. I could see you playing for a very long time. I played this game a lot for this video, probably nearing a hundred hours,

And there’s still plenty left for me to do. If you don’t care about completion and doing all the side games, you probably finish this in something closer to 70 hours. It’s a big commitment, but it’s not quite as long as “Persona 5,” but it absorbed me the same way “Persona 5” did.

And “Persona 5” is probably the last JRPG that I enjoyed this much. It’s one of the biggest and also probably the best looking game in the series. You can really tell they put money into this one. The new city looks completely amazing. The updated character models are super expressive.

They’re easily the most realistic they’ve ever been, at least on PC where I played the game. And guess what? It ran really well on PC. Like I noticed every few hours, some minor stuttering. That’s not something that I would gripe about. This game ran almost perfectly for me.

No major bugs or issues at all. It’s probably one of the best PC ports I’ve played in a long, long time. And with the amount we’ve talked about that in recent years, believe me, it’s saying a lot. Like, to be fair, it’s not that system-intensive, but it’s still noteworthy,

Just considering how bad PC ports have been for such a long time. And that’s the thing, these games look really nice, especially in the cut scenes, but they’ve always been more workmanlike and functional, rather than graphical powerhouses. This game’s no exception. There’s still some uglier bland parts and some conversations boil down

To canned animations and text boxes. But as an overall package, this is the most cinematic and visually impressive the series has ever been. The attention to detail in some of the cut scenes is especially impressive. Like this is a small thing, but the way hand muscles tense in this one cut scene

Where Kasuga opens a door, it blew me away. You just don’t see that kinda detail in games. I mean, the rest of the game rarely looks as good as it does in cut scenes, but overall, it’s a really nice looking game on PC that manages to actually run really well.

This is a series that’s been doing pretty decent PC ports for years now, and it seems like this one’s continuing that tradition. If there’s one major negative I have to say about the game, it’s they locked New Game Plus a standard feature in the previous game.

And, well, most games that have a New Game Plus mode, they locked it behind the paid special edition. You have to get a $20 upgrade just to get the New Game Plus, which honestly, doesn’t matter a lot to me. I tend to just start games fresh when I play ’em again,

Rather than do a lot of New Game Plus stuff. Like there’s certain games where that matters more to me, but this isn’t really one of them. That doesn’t mean it’s not shitty, I think that it’s garbage to make people buy an overpriced special edition

Just to play the game again with all your stuff unlocked. Cynical, cynical crap here. Lame, shouldn’t be a thing and it better not be something we start seeing in other games. Other than that though, I really have nothing but good things to say about this game.

Yeah, I’m basically a “Yakuza” mark at this point. I’ll play anything they put out. But for what it’s worth, I think “Infinite Wealth” is a cut above. The combat has a lot of small but serious improvements. Honolulu is a great place to explore.

The side content is some of the best in the series and the story and character writing is fantastic. Also, and as the game that’s maybe, maybe meant to be Kiryu’s final adventure. This game has a ton of callbacks and references to pass games. Unlike “Yakuza’s” sixth, their last attempt,

Ending his story, which mostly was set in a new place with new characters. This game spends a lot of time calling back to previous adventures and putting Kiryu’s life into perspective. If you’ve been playing these games for as long as I have, then all this stuff really does add to the experience.

It’s tough not to get emotional with Kiryu’s story in this game, especially by the absurd and amazing finale. Some games in the series have disappointing endings. I’m looking at “Yakuza 4” but this game’s conclusion is pretty fantastic. I’m putting this one up there with the very best in the series. No small praise,

It’s a crazy game with a tone that goes all over the place. But the writing, and surprisingly excellent English dub really do a lot to carry the story. The rest of the game is obviously pretty damn fun too. And that’s all for today, leave us a comment, let us know what you think.

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And as always, we thank you very much for watching this video. I’m Falcon, you can follow me on Twitter, @FalconTheHero. We’ll see you next time right here on “Gameranx.” – Jump it, cut. – Ready when you are.