It is always a nerve-wracking experience to review a game you can sink hundreds of hours into. When you get a review code, you barely have enough time to play the experience, and you need to measure what components out of hundreds will matter. Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth is the epitome of that experience.
In over 100 hours, I have beat up crooks, helped revive a resort, been a stunt actor, made plenty of friends, chased a mystery, been a delivery driver, become a human traf– I mean Sujimon trainer, and that isn’t even scratching the surface. Even now I feel the wealth of content is still waiting for me to unlock it.
And yet I need to review this game, and thankfully, I think I have seen enough to draw a verdict. Every game in this long-running franchise has its best of times and its worst of times, and Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth is no different. There were experiences I loved and others that were not so enjoyable, but all had a deep ocean of content that kept me diving back into them. This is the culmination of the Like A Dragon series in the best way possible and I’m here for it.
A Trip Abroad
While Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth is set in the present, 2023, the beginning does a great job of filling in the 4 years between the first title and this. Kasuga has been keeping quiet as an official employee of Hello Work. It isn’t till a fake YouTube journalist Vtuber(you know, cause TV news is the true evil) calls him out for non-existent corruption.
A chance encounter with an old ally, turned enemy, turned ally again then sets him off on his latest quest. He needs to travel to Hawaii and speak to his mother. In the typical fashion that’s barely any of the story and as soon as he gets there he is drugged and left naked on the beach. Now with several American gangs breathing down his neck, he has to find his mother and take down the criminals, you know, the usual.
This is the first time Yakuza has left the comfort of Japan and traveled to America which is a well-designed map to explore, which in size sits between Kamurocho and Yokohama. Hawaii has several districts and some ideas that fit such as a functioning trolly as well as lots of tourism shops and locations. It also reuses A LOT of the character models from Japan, and in terms of content, there is going to be very little you haven’t seen. That isn’t a bad thing, the content is overall very good, but it is easy to get disappointed that the hype up was mostly just a new map with mini-games like a pervert photographer (that’s very really, btw) that could have worked in Japan just as well.
If you’re playing in Japanese at least, you will also see the translation issue disappear very quickly. An early scene has you meet eventual party member Tomizawa who drives a cab. You get in his cab because he is the only person you find who speaks Japanese. Given the early nature in which you find a translator, I was hoping that would be relevant but only a few scenes go hard with it.
From there every side quest and story event has him magically find a Japanese citizen or an American who speaks perfect Japanese, which is more unrealistic than the turn-based battles even in Hawaii where there are a higher number of Asian citizens. It was an element I was excited to explore, this being the first time the series has traveled out of the country, but was just a minor hurdle in the long run.
Anything Can Be A Weapon
Combat plays out like its predecessor, with a few improvements and quality-of-life updates. The characters now get a radius to move around and set up the direction of knockback, as well as move toward an improvised weapon for more oomph. There are also proximity buffs to encourage you to take on enemies in your radius.
Kazuma Kiryu, who is a main part of this story, also plays in turn-based but has multiple elements harkening back to Yakuza Zero. He can switch between three styles, each with its benefits, as well as getting different attacks for his proximity attach and rush that relate to his classic attacks.
Unfortunately, the one thing that didn’t change, and continues to drag the experience is its grinding. Your first major money-making opportunities unlock in the story and involve additional grinding, but combat will not be a trusted source of income until much later. This locks a lot of content behind the simply can’t afford it. In combat, these often leave you in a position where the enemies you can fight offer very little, with the enemies that offer something being 10 levels higher.
This additionally applies to the gear and weapons which you have more options with but will still hit the great financial wall. It will also hit a wall in which farming locations for items don’t unlock until later in the storyline, meaning the high gear will taunt you in the window while you slowly save up. Honestly, that might be the truest representation of the American Dream ever put into a game.
Additionally, area levels can also fluctuate wildly. The beach for instance is one of the first locations you will reach. One area is scaled higher than all its surrounding areas making one wrong turn and you getting wrecked. The further out you go you will see 2-star threat levels next to 5, across from 3, with a 7 next to them. It makes unlocking these places to explore a well-earned victory, but an odd choice when you are getting your bearings.
The biggest drawback is honestly how long you have to streamline the game to unlock features. The biggest one, the class swapping ability, wasn’t even unlocked by me till about 20-30 hours in. I did get distracted by I was shocked it isn’t something you get till several chapters in. Once you unlock them you do find both the money lock and personality lock can drag out the process.
I liked the new classes, such as a surfer, or a hula-inspired warrior. Traditional classes, such as samurai or gunslinger also make appearances. The biggest setback is that once again your female party member gets very few classes compared to the men. The men share all classes which gives them about 12, while the female character gets four. In one case of class overlap, she is a hip-shaking hula girl with maracas while the men or traditional Hawaiian warriors with axes. In one of her exclusive outfits, she is a maid… Of course.
Overall, this was the first time I felt the series didn’t encourage exploration early on. There were just too many walls you hit until you got to a point where you could start power farming and that wasn’t for a while. My recommendation would be to streamline the story so you don’t feel the constant sting of progress grinding to a halt.
Another Day In Paradise
If you do choose to get lost, even early on there is plenty to do, especially mini-games. Early on you get a crazy biking delivery game, and even a pervert photographer who plays as an absurd Pokemon snap. Neither of these feeds from the main game progress so you can enjoy them as soon as they unlock them. Like most of these games, they can get repetitive as they are score-based and revolve around doing the same thing to get better results.
Side quests will also be a big part of the experience but like the combat, they will range in level difficulty. Some that can be unlocked early will still endcap with fights scaled higher than you are so again I recommend the story until until you unlock grinding areas or money makers. In the case of the Hawaiian dungeon, the first floors run 18 to around 22 before skipping to 32, highlighting the level deserts you can hit throughout the game.
Friendship events also return but are much more fun. Events are highlighted on the map and have a bingo card to represent unlocking them. This will allow you to farm up your relationship level with them before the traditional bar events to further them. In their case they don’t show you their level, making the first time I tried to complete one only to get attacked by enemies 7 levels above me a blindsiding experience.
There are two time-sinking side stories to play this time around, one I had a lot of fun with, the other not so much. The first one is Dondoko Island, a resort management sim that is completely removed from the main game. This is important because I looked up one moment only to discover 2 hours had passed and I forgot this wasn’t the game.
In it, you attempt to make an island resort 5 stars by grabbing materials and building items. When you get deep into it this will prove to be your first big moneymaker, so thankfully it was very fun. There are a shocking lot of components to it, including placing classic locations like the Bantam bar and more on the island as decor. Almost every part of the island can be customized in your pursuit of more travelers. Once you return to the mainland you can even talk to people to come visit. The only drawback of Dondoko Island in comparison to the previous corporate minigame is that it takes longer to get paid and you make way less.
The Sujimon league is also as long but nowhere near as fun. Sujimon felt like a chore from the get-go and only got worse as it went on for me. You can convince Sujimon to join you after you beat them and form a team that you can fight other trainers with. Yes, there is a full league complete with badges. Ultimately though, it ends up as a rock paper scissors with very little depth, and a special ability as apt to screw you over as it is to help. Eventually, you unlock a gatcha mechanic and fast-leveling items that make combat in general pointless.
You will use the gatcha mechanic though as the Sujimon feed into other elements, such as Dondoko, which is a better use of them. Also, on a side note, the whole thing is weird. Besides the kinda owning people part, you are first introduced to them in a tutorial saying Ichiban Kasuga makes them up as combat is part of his imagination. Then you have this guy come along and give you a whole world revolving around it? So did Kasuga make this up or not? It’s weird right?
Verdict
The most annoying mistakes that Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth makes hit harder cause they aren’t new. Grinding returns in full force ready to eat up your hours and spit you out on the other end. Similarly, the modes that are designed to eat up this time of yours don’t all work in unison. While most of the experiences work, Like A Dragon has always been about experiences within experience, just because you can add an in-depth secondary story doesn’t always mean you should.
All that being said, this is the best the franchise has been in a very long time. When it hits on the best elements of the series it does so with gusto and gravitas. I sake over 100 hours into this game and I just want to sink more and more. I want to see everything, I want to do everything. I feel like a tourist, which is always what Like A Dragon has done best. This is a great game.
Now, if you will excuse me, I have more Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth to play so I need to get back to Hawaii.
Revieweed For PlayStation 5, Also Available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, and PC
A review code was provided by SEGA for the purposes of this review.
Developer: Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio
Publisher: Sega
Release Date: January 26th, 2024
Returning protagonist Ichiban Kasuga must travel abroad to find his mother and stop a growing threat in the underworld.
PROS:
+Storytelling
+Improved turn based combat
+Large and detailed environments
+large amount of side content
CONS:
-Not all side content hits the same way
-Lots of grinding
-Balancing issues
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Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth
