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playernumberv · 4 years ago

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Yakuza: Like A Dragon Review

Platform played on: PS5

Hours played: 55, completed main story and about 70% of side quests

Yakuza: Like A Dragon (henceforth to be referred to as Yakuza 7) almost would have come close to achieving excellence. Its opening hours delivered a confidently-executed and wonderfully impactful prologue that instantly hooked me into its narrative, and the bold new direction of turning the series into a turn-based JRPG with an ensemble cast of characters paid off, giving the series a fresh coat of paint that was highly refreshing. The turn-based combat may have left some apprehensive, but works surprisingly well—it doesn’t take itself too seriously, and is all the better for it, given how entertaining the hilarious absurdity of the combat moves can be. In terms of narrative structure, mimicking the traditional JRPG structure of having a cast of characters banding together as companions works incredibly well for the Yakuza series as well. While the previous Yakuza games did feature strong supporting characters as well, they may not quite capture the sense of togetherness and camaraderie only Yakuza 7 could have captured with its narrative and gameplay structure of a traditional JRPG. Aware of its inspirations, the game also makes innumerable references and nods towards the traditional JRPGs that have inspired it, and feels very much like a love letter to traditional JRPGs. Indeed, I felt highly impressed by how well Yakuza 7 pulled off what was essentially a modern interpretation and modern execution of the traditional JRPG genre, with many fun twists and innovations of its own to keep to the roots of the Yakuza series.

Central to any good JRPG, Yakuza 7 features a very strong cast of characters—while I don’t think Ichiban Kasuga has come anywhere close to even scratching the levels of the legendary Kiryu Kazuma, he stands on his own as a likeable and fun protagonist (even if he occasionally comes a little close to being a ‘Walmart Kiryu’). The supporting cast of characters is excellent as well—uniquely enough, many of Yakuza 7’s main characters are not particularly colourful characters the likes of which wouldn’t be out of place in traditional JRPGs. Instead, they are everyday people (well, most of them are, at least) —a homeless man, a retired cop, a hostess, and the like, and the game does an excellent job fleshing out their characters and endearing you to them. Saeko in particular stole my heart, and is bewilderingly likeable—in part because of how attractive she is, no doubt, but more so because her feisty and memorable personality was highly entertaining and highly captivating. Regrettably, she was the only female character who was playable as part of the main story (there is one other optional female character, whom I found highly uninteresting and in any case played no role in the main story at all), and I definitely think the Yakuza series—or future iterations of it, at least—would benefit from more well-written female characters in the main cast.

Unfortunately, while I was extremely impressed by Yakuza 7 in its opening hours, I don’t think it stuck the landing particularly well. The narrative became a bit of a mess towards the second half, with so many different themes and threads that it started to feel somewhat incoherent. I became highly fatigued of the game towards the second half, given that it just seemed to keep dragging on and on without end. It didn’t help that game-play was somewhat rough around the edges—movement was very clunky, and many of the game’s systems, especially optional ones like its Personality system and its side quests, felt like they could be substantially streamlined. Exacerbating my growing fatigue, game balance and difficulty calibration was extremely poor in the second half—several sections of the game imposed compulsory grind, without which proceeding with the story would almost surely end in disaster (as it did for me), given sudden difficulty spikes with enemies who were inexplicably far higher-leveled than you were at that point. The mandatory grind via specific methods (e.g. arenas, dungeons, etc.) made normal encounters feel meaningless, disrupted the narrative flow, and worsened my fatigue, making it even harder to appreciate a story that I already found waning in quality. These major flaws substantially hindered my enjoyment of the game and kicked it down more than a few notches for me. I should clarify nevertheless that I still found the story entertaining, though it fell far below the likes of Yakuza 0 and Judgement, which were much more well-written stories.

Nevertheless, I think Yakuza 7 has taken a bold step towards the right direction for the series, and I see massive potential for future iterations of the series if they appropriately build on what Yakuza 7 has achieved. The turn-based structure of game-play and the narrative structure of a traditional JRPG with a well-written cast of characters works incredibly well for Yakuza and has a wealth of potential for developing future Yakuza games, given the right execution. With better writing and better execution, and with some much-needed polishing of the game’s design, Yakuza 7 would surely have reached that level of excellence. If you can look past its several glaring flaws, there is much to love about Yakuza 7—it features a wonderful cast of characters and tells an entertaining and dramatic story that is very much in the spirit of the series. There is a whole lot that needs to be improved upon, however, before Yakuza 7 can wear the mantle of excellence.

Gameplay score: B+ Storyline score: A- Characters score: A- Aesthetics score: A- Enjoyment score: B+

Overall Yakuza: Like A Dragon score: 81/100

#yakuza #yakuza 7 #yakuza like a dragon #kiryu kazuma #ichiban kasuga #ps4 #ps5 #jrpg #review

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