Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name

Like a dragon Gaiden is another, another, the final final farewell to Kiryu as a protagonist in the Like a Dragon / Yakuza series. Initially designed as a DLC (similar to Kaito Files) it eventually expanded in scope and was released as an individual title. Apparently it was made in 6 months, which is impressive even considering its heavy reused of assets. Its completly located in the Sotenbori map.

Gameplaywise its basically a retreat of the mechanics of Yakuza 6 and Kiwami 2, using the dragon engine combined with kiryus classic combat moves. There is also a brand new style of fighting, called agent style, that is more reliant on goofy spy gadgets, and has a bigger focus on crowd control. The game gives the player freedom to play it as he feels, with both fighting styles having separate upgrade paths. Nothing new here, just comfort food. Unfortunatly I think that Kaito's brawler style ends up being an improvement to Kiryu's basic style, which is much clunkier and unflexible.

Mission design is basically also comfort food. There are a few more complete side quests scattered around Sotenbori, with callbacks to previous games, and there are also plenty of basic fetch quests and rescue missions. Plenty of side content like in yakuza games, namely retro games (including daytona 2!), karaoke, darts, billiard, golf and batting. It features a more developed coluseum mode, with tough enoughs to fight, and there is a bigger focus on team battles where you can assemble a team of NPCs to fight by your side. The game gets really crazy on these last fights, and the FPS crashes as well.

The story is really the main reason to play this one. It starts off slow, as it introduces a few new characters to the series, some of which seem to have a bit of a forced relationship to Kiryu. But the last chapter really amps up in intensity, and is masterful at creating antagonists that portrays the themes and struggles of the story really well. The ending can really compete to some of the series best endings, its such a shame that the rest of the game feels a bit weaker in comparison. The story ties into Yakuza 7 and 8 pretty well, making 7 at least feel better in retrospective.

This is a very solid entry into the Like a Dragon series, despite its short run time. Due to its heavy nature on callbacks, its only really recommended to those already familiar to Kiryu's journey.

So I finally got to a Yakuza game release in real time, and it’s the conclusion to the Kiryu saga. The storybook ending this game has pulls at your heartstrings and I don’t think I can write a better ending. However the tedious gameplay and formulaic side of the Yakuza franchise really shows its ugly face here. While I do like the gameplay, it’s all so tiring and long winded. There’s so much filler between the actual story that you get annoyed with the amount of side content you’re forced to do to progress. If the main story wasn’t so strong this might be on the lower side of my yakuza rankings.

Nuclear take alert: I think this might be my favourite game in the entire franchise?

I feel like the Yakuzaverse has been stumbling for a while now - Judgment [JUDGE EYES:死神の遺言] and Yakuza: Like a Dragon [龍が如く7　光と闇の行方] both had some pretty wonky moments, features that didn't quite work, and awkward design choices, and the woeful after-school special plot of Lost Judgment [LOST JUDGMENT: 裁かれざる記憶] was Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio's nadir - so a game that returns to Yakuza 6: The Song of Life [龍が如く6 命の詩。] in so many ways is just the tonic. That was the last time a completely new Yakuza game could be enjoyed without caveats and obstacles, and returning to it felt....comfortable. Honestly, it was like having Yakuza back. And I think that's quite deliberate; at this point, I have to imagine that Yakuza will never feel like this again, and The Man Who Erased His Name does feel like it's deliberately positioning itself as a kiss-off to Kiryu's story, one last runthrough of all the hits for a grand finale. It's the vibe of a big band playing their last ever stadium show before they break up captured in a video game.

And it's concise, too - not short, as was advertised (I got a solid thirty hours out of it), but tight and streamlined. Much of the appeal of this franchise ultimately comes down to excess, so dialling anything back comes with significant risk of losing the essential character of the series, but The Man Who Erased His Name balances this perfectly; it still feels like a game that holds nothing back, that embraces the cartoonishly ridiculous and plays at maximum volume wherever possible, but it packs everything into a breathless runtime. Yakuza 6 was the prior benchmark for that balancing act, and this has surpassed it by being every bit as tight, but packing in even more of that unique Yakuza spirit. If you think of your favourite story or sidestory moments from any previous Yakuza game, chances are high that they'll be reproduced here in some way, either directly (Pocket Circuit is back, baby!), or in spirit. The classic story beats, the stories or betrayal and subterfuge and sacrifice, are all here, landing harder simply because the payoff happens while the setup remains fresh in the memory. The Coliseum, offering both the series mainstay of a battle arena and a new twist on previous clan creator modes, is a blast to complete. The Akame Network is a welcome feature, organising the side stories neatly, and Akame herself is a great character to boot. And the combat gives the option of either tradition or innovation; Kiryu now has a bunch of gadgets that give him borderline superhero combat moves, allowing you to take the street fights into Saints Row or Marvel's Spider-Man territory if you really embrace them, but you can stick with the old familiar brute manoeuvres if you prefer. There's enough newness here to keep a sense of freshness about things, but the focus is clearly on wrapping up everything good about the previous Kiryu games into a single package.

And the ending.....wow. I was a mess. The number of things I've ever seen in a video game that have hit me that hard can be counted on one hand. Endings have always been RGG's major Achilles heel, but my god, all those recklessly ambitious and aggressively confusing final chapters in the previous game were worth it for this. That, really, is the moment that sends this over the top of Yakuza 5 [龍が如く5 夢、叶えし者] for me.

But there's a significant point to be made off the back of that statement: I, a relatively recent convert to this series, have played all of Kiryu's back story within the last two and a half years. This is a game that leans very heavily on knowledge of Kiryu's journey, and of Yakuza as a whole, for its emotional impact and humour, and that means I am basically the perfect target audience for it. Would this land as hard for somebody who played the older games longer ago and has hazier memories of them? Maybe not. Would it be as giddy and hard-hitting an experience for somebody who hasn't played them at all? Definitely not, let's be honest. But I, personally, cannot fault this. From where I stand, and for what I want from a Yakuza game, it's basically perfect.

Five iterations from now, there's going to be an opening cutscene where an 80 year old Kazuma Kiryu is taken out of Demolition Man style cryosleep because once again the Tojo Clan is going to completely fall apart without his fists in the faces of at least four thousand named organized crime goons. Five hundred will be named Tanaka.

At what point is enough enough? Kazuma Kiryu as a character was designed explicitly to be put out to pasture at the end of Yakuza 2.

In 3 he ran an orphanage, that's how RETIRED he was.

Now in the 7th game, Yakuza: Like A Dragon, RGG Team finally puts down their sickening Kiryu addiction to make a new main character shine. One who they thought would fail because he was part of an April Fool's joke, no less. Shows how in-touch they are.

Except, no it doesn't? Kiryu is going to be playable in Yakuza 8: Infinite Wealth, as a main party character. He has a gimmick where he'll break out of the 'stupid turn-based bullshit' and just wail on guys like normal.

And here, we get an interim game where you play as Action Superspy Kazuma Kiryu, i mean Jozuma Joryu, no relation. Half the screenshots of this game looked like some kind of Spider-Man mod where you replace Peter Parker with sunglasses Kiryu.

What's worse is that it basically feels like that. The writing is intense and good as ever but it's clear the stakes are all out of wack from being an unnecessary story in an unnecessary game that's spinning wheels both because Judge Eyes as a series seems to be up in the air at the moment and Yakuza 8 is going full Animal Crossing so it won't be doing much to please the alleged diehard fanbase who only want 2 things out of life and it's clunky beat-em-up gameplay and Kazuma Kiryu.

If you are one of those people in the diehard fanbase who only want bad ps2 beat em ups that haven't evolved in THREE GENERATIONS OF CONSOLES, you'll be surprised to see that Kiryu, I mean JORYU, can now tiger drop 6 guys at once as a standard action as opposed to one at a time with heat meter.

Yakuza 5
Lost Judgment
Yakuza Gaiden
Yakuza 6
Yakuza 0
Judgment
Sleeping Dogs
Yakuza 4