I recently finished Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth with my only hands-on experience with the franchise being the first Ichiban game and just a little bit of Yakuza 0. Despite my limited experience with the Yakuza titles, this whole game was such a rollercoaster of emotions from start to finish, and my eyes were admittedly watering up by the end of it.
As much as I enjoyed it, though, many parts of the story just sort of fell flat. It’s a shame, really, because it was doing alright up until it mainly became “The Kiryu Show™”. Needless to say, spoilers ahead!
Meandering Minigames
First of all, I’m aware that minigames are a major component of the Yakuza series, but I don’t think forcing you into not just one, but multiple of them as a part of the main questline was a good move. They completely take you away from the story, and it feels like this was only done because the developers couldn’t think of any other ways to incentivize checking out these side activities.
Early in the game, I was getting invested into all the mystery surrounding Ichiban’s mother, that one VTuber ruining the party’s reputation, and the criminal underworld of Hawaii in general. Unfortunately, mandatory minigame segments already start becoming a problem at early chapters.
One particularly egregious example was that moment when you needed to buy information from a food truck owner. Despite already having hundreds of dollars, you’re forced into a food delivery minigame because you’re supposedly still “broke” and can’t afford to cough up 30 bucks.
Don’t even get me started on the mandatory Dondoko Island part. A Yakuza-themed Animal Crossing sounded fun, but putting a hard stop on the story for over an hour to jam in a glorified tutorial segment? That kind of soured me on the whole experience from the get-go. Ichiban’s disappearance during this period wasn’t even really acknowledged.
A Lot of Wasted Potential
In my opinion, Infinite Wealth’s story really starts to fall apart once the party splits into two. The moment Kiryu went back to Japan, it becomes very apparent that Ichiban will be taking a back seat in his own story. All of these chapters later, the party suddenly speedruns the search for Akane, leading to a reveal that felt a bit rushed considering all the build up.
That one emotional scene between mother and son becomes the only notable thing Akane does in the entire game, which I think was an odd choice considering we just spent half of the game looking for her. I get that the child she was protecting, Lani, was the actual important figure that everybody else was after, but even she felt like nothing but a plot device too.
The Main Meh Villains
It doesn’t help that the villains ended up being a bit underwhelming, with Bryce Fairchild being the worst of them all. This cult leader/thug, who seemingly already had the entire region under his control with a cartoonishly large army of gang members and brainwashed sleeper agents, was completely fixated on personally executing a child who hardly threatened his authority at this point.
Maybe it’s just me, but I doubt the indoctrinated masses of Palekana would care that she had the “genuine” pendant signifying that she’s their true heir. That, and he already had opportunities to off the child through his subordinates. He just seemed incredibly stupid overall… just like his master plan, which was at least called out at one point.
And then there’s Eiji. That guy felt like he had an entire chapter cut from the game. Seriously, he completely disappears after gleefully doing a bunch of heinous crap, but then he suddenly shows up as someone willing to atone for his wrongdoings?
Ichiban’s final scene with him mirrors the ending of the previous game, and as touching and fitting as it is, it feels undeserved because it does a full 180 on Eiji’s character out of nowhere. It makes Ichiban look way too naive as well, which isn’t entirely out of character but feels extremely forced in this case.
As for Ebina, I just wish he had even just a brief encounter with Ichiban before it all ended. I understand why Kiryu had to be the one to face him, and I actually liked what their fight represented. I would have just heavily preferred that Ichiban somehow catch up to them at the tower instead of getting that Ryo Aoki parallel.
Honestly, that whole cutscene after the final boss fight was pretty weird if you just think about it for a second. Did Ichiban magically teleport to Japan after beating Bryce? Why does Eiji look like he’s been on the run for months when it’s been, what, a couple of days at most?
Yamai-kin’ Me Crazy
Amidst the disappointing villains is a character who started off as a ruthless foe with a lot of annoying repeat boss fights. Yutaka Yamai, the enigmatic and unhinged mob boss with a grudge to settle. He eventually ended up becoming one of my favorite things in this whole game.
This man was a much more compelling character than the other antagonists, especially when he started allying himself with the main crew halfway through the story. His arc wrapped up nicely at the end, and I dare say he had a better ending than Ichiban. I hope he makes an appearance in a future installment, though it seems unlikely at this point.
His role throughout the latter half helped me forget all about Wong Tou’s unceremonious death too, which I felt was a waste of a character. I suppose he served no real purpose after “the reveal”, though. Plus, with Yamai set to do the whole enemy-turned-ally thing, Wong Tou’s turn would’ve just been redundant anyway.
Joongi-Huh? Tian-who Zhao?
While I didn’t really have any issues with the rest of the supporting cast, it kinda sucked that the additions of Zhao and Joongi just seemed like an afterthought. The former is a little more understandable as he’s just a civilian now, which he points out as well. He at least shows up earlier in this game, albeit mostly being a background character throughout the whole thing.
But what about Joongi? I waited the entire game for him to join the party, especially after Seonhee showed up as a playable character. Imagine my disappointment when he finally shows up near the end of the game just to be a deus ex machina who goes: “Yeah, here’s the secret cult island, and here’s how we can save Lani”.
Gameplay-wise, Joongi was one of my favorites in the previous game, so getting him at literally just the end felt like a kick in the nuts. I still slotted him into party as soon as I could, of course, though I did have to sacrifice Adachi and his hilarious “arrest” ability to do so.
The Good Stuff
Despite having a weaker story than the previous game, Infinite Wealth definitely improved a lot on the gameplay side of things. I already enjoyed the turn-based nature of Like a Dragon, and the added depth of being able to manually position your characters (with limits, of course) allowed for some fun shenanigans.
As I was close to finishing this game, I started playing Metaphor: ReFantazio on the side, and that just made me further appreciate how RGG tries to stand out from the typical JRPG turn-based formula. Between the perfect guard mechanic, enemies defending, environmental hazards/weapons, and the knockback/proximity stuff, there’s many more layers to the combat than just “pick whatever move works for this enemy”.
Jobs & Inheritance
The job system and the skill inheritance mechanic enhance all of the aforementioned features as well due to all the abilities you could potentially mix and match. Dealing with huge clumps of mobs was never an issue for my Hawaii party due to Tomizawa’s surfer moves and Ichiban’s wide swings, while everyone but Kiryu could cover every single elemental damage over in Japan.
It adds a layer of build customization that the previous game was lacking, and it made the overall experience a lot more enjoyable. Because of the inheritance mechanic, I could slot in heals and cleanses between all the high damage stuff. Kunoichi Chitose and Desperado Tomizawa hard carrying the party at the tail end of the story was a sight to behold.
With how good the combat has been in this game, I’m excited to see what new stuff they’ll be experimenting with in the next installment. My only complaint has to be the dungeons being so bland and repetitive, which made what little grinding that was required feel so painfully dull.
Stellar Voice Acting
I’m gonna be honest with you, I played the entire game with the English dub on. The voice actors did a fantastic job overall, which wasn’t surprising as they were great in the first Like a Dragon too. Yes, I even thought YongYea’s Kiryu was good, though it did take a while for me to get used to it since he had a very different voice in the previous entry.
I feel like I missed out on heavy hitters like Takehito Koyasu (I heckin’ love JoJo) and, of course, Takaya Kuroda as Kiryu. The thing is, I’ve always been more of a dub enjoyer even though I have absolutely no issue reading subs.
After seeing how they forced Bryce’s JP voice actor to speak English in certain scenes, I feel like I would have switched over to the dub anyway because I’d assume that would be a regular occurrence. To be fair, it actually only happens a few times, but his introduction scene alone would make me laugh all the way to the settings menu.
Wrapping It All Up
Overall, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is an amazing game that’s unfortunately dragged down by its shaky story. What should have been a “passing the torch” moment between Kiryu and Ichiban ended up becoming more of a sendoff for the former instead, which, to be fair, was at least nicely done in my opinion.
I just think it’s a shame that the guy who’s supposed to be the new lead had to be relegated to deuteragonist status in order to hit those emotional peaks. At the very least, the ending does imply that Kiryu’s done for good, so maybe the next Like a Dragon can put the spotlight firmly back on Ichiban and his friends.
I already have the rest of the mainline Yakuza titles in my Steam library, but I just can’t find the time to binge them right now. Maybe one of these days I’ll play through the rest of the games and revisit this one, since that’d help me appreciate the callbacks even more.
For now, I’m moving on to other stuff. One can only play so many long RPGs in a row. Hell, I’m still in the process of finishing Metaphor: ReFantazio and Dragon Age: The Veilguard as I write this.
