Outside of anime / manga, I can't say I love stories that are clearly designed to fit wedge in between major stories. I never enjoyed Star Wars: Rogue One. For all the praise it gets, seeing the movie neatly line up with Episode 4 put a bad taste in my mouth (don't get me started on Darth Vader's scene).
So here we are with Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, a title that is designed to show us what Kazuma Kiryu was up to between Yakuza 6 - Like a Dragon 7 AND revisit the Dragon of Dojima's god-tier strength with that fabulous real time combat.
After putting 25 hours in to this game, I think we could have skipped this micro story because even if you suspend your disbelief, this story still doesn't make sense.
As Ichiban is tearing it up across Yokohama, we're to believe Kiryu (who's hiding behind shades like Clark Kent) is also in Sotenbori stopping multiple Omi alliance members who will lose it once the Tojo and Omi clans are desolved? Sure, I could believe that if the scale of Kiryu's actions weren't HUGE. He's fighting on a boat hotel castle for goodness sake! Aziz side note: Vegas should steal this idea
The villains in this story aren't as interesting as the moments leading up to the eradication of the Yakuza clans, and that's a problem because a motivated villain helps move the plot forward. With only 4.5 chapters (compared to Yakuza's 15-16), the motivations came too late and I found myself needlessly pummeling through baddies waiting for the cutscenes to line up with Yakuza 7.
Somehow 25 hours felt like 40, and I didn't like that when comparing to Lost Judgement's Kaito DLC. That had its own problems, but paced much quicker.
The Dragon Engine at 60fps is beautiful and never grows old. I still love running into walls and watching the ridiculous physics play out.
Combat on the other hand remains fun, but I'm ready to let Judgement carry the torch. I didn't find Kiryu's Daidoji style effective and more often I would revert to the powerful Dragon styles (Tiger Drop!).
Outside of random baddies on the streets and a Coliseum, there wasn't enough set piece moments to make fighting fun. It's why I'm excited to let Kiryu try the world of turn-based combat. It's a different pace, but good enough to warrant putting the past behind us. I'm bummed that a few of the final substories are locked behind grinding out in the Coliseum. For now, those will have to wait (maybe I'll play it on Steam with a trainer later).
So there we have it. Yakuza's acting is always an 11, but the game itself is a 7. Buy it if you're a fan, skip it if Yakuza 7 and Infinite Wealth are your introductions to this magnificent series.
Here's what's on deck in my backlog:
- Sea of Stars
- Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth
- Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth
- Eiyuden Chronicles