Last week, we looked at Yakuza: Like a Dragon, a refreshing modern take on a JRPG based on a series more known for third person action. The story and presentation, while not perfect and often long winded, was outstanding. It was backed up by an all time great cast of characters and some of the best voice acting around. But how did the gameplay fare?
Much like last week, we have the best and worst of both modern and old school gaming on display. RPG veterans will feel right at home with the combat system, which is a callback to the old-fashioned turn based battles they are used to. That coupled with the polish typical of modern games makes the combat incredibly fun, if a little repetitive. Encounters are all touch based, any potential enemies will have red arrows over their head and a field of vision cone on the map. Cross this field of vision and stay there too long an it will trigger an encounter. Battles are fought in an incredibly traditional turn-based style, where characters can attack, defend, use abilities or use items. Four characters enter the battle, but they can be tagged out at any time even if they are knocked out. The presentation of the fights, from the way the camera moves to how the fighters move about the screen, is more similar to what you would see in an action RPG, but these encounters are truly turn-based. You can see who is going to attack next, but that's about it for extra information. Attacks can be physical or non-physical, with physical damage divided into blunt, slashing and piercing. There are also three elements, fire, ice and lightening. Occasionally you will be able to pick up an item in the background to swing or throw at enemies, but this is essentially random as you can't really position yourself during battles. Some attacks can knock down enemies and your allies will get in extra hits. If you use your turn attacking a downed enemy, you will do even more damage. Ichiban has the unique ability to summon poundmates, powerful attacks which kind of act like summons in Final Fantasy games. These can be unlocked through various other side quests and events. Each fight yields experience for both character level and job level, as well as items and Yen. The battles are simple, but fun. It's kind of a "what's old is new" deal, combat like this used to be common but that isn't the case anymore and I miss it.
Yakuza: Like a Dragon utilizes a job system, which is fairly straightforward but also ads plenty of variety. Each character has their own unique job and there are several universal jobs, with two sets available to male and female characters respectively. They are all based on RPG tropes, but these are actually real-world jobs, which adds to the overall atmosphere of the game. Men have access to Foreman (slow but big damage attacks), bodyguard (powerful slashing attacks but most damage you as well), Enforcer (high defense and HP with a focus on stun attacks), breaker (high speed and lots of multi-hit attacks, many that add self-buffs), musician (non-physical attacks, buffs and debuffs), chef (focus on slashing and fire attacks), host (buffs and non-physical ice attacks) and fortune teller (general support with plenty of non-physical damage options). The women have access to hostess (area ice attacks and non-physical moves), Idol (healing, healing and more healing), night queen (physical attacks that can exploit elemental weaknesses and brainwash enemies) and dealer (luck-based attacks that can do huge damage). Again, most of these are just real world takes on typical RPG jobs like knight, white mage, black mage, etc. Each of these jobs max out at level 99, although they typically stop learning new moves well before that. Some of these moves can be carried over from one job to another, but most can't. I found it to be the best strategy to switch early and often but focus on one job as the game goes on. All of them are useful in their own way, I found some to be stronger than others, but all were useful at at least some point. Some are available from the start, but most require you to raise Ichiban's bond level with his allies, a process we will discuss in a little bit. Ichiban also has personality traits that can be increased, something that's totally unique to him.
Most of the game takes place in Yokohama Ijincho, which is divided into several different sections. It's not a huge map by open world standards, but its pretty big for a JRPG. I actually think its just the right size, it feels like a big sprawling city without being overwhelming and unwieldy from a gameplay perspective. Taxi cabs, which serve as fast travel points, are also plentiful. There are lots of little nooks and crannies to explore and I appreciated how flowing the design was. Sotenbori is much smaller, but still offers plenty to do. It isn't really a place to explore but it does have plenty of stuff going on and is worth a look around. Kamurocho is also available, though you don't really spend as much storyline time there. It's a big city, but its only accessible at the very beginning and very end of the game, so you are likely going to be too inexperienced or too preoccupied with story events to really dive in. There are various collectibles scattered throughout the city, as well as gold and silver safes containing items. You need keys for these, the silver one is good for the whole game but the gold keys are one and done, you need to find or buy them. Reaching certain areas will trigger conversations that can raise your bond level with your party members. This may seem odd, but I actively found myself seeking these out because the dialogue was so good and I wanted to learn more about my party. Of course, there are item and equipment shops, or rather clothing stores and markets in this modern world. There are also restaurants, where you can eat to restore your health. Certain meals will even trigger special scenes and increase your stats. You can also find various substories, which serve as side quests and allow for extra experience and money. Getting back to presentation for a minute, these can be a bit of a jarring tonal shift during gameplay, though I found that to be welcome respite more often than not. The main story of Y:LAD is an intense, gritty drama about self-discovery and the criminal underworld. But the substories are where the game's quirkiness shines through, something I have been told is a hallmark of the series. Some of these are beyond goofy, we are dealing with adult babies, masochists, giant vacuums and crawfish, among other things. Beyond the substories, you can find a variety of side content scattered throughout the cities.
Yeah, now it's time to talk about the side content. Now it's time to talk about the whole "worst of modern games" stuff I have been talking about. Eh, I guess that's a bit of an overstatement, because none of the side content is really bad. There is just so, so, so much of it. I get the desire to include a lot of content, and I guess more is better than less. But there is way too much here and too much of it has too much impact on the game while pulling you too far off of your path. You know what, let me just list out all of the side content that's available in Y:LAD:
-drink links
-Tojo clan crest collection
-can quest
-treasure hunt
-shogi
-dragon kart
-business management
-crafting
-mahjong
-Seagull Cinemas
-Host club
-part time hero
-honk honk
-golf center
-Sega World Arcade
-batting cages
-gambling hall
-Sujimon
-darts
-pachinko slots
-karaoke
-vocational school
-romance
-Ichiban Confections/business management
-Ijincho Sewers
-Kamurocho Sewers
-Sotenbori Battle Arena
I can't even begin to go in to depth on all of these and honestly, some of them I never touched. Some of them are important, drink links are the primary way of bonding with your allies and they do provide some interesting backstories. These were okay, but I think there should have been fewer of them and they should have been shorter. The business management was surprisingly addictive and probably the best way to make large amounts of money, though it was way more time sink-y than I would like it to be. The Sujimon stuff pretty much takes care of itself and it provides valuable information on your enemies. Sega World is how you should do side content, you can play full arcade versions of Virtua Fighter 2 (hence, my review a few weeks ago) Super Hang-On, Outrun and Fantasy Zone, it's a fun feature and nice change of pace but has nothing to do with getting your characters better gear or equipment. I guess that's not all true, because it also includes the claw machine game, which is awful and is a requirement for other in-game things. That brings us to part time hero, which offers a series of quests that include defeating certain types of enemies, helping out various citizens who are in trouble and gathering required items. The first two things aren't a problem, the one just asks you to fight more while the other offers up some unique and challenging encounters. But I wanted nothing at all to do with the fetch quests, no matter what the rewards were. The sewers and battle arena are okay, they are standard RPG bonus dungeons and every traditional RPG should have content like that. But I am sick and tired of crafting being shoehorned into every RPG ever, that's a new gaming trope that needs to be banished to the island of misfit mechanics with the likes of escort missions and unnecessary stealth. I never once touched dragon kart, the game set it up like a big deal and it seemed fine, but I just didn't have the time or patience. About half of this stuff could have gone away and it would have made the game feel far less overwhelming. Y:LAD's story probably runs about 25-30 hours, but you could easily put in over 100 if you maxed out all the side stuff. I guess I like the fact that there's a lot of content, but I would rather them put more effort into the more important stuff and also make side content less impactful on your character's growth. Some of the stuff is literal filler, but other things are almost required to get the most out of your characters. Others, like the romance options, aren't bad in a vacuum but require so much effort for so little payoff that it's frustrating.
The difficulty spikes here are also very, very abrupt and oppressive, especially when it comes to bosses. The first few chapters all have easy bosses, almost to the point that mobs are more difficult to deal with. That's a problem and it's somewhat mitigated by the first difficulty spike in the middle chapters. That was frustrating, largely because I didn't expect it, but once I thought about it logically it was really more of setting bosses to be appropriately difficult, which is okay. But the late chapter difficulty spike is absurd, the bosses just become straight up nasty and most can just one-shot your characters or attack multiple times in a row. Honestly, that wouldn't be such a problem if it wasn't an instant game over if Ichiban gets KOd. You can always grind, and you at least have some solid options for doing so with the sewers, but this was a bit too much. The only way to defeat some of these guys is to get into grind-it-out wars of attrition, which are fun occasionally but quickly become tiresome when every boss battle starts to become like that. Artificial difficulty isn't really that common in RPGs, but this is one of the ways they make it happen. This, combined with all the side stuff almost makes the game feel bloated. Even though none of what's here is bad, there's just so much of it that it feels a bit overwhelming, especially to the target audience. I remember when Star Ocean: Till the End of Time came out and critics dinged it for how long it took to complete (Howlongtobeat.com lists a completionist run at 264 hours, Till the End of Time indeed). Now that's common. Okay, maybe 264 hours isn't common, but the same website estimates Y:LAD takes more than 100 hours to complete. I have said it before and I will say it again, but it seems like every developer wants every game to be the last one you ever play. I have always felt the perfect length for RPGs was 30-40 hours for the main story, with 50-75 for completionist runs. I guess Y:LAD isn't that far off, but it still feels like a bit of an overwhelming title for an old head like me, at least at some points.
That said, I will always prefer more content to not enough, overwhelming or not. I know I just spent a bunch of time complaining about it, but a lot of that is on me not being able to break myself out of a completionist mindset, something my current life situation requires that I do. Y:LAD isn't perfect, but it's greater than the sum of its parts...and its parts are pretty excellent on their own. The score I give may seem low after I say this, but this game single handedly gives me hope for the direction of video games as a medium and traditional RPGs as a genre. Look, I like a lot of the more modern games, but they are just different than old school ones. I loved the Final Fantasy VII remake and it's definitely an RPG, but its not a traditional one. They just don't make games like Yakuza: Like a Dragon anymore, even if it did have a lot of modern amenitites. It has a great, memorable story with a modern aesthetic that will appeal to all types of gamers, old school and new school, eastern and western, casual and hardcore. It has tight, traditional JRPG gameplay that is excellent in its simplicity. There are a lot of things I think Y:LAD could improve on, both in terms of presentation and gameplay. But I don't think I've been this interested in a new series (it looks like Like a Dragon is going to spin off into its own series) in a long time. There's a reason second and third games in series tend to be strong, because good developers and publishers learn from solid first outings and make the adjustments they need to turn good games into great ones. I am extremely excited for Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth to hit next year. The sky is the limit for this series. If you haven't given Yakuza: Like a Dragon a look yet, I highly recommend it.
9/10
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