Yakuza Like a Dragon is a Good Game with Plenty to do

Developer: Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio

Publisher: SEGA

Platforms: PC, Xbox One/Series X, and PS4/PS5

Release Date: November 10, 2020 (internationally)

Introduction

Yakuza Like a Dragon is a good game with plenty to do and unique jobs to choose from. It unfortunately suffers a little from a difficulty spike in chapter 12 that breaks the story’s pacing. This was my first game in the Yakuza series. I gravitated towards this one since 90% of my games are RPGs/JRPGs. As always I made sure to make this review as spoiler free as possible.

Story

I usually start this section with a description of the story, but I couldn’t think of a way to word it without spoiling anything.

I think the story was pretty good. It started off pretty slow and some points I questioned what the goal even was. There were some good twists in their that I didn’t expect. I was pretty hooked especially towards the later chapters. As I got close to the end of the game I stayed up late because I just had to see how the game ended. I had to finish it right then and there. The story is broken up into 15 chapters. You don’t need to have played the previous games to understand the story.

Game Play

If you’ve played other games in the Yakuza series, the combat is different. Yakuza Like a Dragon is a turn based RPG. Each character has a class that can eventually be changed when certain conditions are met. Some conditions involve raising bond levels, more on this later. Each class uses different weapons and skills. A part consists of 4 characters that can be swapped out with back up characters. Characters in the main part will earn full experience from fighting while those in your reserve will gain reduced experience.

Throughout the game you’ll have a chance to bond with your party members. As you increase their bond level you’ll learn more about them. Each character has a little story arc that you follow as you increase your bond with them. Bond levels increase through combat, eating together, side conversations, and other activities.

Throughout the game you will eventually gain access to Part-time Hero. There are three different parts to this. Support, rescue, and challenge. Support involves you collecting and delivering certain items are beating certain enemies. Rescue has you saving people from different enemies. Challenge includes different tasks that will boost your personality traits when completed.

One major positive about the game are some of the boss fight mechanics. Some of them switch fighting styles so that you have to come up with a new strategy. There are also some bosses where once their health lowers by a certain amount, an in game cut scene happens. I think it’s pretty cool to have in the game.

Mini games

One of the biggest positives about this game are the different mini games. You have claw machines, karaoke, movie theaters, arcade games, batting cages, kart racing and so much more. One of the biggest ones is the business management mini game.

In this game you’ll take the role of president of Ichiban Confections. Your goal is to bring the business back to its former glory. This mini game is a great way to earn money for weapons and armor. I would recommend saving frequently when doing this mini game as well as looking up a guide to get started. It’s easy to mess up things.

There are several arcades you can go to that have old SEGA games you can play. One such game is Virtua Fighter 2.

One of my favorite mini games is Dragon Kart. If you like Mario Kart then you’ll like this mini game. As you play you’ll face off with different rivals in several different Grand Prix. You will also unlock more karts to race in as well as upgrade. I’ve got a race recorded below.

Music

The music in this game is insanely good. I never grew tired of hearing the battle theme. I always felt energized in every battle and don’t even get me started on the boss themes. Below are some of my favorite tracks. Some I didn’t share to avoid spoilers.

Negatives

The biggest issue that I had with the game was the huge difficulty spike in chapter 12. You go from level 38 enemies to two level 50 bosses back to back. This is a steep difficulty increase as you’ll definitely lose. I had to grind for the first time in the game for a couple hours to raise my level high enough. I was only level 38 so I had to grind for 10 levels. It really broke the pacing at a really good point in the story.

Another problem I had was with how slow the story start was. I wasn’t expecting to immediately jump into action or anything, but progress felt slow. I think by chapter 4 or 5 you just finish the tutorial and can actually change jobs from the default. That’s pretty long for a game in my opinion.

Conclusion

I think Yakuza Like a Dragon is a good game with a lot of stuff to experience. This was my first Yakuza game and I definitely plan on playing the previous games in the series. I would definitely recommend this game as long as you enjoy RPGs and JRPGs. Have you played Yakuza Like a Dragon? How did you like it? As always thank you for reading!

I need to get back into Horizon Zero Dawn, I stopped playing for a bit and I get rusty with the combat. Other games in my backlog include Hades, Astral Chain, Tales of Berseria, and SMT V when it releases.

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