Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth is the follow up to Yakuza 7 and is technically Yakuza 8 except now the worldwide name has become what the series has always been called in Japan. Whatever you want to call it, this is the next mainline game in the long running Like a Dragon/Yakuza series. Once again we return our attention to Ichiban Kasuga the protagonist of the last game and once again we return to a traditional turn based RPG.
Our story begins with Ichiban working at Hello Work, the agency that helps people find jobs and was the sort of the job system in the last game. He works here to help former Yakuza get normal jobs after the Great Dissolution from the last game where most of the biggest Yakuza families broke up and all the members were kicked into normal law abiding life. Long term Yakuza naturally struggle with this and Ichiban helps them get a job where they might use their former skills at a real job. For example he helps a professional thief get a job at a security consulting firm where he steals from stores on purpose to find holes in their security, then reports that to the business with the firm to offer helpful improvements and advice to better protect against loss. This security firm is run by Adachi, one of your party members from the last game.
Everything is going fine for the whole team in fact, Nanba is working as a medical device consultant, Saeko is managing her club as always. And things seem to be good for our main cast from the last game. However Ichiban has developed feelings for Saeko and wants to ask her to date him. Adachi and Nanba encourage him and finally he pulls the trigger. Saeko accepts and they go on a fairly decent date despite Ichiban flubbing a little here and there. Until the end of the date when Ichiban asks Saeko to marry him, which is not the best end of a first date probably. Adachi and Nanba rip him for doing this and Ichi goes to apologize. Saeko doesn't seem bothered by what had happen the night before and tell Ichi not to worry about it, but she just wants to be friends and be by his side the way they were the last game. She says she'll see him around and leaves.
Fast forward a year and Saeko has never contacted Ichi or the group ever since. Ichiban is still upset by this, feeling like a fool that ruined his chance at love and his friendship, but still goes to work everyday and does his best. Except he's fired when he walks into work. Turns out Nanbe and Adachi also have been fired, all on the same day. Turns out that some online Vtuber made up a story of Ichiban helping former Yakuza members steal shit and the selling the goods for profit. Accusing him and Adachi of working with criminals to run these scams. Nanba is fired because of association with the two despite not being accused of anything.
Suddenly the group is back at square one from where they've been. Not only that but Ichi learns that a small Yakuza family that survived the teardown has been gathering up former members with nowhere else to turn. Ichi and the group break into the family's headquarters to try and stop them from taking people Ichi has set on the straight and narrow, not wanting his fuck ups to affect their ability to rejoin normal society. Turns out though that the leader of this Yakuza family is trying to gather old Yakuza to help them return to normal life and he has plans to put together a second Great Dissolution to end all the Yakuza once and for all.
Here we learn that an old lieutenant Sarasawa is alive and out of jail. He has a request for Ichiban. Turns out that Ichiban's mother is still alive and living in Hawaii. He asks Ichiban to go visit her and let her meet her the son that she thought she'd abandoned.
This set the game up in Hawaii without any of the party members from the last game. And in typical Yakuza game fashion we are about 3 hours into the game before gameplay really begins.
Welcome to Hawaii where everything is very bright and American but also Japanese.
I wanna talk about the improvements to the gameplay as that's the most important thing here. All the crazy substories and mini games are still here, including all the staple games that are very Asian like Shogi, and Mahjong. But the meat of the game is obviously the JRPG systems.
The turn-based battles play out like you would mostly expect with a few changes. The two most important changes are that attacks always hit in a direction, this means that attacks will knock an enemy back in a specific direction OR the attack will go through and hit all enemies in a line, and secondly you have a small circle of space your character can move on each turn in order to position themselves for the most effective attack direction. This is important because knocking enemies into other enemies does a lot of damage, and even better knocking enemies into other party members gives that party member a free attack on them. There are also tag team attacks that basically work like limit breaks, a meter builds up and your two characters unleash a big attack. Outside of that the jobs have been given more AoE attacks to help thin out large groups of enemies that was really lacking in the last game, and the game seems more aware of throwing big groups at you too much, making the combat not only move faster but also feel more fair.
I will say this, so far the plot doesn't seem as driven as the last game as the mystery so far involves a character that they've basically resurrected from darkness out of nowhere. The reasoning and story makes sense so it's not that jarring, but overall things seem very low stakes after 14 hours into the game. However I spent a lot of that time doing a wacky version of uber eats for money.
Still it's a good game through and through and it's exactly what you expect from a Yakuza game. So I'm not mad about anything yet.
Our story begins with Ichiban working at Hello Work, the agency that helps people find jobs and was the sort of the job system in the last game. He works here to help former Yakuza get normal jobs after the Great Dissolution from the last game where most of the biggest Yakuza families broke up and all the members were kicked into normal law abiding life. Long term Yakuza naturally struggle with this and Ichiban helps them get a job where they might use their former skills at a real job. For example he helps a professional thief get a job at a security consulting firm where he steals from stores on purpose to find holes in their security, then reports that to the business with the firm to offer helpful improvements and advice to better protect against loss. This security firm is run by Adachi, one of your party members from the last game.
Everything is going fine for the whole team in fact, Nanba is working as a medical device consultant, Saeko is managing her club as always. And things seem to be good for our main cast from the last game. However Ichiban has developed feelings for Saeko and wants to ask her to date him. Adachi and Nanba encourage him and finally he pulls the trigger. Saeko accepts and they go on a fairly decent date despite Ichiban flubbing a little here and there. Until the end of the date when Ichiban asks Saeko to marry him, which is not the best end of a first date probably. Adachi and Nanba rip him for doing this and Ichi goes to apologize. Saeko doesn't seem bothered by what had happen the night before and tell Ichi not to worry about it, but she just wants to be friends and be by his side the way they were the last game. She says she'll see him around and leaves.
Fast forward a year and Saeko has never contacted Ichi or the group ever since. Ichiban is still upset by this, feeling like a fool that ruined his chance at love and his friendship, but still goes to work everyday and does his best. Except he's fired when he walks into work. Turns out Nanbe and Adachi also have been fired, all on the same day. Turns out that some online Vtuber made up a story of Ichiban helping former Yakuza members steal shit and the selling the goods for profit. Accusing him and Adachi of working with criminals to run these scams. Nanba is fired because of association with the two despite not being accused of anything.
Suddenly the group is back at square one from where they've been. Not only that but Ichi learns that a small Yakuza family that survived the teardown has been gathering up former members with nowhere else to turn. Ichi and the group break into the family's headquarters to try and stop them from taking people Ichi has set on the straight and narrow, not wanting his fuck ups to affect their ability to rejoin normal society. Turns out though that the leader of this Yakuza family is trying to gather old Yakuza to help them return to normal life and he has plans to put together a second Great Dissolution to end all the Yakuza once and for all.
Here we learn that an old lieutenant Sarasawa is alive and out of jail. He has a request for Ichiban. Turns out that Ichiban's mother is still alive and living in Hawaii. He asks Ichiban to go visit her and let her meet her the son that she thought she'd abandoned.
This set the game up in Hawaii without any of the party members from the last game. And in typical Yakuza game fashion we are about 3 hours into the game before gameplay really begins.
Welcome to Hawaii where everything is very bright and American but also Japanese.
I wanna talk about the improvements to the gameplay as that's the most important thing here. All the crazy substories and mini games are still here, including all the staple games that are very Asian like Shogi, and Mahjong. But the meat of the game is obviously the JRPG systems.
The turn-based battles play out like you would mostly expect with a few changes. The two most important changes are that attacks always hit in a direction, this means that attacks will knock an enemy back in a specific direction OR the attack will go through and hit all enemies in a line, and secondly you have a small circle of space your character can move on each turn in order to position themselves for the most effective attack direction. This is important because knocking enemies into other enemies does a lot of damage, and even better knocking enemies into other party members gives that party member a free attack on them. There are also tag team attacks that basically work like limit breaks, a meter builds up and your two characters unleash a big attack. Outside of that the jobs have been given more AoE attacks to help thin out large groups of enemies that was really lacking in the last game, and the game seems more aware of throwing big groups at you too much, making the combat not only move faster but also feel more fair.
I will say this, so far the plot doesn't seem as driven as the last game as the mystery so far involves a character that they've basically resurrected from darkness out of nowhere. The reasoning and story makes sense so it's not that jarring, but overall things seem very low stakes after 14 hours into the game. However I spent a lot of that time doing a wacky version of uber eats for money.
Still it's a good game through and through and it's exactly what you expect from a Yakuza game. So I'm not mad about anything yet.
