Yakuza, now under the name Like a Dragon, more faithful to the original Japanese title, is a series that despite bringing adult plots, never leaves good humor aside. And this has never been more obvious than in Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth, the new chapter in the franchise.

Hawaii, here we come!

Ichiban Kasuga is back! The new and clumsy protagonist introduced in Yakuza: Like a Dragon He has a paid ticket to the paradisiacal Hawaii, and in his luggage he's carrying all the craziness that made his debut game one of the best to date.

The story takes place three years after the events of the first Like a Dragon. Ichiban and her friends are considered true heroes in Yokohama, who they freed from the dangers of a government-sponsored forcible cleaning program. Everyone tries to get on with their lives, including Ichi, who now works at an employment agency, where he helps former Yakuza members find work after the dissolution of the city's two main crime syndicates.

It doesn't take long for his efforts to become an excuse for a cancellation campaign on the internet and, on the street, Kasuga has no one to turn to. But instead of giving up, he decides to investigate one of his clients, which leads him to discover the formation of a new organization headed by a former superior of the Arakawa family, of which Ichiban was part.

After many kicks and punches, our disheveled protagonist finds himself face to face with the group's leadership, who puts him on an extremely important mission: to find his mother, whom everyone believed to be dead, including the patriarch Arakawa, who died at the end. from the last game and who revealed himself to be Ichi's father. 

Apparently, the little lady lives in Hawaii, so with suitcase packed and boarding ticket in hand, Kasuga sets out in search of her, without knowing a syllable of English and only with an empty envelope where his mother's address is written. Arriving there, he soon gets into trouble and in the midst of this, he meets a new friend who helps him find the hero's mother's house.

There, instead of the long-awaited reunion, Ichi is deceived again and is left unconscious and without a thread of clothes on the beaches, in the situation in which we saw him in the game's reveal trailer last year. Arrested by the police, he manages to escape, and during his escape he comes face to face with none other than Kazuma Kiryu, the main character of most of the games in the series.

Kiryu continues to work with the mysterious organization he was recruited by in Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, game with a parallel story to Yakuza: Like a Dragon, released at the end of last year, and by pure coincidence, he is also looking for Ichiban's mother. Joining forces, Ichi and Kiryu set out in search of the truth and, of course, a lot of confusion and funny situations, as could not be the case with a game in the series.

Refined and even more fun gameplay

Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth follows the same line as the previous game starring Ichiban, with street combat giving way to fights in suits, after all, the hero is an RPG fanatic and still has quite an imagination. Even so, the combat system has undergone improvements that we notice right away, making them much quicker to deal with, without reducing the fun.

And being a Yakuza, there are also a multitude of activities beyond the main plot. Hawaii offers a huge range of side jobs and missions to do, and I would venture to say that they are the main attraction of the game, of course, after the central plot. They range from simple fights against very strong bosses to food delivery a la the classic Crazy Taxi from Sega, as well as a minigame that is very reminiscent of a Nintendo series with cute animals in a village…

Well, it took a while, but Like a Dragon now has a farming simulator. On an island of your own, you can build all kinds of places for the leisure of your guests, where Ichiban must attract his friends and acquaintances to enjoy Hawaii with him.

Luckily, for those who aren't as interested in games of this type, Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth does not force you to participate in this mode, leaving it separate, to be played if the fan wants, a wise decision, since in past games the Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio It was a bit heavy-handed in this regard, with certain minigames thrown into the main plot.

A plot worthy of the franchise

Speaking of history, this is one of the best chapters of all the games released to date. Important characters are part of Ichiban's group of friends, and by the way, it is a perfect ending to Kiryu's life arc, especially since he can be seen as a complete character, with a trajectory that few forms of entertainment can achieve. to develop.

There are also other new ones that have their own personal dramas, such as Tomizawa, an unlucky taxi driver parachutes into the middle of Ichi's annoyance, determined to help him and, in doing so, quench his thirst for revenge against crime. organized locally.

In turn, Kasuga remains an incredibly charismatic and difficult to dislike character. His contagious optimism and desire to help everyone and everything that crosses his path makes a very interesting contrast with the personality of Kiryu himself, who, despite being quiet, also follows this good-natured playbook, but in his own way. Seeing the two finally together is a really cool thing to see, especially for someone like me who has been following the series forever.

Beautiful thing, beautiful thing

Technically Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth It's a very beautiful game. Following the series' usual guide, it features very well modeled and animated characters, as well as very eye-catching locations full of details. However, there are certain clues that the game's budget may not have been the greatest, because, mysteriously, some of the many (and there are MANY) dialogue and action scenes take place in slide form, with the recorded voice playing over up.

On the PC, the game runs very well on older machines, including mine, which has a mid-range video card from the previous generation, a 3060ti and a DDR3 RAM memory upgrade, to 24Gb. The performance is practically identical to that of Yakuza: Like a Dragon, which gives the game a very stable frame rate and graphics options from the smallest to the largest details, to meet the maximum possible configurations.

The new Hawaiian setting is absolutely beautiful, also bringing a dose of reality to the place, as not everything is beaches, much like the developers did with Yokohama in the previous game. It's cool to see that even in the quick initial moments when Infinite Wealth is set in the Japanese port city, they took into account real-world events, such as the pandemic, showing that certain elements there changed as a result.

Za booku is on za teiburu

The language conflict faced by Ichi creates a lot of confusion, but the development team was able to place, here and there, people who for some reason are able to communicate in Japanese, to make our forty-year-old friend's life a little easier, even that this can sometimes seem a bit forced. Anyway, after a few of these games, you won't care about it anymore amidst the fun.

It is worth mentioning a somewhat artificial limitation of the game. This is the post-game mode, the so-called newgameplus, which in Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth it is sold as paid content in addition to the cost of the game itself. This is one of the few aspects of this new chapter in the series that bothers, even because in Yakuza: Like a Dragon, this functionality was included. It's certainly a very questionable attitude on Sega's part, after all it's common to see many superfluous things like character clothes being paid content, but not a game mode like this.

On the other hand, this is another of the games giant's releases that is localized in Brazilian Portuguese, and the text is very well translated and adapted. The localization team took care to give the characters their own voice, taking into account the Japanese regionalities of different regions when adapting the lines, with dialogues that sound quite natural, full of slang at the right moments. 

Conclusion 

Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth is another quality game in the franchise, which continues to deliver incredible adventures with each new release. Taking into account that this is the first to be brought by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio after the departure of the team of the series' creator, Toshihiro Nagoshi, it is even more impressive that not only Infinite Wealth was able to maintain the same level, but raise it further.

The future is promising for the series, but we hope that the slip that Sega made with this history of paid content will not be something that recurs in the next chapters of Like a Dragon. For the rest of the game, it is an excellent choice not only for card-carrying fans. Yakuza like me, but also those who might become interested in the franchise with this game. Even though it's full of references to the previous volume, anyone who gets to it the first time will be able to learn the plot without any problems!

LEARN MORE:

Text proofread by: Pedro Bomfim