Welcome back to another episode of, before you, by the show, where we give you some straightup gameplay and our first impressions of the latest games releasing. Hi, folks, it's Falcon, and today we're looking at like a dragon-infinite wealth, or just, yaka-8 for short, I mean, we're not calling it that anymore, cuz. That's not officially the name of the game anymore. But, yeah, everything about this game seems like a contradiction.
It's the second biggest RPG sequel for a series known for its action. It's a very Japanese game that mainly takes place in the United States. And the story swings from the most melodramatic craziness to the most mundane stuff imaginable. It is the kind of game that sounds like would be a mess on paper, but it all somehow comes together to make something great.
So, here's the Lowdown Yaka, a 7 drastically altered the series with a new protagonist and a new genre. It was pretty bold. The new protagonist Ichibon Kasuga, is a worthy followup to Kiru. And the way the game play with RPG conventions, while still being essentially a yakas, a game at heart, was super interesting. The turn-based combat was divisive among people, but I personally enjoyed it.
I am already like a big JRPG weirdo, so it was a pretty easy switch for me. Also, we did get like a side title, the weird Ciru, starring like a dragon, giden, the man who erased his name, which was short, and shockingly well-received. The developers of that, were kind of worried that because it was a shorter game.
People wouldn't like it, but it was actually part of the reason why it got the praise that it got. And there was a little controversy, but not a lot, but that game also feeds into this game. And this new entry fully embraces the series, japanese title of like, a dragon, and takes the things that made Yaka a 7. Such an interesting experiment, and expands on them in some pretty exciting new ways.
Actually, the combat is, it's still pretty simple as far as turn-base battles go, but it is more strategic and active. The mini-game games are some of the biggest and most entertaining side activities. The series has SCen yet in the new setting of Honolulu, it was a great idea. In all seriousness. It really works with all that said, I don't know how to describe this game as like a thing.
Like, if you said, what is this game? I would not really know what to say. And its core, obviously, it's an RPG, you gather a party, battle enemies and TuR-based combat equip weapons and armor. All the RPG staples, there's even a job system. The difference, of course, is that rather than being set in some far off fantasy world, these games are set in the real, well, at least a certain version of the real world.
I should say it's mostly like our world, except every road is packed with roaming thugs wearing ridiculous costumes that will throw down with zero provocation. And every second person is some Bizar, eccentric that needs your help funding their giant vacuum cleaner robot or something, just to name an example. It's weird enough when you're doing it in Japan.
But there's some excuse there, like the really densely populated, almost cyberpunk-looking areas of Japan feel a bit like a fantasy place. Like, obviously, not all of Japan looks like neon signs and all that. But the really urban areas do, and that can feel a bit like a far off fantastic world, if not completely like one. But Honolulu. It doesn't work like that. Certainly, I've never been to Honolulu.
And it is actually probably just about as foreign of a place. In all honesty, it is kind of still very odd. The new city here is the biggest one in a Yakas, a game. Not to say that it's very big. It's only a few square miles at most, but the amount of detail in the environment is beyond fantastic, as per usual, even though you're only confined to one district.
It really feels like you get the full Hawaii experience. There's a luxury resort, beach front. There's a chipy mall. There's a rundown slum. It all looks really great and it's a lot of fun to explore. I mean, we've spent so many years in Kamar-Roo and other Japanese cities. It really feels like something new for the series. And they really hit it out of the park.
I'm not going to get into the story much because, well, a spoilers are not great. But also it's not hard to spoil, I guess. But the general overview is you play as lovable loser it. Chaban, kasuga, former, yakaza, who's trying to put his life back on track After the events of Yakaza 7, he got sent on a mission to Hawaii by his former associates. He got stranded.
He meets up with Kiru, the legendary dragon of Dojima. And former series protagonist. And things kick off from there. As you'd expect, there's the usual assortment of thugs and low lives you have to deal with, including a M boss, memorably played by Danny Tryo. But the real heart of the story is your new party members, forming friendships with your allies, is a major part of the game.
Play and becoming better friends with allies isn't just for story-forming greater bonds actually increases your effectiveness in combat. And after a while, it does legitimately make a huge difference. So, it feels particularly good that it affects both story and mechanical elements, because these friendships are actually where a lot of the game's best writing comes in. There's conversation points all over the city, where you get these little dialogue interactions with your party.
And unlike in most RPGs, where these moments are tedious and boring filter, I actively hunted these conversations down. Not only because this actually helps you mechanically speaking, but also because the dialogue is genuinely good, and at times very legitimately funny. My personal favorite newcomer is probably Eric Kamisawa, an American Japanese taxi driver who spends most of the game utterly overwhelmed and baffled by the craziness going on around him.
He's a great character, just a regular gig, economy guy who's also a low-level criminal. In a lot of Japanese games, the American guy can really be a stereotype, but Tomy Zoa feels so specific and real with his problems. The way he talks to people, he's a really good addition to the cast. All the characters are great, though, and half of what makes them so fun is how unusual they are compared to your standard RPG protagonist.
Your party members in this game are all criminals and losers almost all of them, over 30 some of them pushing 50 and their problems are usually a lot more relatable than two youths who prove their medal and get trained as part of an ongoing decades-long effort against a cosmic threat. C of Stars, is a great game, for reasons other than the story, and the characters eventually become relatable, and somebody you actually care about.
But man, I am tired of people, not making stories that pertain to something like a. 8 is just the absolute antithesis of this. But I will say that doesn't stop the game from going completely nuts sometimes, though. I'm not going to spoil anything, but some of these bosses have to be seen to be believed. It does take a while to get there. Though, yakuza games normally have pretty slow opening chapters.
And if anything, this game is probably actually worse about. It takes about four or five hours to really get into the meat. And even with this being the sequel, there's a lot of setup and character development early on that can kind of drag, cuz. Again, you're introducing a whole bunch of people that have no precedent in this world.
And it can actually take a while before you really get to play the game, so to speak, at least once you're actually in Hawaii, things pick up considerably, though the story ramps up a lot, leading into the final chapters too. This game takes its sweet time, introducing gameplay, concepts, and side content, which can be frustrating.
But, I'll say this, like, if you're a fan of the series, it's not really any kind of left turn, like the pacing. The game is pretty on-par with the rest of the series, but at least the RPG combat system has been improved, even though the game is still turn-based. There's a lot of significant changes to how combat works.
For one thing, you can actually move around when it's your turn, which is great for when you want to line up a special attack or get close enough to heal allies. Positioning is so much more important in this game, and it actually adds a layer of real strategy to it. You can now attack enemies from behind, to do bonus damage. St you're another ally. You have high friendship with to do a double attack.
Hitting enemies in certain directions is actually important. You can knock an enemy into an ally, and the ally gets a free extra hit. If you're standing near a weapon or an object on the ground, when you attack, you'll just use that weapon. It's nice. It's pretty cool, honestly. Kiru takes these changes even further with classic heat actions. That can be done exactly how they worked in old games.
He even gets a power up where you get direct control, and you can do, beat them up stuff, just exactly like the old games. All these changes make the battles a lot more dynamic, interesting to fight. It's still not the most complex battle system of all time. There aren't exactly a lot of complex dynamics that you need to master. But what's here is really fun and satisfying.
And it starts off easy, and by the end, actually progresses to a real challenge between the fights. There's a ton of activities you can get up to. You can deliver food, pick up trash, give a little scooter, a test drive. There's just tons of crap to do. There's little randomly generated dungeons. You can go explore to loot and grind. For experience, there's unlockable jobs, side missions. And it's all mostly pretty fun.
Yakaza games always have some kind of major side job. Seven had business management, for example. And this game really goes overboard there, with not just one, but two massive side games that practically feel like new games on their own.
There's the Sujiman league, which expands the whole Pokemon parody introduced in the Aaza 7. In this baffling bizarre gameplay mode, and Dundo Island, which is literally just animal crossing the entire Sujiman thing, just utterly def finds this game's bizarre sense of humor. See, when you encounter enemies, in this game, they transform into Sujiman. These ridiculous criminals creeps and perts.
In the previous game, all you did was catalog them, but this game turns the entire thing into this, hilariously on the Noose Pokemon parody, with all these familiar-sounding music! and catchphrases it's ridiculous. Now, as you're wandering around the world, you sometimes get the chance to catch a Sujiman by giving them a gift and matching a button, begging them to join.
You, level them up, battle all their trainers and eventually work your way up in the Suian League. Everything about these things is so bizarre. They're literally just people. But the game treats them like mindless animals that are used up and discarded like. And the entire side scenario of the story plays up. The strangeness for Maximum comedy. It's surreal, and it's genuinely, really funny.
The entire point is to level up these captured Suji, collect all the badges and defeat the discreet four. In the simplified three on three battles, the actual combat, pretty basic, actually, but that keeps things from being too tedious. The Dao island is even crazier. It's basically just a second game. It takes a while to get there, but eventually you end up on this resort island that's in utter disrepair.
It's up to you to clean up the trash, build new facilities and make the island profitable, again, which could have been pretty dry and dull in any other game. But, this game, I mean, obviously, it takes it in an appropriately weird direction to remove trash and break down resources, you beat everything with a baseball bat. And when building your resort, you have to deal with these Captain Planet.
Villains who are trying to dump garbage on the island, mostly just because they're evil. Periodically, they'll try to destroy your guest lodging. So, while you're running around, trying to make the resort nice for your guess, you also have to beat up Invaders with a baseball bat. Will these creepy mascot characters, quote unquote, assist you? It's completely insane. But it's honestly, really fun. It's animal crossing on Crack. Oh, it's way faster.
It only takes about 10 hours or so from beginning to end to finish the Dao island. But for people who just mess around with the editor, you could spend way more time there. I think there's even share function so that people can visit your resort online, just like animal crossing. It's easily the most elaborate side game in the entire series. It can be tedious, clearing out, trash all the time.
But overall, I had a lot of fun with this side game. It's also a great way to make some easy money and money is, you know, valuable, duh. I could see you playing for a very long time. I played this game a lot for this video, probably nearing 100 hours. And there's still plenty left for me to do. If you don't care about completion.
And doing all the side games, you can probably finish this in something closer to 70 hours. It's a big commitment, but it's not quite as long as Persona 5, but it absorbed me the same way Persona 5 did. And Persona 5 is probably the last JRPG that I enjoyed this much. It's one of the biggest, and also probably the best-looking game in the series. You can really tell. They put money into this one.
The new city looks completely amazing. The updated character models are super expressive. They're easily the most realistic they've ever in, at least on PC, where I played the game. And guess what it ran really well on PC. Like, I noticed every few hours, some minor stuttering, and that's not something that I would gripe about. This game ran almost perfectly for me. No major bugs or issues at all.
It's probably one of the best PC ports I've played in a long time. And with the amount we've talked about that in recent years, believe me, it's saying a lot, like to be fair. It's not that system intensive, but it's still noteworthy, just considering how bad PC ports been for such a long time. And that's the thing.
These games look really nice, especially in the cut scenes, but they've always been more workmanlike and functional rather than graphical powerhouses This game's no exception. There's still some uglier bland parts, and some conversations boil down to canned animations and text boxes. But, as an overall package, this is the most cinematic and visually impressive. The series has ever been the attention to detail in some of the cutcenes is especially impressive.
Like this is a small thing, but the way hand muscles tense in this one cut scene, where Kasuga opens a door, it blew me away. You just don't see that kind of detail in games. I mean, the rest of the game rarely looks as good as it does in cutscenes, but overall, it's a really nice looking game on PC that manages to actually run really well.
This is a series that's been doing pretty decent PC ports for years now. And it seems like this one's continuing that tradition. If there's one major negative, I have to say about the game, it's, they locked new game plus a standard feature in the previous game. And well, most games that have a new game plus mode, they locked it behind the paid special edition.
You have to get a $20 upgrade just to get the new game plus, which honestly doesn't matter a lot to me, I tend to just start games fresh when I play him again, rather than do a lot of new game, plus stuff, like there's certain games where that matters more to me, but this isn't really, one of them. That doesn't mean it's not shitty.
I think that it's garbage to make people buy an overpriced special edition. Just to play the game again with all your stuff. Unlock, cynical, crap here. Lame. Shouldn't be a thing. And it better not be something we start seeing in other games. Other than that, though. I really have nothing but good things to say about this game. Yeah, I'm basically a yakas, a mark. At this point, I'll play anything they put out.
For what it's worth, I think infinite wealth is a cut above, the combat, has a lot of small, but serious improvements. Honolulu is a great place to explore. The side Content is some of the best in the series. And the story and character writing is fantastic Also, and, and as the game that's maybe meant to be CU's final adventure, this game has a ton of callbacks and references to past games.
Unlike, yak is a six, their last attempt at ending his story, which mostly was set in new plays with new characters. This game spends a lot of time calling back to previous adventures and putting Kiru's life into perspective. If you've been playing these games for, as long as I have, then all this stuff really does add to the experience.
It's tough, not to get emotional with K's story in this game, especially by the absurd and amazing finale. Some games in the series have disappointing endings. I'm looking at, yu, yak, as a four. But this game's conclusion is pretty fantastic. I'm putting this one up there with the very best in the series. No small praise. It's a crazy game, with a tone that goes all over the place.
But, the writing, and the surprisingly excellent English dub, really do a lot to carry the story. The rest of the game is obviously pretty damn fun, too. And that's all for today. Leave us a comment. Let us know what you think. If you like this video, click. Like, if you're not subscribed, now is a great time to do. So, we upload brand new videos every day of the week.
Best way to see them first is, of course the subscription. So click, subscribe, don't forget to enable notifications. And as always, we thank you very much for watching this video. I'm Falcon. You can follow me on Twitter. Falcon, the hero. We'll see you next time. Right here on game ranks. Date: 2024-01-24
ElvinGonzalez I love Yakuza series, but I hate the monetization for this one. This is a full price AAA game at 70$ and while I still not agree with that price I can accept it, but now, pay-walling a basic feature like new game is beyond greedy, is plain evil. Yes, not everyone likes playing multiple times the same game after finishing the story, specially JRPGs since they are not usually very replayable since they are usually grindy and linear, but the are still people that like to do that, specially when the games are really really good like Yakuza, and this also a basic feature when you are trying to complete all achievements/trophies, and making that more difficult or time consuming is such bs.
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3up3rn0va Really looking forward to this game! I need more Yakuza Like A Dragon in my life When I played 7 it made me play near half of the Yakuza games and they’re great! Still need to play the other half. Great vids as always Falcon and Jake too! Always look forward to before you buys. Also, yea locking NG plus behind a paywall is so scummy but such a Sega thing to do. Even Persona does Day 1 DLC garbage. Not cool! Jrpgs are a one and done for me most days.
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Fire-bj5vc I really loved Yakuza 7 Like a Dragon! As a Persona fan, I found that game was like a Persona game, with adult characters and adult issues. Those ridiculous ex attacks are really creative I can’t help but laugh. Also Eric Tomizawa was played by Satoru Iguchi from King Gnu. Their music was awesome. it’s a shame that he won’t get a karaoke song. Go listen to Sakayume, Hakujitsu, SpecialZ, and Hikoutei. His voice is divine.
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Butt--Head Hey Falcon I'm a big JRPG fan myself, did you ever get the chance back in the day to give Rogue Galaxy on the PS2 a try It was the first JRPG that I ever tried & within minutes of playing I couldn't put the controller down & just like that became addicted to trying every JRPG that I could find & I was just wondering what your opinion is on Rogue Galaxy if you ever got the chance to play it
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James-gj8rn The more i've played Yakuza Like A Dragon (Yakuza 7) over the last few years, it has really washed over me to become my favourite game in the franchise and i daresay of all time so to say i'm really excited for Infinite Wealth is the biggest understatement so i really hope Infinite Wealth delivers on Friday
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malikon6953 I absolutely love Yakuza 0-6, but I keep trying and just can't get into the turn based gameplay. I want to but it just does nothing for me. I have the same problem with Balders Gate 3, it doesn't feel like playing a game as much as just clicking things and watching the game play itself.
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zulium As a lover of JRPGs, Yakuza games, and Yakuza 7, this is my most anticipated game of the year. I spent over 150 hours in Y7 and this looks like it'll take up even more of my time. Ichiban is such a good protagonist, and I can't wait to see how Kiryu's story ends. (if it does end)
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ninjakiwi2476 It is really annoying that NG is locked behind a more expensive version of the game. It is a downright scummy business decision and it needs to be called out. This is not something I want to see in future games. If this doesn't die here it's just gonna get worse
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SenshiV I wish i could customize their appearances, I just can get to like Kazuga's hair, hate it. It makes me feel as if he were a total clown can't get myself to see him seriously. He has humor but he's also cool. xcept for his goofy hair.
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jadebeast100 the new game is tied to the DLC content they are selling, it's understandable that people don't want to pay extra but if you're planning to play a whole second playthrough i think it's reasonable to toss them the extra 15$
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ViktorAndy I have 0% experience with these kinds of RPGs. I never played a single Final Fantasy game or even a Yakuza game. But i think its time to dive in. I'm very excited to play these from the very first to the very last.
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zeemancan3713 Thanks for doing a before you buy on a Yakuza game again! You guys are the reason im a massive fan of the series. And except for Isshin, it seems like you skipped the last few, so i appreciate the return: )
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dugstarr5277 It is such a credit to a series to be so many sequels in and still keep things fresh and enjoyable. This series reallly flourishes in being able to change things up. Great video Falcon and team, as always.
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tereknor Absolutely love the Yakzua/LaD series. Even with 7's change to turn based gameplay which I have never been a fan of I actually had great fun with it. This looks like 7 but on steroids! Can't wait.
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gameranx Yakuza 7s combat is severely underrated in my opinion. There wasn’t a system that I thought didn’t fit in the game and it complements the goofy nature of the Yakuza series really well.
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DanielJamesShirley Wonder how they decide between who out of Jake Baldino or Falcon to review the game Maybe an arm wrestle, which means Jake must be stronger as he seems to do must of them
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JC-zt5dp NG is whatever. These games take so long to complete anyway that by the time i sunk in 70 to 80 hours to one im done. These stories are great but one playthrough is enough for me.
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ChrisJohnson1988 The like a dragon series is very good however I wouldn't go as far to say as ichiban is a worthy follow up to Kiryu. As a character Kiryu is leagues better than ichiban reply
