Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth brings Ichiban Kasuga and Kazuma Kiryu together as protagonists for the first time. Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio has also brought in multiple move sets and the occasional freedom of motion for Kiryu from his action role playing games. It blended them into the turn-based RPG style of Ichiban Kasuga's games. Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio manages to pull this off, despite the odds.
Infinite Wealth has dual storylines that merge into each other, in a similar fashion of other multi-protagonist games in the series. Ichiban Kasuga discovers his birth mother lives in Hawaii and travels there to meet her. While there, he gets swindled and ends up naked on the beaches of Honolulu. Meanwhile, Kiryu is still trying to be incognito as a spy while he is in Hawaii on a mission for the Daidoji, a faction that was explored in Like a Dragon: The Man Who Erased His Name.
This is the first game in the series that retains all of the playable characters from the previous game, save for Eri as she was modeled and named after the actor who protrayed the character as a result of a contest. The returning characters are split between the two leads. Kasuga's team has Koichi Adachi the former detective and Tianyou Zhao, the chef and former head of a criminal organization named the Yokohama Liumang. Kiryu's team has Saeko Mukoda, the owner of a cabaret club, Joon-gi Han, the man who had surgery to look like the former leader of the Liumang, and Yu Namba the former nurse.
Both teams also contain characters that are new to the series or playable for the first time. Kasuga's team has Eric Tomizawa the taxi driver and Chitose Fujinomiya the housekeeper. Kiryu's team has Seonhee, the leader of the Geomijul and Yokohama Liumang. She is a character who had a minor role in Yakuza: Like a Dragon. The total number of playable characters is eight, the number of the game in Japan (Ryu Ga Gotoku 8). It is also the number which is reflected by the infinity sign, which resembles the number 8. This lines up with other games in the series as Yakuza 4 had four playable characters, Yakuza 5 had five, and Yakuza: Like a Dragon (Ryu Ga Gotoku 7) had seven.
Infinite Wealth continues the theme of Kasuga imagining enemies to be characters in an RPG, and this quirk is also now given to Kiryu in his chapters of the game. The game sets up a plausible reason for Kiryu to experience these hallucinations, and continues showcasing Kasuga's naivety and childishness which explains his.
The role-playing mechanics continue to be enjoyable. One new feature of the game improves the mechanics so much that I greatly missed them when I started replaying Yakuza: Like a Dragon. The playable characters now can move freely within the circle around them and can also now pick up items such as bicycles to use as weapons. The latter occurred in the previous game automatically only when the character was right next to an object. Kiryu also gets two playing styles, his Dragon of Dojima and beast styles from previous games. This does a lot to better connect these games to its action-RPG predecessors.
Kasuga and Kiryu also gain a bar which allows them to pull off a special move that deals heavy damage on an enemy. Kasuga uses his entire team to land a hard hit against every enemy, while Kiryu gets a limited-time ability to be free moving where he can land hits just like he would in an action-RPG game.
The music is fantastic, as usual. This game is also chock full of karaoke songs, including returning songs from Like a Dragon as well as new songs sung by both Kiryu and Kasuga as well as their teammates. The amazing thing is just how many Kiryu songs we get here, with tunes from games all across Kiryu's appearances, from Yakuza 0 to Yakuza 6: The Song of Life.
The game also includes compact discs that can be purchased or won from many of the locations and minigames. These can be played in bar jukeboxes, as usual. However, this game also includes a music player which can be sorted into a playlist in bars and on the smartphone menu. They then can be played at any time by activating them with the play button. It is great to hear Yakuza 0 songs playing while running across Honolulu or Ijincho, at least until they are cut off by substories or street fights. Thankfully, after these events end, the music player starts up right where it stopped.
Sega arcade games return, including the UFO Catcher 8 Second crane machine, Virtua Fighter 3tb, and Get Bass: Sega Bass Fishing. It also includes games developed by Sega AM11, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio's first form. The first is Virtua Fighter 3tb. The second, and final, Sega AM11 game is SpikeOut: Final Edition. This marks the first time it was released on a platform other than the original arcade release.
The substories are as bonkers as ever, especially two involving parodies of popular Nintendo games. Sugimon, which is an index of enemies encountered in whacked-out forms as supposedly imagined by the protagonists, is expanded from the last game into a full turn-based fighting game. The second is the most ambitious minigame Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio has ever created, Dondoko Island. It is a full-fledged Animal Crossing style game, complete upgradable houses and places for the visitors to sleep. The objects that can be placed around the island contain the usual tables and chairs as well as, surprisingly, buildings from Kamurocho and other locations across the world of the series.
Dondoko Island also includes famous green and red Japanese mascots, Gachapin and Mukku, as the mascots for the resort on the island. They are included in the game for the fiftieth anniversary of their initial appearance. The were initially characters on the 1973 children's television series which aired for 20 years, Hirake! Ponkikki, or Begin! Ponkikki as a literal translation into English. These characters appeared in later Fuji TV television series and radio programs, making them instantly recognizable to Japanese audiences. However, even though I knew nothing about them before the release of this game, I found that they worked as characters in the usually weird substories. Their announcements over the loudspeaker were not translated and their repetition became tiresome after a while. Thankfully, these announcements can be muted.
The above parodies are among the best minigames the series creators have ever produced, and can easily provide hours of play when not experiencing the stories of the main game and substories.
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is arguably the best game in the entire series, although some of its story beats don't hit as hard if you haven't played Yakuza: Like a Dragon and Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name. Some of Kiryu's substories also are better experienced if you played the games from the Kiryu Saga, which runs from Yakuza 0 to Yakuza 6: The Song of Life. However, even if you haven't played these games, it could still be enjoyable. The story is engaging, and if veering off from the main game, enjoyment can be had in the Nintendo parody substories alone.
Final Verdict:Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name Review | Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii Review Coming Soon |