Like A Dragon: Ishin! Review

Like A Dragon: Ishin! is the kind of franchise spin-off that feels essential. A PlayStation 4 launch title that was previously exclusive to Japan, this game transports the long-running Like A Dragon (or Yakuza) franchise to Edo period Japan where gunpowder and skilled samurai have disrupted the Imperial family’s hold on the nation. Against a backdrop of gang tension between warriors fighting to restore the political influence of the emperor and a separatist samurai protection racket known as the Shinsengumi, our historical analog for the classic series’ manly-man Kiryu is Sakamoto Ryōma. Hot on the trail of an assassin who killed his father figure, the game quickly adopts the standard revenge plotline typical of the series, with familiar faces and returning actors as historical characters that parallel their contemporary counterparts. 

Ishin! presents as a delightfully overstuffed Kiryu Kazuma adventure just in a vastly different period, losing almost none of the charm, melodramatic tropes, and humourous side content that the series is known for. As somebody who has recently played, completed, and greatly enjoyed the Like A Dragon series, I was surprised to learn that this is almost a decade-old game in the unenviable position of immediately preceding the lightning-in-a-bottle iterative achievement that is the mainline series prequel, Yakuza 0. Releasing almost 10 years ago, the DNA of this title’s arrival between Yakuza 5 and 0 will be quickly recognisable to longtime fans. 

B-bkaaw?

An old Japanese town will play host to a wacky set of citizens and their ludicrous problems. I satisfied a “sexy madam” who repeatedly moaned for only the largest of my phallic vegetables — for reasons both private and personal. Plenty of ronin will act as roaming combat encounters that can be avoided with enough sprint stamina, but combat will transport players into an enclosed instance for a third-person action brawl. A contrast to later games that feature seamless in-world fights. Most important of all, with a familiar ensemble of faces returning, Ishin! is magically able to reproduce the amusingly rote but beloved faux-masculine criminal melodrama of Yakuza. This storytelling functions as both player downtime and a gloriously overwritten piece of video game cinema that is still an enjoyable passive viewing. 

Rather than focus on multiple characters with move sets unique to each (as with the preceding Yakuza 4 and 5), Ishin! focuses wholly on Ryōma who will begin with four basic but varied styles. Like Yakuza 0’s three distinct combat styles, Ryōma’s four styles feature combinations of guns and swords in order to vary the speed, damage, and defensive stances necessary for a given fight. A bare-fisted, classic brawler style is the same basic combo fighter that fans know by heart. Swordsman, which the game often locks players into during boss fights, is a slow and methodical style that encourages blocking and dodging. Wild dancer sets Ryōma spinning in a series of dazzling pirouettes, spraying bullets with one hand while cutting down foes with the other. Finally, there is the gunman style. It begins with very low damage but allows for unlimited, rapid firing from afar. In time this approach can be improved to make easy mincemeat of encounters from a safe distance. Unfortunately, that also means digging into the game’s crafting system to gain more powerful firearms and equip expensive yet limited ammo types that pack an extra wallop or ailment.

Apparently, there are 19th-century Don Quijote shopfronts

The game’s crafting system is a missed opportunity that falls victim to the then-emerging feature creep in video games a decade ago. While Ishin! starts without much challenge for experienced players on normal difficulty, enemies quickly ramp up in overall health and damage. The game barely gives players any equipment upgrades or means to buy them, outside of a very expensive blacksmith with a convoluted series of equipment tech trees and material requirements. To meet said requirements you’ll do a bunch of empty side missions involving wandering through identical caves to beat identical enemies, which seems inoffensive at first. However, the game’s later difficulty demands investment in these afterthought modes, leading you to grind for crucial crafting materials in order to equip even the smallest improvement in gear. 

For a few hours almost halfway into the game, attention to combat balancing gleefully takes a leap out the window. Pokémon ronin, or “troopers”, can be assigned to each combat style with active abilities like health regeneration, additional damage, and even summoning a black hole. You can recruit troopers from a vendor or by laying the smackdown on hooded miscreants in a random street brawl. There is a Pokédex to fill out, as each trooper has a unique array of stats, names, classes, and abilities. While they first tip the difficulty to laughable, they become necessary when the drought of equipment upgrades results in long and tedious battles that await the final act.

There are trooper cards that trigger a lightning blast upon foes

A welcoming feature of so many Like A Dragon games is that players can engage with the side missions entirely optionally while still having a fighting chance on the critical path. This seems much less viable in Ishin!, where even skill trees are locked behind side missions. Walking to a mission objective is also likely to force a player into unskippable dialogue sequences relating to side quests. As always though, these popular distractions may not be every fan’s favourite part of the game, though most can be completed within a handful of minutes. While the game told me I had only achieved 27% total completion after 30 hours, I still feel like I spent over half the game running errands tangential to the main path. Only to then still stumble tremendously in the second half of the game due to cheap fights and damage-sponge enemies.

While I have not had an opportunity to try the day one patch, Ishin! occasionally stopped for a cough. On the lighter end, enemies would spin through walls and floors, vanish and appear in front of the camera and are flung out of the combat arena, requiring a restart. What happened as often and just as annoyingly was the game locking up for as long as ten seconds at a time. This was particularly noticeable when moving between menus. A holdover that disadvantages this Unreal Engine remake is the frequent and noticeable loading screens, like the loading transition between entering and exiting most buildings. Contemporary Gyu Ga Gotuko games make this seamless, allowing the world to feel more organically traversable.

Edo period Majima is still up to his old tricks

Final Thoughts

Like A Dragon: Ishin! does exactly what it says on the box. It takes the recognisable characters that have appeared throughout the series and transformed them into 19th-century analogs. The super dramatic storyline, backstabs and betrayals remain pleasingly offset with the eccentric substories that feature memorable characters in the wildest of circumstances. Kiryu-Ryōma-Saito remains the ever-loveable stone-faced uncle driven by honour, stoically seeking the goodness in hearts everywhere before curb stomping a handsy mugger.

Reviewed on PS5 // Review code supplied by publisher

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