in actuality the game is good, but it didn't seem to stick with me as much as other games in the series i don't know how to articulate why that is though
@@zaneisfinefor me, i feel it was a MASSIVE improvement to actually move your character around a bit while selecting an attack, and not having an enemy kick your character in the dick and balls when you run past them to do an attack. story wise, my only gripe is the fact they brought kiryu back AGAIN when at this point it's not really needed, and on top of the 3-jima fight for the "OoOh LoOk It'S tHe OlD yAkUzA!!!"
My current challenge run is minimum money spent, and it feels like how the game was meant to be played ngl. I usually just get the Thundercrack Bat and spam upgrade it to break the first 67% of the game, but now Ichi's holding the fucking _Tranquility Bat_ and Tomi's a dedicated ice type build all the way up to chapter 6 lmao I'm up to $49 spent by chapter 6, and most of that was spent on Jeff.
Didn't Ichiban essentially forgive Masato at the end of Yakuza 7 despite everything he did to him and his friends? He was just never given a chance to start over because Kume stabbed him.
I mean yeah but it was his brother so he simply forgiving him doesnt work that simple BUT he helping him because two things do make sence 1. He is a victim of the yakuza, of its present so ichiban has to take care of him 2. The arakawas last will conects perfectly with eiji a guy who lost everything and is at rock bottom again, but ichiban is that person who reminds him that rock bottom means you can only go up
The entirety of Infinite wealth is about getting a second chance, the game litteraly starts with Ichiban giving a second chance to the ex Yakuza and to Sasaki and then this theme of second chance continues with Kiryu, Ebina and Eiji too. Kiryu gets a second chance to live life and not die by rushing to his death, Ebina gets his second chance at life as he will also after Kiryu's apology give the yakuza the chance to atone this in turn will give Ebina a chance at redemption and responsibility. So wouldn't it make sense for Eiji to get that chance too ? That's right Ichiban understands this and gives this chance to Eiji. This is not simply forgiving him like most people misunderstood it, he's giving Eiji a chance to finally take the responsibility of all his wrongdoings. The entire theme of Infinite wealth is "To live is to not run away" Eiji cannot and shouldn't run away from his accountability, this Kasuga takes him to jail so he could pay for him crimes and turn out a better man. Honestly I feel Infinite wealth is the most misunderstood Yakuza game by far.
I think I'm one of the few that actually liked Ichi's ending lol. Eiji's character is essentially a parallel for Masato Arakawa. Both betrayed Ichi in one way or another and eventually got exposed for their misdeeds. However Ichi actually manages to bring Eiji to safety compared to Masato, almost like making up for the loss of his brother. Also yeah, while it has a fair amount of issues and features that felt relatively superficial compared to other games in the field, the game was still a ton of fun.
Also the fact that he Ichiban will be waiting for him when he comes out of prison unlike what happened to him at the start of 7. He wants people to change and him being there when someone comes out and changes from rehabilitation means everything to him.
the key difference is that ichiban and masato had solid development together as characters that made the ending hit. eiji and ichiban had next to no time together and barely a semblance of a relationship, making the end feel more like "we have to save sasuke". we just don't have a reason to be as connected to them as the story implies and it feels unnatural.
I do not care that the individual beats of the story can be a bit messy. The character writing in it is phenomenal, and that's what the series has always drawn me in with Frankly, this whole series can be like that. I have no idea why it's suddenly a problem now
Agree the whole series has issues with pacing and narrative but that’s nothing new. Kiwami 2 had a whole middle section that was all over the place until it suddenly remembered the story and drew everything together. The characters and overall atmosphere is great. I had such a blast with this game and found it crazy fun.
agreed. the whole series has ludicrous plot points but the character work has always been so likable that i don't mind. like people may hate yakuza 3 but mine and rikiya are still fan favorites iykwim
@@leonelramirez9942It isn’t an excuse to not improve the writing, it’s a callout to people who dislike this but like the others that have the same story issues
I love this game with all my heart like I've never loved any other game. Yes it's not perfect, there is a drop in the quality of the story towards the middle of the game. But the characters, the gameplay, the atmosphere, the visuals, the music, everything just made me love this game so much that it became my favorite game of all time. Not a day goes by without me thinking about it. RGG made black magic
Tbh story quality drop in the middle doesnt happen only in this game even in kiryu series this kind of things still happen. People just shitting on ichiban series because they dont JRPG format it have unlike kiryu's
Can we all agree that basically every Yakuza Game, definitely including the more recent ones like Infinite Wealth, LJ, and Gaiden have consistently incredible soundtracks
There's no way a loser like Kume could ever have the charisma needed to become a big Vtuber, so it makes sense. Plus he was arrested as a result of stabbing Masato in the last game so he wouldn't exactly have the time or resources to do that sort of thing
Infinite Wealth is by no damn means even half as bad as people WANT to believe it is. I don't even understand those who said "it's a Kiryu game" when you just spent like 3 chapters with Kiryu alone, and he doesn't to much on his own (We all know Ebina was the bad guy and the 3jimas were just short lived fanservice). I think people only stays with this impresion because of the bucket list and the fact that Kiryu takes the final bad guy down. But other than those two elements, it's demential for me to say Infinite Wealth is not an Ichiban's game.
@@Yanramich I agree with this. If you find the game too easy or too hard your only option is paying more for a game thats already 70 usd and I think thats a lot
My biggest peeve about the game is the execution of the English lines in the Japanese dub. Characters like Tomizawa and Bryce are clearly meant to be fluent in English, but its obvious that their VA's aren't. (No shade to the VA's, it's just questionable direction). Then you've got scenes where Kasuga is speaking in Japanese to Americans as if the language barrier is non-existant. Like yeah, it would get annoying if every line was live-translated, but even if they just had a bilingual character like Tomizawa interpreting some conversations, it would've made it a bit more believable. They actually kind of did this with Roman in the scenes that he's in, but for the rest of the game its like the language barrier is just forgotten about. Still love the game though.
@@broski7792 I don't really want a whole game of "Can you tell me how to get to the station?" As much as I liked it in 7. As someone who's never played these games in English since I've been speaking Japanese for 4 years, my guess is that it wasn't terrible direction that made their English pronunciation bad, it was simply because, Japanese people aren't going to understand most of it anyway so RGG don't really care. Plus in the case of substories, does a Japanese player really want to watch ichiban trying to speak English over and over again, even if he could speak it? It would just get annoying.
@@ntrg3248 I'd personally rather the games stay in Japan if they're not going to commit to the consequences of it being abroad. I'm never going to take Bryce seriously when he sounds like that
You are absolutely correct in this assessment however The memes that came from that scene with Tomi and Eiji with the police are absolute gold. Serious "Mine took him up to the RUFF" vibes going on there.
I think fans should be more willing to critique these games more. Just calling them "peak" no matter what is a lose lose. If the games become worse and worse, it will be our fault for smiling and nodding to every step towards that point. Things like pacing, writing, combat balancing, filler quests etc are all prominent faults of almost every game in the series. These games could be so much greater, if you truly love these games, you should want to see it get better, not praise stagnation. RGG is in a weird "praised if you do, praised if you dont" situation. Their frequent release schedule is impressive, but incredibly short sighted and unwise. The games are only "peak" when you cherry pick the best parts, ignoring the bloat and low quality parts of these games. Getting into the series has never been harder with how many games there are. Especially, now that they straight up un-rebooted the series with IW. This was a massive mistake in my eyes. RGG got universal praise for their brave decision to "start over" with a new cast of characters in 7. The old series had become convoluted and daunting for alot of people. Its easy to forget how long this series really is. Expecting fans to play 0,1,2,3,4,5 and 6 + Gaiden to get the most out of Kiryu's story is absurd. The brave sacrifice they made in 7 is meaningless now, so is Kiryu's decision at the end of 6. I love the Yakuza games with all my heart, but they are heavily flawed, this whole "every game is peak" obsession is disingenuous and terrible for new players as well. They tried to have their cake and eat it too with IW and it turned into a huge mess. A bloated, akwardly written game that tries to appeal to everyone at the same time. Try to think from the perspective of a person who has only played 7. The concept of IW seems like a laughable idea that would be mocked for being childish and fan service focused if a fan had come up with the idea. The fan service is fun and hype for old fans, but is entirely hollow for the new fans of 7. There is a reason 0, 7 and Judgment were such hits. They were a breath of fresh air for old fans and fantastic for new ones as well. Imagine the sequel to 7 we never got, a tightly written story focused on Ichiban and his crew. IW is "hype" and fun, but has thrown a gigantic wrench in the future of the series. Kiryu was given the spotlight for his "big finale", but wasnt even given a true ending. His fake death 6 has become meaningless. Kiryu's characters is so akwardly written at this point. Having his identity reveal feel like a weird half canon part of the story is so strange. Being outed on national tv, but not meeting Haruka or other any of the other old characters face to face makes Kiryu seem like a cowardly idiot. Even the writers think this, Akiyama's reaction to seeing Kiryu alive felt like a weird confession from RGG. Toxic positivity is so prominent in gaming and it has never made games better. All creators and studios truly hit their stride when they have something to "prove". Hence 0, 7 and Judgment being such standouts.
Yakuza fandom in general is in a weird state rn of being both massive glizzy glazers and obnoxiously negative at the same time. Feels like every opinion I see now is just a greatly over exaggerated version of what the person actually thinks, and it’s only being done to spitefully bully and shut down anyone who disagrees. Creates a weird feeling where all the criticisms feel in bad faith and all the praises feel like they’re being done to shit on another game to prove “my fav is better” Just an unfortunate circumstance of a franchise getting popular in an age where all social media is just generated rage bait now.
A few points here while I agree on the overall toxic positivity and not properly critiquing these gamesbut I am gonna argue that if your gonna engage with a series don’t be mad when you choose not to play the other games and the story mentions those other games I can fully understand being upset ichi gets sidelined in his own game that’s a criticism I have too but it’s never been easier to get into this series the games are consistently dirt cheap and often you can litterley get the entire kiryu saga for like 30 bucks obviously it’s a time investment and I get if people aren’t up for it but when you play the 8th game in a series going since 2005 you should expect there are things you just won’t understand and yah I agree the whole every yakuza game is perfect mantra has to stop these games are flawed no doubt and even tho I personally adored y8 and how it ended kiryu story despite its flaws I see where people’s issues lie especially if they only played but coming from me as someone who’s played every mainline game and spin off in the yakuza series I can say this game felt phenomenal to me but again I fully understand that my experience isn’t the same as the majority of players. Also I do want to ask how iw threw a wrench in the series future kiryu is pretty much retired and the game says as much with game even stating he will never be as strong as he used to be after his treatment not saying your wrong exactly but this feels like rgg blatantly telling us the old yakuza characters are retired aside from majima of course with maji gaiden
@@somecoolassassin6779 People say its never been easier to get into the series, and from a financial standpoint like gamepass and steam availability it might be true. But these games are massive time sinks, each game takes roughly 50 hours at least to get through the story (upwards of 100+ to complete every substory because some fans legit discredit your playthrough if you don't actually do this). Most people simply don't have the time for this. So new players starting with 7 or otherwise the most recent entry is not uncommon, especially for 7's case because not only does the english title not convey that it's the 7th entry in the series, but also RGG themselves advertised the game as a soft reboot and a great starting point, which as we all know 8 effectively undid with Kiryu being the protagonist. I don't think new fans should necessarily be catered to but at the same time they're criticisms of the game they played shouldn't be disregarded if they didn't play the rest of the series, that's gatekeepy and turns off so many people from engaging with the franchise. Honestly it's my personal opinion that you can start at any game in the series because the stories and villains are self-contained and any mature player can fill in the blanks on who characters are but I learned I'm in the minority with this sentiment so I digress.
Honestly with the whole job evolution note, I think DOD should’ve had two lines imo. One would lead into Agent and Oryu style (Daidoji job) while the other leads into OE DOD (The Legend), a merging of both Komaki Tech and his rudimentary skills from 0. The Daidoji job would have access to more versatility as well as a more debuff centred job via Agent as well as the ability to buff allies via Oryu whereas The Legend would centralise around raw strength as well as reworking the MP system into a makeshift heat bar to allow for hacts.
I liked the combat, mini games, Hawaiian map and most characters, but felt the story really took a nosedive in the final third. As much as I love Kiryu, I feel his major involvement in this one made the story quite a mess. I remember Ichiban's first game having a really tight narrative in comparison.
This felt like a Kiryu send off game first and an Ichiban game second and frankly that did feel like a disservice despite the fact that I still loved it. It felt held back from being an Ichiban Game and a Kiryu game with a lot of Kiryu's biggest send off moments being optional side content and the biggest one being teased but never shown. Ichiban felt like he didn't get as much opportunity to get fleshed out. I would've liked it much better if this was saved for Ichiban's third game. Infinite wealth though is Ichiban's second mainline entry and we're supposed to see him as the new protagonist. 7 made a big point of saying Ichiban isn't Kiryu's replacement, but 8 really felt like it was partly in Kiryu's shadow. Let Ichiban's second game really focus on him and his growth as a protagonist. Then have his third game be a dual story that also deals with a send off to Kiryu.
does not help 8 goes out of it's way to undo most of the plot developments from 7. edit: before anyone mentions this happened in the eariler games. there is a difrence between showing the consequnces of kiryu's actions from a previous game and just undoing the status que changess 7 had in it's ending
I was watching thinking, wait people didn't like it? Gameplay is just better 7, side content is awesome, and I didn't think the story was that bad. The only real complaints I have with it is 1. like you said, Ichiban still wanting to be mates with wheelchair bloke doesn't make sense. 2. It feels like they didn't go very far with the cancer story. Honestly I think it would've made more sense if he died after he beat the final boss because the way they handled it makes me think that everything in 6 and Gaiden was pointless since Haruka just rocks up and sees that Kiryu is still alive like she already knew.
I think the cancer story is fine tbh. Haruka probably found out Kiryu was alive from the Tatara channel video and had time to process it before visiting him in hospital. We'll probably get more context surrounding this in Yakuza 9. I also don't think 6 and Gaiden were pointless, Kiryu had to live as a slave to a shady organisation with zero contact with his friends and family for 7 years. I believe RGG want to give Kiryu a happy ending but needed Gaiden and IW to set that up. I believe 9 will be the conclusion to Kiryu's story and he won't get killed off. He'll become a side character with little plot relevance going forward while he lives the rest of his days in the Orphanage.
I mean Nanba tried to use Ichiban to his own benefit in 7 and they're still bros. So Ichiban still trying to bond with Ei-chan every step of the way and Ei-chan agreeing cuz he knows Ichiban is just that dude is relevant imo
I spent the whole playthrough prepared for Kiryu's inevitable death since Gaiden seemed to do a great job setting up his final goodbye. I was quite disappointed when they just said "ah Kiryu's fine now actually 😊"
I love infinite wealth and man, seeing ichiban perseverance and good-willed stubbornness towards his friends no matter what just fills my heart with joy
I feel the same way but there's a limit before it starts to appear to be so self-detrimental that it could almost be considered harming oneself, like with Eiji.
I loved Yakuza 8 and my criticism was with the last bit of the game was because it ironically needed more time to cook with Eiji, Bryce and Wong Tou. I almost forgot about Wong Tou’s kid because we had so little time with him, Bryce needed a bit more to shine as an antagonist as Ebina just felt like he had more presence, and Eiji had an entire thing happen off screen that we needed to see. It had such massive build up and then the ending just kind of happens.
Yeah, the ending with Eiji is probably my only complaint about the game--it feels like several scenes ended up on the cutting room floor that were excised accidentally. We're definitely missing something.
Yeah that was the main problem I found, alot of building up just to drop each piece suddenly. The first time I played through it I was stunned the game just nosedived into being the end, feels like alot is missing where it should have had an extra chapter or two
Doesn't matter if im not gonna play the NG+, its a basic feature we didn't have to pay extra for before. Its about the principle of the matter. They also lockd hard mode behind that paywall iirc which would address your difficulty complaint.
i loved infinite wealth for its story ngl, as someone super SUPER autistic about the mainline yakuza series i felt like it did what 6 wasn't able to do- serve as a beautiful swansong for kiryu. the story is incredibly flawed and confusing, there are a lot of issues, sure, but it's a lot like yakuza 5- big, messy, and ambitious- and i will always respect that over a safe game that doesn't try anything new. IW really is special, because no matter the flaws, it's such a fun game. also the gameplay is so much fun it honestly rivals SMT V for me the simple ability to move in combat and manuever around your party members for combos is so ingenious and unique and just AAAHHHH!!!!
That's the best way to put it IMO, Infinite Wealth is the new 5. Huge game, long story, an absurd amount of side content even by the standards of the series, and a messy yet ambitious and heartfelt story where in spite of its flaws it's always trying its best
Infinite Wealth is great, literally the only thing holding it back, for me, is the story feels unfocused toward the middle. I think Ebina suffers the most from it, He is one of the best antagonists in the series imo but the actual plot just doesn’t know how to utilise him, I really hope he’ll return in some way in the future but I doubt it.
I loved the gameplay improvements but I feel like there was a lot that wasn't as good as it could have been. Also, while I really liked some of the Kiryu stuff, I just feel like he was stepping on Ichiban's toes. To the point where a lot of his side of the plot felt rushed.
Combat is perfect, side content is slightly boring at worst and enjoyable at best, it's only the story that would make or break someone's opinion on this game. For me the story was absolutely atrocious and I hope RGG learn from some of their better written projects
I have to disagree with this idea that choosing to not pay for a game that has front and center anti-consumer business practices is somehow not "logical and reasonable and worthwhile". I love this series to death too, but it's something they did thinking they could get away with it, and they didn't go back on their decision for LAD8/Infinite Wealth. Regardless of whether or not future LAD games do the same thing, i don't see them going "oops sorry, this was dumb, here's NG+ free for LAD8/Infinite Wealth" and if that upsets certain players enough to just not purchase the game, then imo that's perfectly logical, reasonable, AND worthwhile. Logically they get to spend their money on something else they feel isn't out to fuck them over. Reasonably it's their money and not spending it on something that makes them mad or upset is perfectly reasonable. And I'm sure they can find a million other good games out there that're worthwhile monetary investments. Another Sega published game, Persona 3 Reload's story DLC is considered too expensive by fans as well, with plenty of people encouraging those who didn't buy it to wait for it to go on sale if they absolutely need to play it, my point being it's not like this is one game by Sega is the only shitty business practice Sega was up to lately, and maybe you're just joking or whatever but you seemed personally offended that some fans would choose to spend their money elsewhere.
I'll probably never replay this game because I can't do an NG+ run since I'd have to pay for it. Even though me not buying it won't put a dent in their pockets, I just can't justify it. They've been so weird with NG+ recently that hearing Pirate Yakuza having it as a feature was laughable.
I honestly felt disappointed seeing the traditional Amon fight be reduced to a mid level boss who can be beaten very easily. I'm kind of glad that they didn't use the Amon boss theme for it because it definitely wouldn't have deserved it.
While i did enjoy IW. Some things never sat well with me, the one that sticks out for me is Kiryu's cancer. They couldn't just have it be a normal cancer that would have reasonably created due to his lifestyle, it had to be SUPERCANCER. I understand that it sorta kinda links into the plot, but its just so stupid.
@CheekyCheeky I mean, they do state that it might not have been the radioactive waste that caused his cancer, the doctors just figured that was probably it. Given how far along it apparently was I reckon he's actually had cancer for quite a while and the waste just accelerated his health decline. But because it's a game, it's treatable to the point of giving him far longer than the six months promised.
@KingShibe Because its either what caused the cancer, what caused them to find the cancer or what caused Kiryu's health to start rapidly deteriorating. It also ties into the main plot about nuclear waste being illegally dumped in nele island for profit with former Yakuza enslaved to deal with it. It gives Kiryu personal stake in the plot.
Im surprised you found people who actually did not like Infinite Wealth, idk I may just not partake in the community as much because it is one of my two most played RGG games (Lost Judgement is my most played, the dance club shit got me going brrrr I love it). The music, the story (albeit has some weak points but still I love it), the characters, the feel goods of friendship and how its ok to not go thru adversities on your own, its ok to ask for help (KIRYU IM LOOKING AT YOU), and the music like my god it cooked and I ate like a fat fuck at an AYCE buffet.
11:44 Funnily enough, we kinda do that already in IW, whenever ya visit another player's dondoko island there's a option to have a Sujimon Battle against the AI using the host's team
I honestly save the story analysis questions for someone like Gokudoni or Devilleon7 but the moment to moment gameplay did seal the deal for me. I didn't enjoy Dondoko as much as Ichiban Holdings but it was alright. And as always the OST is based.
I want to like it. It has all the right ingredients. My biggest issue is how it usually comes down to the last race. Get 1st on every race before that and the get 3rd in the last race? Congratulations on those lost 20 minutes of time. I had the same problem with the drone races in the Judgment games.
I’m surprised they didn’t give Kiryu a Tiger Drop, like the Superguard in Paper Mario TTYD. Like, if you pressed triangle/Y with _perfect_ timing instead of guarding, you could counter, but if you miss the timing, you take full damage. Otherwise though, yeah, they truly cooked with this game imo. My first Platinum in the series, and the second to truly make me cry (after Gaiden). I know a number of people who jumped into this game knowing very little about the series, and they loved it too, which is wonderful. Also, peak soundtrack, and Nakajima was in the game, so 11/10
The only complaint I have with the game (I don't care about story) is that kiryu's dragon resurgence makes this game very easy. Just get him 3rd stage attack buff, get the enemies defense down debuff, and they just fall like flies in a couple of attacks. Oh and I really didn't like the choice of music in dragon's resurgence, it was supposed to be a callback, a resurgence, but they chose random ass ost nobody knows about. Thankfully this can be fixed with mods.
Howdy, yakuza fan here. As much as I love the like a dragon game series (judgement included), The ending is what I have a hard time accepting still as of now. yeah, I know Kasuga's character is a yakuza with a heart of gold who sees goodness in people and gives them second chances and Eiji does get sent to prison, but forgiving someone who ruins your life, kills two of your friends (leaving one of your friends son an orphan), sadistically mocks about killing Lani and pushing her down a flight of stairs, kinda seems a bit to far. Just my own opinion BTW.
I'm a big fan of media with religious themes, so even if IW wasn't immaculate in that regard, I just enjoyed the topic enough to love Ichi's story here all the way through. Ichiban as a Christ allegory is extremely apparent at points, especially at the ending, and when you add the Buddhist imagery with Ebina's tattoo, and the whole Bryce storyline, it's very compelling IMO for my tastes.
You can just tell the videos arguments are going to be terrible when he hits you with "people who think new equals bad". I was proven right with the "You hate is because of women". Nice strawman, ragebait arguments
My only complaint from this game is the fact that rgg doesn't emphasize ebina plan at the final chapter to see the yakuza destruction as a whole. I get the idea of Ebina from behind the scene manipulating the Yakuza and the Ichiban gang to destroy each other in the final arc but they don't show how terrible and how BAD ebina fucked the Yakuza. They should give more time and overdramatize the Tojo clan hq burning scene/ebina Killing his underling during the final chapter because if rgg can show mf Masumi Arakawa brutally killing hikawa family and its Patriarch , they can show this pure anger/bitterness Ebina hold against the Yakuza and just fucking burning them at tojo hq.
You know, I play a bit of JRPGs and Im never really sure what to think of RGGs job system. In 7 it was basically purely cosmetic as the default job was the best you could get bar Adachi and Saeko. So it didnt matter either way. Especially since the women have their unique jobs and most people didnt know about Eri, you had to use Saeko on every build because she was so unique. I also remember there being 10 times more Blunt Physical skills than Ice Magic, making every class feel samey. While I like the idea of Y8 allowing you to inherit skills, that kinda makes the job system obsolete, if every job can have every skill and most of them do the same thing anyway. They just need to be disticnt and feel like you're actually making a trade-off.
yea thats fair enough, the gameplay is great, the music is great, a lot of the fights are extremely cool but the pacing is bad (why are you forced to play dondoko for so long in the main story, why are there so many long battles where you have to walk the longest route possible because of invisible walls while enemies with infinite range spawn around you), and the story just really didn't click for me. it's not terrible or anything, especially if someone new is coming into it without caring much about the overarching story of the series. 7's story is infinitely better, and all of the characters are written infinitely better there chitose is a meh character imo because, like every bit of the story in iw, she feels unfinished the final bosses of this game just didn't click for me either also, the life links? half way through the entire world already knows that kiryu isn't dead but the life links keep pretending like its some extremely hidden secret? are those canon or not? why is the daidoji so threatening in the life links but do nothing in the main story? overall it's a good game, it's fun, even the worst rgg games are peak but at least for me infinite wealth just didnt really click as one whole unfortunately, even though it does a lot of individual things very well
Chitose just didn't "click" for me... Don't really have much of an opinion of her, but the way they treated her at the end ("ok yeah so basically she went away to her family") was just disappointing tbh However, I did like the game. Yes, the story might've sucked near the end and it was more of a Kiryu story than Ichiban story and yes, the Saeko romance subplot made me wince every 5 seconds, but I had a fun time. Though I have to admit, I care about the story first and everything else second, so ultimately it was just "pretty good" for me personally
@@natank109 i guess i didnt really get attached to her because 1. I think they could've done more with her and 2. I pretty much knew she was probably gonna not show up again in the next games
@ntrg3248 yeah esp w that ending I don't see her returning lol. The Tatara subplot was fun, but I wish she did more, true, she was just kinda... there for most of the story and her "betrayal" didn't get foreshadowed much... could've done more w that
@@chrisrockett5897 i agree, Saeko n Ichiban are better as friends. Never considered Eri a serious option tho since she's "not canon" (optional) + a contest winner, so I don't think we'll ever get her back... On that matter, wonder if the same will happen to Kei/Kson (the bartender at Revolve) since she's a contest winner as well. I imagine they'll write her out?
@@natank109Kei is appearing again in Pirate Yakuza as a crew member along with Richardson, as well as still being in Revolve Bar, so I'm guessing Kson has probably given RGG permission to use her as much as they want considering she's a hyper fan of the series.
Thanks for the unbiased addressing of the criticism. You chose the best faith arguments and shown the inaccuracies in it. You didn't just make a straw man argument so weak that an 8 years old can beat. You were not dismissive of the problems that people had with the games story and didn't say "I found it fun so shut up" kind of argument. Very good unbiased and none dismissive video.
Really though, as if all criticism of Chitose or the game as a whole are only because... Woman bad? Like c'mon dude you can have a different opinion and actually articulate it rather than just being a bit immature in handling dismissal.
With Eiji, I think there was clearly supposed to be a plot point but it was cut. His sujidex entry is just randomly filled in at one of the chapter conclusions and I think there was some (I forget if it was rumored or actually found in the game code) stuff in the files which implies another boss fight with him.
Cut code suggested that he was supposed to be the bossfight when the palekana took control of yamai's HQ, but supposedly he was replaced by that random gas mask barracuda
Ichiban kind of felt like Goku in this game, in the sense that he just straight up doesnt change as a person or get his worldview challenged but changes others around him instead. I'm just not entirely sure how to feel about it. Aside from Tomizawa, I just don't think Chitose and Eiji were fleshed out enough for me to find Ichiban forgiving them convincing (epecially doesnt help that her story concludes off screen). I also think the dissolution of the yakuza was handled extremely poorly. To me it felt like the only time the story felt thematically consistent to the first game in that regard was the opening prologue, where Ichiban helps out the guy who's down and out because of him. Ebina kind of shares the same issue of feeling like an absolutely fantastic and promising blueprint for a character that complerely falls apart in execution (End Of Denial is still the best final boss theme in the series don't @ me). I can't really bring myself to hate this game however, in spite of a lot of the weird writing quirks. The emotional highs they achieved with Kiryu's side of the story, (and the boss fights holy fucking shit lmao), the general tone they achieved throughout the story they achieved and the general moment to moment character interactions were fantastic (bucket list my beloved) Also Dragon Of Dojima is the coolest RPG job class to exist in any RPG ever don't @ me
For a game that brings up Dragon Quest, and seemingly wants to be like Dragon Quest, it does a really good job at not feeling like Dragon Quest at all.
The gameplay and content was amazing and probably would've made it my favorite in the series for that alone, but the story and the ending kinda soured the overall game for me
This is the first I've ever heard of anyone thinking that this game is terrible....but maybe it's because I don't typically interact with hardcore Yakuza fans. The consensus I've gotten is that it's a pretty great game with a story that has some bumps in the road.
Haha, me when a character that is a woman is criticized, it must clearly be misogyny! It can't be because of her actions, or the fact that what those two women did is much more realistic bad stuff than you usually see in a Yakuza game being an "every day villain"! Certainly, it must be because she's a woman! Let's just disregard common logic and the fact that we love pretty much every female character that exists in the franchise so we can say that!
I think you can substitute the FF16 joke for an unironic point about 7 Rebirth. I was really impressed by how much IW stepped up the combat from 7, then Rebirth came in from above with a steel chair
Good ass game, the bossfights , Hawaii’s environment, the jobs and getting certain skills onto another job. The characters, Ichiban improving his fighting style in QTEs, The poundmates, I can go on and on. I do understand there’s some gripes with the game. I really enjoyed the Kiryu vs Majima, Saejima and Daigo fight, the emotions I felt during that fight from almost losing to awakening and beating the ever living shit out of them. I’m very curious to see where the story goes in Like a Dragon 9!
Absolutely loved the new characters, Chitose, Tomizawa, & Yamai were all done ludicrously well, and the English VA's went so fucking hard for no reason, like my god that shits so good
I’ve played every Yakuza game available on the PS4 and this is the only one that I couldn’t bring myself to finish. In my opinion, it had the least fun mini-games, an uninteresting story and is just too bloated in general. These games have always had a ton of content in them but most of it just isn’t that entertaining. I guess I’ll still try to come back to it eventually
I dunno, I liked the game overall, but I don't think it's unreasonable to say it has the worst story in the series since 4. Ichi's story felt like it had no real coherent theme and wasn't particularly interesting. Kiryu's story was better but is saddled with the shitty Daidoji baggage of Yakuza 6, and they deny us the big payoff at the end of Kiryu's story of actually seeing him and Haruka finally reunite, which is an incredibly annoying and frustrating note to end on.
I don't understand your take on the NG+ debacle, it's in all senses undefendable. The people who don't play the games or aren't even familiar with RGG in general came out and complain was annoying, but it's rather justified for what SEGA's trying to pull. The shockwave from that was effective enough to make them walk back and include it as a free update for Pirate Yakuza. Also Ichiban would absolutely try to save anyone he thinks has a chance of recovery, not the fact that they hurt his friends. I guess he only has 1 full game to himself, that's why his character isn't very set in stone yet. And he tends to do things out of the blue and be unpredictable at times. Also the OST's SLAP in this game as always 💯
Its a small thing but I like how your job outfits appear in qte's. There's something funny but awesome about desperado or line backer kiryu trading hits with Sawashiro, oh and Narasaki's dynamic intro is the only one that shows your job fit since it starts mid fight rather than the open sandbox
I don't know, I'm actually surprised to hear that many people disliked the actual game itself. Most of the criticisms I read about the game itself was about Ebina.
I honestly thought the story was really good until the third act. After that, it got pretty bad. And the ending was so rushed and so... unsatisfactory. And I think that Kiryu's side stories were pretty underdeveloped too. His while ark honestly felt underdeveloped, especially because of how trash his group was (I don't remember the name) Technically, the game is amazing though
I loved Infinite Wealth. It absolutely had issues and Ichi was kind of a side character in his own game, but it was my favorite game I played last year
I had no idea that a lot of people disliked infinite wealth. Like, it truly is a really fun game, with a flawed but still incredibly enjoyable story. I was initially worried that kiryu would hijack the story but honestly the way he was written made me so happy. I haven't seen him be this open and vunerable since yakuza 3, and I love that through ichiban, he learned to finally let others into his life and god that just makes me tear up. Of course theres a whole essay to be written about ichibans ending and why it strengthens my case for him being a wonderful protagonist but I'll hold off. Soundtrack slaps, wish we heard camouflauge more
With the story, they split themselves way too thin. Bryce should be 100 years old and doesn't actually have any sort of endgame for his plan. They lampshade it a couple time but that doesn't fix the problem. Bryce kills the Palakena founders while they're driving in a 1950's car and the game outright says he took over 70 years prior. The island was going to fill up with nuclear waste really quickly. Then what? Why did he even need that? He was basically ruling Hawaii with an army of Manchurian candidates. Filling some island with nuclear waste doesn't help him spread Palakena or further his power elsewhere, it just puts a giant target on his back where before he was ruling everything while being totally unseen. Lani doesn't really make sense since Bryce has run Palakena for SEVENTY YEARS. Nobody is going to remember a time when Bryce didn't run it or be able to know about/verify some necklace he has is fake or even care. Rehashing the dissolution plot from the previous game was unnecessary and it would have worked better if the plot was kept tighter. It feels like they had much bigger plans but then cut them down at the 11th hour.
Bryce's plan was to put the world in his pocket by using Nele Island to illegally store the world's nuclear waste, making him an important player across the globe as not only someone who got rid of their dangerous waste but also someone who now had blackmail material on many world leaders illegally dumping waste on the island. Once it filled up he'd probably have so much influence he'd have a dozen other locations. Of course it wouldn't work realistically. But it's a game. A game in a series that has characters miss point blank shots with guns, or the rubber bullets twist, or the secret gigantic ship hidden under Onomichi, or the secret golden castle hidden inside Osaka castle. Bryce secretly taking over the world via faux waste disposal is like, not even top five most incredulous plot beats. He is very, very old and it's mentioned in the game as something really freaky about him, that he's so old yet still physically very healthy and young. It's meant to play into his role as a supposed 'god', he seems immortal. As for the Lani plot, Bryce only runs Palekana because nobody knew he murdered the previous leader and has a fake emblem. Since the group is majorly religious, they absolutely would believe their god Nele would strike them down should they learn the truth and not correct it. While realistically it's a cult so nobody would actually care, it's also a game. As for the dissolution rehash, that was just a plot by Ebina to imprison all former Yakuza on Nele Island, working for the rest of their lives as slaves moving nuclear waste.
This game is leagues better than 7 in almost every way, the combat is great, Hawaii is such a beautiful-looking map, even though some parts are kind of sparse and could have been filled with something instead it is kind of dead space. I loved the Kiryu side quests, and the story as a whole was great. How wasn't this game nominated for Best Score like legit is up there in some of the best ost's of all time. This game is in my top 3 best RGG games of all time, and is one of the best games RGG has put out ever.
The only real problem I had with the game were a lot of the non Asian NPC's looking like they came from a ps3 game, but that's understandable and I hope they improve it a bit for pirate
Yeah, the story was convoluted (no idea what that means) and boring. It's a huge improvement on Y7's combat, though. Kinda sad how most of Kiryu's side content is looking at objects on the street and reading text, but the "memoirs of a dragon" that had cutscenes were cool. Kamurocho is in this game just because. There's nothing of value there. As for Ijincho, it's underutilized and has no sidequests as far as I remember. Hawaii was cool but I miss the Japanese urban atmosphere from previous entries (especially Lost Judgment with that lighting scheme). I did not like it, overall. I hope the next mainline game is set in Japan somewhere urban.
That is literally what happened in the finale of the previous game and considering Eiji works in parallel to Aoki and ichiban knows he's doing it out of spite for yakuza it makes sense I think it was just the execution of it Eiji just vanishes after the club fight and then we jump to him looking all different with no context of what happened and why the crowd was outside Same thing happens in the finale with haruka showing up It just didn't feel as satisfying as other games because of the time jump and no explanation about what went down imo
The difference between ichi forgiving masato, nanba, chitose and forgiving ejji is that he literally grew up with masato and nanba and chitose had understandable circumstances (nanba doing it to save his brother and chitose’s sense of freedom being compromised), not that that makes any of their actions ok, but eiji’s reasons for gleefully threatening a child’s life, getting two people killed and helping ebina commit mass murder was just… he lost his job? Plus he never once showed any regret for his actions until it was convenient for him. At least masato and ebina had much deeper reasons for being evil (fucked up childhoods) whereas eiji just seems to be completely irredeemable.
@carpetbombjesus So, what exactly do you want ichiban to do? Kill eiji? Ichiban did the right thing at the end, he convinced Eiji to go to jail and atone for his sins. The whole point of the ending is how people often portray others as irredeemable monsters, which is how the media at the end of the game and the fanbase treats eiji and that everyone deserves a second chance
It makes sense for Ichiban's character to forgive and try to redeem Eiji. However the audience may not share that sentiment. Eiji was perfectly happy and willing to get a child killed by a cult for the crime of being born into the wrong family since it could challenge said cult leader's authority, if it meant that a lot of yakuza would slowly die due to radiation poisoning as a result. Not to mention spreading straight up lies on the internet through the insanely popular Tartara channel that ruined the lives of a lot of people, and in the story outright making public opinions on Ichiban and Kiryu absolutely plummet. It's not hard to see why people would want him to get worse treatment than he did
The comment is sarcastic. There's a reason the video is showing footage of Nanba and Joongi when he says that, two characters who tried to have Ichi and his friends killed and yet he loves and trusts them. The only way to have made it more obvious is to have put footage of Aoki. Listen to the way he talks about Chitose afterwards too. It's a mockery towards people hating flawed characters for being flawed.
Also: The guy fought the law lost again! I only realized after the fact, but Will Yun Lee, who voiced Wei Shen in Sleeping Dogs, was the English dubbed voice of Ryo Aoki
One of the biggest missed opportunities in this game, for me at least, is how they had Ichiban just know who Kiryu is, despite how Kiryu in LAD7 explicitly never revealed his identity, and that to be reinforced in Gaiden I would’ve killed to have a scene where Ichiban activates his 2 brain cells and has this sorta fan-girl like moment, after realizing he was saved by, fought against and fought alongside The Dragon of Dojima. It wouldn’t even need to be a big chunk of the story, just have him not know who Kiryu is until after the Yamai fight at Akane’s house in Chapter 3
It's so funny not being in on a fandom because I've only seen high praise on this game. I platinumed it and loved it, haters are just not real fans man idk
The biggest problem I had with the combat was how much the game hated revive moves. 7 had a few different jobs with revive moves that everyone could get really fast. Meanwhile in 8 ichiban gets one, but I don’t believe any male jobs have one and only a single female job has one.
Infinite Wealth might be my favorite Yakuza game overall now but sure, the story had some flaws. The Nele island and old man Bryce or whatever his name was didn't work for me at all. The bigger, broader issue I have spans several games. Kiryu pretending to be dead for some reason hardly ever made sense and at times felt like nonsense. The end of that story arc didn't help fix it either. They kind of just let him be alive again, just because , if I'm remembering right.
The game had some of my favorite settings, long battles, character moments, I could go on. I love it and I’m pretty sure it’s the RGG game I’ve sunk the most hours into! For me the mere fact that you can move around in combat made everything sooo different and leagues better than Y7. I understand that the story’s pacing is wonky but I feel like whether or not one cares about pacing is a case-by-case thing. The main party members (especially Kiryu) are written excellently!
My biggest issue with the game is that Gaiden was done so fucking beautifully, and yet none of the ramifications of the Daidoji seem to be relevent at all in IW until the end, kinda. Like Ichi always calls him Kiryu despite that being a big thing before. Almost wish they were able to reimpliment some of Gaiden's story implications into IW cause that annoyed me a bit
Also just want to add that I appreciate how they've been releasing the OSTs like day 1 with the last few games so I can just immediately start cruising around to Barracuda or Impregnable Triangle in my car
I enjoyed Ebina quite a lot. Though he did deserve way more screentime or at least some more spolight, I found his character pretty interesting and his motivation was crazy but I thought it was a pretty cool flaw to have for a character
I really wish he didn't have to share the main villain spot with Bryce. His whole character is basically a harsh reality check for the characters. Sure guys like Arakawa may honorable but they're still criminals who like it or not earn their standing off the back of innocents. Ebina's whole ordeal could carry the solo villain spot if he was given more screen time
infinite wealth sucked because i could run out of money, meaning the title lied and lying isn't very nice
in actuality the game is good, but it didn't seem to stick with me as much as other games in the series
i don't know how to articulate why that is though
@@zaneisfinefor me, i feel it was a MASSIVE improvement to actually move your character around a bit while selecting an attack, and not having an enemy kick your character in the dick and balls when you run past them to do an attack. story wise, my only gripe is the fact they brought kiryu back AGAIN when at this point it's not really needed, and on top of the 3-jima fight for the "OoOh LoOk It'S tHe OlD yAkUzA!!!"
@@zaneisfine
"Just didn't hit the same"
And I understand that feel
My current challenge run is minimum money spent, and it feels like how the game was meant to be played ngl. I usually just get the Thundercrack Bat and spam upgrade it to break the first 67% of the game, but now Ichi's holding the fucking _Tranquility Bat_ and Tomi's a dedicated ice type build all the way up to chapter 6 lmao
I'm up to $49 spent by chapter 6, and most of that was spent on Jeff.
Didn't Ichiban essentially forgive Masato at the end of Yakuza 7 despite everything he did to him and his friends? He was just never given a chance to start over because Kume stabbed him.
I think that was the goal with Eiji. Give Ichiban the chance to help someone at rock bottom unlike the time it got robbed from him last time.
I mean yeah but it was his brother so he simply forgiving him doesnt work that simple
BUT he helping him because two things do make sence
1. He is a victim of the yakuza, of its present so ichiban has to take care of him
2. The arakawas last will conects perfectly with eiji a guy who lost everything and is at rock bottom again, but ichiban is that person who reminds him that rock bottom means you can only go up
That was the joke. Snowie said that while showing Nanba and Joongi.
The entirety of Infinite wealth is about getting a second chance, the game litteraly starts with Ichiban giving a second chance to the ex Yakuza and to Sasaki and then this theme of second chance continues with Kiryu, Ebina and Eiji too. Kiryu gets a second chance to live life and not die by rushing to his death, Ebina gets his second chance at life as he will also after Kiryu's apology give the yakuza the chance to atone this in turn will give Ebina a chance at redemption and responsibility.
So wouldn't it make sense for Eiji to get that chance too ? That's right Ichiban understands this and gives this chance to Eiji. This is not simply forgiving him like most people misunderstood it, he's giving Eiji a chance to finally take the responsibility of all his wrongdoings.
The entire theme of Infinite wealth is "To live is to not run away" Eiji cannot and shouldn't run away from his accountability, this Kasuga takes him to jail so he could pay for him crimes and turn out a better man. Honestly I feel Infinite wealth is the most misunderstood Yakuza game by far.
I think I'm one of the few that actually liked Ichi's ending lol. Eiji's character is essentially a parallel for Masato Arakawa. Both betrayed Ichi in one way or another and eventually got exposed for their misdeeds. However Ichi actually manages to bring Eiji to safety compared to Masato, almost like making up for the loss of his brother.
Also yeah, while it has a fair amount of issues and features that felt relatively superficial compared to other games in the field, the game was still a ton of fun.
Also the fact that he Ichiban will be waiting for him when he comes out of prison unlike what happened to him at the start of 7. He wants people to change and him being there when someone comes out and changes from rehabilitation means everything to him.
the key difference is that ichiban and masato had solid development together as characters that made the ending hit. eiji and ichiban had next to no time together and barely a semblance of a relationship, making the end feel more like "we have to save sasuke". we just don't have a reason to be as connected to them as the story implies and it feels unnatural.
@@VicR433 I mean I would say the idea of prison being rehabilation instead of a punishment seems like a good idea
I do not care that the individual beats of the story can be a bit messy. The character writing in it is phenomenal, and that's what the series has always drawn me in with
Frankly, this whole series can be like that. I have no idea why it's suddenly a problem now
Agree the whole series has issues with pacing and narrative but that’s nothing new. Kiwami 2 had a whole middle section that was all over the place until it suddenly remembered the story and drew everything together.
The characters and overall atmosphere is great. I had such a blast with this game and found it crazy fun.
agreed. the whole series has ludicrous plot points but the character work has always been so likable that i don't mind. like people may hate yakuza 3 but mine and rikiya are still fan favorites iykwim
Yeah but at-least it's usually interesting enough to not care
Saying it's always been like that as an excuse to never improve the writing, is a pretty bad excuse honestly
@@leonelramirez9942It isn’t an excuse to not improve the writing, it’s a callout to people who dislike this but like the others that have the same story issues
" As long as a soundtrack in this series can blast my ear it's a good game to me "
- Ost enjoyer -
And in that respect, it’s definitely ties with Zero
I love this game with all my heart like I've never loved any other game.
Yes it's not perfect, there is a drop in the quality of the story towards the middle of the game.
But the characters, the gameplay, the atmosphere, the visuals, the music, everything just made me love this game so much that it became my favorite game of all time.
Not a day goes by without me thinking about it. RGG made black magic
Tbh story quality drop in the middle doesnt happen only in this game even in kiryu series this kind of things still happen. People just shitting on ichiban series because they dont JRPG format it have unlike kiryu's
@ainzer2903 yes, I agree with that
Can we all agree that basically every Yakuza Game, definitely including the more recent ones like Infinite Wealth, LJ, and Gaiden have consistently incredible soundtracks
I usually dislike the "can we all agree" posts, but because you're you and you're right, I'm fine with this one.
I KNEW the FF16 joke was coming.
You're getting predictable Angeman
I was just thinking bro hasn't said anything about FF16 yet. And the moment I said that it happened 😂
wait where does he say sum about ff16?
@@lethal_hazard_0264 at the end of the video.
There were some weird moments but my only big criticism of the story was
Kume wasn’t the vtuber
Ok
nice😂
There's no way a loser like Kume could ever have the charisma needed to become a big Vtuber, so it makes sense. Plus he was arrested as a result of stabbing Masato in the last game so he wouldn't exactly have the time or resources to do that sort of thing
@@armedweiss5531I think this comment was a joke but uhhh yeah
You think he can be a hot anime girl? Fuck no.
she like on my dragon till i erase my name
She gotoku on my ryu till i... gaiden
in my eyes, the game is phenomenal, but it locking the New Game+ behind a 20$ paywall will forever be a giant black mark against it
Infinite Wealth is by no damn means even half as bad as people WANT to believe it is. I don't even understand those who said "it's a Kiryu game" when you just spent like 3 chapters with Kiryu alone, and he doesn't to much on his own (We all know Ebina was the bad guy and the 3jimas were just short lived fanservice).
I think people only stays with this impresion because of the bucket list and the fact that Kiryu takes the final bad guy down. But other than those two elements, it's demential for me to say Infinite Wealth is not an Ichiban's game.
It really improved the gameplay, but the fact you need to pay money for new game+ or to pick difficulty sucks
Now that Sega has learned from the backlash, hopefully they release a free update to 8.
@@vullord666 probably not but It looks like in 9 they're adding it base so that's good
The fact that the difficulty is behind new game + is asinine anyway, why can't i play the game the way i want to
@@Yanramich I agree with this. If you find the game too easy or too hard your only option is paying more for a game thats already 70 usd and I think thats a lot
@@realzekrom2668 it's not just that you only get it after you've completed the game
Why...?
The worst part of the game was that it felt less like an ichiban game. All the cool spots went to kiryu. Other than that, i liked the game a lot.
Also no dragon kart is a knock
My biggest peeve about the game is the execution of the English lines in the Japanese dub. Characters like Tomizawa and Bryce are clearly meant to be fluent in English, but its obvious that their VA's aren't. (No shade to the VA's, it's just questionable direction). Then you've got scenes where Kasuga is speaking in Japanese to Americans as if the language barrier is non-existant. Like yeah, it would get annoying if every line was live-translated, but even if they just had a bilingual character like Tomizawa interpreting some conversations, it would've made it a bit more believable.
They actually kind of did this with Roman in the scenes that he's in, but for the rest of the game its like the language barrier is just forgotten about.
Still love the game though.
@@broski7792 I don't really want a whole game of "Can you tell me how to get to the station?" As much as I liked it in 7. As someone who's never played these games in English since I've been speaking Japanese for 4 years, my guess is that it wasn't terrible direction that made their English pronunciation bad, it was simply because, Japanese people aren't going to understand most of it anyway so RGG don't really care. Plus in the case of substories, does a Japanese player really want to watch ichiban trying to speak English over and over again, even if he could speak it? It would just get annoying.
@@ntrg3248 I'd personally rather the games stay in Japan if they're not going to commit to the consequences of it being abroad. I'm never going to take Bryce seriously when he sounds like that
You are absolutely correct in this assessment
however
The memes that came from that scene with Tomi and Eiji with the police are absolute gold. Serious "Mine took him up to the RUFF" vibes going on there.
The english from native speakers being silly in the japanese dub is not a new concept in the yakuza series lol. It's almost a trope at this point.
I think fans should be more willing to critique these games more. Just calling them "peak" no matter what is a lose lose. If the games become worse and worse, it will be our fault for smiling and nodding to every step towards that point. Things like pacing, writing, combat balancing, filler quests etc are all prominent faults of almost every game in the series. These games could be so much greater, if you truly love these games, you should want to see it get better, not praise stagnation. RGG is in a weird "praised if you do, praised if you dont" situation. Their frequent release schedule is impressive, but incredibly short sighted and unwise. The games are only "peak" when you cherry pick the best parts, ignoring the bloat and low quality parts of these games.
Getting into the series has never been harder with how many games there are. Especially, now that they straight up un-rebooted the series with IW. This was a massive mistake in my eyes. RGG got universal praise for their brave decision to "start over" with a new cast of characters in 7. The old series had become convoluted and daunting for alot of people. Its easy to forget how long this series really is. Expecting fans to play 0,1,2,3,4,5 and 6 + Gaiden to get the most out of Kiryu's story is absurd. The brave sacrifice they made in 7 is meaningless now, so is Kiryu's decision at the end of 6. I love the Yakuza games with all my heart, but they are heavily flawed, this whole "every game is peak" obsession is disingenuous and terrible for new players as well. They tried to have their cake and eat it too with IW and it turned into a huge mess. A bloated, akwardly written game that tries to appeal to everyone at the same time. Try to think from the perspective of a person who has only played 7.
The concept of IW seems like a laughable idea that would be mocked for being childish and fan service focused if a fan had come up with the idea. The fan service is fun and hype for old fans, but is entirely hollow for the new fans of 7. There is a reason 0, 7 and Judgment were such hits. They were a breath of fresh air for old fans and fantastic for new ones as well. Imagine the sequel to 7 we never got, a tightly written story focused on Ichiban and his crew. IW is "hype" and fun, but has thrown a gigantic wrench in the future of the series. Kiryu was given the spotlight for his "big finale", but wasnt even given a true ending. His fake death 6 has become meaningless. Kiryu's characters is so akwardly written at this point. Having his identity reveal feel like a weird half canon part of the story is so strange. Being outed on national tv, but not meeting Haruka or other any of the other old characters face to face makes Kiryu seem like a cowardly idiot. Even the writers think this, Akiyama's reaction to seeing Kiryu alive felt like a weird confession from RGG. Toxic positivity is so prominent in gaming and it has never made games better. All creators and studios truly hit their stride when they have something to "prove". Hence 0, 7 and Judgment being such standouts.
Yakuza fandom in general is in a weird state rn of being both massive glizzy glazers and obnoxiously negative at the same time.
Feels like every opinion I see now is just a greatly over exaggerated version of what the person actually thinks, and it’s only being done to spitefully bully and shut down anyone who disagrees.
Creates a weird feeling where all the criticisms feel in bad faith and all the praises feel like they’re being done to shit on another game to prove “my fav is better”
Just an unfortunate circumstance of a franchise getting popular in an age where all social media is just generated rage bait now.
@@jackarisho6607Real.
Feels weird seeing a normal opinion in this kind of space lol
A few points here while I agree on the overall toxic positivity and not properly critiquing these gamesbut I am gonna argue that if your gonna engage with a series don’t be mad when you choose not to play the other games and the story mentions those other games I can fully understand being upset ichi gets sidelined in his own game that’s a criticism I have too but it’s never been easier to get into this series the games are consistently dirt cheap and often you can litterley get the entire kiryu saga for like 30 bucks obviously it’s a time investment and I get if people aren’t up for it but when you play the 8th game in a series going since 2005 you should expect there are things you just won’t understand and yah I agree the whole every yakuza game is perfect mantra has to stop these games are flawed no doubt and even tho I personally adored y8 and how it ended kiryu story despite its flaws I see where people’s issues lie especially if they only played but coming from me as someone who’s played every mainline game and spin off in the yakuza series I can say this game felt phenomenal to me but again I fully understand that my experience isn’t the same as the majority of players. Also I do want to ask how iw threw a wrench in the series future kiryu is pretty much retired and the game says as much with game even stating he will never be as strong as he used to be after his treatment not saying your wrong exactly but this feels like rgg blatantly telling us the old yakuza characters are retired aside from majima of course with maji gaiden
@@somecoolassassin6779 People say its never been easier to get into the series, and from a financial standpoint like gamepass and steam availability it might be true. But these games are massive time sinks, each game takes roughly 50 hours at least to get through the story (upwards of 100+ to complete every substory because some fans legit discredit your playthrough if you don't actually do this). Most people simply don't have the time for this.
So new players starting with 7 or otherwise the most recent entry is not uncommon, especially for 7's case because not only does the english title not convey that it's the 7th entry in the series, but also RGG themselves advertised the game as a soft reboot and a great starting point, which as we all know 8 effectively undid with Kiryu being the protagonist. I don't think new fans should necessarily be catered to but at the same time they're criticisms of the game they played shouldn't be disregarded if they didn't play the rest of the series, that's gatekeepy and turns off so many people from engaging with the franchise.
Honestly it's my personal opinion that you can start at any game in the series because the stories and villains are self-contained and any mature player can fill in the blanks on who characters are but I learned I'm in the minority with this sentiment so I digress.
Honestly with the whole job evolution note, I think DOD should’ve had two lines imo. One would lead into Agent and Oryu style (Daidoji job) while the other leads into OE DOD (The Legend), a merging of both Komaki Tech and his rudimentary skills from 0. The Daidoji job would have access to more versatility as well as a more debuff centred job via Agent as well as the ability to buff allies via Oryu whereas The Legend would centralise around raw strength as well as reworking the MP system into a makeshift heat bar to allow for hacts.
Gaiden was written after 8 was complete so we could've had that
I liked the combat, mini games, Hawaiian map and most characters, but felt the story really took a nosedive in the final third.
As much as I love Kiryu, I feel his major involvement in this one made the story quite a mess. I remember Ichiban's first game having a really tight narrative in comparison.
This felt like a Kiryu send off game first and an Ichiban game second and frankly that did feel like a disservice despite the fact that I still loved it. It felt held back from being an Ichiban Game and a Kiryu game with a lot of Kiryu's biggest send off moments being optional side content and the biggest one being teased but never shown. Ichiban felt like he didn't get as much opportunity to get fleshed out. I would've liked it much better if this was saved for Ichiban's third game. Infinite wealth though is Ichiban's second mainline entry and we're supposed to see him as the new protagonist. 7 made a big point of saying Ichiban isn't Kiryu's replacement, but 8 really felt like it was partly in Kiryu's shadow. Let Ichiban's second game really focus on him and his growth as a protagonist. Then have his third game be a dual story that also deals with a send off to Kiryu.
does not help 8 goes out of it's way to undo most of the plot developments from 7.
edit: before anyone mentions this happened in the eariler games. there is a difrence between showing the consequnces of kiryu's actions from a previous game and just undoing the status que changess 7 had in it's ending
@vullord666 especially if RGG secretly wanted to make more Kiryu games
I had no idea this game was hated because its one of my favorite games in general
I was watching thinking, wait people didn't like it? Gameplay is just better 7, side content is awesome, and I didn't think the story was that bad. The only real complaints I have with it is 1. like you said, Ichiban still wanting to be mates with wheelchair bloke doesn't make sense. 2. It feels like they didn't go very far with the cancer story. Honestly I think it would've made more sense if he died after he beat the final boss because the way they handled it makes me think that everything in 6 and Gaiden was pointless since Haruka just rocks up and sees that Kiryu is still alive like she already knew.
I think the cancer story is fine tbh. Haruka probably found out Kiryu was alive from the Tatara channel video and had time to process it before visiting him in hospital. We'll probably get more context surrounding this in Yakuza 9. I also don't think 6 and Gaiden were pointless, Kiryu had to live as a slave to a shady organisation with zero contact with his friends and family for 7 years. I believe RGG want to give Kiryu a happy ending but needed Gaiden and IW to set that up. I believe 9 will be the conclusion to Kiryu's story and he won't get killed off. He'll become a side character with little plot relevance going forward while he lives the rest of his days in the Orphanage.
I don't think Ichiban believing that Eiji can be a better person and literally carrying him to a police station was in any way out of character
I mean Nanba tried to use Ichiban to his own benefit in 7 and they're still bros.
So Ichiban still trying to bond with Ei-chan every step of the way and Ei-chan agreeing cuz he knows Ichiban is just that dude is relevant imo
I spent the whole playthrough prepared for Kiryu's inevitable death since Gaiden seemed to do a great job setting up his final goodbye. I was quite disappointed when they just said "ah Kiryu's fine now actually 😊"
that's basically it, the story is too big for its own good so the individual beats are very underdeveloped
I love infinite wealth and man, seeing ichiban perseverance and good-willed stubbornness towards his friends no matter what just fills my heart with joy
I feel the same way but there's a limit before it starts to appear to be so self-detrimental that it could almost be considered harming oneself, like with Eiji.
I loved Yakuza 8 and my criticism was with the last bit of the game was because it ironically needed more time to cook with Eiji, Bryce and Wong Tou. I almost forgot about Wong Tou’s kid because we had so little time with him, Bryce needed a bit more to shine as an antagonist as Ebina just felt like he had more presence, and Eiji had an entire thing happen off screen that we needed to see.
It had such massive build up and then the ending just kind of happens.
Yeah, the ending with Eiji is probably my only complaint about the game--it feels like several scenes ended up on the cutting room floor that were excised accidentally. We're definitely missing something.
Yeah that was the main problem I found, alot of building up just to drop each piece suddenly. The first time I played through it I was stunned the game just nosedived into being the end, feels like alot is missing where it should have had an extra chapter or two
Doesn't matter if im not gonna play the NG+, its a basic feature we didn't have to pay extra for before. Its about the principle of the matter. They also lockd hard mode behind that paywall iirc which would address your difficulty complaint.
i loved infinite wealth for its story ngl, as someone super SUPER autistic about the mainline yakuza series i felt like it did what 6 wasn't able to do- serve as a beautiful swansong for kiryu. the story is incredibly flawed and confusing, there are a lot of issues, sure, but it's a lot like yakuza 5- big, messy, and ambitious- and i will always respect that over a safe game that doesn't try anything new. IW really is special, because no matter the flaws, it's such a fun game.
also the gameplay is so much fun it honestly rivals SMT V for me the simple ability to move in combat and manuever around your party members for combos is so ingenious and unique and just AAAHHHH!!!!
That's the best way to put it IMO, Infinite Wealth is the new 5. Huge game, long story, an absurd amount of side content even by the standards of the series, and a messy yet ambitious and heartfelt story where in spite of its flaws it's always trying its best
Infinite wealth is my favourite story by rgg. It's beautiful not only Kiryu's side but Ichiban's story is also very good here.
Infinite Wealth is great, literally the only thing holding it back, for me, is the story feels unfocused toward the middle.
I think Ebina suffers the most from it, He is one of the best antagonists in the series imo but the actual plot just doesn’t know how to utilise him, I really hope he’ll return in some way in the future but I doubt it.
The fight against the other Tojo legends was amazing
I loved the gameplay improvements but I feel like there was a lot that wasn't as good as it could have been.
Also, while I really liked some of the Kiryu stuff, I just feel like he was stepping on Ichiban's toes. To the point where a lot of his side of the plot felt rushed.
The real reason to hate Chitose is because she gets a worse haircut halfway through the game
Combat is perfect, side content is slightly boring at worst and enjoyable at best, it's only the story that would make or break someone's opinion on this game. For me the story was absolutely atrocious and I hope RGG learn from some of their better written projects
Critisizing your audience by making a broad generalization about people’s opinion of Chitose and “hating women” is lame man
I have to disagree with this idea that choosing to not pay for a game that has front and center anti-consumer business practices is somehow not "logical and reasonable and worthwhile". I love this series to death too, but it's something they did thinking they could get away with it, and they didn't go back on their decision for LAD8/Infinite Wealth. Regardless of whether or not future LAD games do the same thing, i don't see them going "oops sorry, this was dumb, here's NG+ free for LAD8/Infinite Wealth" and if that upsets certain players enough to just not purchase the game, then imo that's perfectly logical, reasonable, AND worthwhile. Logically they get to spend their money on something else they feel isn't out to fuck them over. Reasonably it's their money and not spending it on something that makes them mad or upset is perfectly reasonable. And I'm sure they can find a million other good games out there that're worthwhile monetary investments. Another Sega published game, Persona 3 Reload's story DLC is considered too expensive by fans as well, with plenty of people encouraging those who didn't buy it to wait for it to go on sale if they absolutely need to play it, my point being it's not like this is one game by Sega is the only shitty business practice Sega was up to lately, and maybe you're just joking or whatever but you seemed personally offended that some fans would choose to spend their money elsewhere.
I'll probably never replay this game because I can't do an NG+ run since I'd have to pay for it. Even though me not buying it won't put a dent in their pockets, I just can't justify it. They've been so weird with NG+ recently that hearing Pirate Yakuza having it as a feature was laughable.
I couldn't tell if the video being a joke was supposed to explain why so many crazy strawman arguments are used to handwave legitimate criticisms.
It gave us one of my favorite final boss fight song’s, final long battles, turnbased gameplay, essence moves and the game is in my top 3 yakuza games
I still think it’s a bummer that we didn’t get a final max level Amon fight and was instead just at the bottom of the dungeon in Yokohama
I honestly felt disappointed seeing the traditional Amon fight be reduced to a mid level boss who can be beaten very easily.
I'm kind of glad that they didn't use the Amon boss theme for it because it definitely wouldn't have deserved it.
While i did enjoy IW. Some things never sat well with me, the one that sticks out for me is Kiryu's cancer. They couldn't just have it be a normal cancer that would have reasonably created due to his lifestyle, it had to be SUPERCANCER. I understand that it sorta kinda links into the plot, but its just so stupid.
And yes, i am aware that i am complaining about silly plotpoints in the series with rubber bullets
Not all dumb plot points are created equal so I think it's a valid complaint.
@CheekyCheeky I mean, they do state that it might not have been the radioactive waste that caused his cancer, the doctors just figured that was probably it. Given how far along it apparently was I reckon he's actually had cancer for quite a while and the waste just accelerated his health decline. But because it's a game, it's treatable to the point of giving him far longer than the six months promised.
@ShadicRothZz1998 then why show him dealing with nuclear waste then?
@KingShibe Because its either what caused the cancer, what caused them to find the cancer or what caused Kiryu's health to start rapidly deteriorating. It also ties into the main plot about nuclear waste being illegally dumped in nele island for profit with former Yakuza enslaved to deal with it. It gives Kiryu personal stake in the plot.
Im surprised you found people who actually did not like Infinite Wealth, idk I may just not partake in the community as much because it is one of my two most played RGG games (Lost Judgement is my most played, the dance club shit got me going brrrr I love it).
The music, the story (albeit has some weak points but still I love it), the characters, the feel goods of friendship and how its ok to not go thru adversities on your own, its ok to ask for help (KIRYU IM LOOKING AT YOU), and the music like my god it cooked and I ate like a fat fuck at an AYCE buffet.
nearly had me for a second towards the end but the super obvious contrast of nanba and joon-gi shown on screen is so funny to see lmao
11:44 Funnily enough, we kinda do that already in IW, whenever ya visit another player's dondoko island there's a option to have a Sujimon Battle against the AI using the host's team
I honestly save the story analysis questions for someone like Gokudoni or Devilleon7 but the moment to moment gameplay did seal the deal for me. I didn't enjoy Dondoko as much as Ichiban Holdings but it was alright. And as always the OST is based.
I'm starting to think I'm the only mf alive who likes dragon kart lmao
I don't hate it, but I certainly don't love it.
Dragon Kart is fun, it's naturally of course just a skill issue.
I want to like it. It has all the right ingredients. My biggest issue is how it usually comes down to the last race. Get 1st on every race before that and the get 3rd in the last race? Congratulations on those lost 20 minutes of time. I had the same problem with the drone races in the Judgment games.
I’m surprised they didn’t give Kiryu a Tiger Drop, like the Superguard in Paper Mario TTYD. Like, if you pressed triangle/Y with _perfect_ timing instead of guarding, you could counter, but if you miss the timing, you take full damage.
Otherwise though, yeah, they truly cooked with this game imo. My first Platinum in the series, and the second to truly make me cry (after Gaiden). I know a number of people who jumped into this game knowing very little about the series, and they loved it too, which is wonderful.
Also, peak soundtrack, and Nakajima was in the game, so 11/10
strawman, ragebait, music is good = game is good
Judge Eyes was so well written except for those fucking lethal chain wounds which would stay after battle.
The only complaint I have with the game (I don't care about story) is that kiryu's dragon resurgence makes this game very easy. Just get him 3rd stage attack buff, get the enemies defense down debuff, and they just fall like flies in a couple of attacks.
Oh and I really didn't like the choice of music in dragon's resurgence, it was supposed to be a callback, a resurgence, but they chose random ass ost nobody knows about. Thankfully this can be fixed with mods.
Howdy, yakuza fan here. As much as I love the like a dragon game series (judgement included), The ending is what I have a hard time accepting still as of now. yeah, I know Kasuga's character is a yakuza with a heart of gold who sees goodness in people and gives them second chances and Eiji does get sent to prison, but forgiving someone who ruins your life, kills two of your friends (leaving one of your friends son an orphan), sadistically mocks about killing Lani and pushing her down a flight of stairs, kinda seems a bit to far. Just my own opinion BTW.
so glad someone finally had the balls to say the game is good cause they had fun with it and that's what mattered
Brother sounds like he was about to break down in tears at the end
Honnestly relatable
They locked the New Game+ behind a 20$ paywall so I decided to get a head start on the "PIRATES" part. I feel ripped off because it was mid.
I'm a big fan of media with religious themes, so even if IW wasn't immaculate in that regard, I just enjoyed the topic enough to love Ichi's story here all the way through. Ichiban as a Christ allegory is extremely apparent at points, especially at the ending, and when you add the Buddhist imagery with Ebina's tattoo, and the whole Bryce storyline, it's very compelling IMO for my tastes.
You can just tell the videos arguments are going to be terrible when he hits you with "people who think new equals bad". I was proven right with the "You hate is because of women". Nice strawman, ragebait arguments
My only complaint from this game is the fact that rgg doesn't emphasize ebina plan at the final chapter to see the yakuza destruction as a whole. I get the idea of Ebina from behind the scene manipulating the Yakuza and the Ichiban gang to destroy each other in the final arc but they don't show how terrible and how BAD ebina fucked the Yakuza. They should give more time and overdramatize the Tojo clan hq burning scene/ebina Killing his underling during the final chapter because if rgg can show mf Masumi Arakawa brutally killing hikawa family and its Patriarch , they can show this pure anger/bitterness Ebina hold against the Yakuza and just fucking burning them at tojo hq.
You know, I play a bit of JRPGs and Im never really sure what to think of RGGs job system. In 7 it was basically purely cosmetic as the default job was the best you could get bar Adachi and Saeko. So it didnt matter either way. Especially since the women have their unique jobs and most people didnt know about Eri, you had to use Saeko on every build because she was so unique. I also remember there being 10 times more Blunt Physical skills than Ice Magic, making every class feel samey.
While I like the idea of Y8 allowing you to inherit skills, that kinda makes the job system obsolete, if every job can have every skill and most of them do the same thing anyway. They just need to be disticnt and feel like you're actually making a trade-off.
14:34 As a wise man once said. "AND QUIT PLAYING GAME-"
Alex my beloved
yea thats fair enough, the gameplay is great, the music is great, a lot of the fights are extremely cool but the pacing is bad (why are you forced to play dondoko for so long in the main story, why are there so many long battles where you have to walk the longest route possible because of invisible walls while enemies with infinite range spawn around you), and the story just really didn't click for me. it's not terrible or anything, especially if someone new is coming into it without caring much about the overarching story of the series. 7's story is infinitely better, and all of the characters are written infinitely better there
chitose is a meh character imo because, like every bit of the story in iw, she feels unfinished
the final bosses of this game just didn't click for me either
also, the life links? half way through the entire world already knows that kiryu isn't dead but the life links keep pretending like its some extremely hidden secret? are those canon or not? why is the daidoji so threatening in the life links but do nothing in the main story?
overall it's a good game, it's fun, even the worst rgg games are peak but at least for me infinite wealth just didnt really click as one whole unfortunately, even though it does a lot of individual things very well
Chitose just didn't "click" for me... Don't really have much of an opinion of her, but the way they treated her at the end ("ok yeah so basically she went away to her family") was just disappointing tbh
However, I did like the game. Yes, the story might've sucked near the end and it was more of a Kiryu story than Ichiban story and yes, the Saeko romance subplot made me wince every 5 seconds, but I had a fun time. Though I have to admit, I care about the story first and everything else second, so ultimately it was just "pretty good" for me personally
@@natank109 i guess i didnt really get attached to her because 1. I think they could've done more with her and 2. I pretty much knew she was probably gonna not show up again in the next games
@ntrg3248 yeah esp w that ending I don't see her returning lol. The Tatara subplot was fun, but I wish she did more, true, she was just kinda... there for most of the story and her "betrayal" didn't get foreshadowed much... could've done more w that
Saeko x Ichi barely made any since the last game. He had more of a connection with Eri who was an optional party member, but whatever.
@@chrisrockett5897 i agree, Saeko n Ichiban are better as friends. Never considered Eri a serious option tho since she's "not canon" (optional) + a contest winner, so I don't think we'll ever get her back...
On that matter, wonder if the same will happen to Kei/Kson (the bartender at Revolve) since she's a contest winner as well. I imagine they'll write her out?
@@natank109Kei is appearing again in Pirate Yakuza as a crew member along with Richardson, as well as still being in Revolve Bar, so I'm guessing Kson has probably given RGG permission to use her as much as they want considering she's a hyper fan of the series.
one day we will get a fiinal fantasy 16 video
I'd love to hear his thoughts on FF16. I enjoyed the game but had alot of problems with it
Thanks for the unbiased addressing of the criticism. You chose the best faith arguments and shown the inaccuracies in it. You didn't just make a straw man argument so weak that an 8 years old can beat. You were not dismissive of the problems that people had with the games story and didn't say "I found it fun so shut up" kind of argument.
Very good unbiased and none dismissive video.
Really though, as if all criticism of Chitose or the game as a whole are only because... Woman bad? Like c'mon dude you can have a different opinion and actually articulate it rather than just being a bit immature in handling dismissal.
With Eiji, I think there was clearly supposed to be a plot point but it was cut. His sujidex entry is just randomly filled in at one of the chapter conclusions and I think there was some (I forget if it was rumored or actually found in the game code) stuff in the files which implies another boss fight with him.
Also damn the funny Australian man didn't talk about the FUCKING BANGER that is the opening scene where Viva la Vida plays lol
Cut code suggested that he was supposed to be the bossfight when the palekana took control of yamai's HQ, but supposedly he was replaced by that random gas mask barracuda
@@thatoneguy2023 That is why that random boss fight had literally one of the best qte section in 8🤯
Ichiban kind of felt like Goku in this game, in the sense that he just straight up doesnt change as a person or get his worldview challenged but changes others around him instead. I'm just not entirely sure how to feel about it. Aside from Tomizawa, I just don't think Chitose and Eiji were fleshed out enough for me to find Ichiban forgiving them convincing (epecially doesnt help that her story concludes off screen).
I also think the dissolution of the yakuza was handled extremely poorly. To me it felt like the only time the story felt thematically consistent to the first game in that regard was the opening prologue, where Ichiban helps out the guy who's down and out because of him. Ebina kind of shares the same issue of feeling like an absolutely fantastic and promising blueprint for a character that complerely falls apart in execution (End Of Denial is still the best final boss theme in the series don't @ me).
I can't really bring myself to hate this game however, in spite of a lot of the weird writing quirks. The emotional highs they achieved with Kiryu's side of the story, (and the boss fights holy fucking shit lmao), the general tone they achieved throughout the story they achieved and the general moment to moment character interactions were fantastic (bucket list my beloved)
Also Dragon Of Dojima is the coolest RPG job class to exist in any RPG ever don't @ me
For a game that brings up Dragon Quest, and seemingly wants to be like Dragon Quest, it does a really good job at not feeling like Dragon Quest at all.
The gameplay and content was amazing and probably would've made it my favorite in the series for that alone, but the story and the ending kinda soured the overall game for me
inflation wealth is just kiryu post arthur morgan patch
so this basically becomes a composer appreciation video halfway xD
This is the first I've ever heard of anyone thinking that this game is terrible....but maybe it's because I don't typically interact with hardcore Yakuza fans. The consensus I've gotten is that it's a pretty great game with a story that has some bumps in the road.
Haha, me when a character that is a woman is criticized, it must clearly be misogyny! It can't be because of her actions, or the fact that what those two women did is much more realistic bad stuff than you usually see in a Yakuza game being an "every day villain"! Certainly, it must be because she's a woman! Let's just disregard common logic and the fact that we love pretty much every female character that exists in the franchise so we can say that!
I think you can substitute the FF16 joke for an unironic point about 7 Rebirth. I was really impressed by how much IW stepped up the combat from 7, then Rebirth came in from above with a steel chair
He didn't like Rebirth but I would agree. Rebirth is a god game.
Good ass game, the bossfights , Hawaii’s environment, the jobs and getting certain skills onto another job. The characters, Ichiban improving his fighting style in QTEs, The poundmates, I can go on and on. I do understand there’s some gripes with the game. I really enjoyed the Kiryu vs Majima, Saejima and Daigo fight, the emotions I felt during that fight from almost losing to awakening and beating the ever living shit out of them.
I’m very curious to see where the story goes in Like a Dragon 9!
Absolutely loved the new characters, Chitose, Tomizawa, & Yamai were all done ludicrously well, and the English VA's went so fucking hard for no reason, like my god that shits so good
Breaker may suck but that party member would still break it down. Which is why I had a whole team of break dancers.
I’ve played every Yakuza game available on the PS4 and this is the only one that I couldn’t bring myself to finish. In my opinion, it had the least fun mini-games, an uninteresting story and is just too bloated in general. These games have always had a ton of content in them but most of it just isn’t that entertaining. I guess I’ll still try to come back to it eventually
I dunno, I liked the game overall, but I don't think it's unreasonable to say it has the worst story in the series since 4. Ichi's story felt like it had no real coherent theme and wasn't particularly interesting. Kiryu's story was better but is saddled with the shitty Daidoji baggage of Yakuza 6, and they deny us the big payoff at the end of Kiryu's story of actually seeing him and Haruka finally reunite, which is an incredibly annoying and frustrating note to end on.
I don't understand your take on the NG+ debacle, it's in all senses undefendable. The people who don't play the games or aren't even familiar with RGG in general came out and complain was annoying, but it's rather justified for what SEGA's trying to pull. The shockwave from that was effective enough to make them walk back and include it as a free update for Pirate Yakuza.
Also Ichiban would absolutely try to save anyone he thinks has a chance of recovery, not the fact that they hurt his friends. I guess he only has 1 full game to himself, that's why his character isn't very set in stone yet. And he tends to do things out of the blue and be unpredictable at times.
Also the OST's SLAP in this game as always 💯
Its a small thing but I like how your job outfits appear in qte's. There's something funny but awesome about desperado or line backer kiryu trading hits with Sawashiro, oh and Narasaki's dynamic intro is the only one that shows your job fit since it starts mid fight rather than the open sandbox
I don't know, I'm actually surprised to hear that many people disliked the actual game itself. Most of the criticisms I read about the game itself was about Ebina.
I honestly thought the story was really good until the third act. After that, it got pretty bad. And the ending was so rushed and so... unsatisfactory. And I think that Kiryu's side stories were pretty underdeveloped too. His while ark honestly felt underdeveloped, especially because of how trash his group was (I don't remember the name)
Technically, the game is amazing though
I loved Infinite Wealth. It absolutely had issues and Ichi was kind of a side character in his own game, but it was my favorite game I played last year
I had no idea that a lot of people disliked infinite wealth. Like, it truly is a really fun game, with a flawed but still incredibly enjoyable story.
I was initially worried that kiryu would hijack the story but honestly the way he was written made me so happy. I haven't seen him be this open and vunerable since yakuza 3, and I love that through ichiban, he learned to finally let others into his life and god that just makes me tear up. Of course theres a whole essay to be written about ichibans ending and why it strengthens my case for him being a wonderful protagonist but I'll hold off. Soundtrack slaps, wish we heard camouflauge more
With the story, they split themselves way too thin. Bryce should be 100 years old and doesn't actually have any sort of endgame for his plan. They lampshade it a couple time but that doesn't fix the problem. Bryce kills the Palakena founders while they're driving in a 1950's car and the game outright says he took over 70 years prior. The island was going to fill up with nuclear waste really quickly. Then what? Why did he even need that? He was basically ruling Hawaii with an army of Manchurian candidates. Filling some island with nuclear waste doesn't help him spread Palakena or further his power elsewhere, it just puts a giant target on his back where before he was ruling everything while being totally unseen. Lani doesn't really make sense since Bryce has run Palakena for SEVENTY YEARS. Nobody is going to remember a time when Bryce didn't run it or be able to know about/verify some necklace he has is fake or even care.
Rehashing the dissolution plot from the previous game was unnecessary and it would have worked better if the plot was kept tighter. It feels like they had much bigger plans but then cut them down at the 11th hour.
Bryce's plan was to put the world in his pocket by using Nele Island to illegally store the world's nuclear waste, making him an important player across the globe as not only someone who got rid of their dangerous waste but also someone who now had blackmail material on many world leaders illegally dumping waste on the island. Once it filled up he'd probably have so much influence he'd have a dozen other locations. Of course it wouldn't work realistically. But it's a game. A game in a series that has characters miss point blank shots with guns, or the rubber bullets twist, or the secret gigantic ship hidden under Onomichi, or the secret golden castle hidden inside Osaka castle. Bryce secretly taking over the world via faux waste disposal is like, not even top five most incredulous plot beats.
He is very, very old and it's mentioned in the game as something really freaky about him, that he's so old yet still physically very healthy and young. It's meant to play into his role as a supposed 'god', he seems immortal.
As for the Lani plot, Bryce only runs Palekana because nobody knew he murdered the previous leader and has a fake emblem. Since the group is majorly religious, they absolutely would believe their god Nele would strike them down should they learn the truth and not correct it. While realistically it's a cult so nobody would actually care, it's also a game.
As for the dissolution rehash, that was just a plot by Ebina to imprison all former Yakuza on Nele Island, working for the rest of their lives as slaves moving nuclear waste.
I don't care how completely against his character it would be, or contrived, Yamai has to come back.
for me this game felt a LOT like a vacation
Liber Tea and Adachi's GOAT tier banana hammock
For Super Girth
This game is leagues better than 7 in almost every way, the combat is great, Hawaii is such a beautiful-looking map, even though some parts are kind of sparse and could have been filled with something instead it is kind of dead space. I loved the Kiryu side quests, and the story as a whole was great. How wasn't this game nominated for Best Score like legit is up there in some of the best ost's of all time. This game is in my top 3 best RGG games of all time, and is one of the best games RGG has put out ever.
i love infinite wealth. I love Chitose. I love Yamai. This game is amazing.
Holy shit, I played IW for almost 150 hours and I never knew you could fast travel from the map screen before watching this video 😭
The only real problem I had with the game were a lot of the non Asian NPC's looking like they came from a ps3 game, but that's understandable and I hope they improve it a bit for pirate
Yeah, the story was convoluted (no idea what that means) and boring. It's a huge improvement on Y7's combat, though.
Kinda sad how most of Kiryu's side content is looking at objects on the street and reading text, but the "memoirs of a dragon" that had cutscenes were cool.
Kamurocho is in this game just because. There's nothing of value there. As for Ijincho, it's underutilized and has no sidequests as far as I remember.
Hawaii was cool but I miss the Japanese urban atmosphere from previous entries (especially Lost Judgment with that lighting scheme).
I did not like it, overall. I hope the next mainline game is set in Japan somewhere urban.
ichiban is not the same character anymore because he..... forgave someone and helped them atone? okay
That is literally what happened in the finale of the previous game and considering Eiji works in parallel to Aoki and ichiban knows he's doing it out of spite for yakuza it makes sense
I think it was just the execution of it
Eiji just vanishes after the club fight and then we jump to him looking all different with no context of what happened and why the crowd was outside
Same thing happens in the finale with haruka showing up
It just didn't feel as satisfying as other games because of the time jump and no explanation about what went down imo
The difference between ichi forgiving masato, nanba, chitose and forgiving ejji is that he literally grew up with masato and nanba and chitose had understandable circumstances (nanba doing it to save his brother and chitose’s sense of freedom being compromised), not that that makes any of their actions ok, but eiji’s reasons for gleefully threatening a child’s life, getting two people killed and helping ebina commit mass murder was just… he lost his job? Plus he never once showed any regret for his actions until it was convenient for him. At least masato and ebina had much deeper reasons for being evil (fucked up childhoods) whereas eiji just seems to be completely irredeemable.
@carpetbombjesus So, what exactly do you want ichiban to do? Kill eiji? Ichiban did the right thing at the end, he convinced Eiji to go to jail and atone for his sins. The whole point of the ending is how people often portray others as irredeemable monsters, which is how the media at the end of the game and the fanbase treats eiji and that everyone deserves a second chance
It makes sense for Ichiban's character to forgive and try to redeem Eiji. However the audience may not share that sentiment. Eiji was perfectly happy and willing to get a child killed by a cult for the crime of being born into the wrong family since it could challenge said cult leader's authority, if it meant that a lot of yakuza would slowly die due to radiation poisoning as a result. Not to mention spreading straight up lies on the internet through the insanely popular Tartara channel that ruined the lives of a lot of people, and in the story outright making public opinions on Ichiban and Kiryu absolutely plummet. It's not hard to see why people would want him to get worse treatment than he did
The comment is sarcastic. There's a reason the video is showing footage of Nanba and Joongi when he says that, two characters who tried to have Ichi and his friends killed and yet he loves and trusts them. The only way to have made it more obvious is to have put footage of Aoki. Listen to the way he talks about Chitose afterwards too. It's a mockery towards people hating flawed characters for being flawed.
Finally somebody said it!!! Banger video
Also: The guy fought the law lost again!
I only realized after the fact, but Will Yun Lee, who voiced Wei Shen in Sleeping Dogs, was the English dubbed voice of Ryo Aoki
One of the biggest missed opportunities in this game, for me at least, is how they had Ichiban just know who Kiryu is, despite how Kiryu in LAD7 explicitly never revealed his identity, and that to be reinforced in Gaiden
I would’ve killed to have a scene where Ichiban activates his 2 brain cells and has this sorta fan-girl like moment, after realizing he was saved by, fought against and fought alongside The Dragon of Dojima. It wouldn’t even need to be a big chunk of the story, just have him not know who Kiryu is until after the Yamai fight at Akane’s house in Chapter 3
It's so funny not being in on a fandom because I've only seen high praise on this game. I platinumed it and loved it, haters are just not real fans man idk
Ah yes because I don't like the game my hours spend in games past is now null and void cause I obviously hate played the series
The biggest problem I had with the combat was how much the game hated revive moves. 7 had a few different jobs with revive moves that everyone could get really fast. Meanwhile in 8 ichiban gets one, but I don’t believe any male jobs have one and only a single female job has one.
Despite its flaws, this game def was fun to play from start to finish. I love infinite wealth
Infinite Wealth might be my favorite Yakuza game overall now but sure, the story had some flaws. The Nele island and old man Bryce or whatever his name was didn't work for me at all. The bigger, broader issue I have spans several games. Kiryu pretending to be dead for some reason hardly ever made sense and at times felt like nonsense. The end of that story arc didn't help fix it either. They kind of just let him be alive again, just because , if I'm remembering right.
YES I LOVE INFINITE WEALTH I LOVE INFINITE WEALTH I LOVE INFINITE WEALTH
I love your pfp! also REALLLL
The game had some of my favorite settings, long battles, character moments, I could go on.
I love it and I’m pretty sure it’s the RGG game I’ve sunk the most hours into!
For me the mere fact that you can move around in combat made everything sooo different and leagues better than Y7.
I understand that the story’s pacing is wonky but I feel like whether or not one cares about pacing is a case-by-case thing. The main party members (especially Kiryu) are written excellently!
Not best, not worst, enjoyable but a lot of hit and miss, about 5th best of the franchise in my opinion ( spin off included )
My biggest issue with the game is that Gaiden was done so fucking beautifully, and yet none of the ramifications of the Daidoji seem to be relevent at all in IW until the end, kinda. Like Ichi always calls him Kiryu despite that being a big thing before. Almost wish they were able to reimpliment some of Gaiden's story implications into IW cause that annoyed me a bit
Also just want to add that I appreciate how they've been releasing the OSTs like day 1 with the last few games so I can just immediately start cruising around to Barracuda or Impregnable Triangle in my car
I enjoyed Ebina quite a lot. Though he did deserve way more screentime or at least some more spolight, I found his character pretty interesting and his motivation was crazy but I thought it was a pretty cool flaw to have for a character
I really wish he didn't have to share the main villain spot with Bryce. His whole character is basically a harsh reality check for the characters. Sure guys like Arakawa may honorable but they're still criminals who like it or not earn their standing off the back of innocents. Ebina's whole ordeal could carry the solo villain spot if he was given more screen time