Games I Played in 2025 - Yakuza: Like A Dragon
Console: PS4, PS5, XB1, XSX, Steam
Developer: Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio
Yakuza: Like A Dragon is a turn-based RPG with a focus on its narrative, character bonds, and variety of gameplay experiences. As the Like A Dragon series' eighth main title, Yakuza: Like A Dragon (which I'll refer to as Yakuza 7 to prevent confusion with both of the series' names) is a massive change from the rest of the games in the series by not only changing protagonists fully for the first time, but also switching genres, going from a beat 'em up action RPG to a turn-based RPG. I'm a big fan of the Like A Dragon series and the previous protagonist, Kazuma Kiryu, is quite possibly my favorite protagonist in anything, whether it's video games, movies or anything else. After Yakuza 6: Song of Life, Kiryu's saga came to a close (or did it?) and I was okay with it for the most part; after seven games (plus spin-offs!) featuring him in a starring role, it was time to move on before things became stale. Switching genres was a ballsy move I respect, especially for doing the really rare thing of an action game becoming a turn-based RPGs instead of the other way around. As a huge fan of turn-based RPG, this was right up my alley.
A NEW HERO RISES!
The most striking change for the series narratively is the arrival of Ichiban Kasuga as the main protagonist, replacing Kazuma Kiryu. As a character, Ichiban is intentionally designed to be Kiryu's opposite. Kiryu has a white suit with a red shirt, Ichiban has a red suit with a white shirt. Kiryu has slick hair, Ichiban has wild hair. Kiryu is stoic and reserved, Ichiban is emotional and outspoken. Even their stories are opposites in some ways, with Kiryu wanting nothing to do with the yakuza while Ichiban idolises them. Due to the Like A Dragon games being so narratively focused with strong character writing in spite of all their wackiness, having Ichiban take the reins instead of Kiryu actually makes the story feel different even if it hits the typical plot beats a seasoned player would expect. Ichiban very much does not feel like a reskinned Kiryu, and that's exactly what was needed.
Yakuza 7's story is perhaps the most openly political and personal of the series so far: rather than dealing with other corrupt yakuza families, a rival clan, or government officials that are completely forgettable besides being evil, Yakuza 7 has a main antagonist with clear political plans and machinations, and is also very closely tied to Ichiban. By the end of the Kiryu saga, the villains almost started feeling like a Villain of the Week situation rather than anyone noteworthy. Here, Ichiban's saga starts with a bang, with twists, heartbreak and conspiracies aplenty.
What I noticed a few times was how good the game's graphics can look at times. Textures on characters are fantastic, as is the facial animation. A standout for me was a character that gets gagged with duct tape at one point, and once ripped off, you can still see the slight redness where it was for the rest of the scene. When characters cry, their eyes get believably red and puffy, and their faces twist into realistic grimaces. The environments are a little flat usually, however, but they get the job done.
Since this is the first turn-based RPG in the series, there naturally is a party this time around, meaning there are more characters that can actively be used in every scene and thus get worthwhile development. While there are 6 other characters in the party by the end (including one optional party member), there are 3 that truly take the spotlight and are, in my opinion, the real "main" cast alongside Ichiban: Yu Nanba, Koichi Adachi, and Saeko Mukoda. They even fit in the traditional RPG roles of Wizard, Tank and Healer, respectively.
All three have their own motivations to follow Ichiban (naturally) and go through some development through the story, but as this is the first game in the series that has to account for party members in the story, I think it stumbles a little (which will be a recurring theme of this review). Nanba easily gets the lion's share of the development, and his friendship with Ichiban feels very believable. Having a less assertive, kind of meek character with an inferiority complex and a passive disposition is actually very fresh for the series, normally filled with macho, idealistic meatheads. He also gets possibly the best scene in the game with Ichiban early on. Adachi finds himself in the middle, being a fun character with a good relationship with the younger Ichiban, but also somewhat lacking in development; he falls into the background a bit too often to my liking, and his story is only resolved in the post-credits which feels unsatisfying. Saeko, meanwhile, is a great foil to the other characters and a very welcome female addition to the playable roster (the first one in the series!), but while her personality stands out as a good foil to the others, her story is pretty static and so is her development.
I won't get into the other party members, but I think they're used perfectly for what they bring to the table. However, the optional one, which you get from progressing a little into one of the bigger minigames, is handled disappointingly. She is never in cutscenes, even if just standing in the background, and gets very little banter when walking around town. It's a shame because she's actually very powerful if built correctly, and I recommend going out of your way to get her. Plus, the dynamic between all the party members is excellent, with their relationships feeling very realistic, so I wish she was included more.
As both the first story with Ichiban as the main protagonist and the first game with a party system, Yakuza 7 stumbles a little in the narrative department around the middle of the game. To sum up the general story concept, Ichiban is a orphan who became yakuza in a small family with a patriarch he sees as his father figure, role model, and hero. To prove his loyalty and protect the family, he decides to take the blow for someone else's mistake and spends 18 years in prison for murder (which he didn't commit). When he finally gets out, he finds the landscape completely changed, and ends up lost without a family. One thing leads to another, and he finds himself in Yokohama, embroiled in a three-way war between crime families.
The premise, as it usually is for a Like A Dragon game, is great and immediately gets you interested, especially since Ichiban is just really easy to root for. However, around the middle of the game, exciting storytelling gets (temporarily) overtaken by 20-30 minute long cutscenes that are just pure exposition, with characters explaining what is going on and the history of events to Ichiban, who knows nothing. In my opinion, there's nothing wrong with that, and it's quite common in the series either way, but it's so heavy-handed that I found myself zoning out a little during these cutscenes (which I rarely do, I love me a good cutscene) and it doesn't feel like I missed out on anything important. But overall, the story is very good, and the emotional parts are excellent, helped by the typically fantastic character writing and localization the series is known for. I also want to point out, even though I don't know Japanese, I feel like Kazuhiro Nakaya (Ichiban), Sumire Uesaka (Saeko) and Ken Yasuda (Nanba) especially give stand-out performances. Nakaya is able to draw out Ichiban's passion flawlessly, Uesaka shows a lot of range with Saeko, and Yasuda brings out the complexities of Nanba's personality perfectly. Not that anyone else does a bad job, but I feel like those three are especially worthy of praise. Nakaya especially had a monumental task with being the new main protagonist of the series and knocked it out of the park.
FIGHT LIKE A HERO
For the first time, the Like A Dragon franchise dips its toes into turn-based RPG combat with Yakuza 7. It was first teased as an April Fools gag, but turned out to be real. Since these games are traditionally action games, I was surprised but intrigued, as well as a bit worried. How well would the Kiryu saga's chaotic and kind of janky combat translate to a turn-based system? As it turns out, it would translate as one would expect: kind of chaotic, and kind of janky.
Visually, it feels like Yakuza 7 is aping Persona 5's UI while the combat animations are still the same usual quality. In terms of gameplay, things are pretty simple and the usual RPG fare: there's HP and MP, a handful of elements and a bunch of status effects and items. Most appealingly for me, there is a job system. It's pretty simple, with male characters and female characters each having their own jobs like Foreman or Night Queen, and every character also has a default job exclusive to them. Naturally, the female characters get far less options due to them being vastly outnumbered, which is a shame. Overall, though, it all has that trademark Like A Dragon goofiness that I've grown to love, and also kind of reminds me of the two South Park RPGs from a while ago.
This all sounds good, and indeed feels good to play around with... usually. The cracks start to show in battle pretty quickly depending on the area you're fighting in. First, characters have to run up to the target when doing moves, showing that, under the hood, this is still an action game. This'd be fine if the pathfinding were any good, but it's not which leads to characters getting stuck or taking odd paths. Luckily, if stuck for too long, they'll teleport to the intended location. Whether it's a car, a pole or a fence, characters generally seem ill-equipped to deal with environmental obstacles. Some are breakable and will automatically be kicked away or in pieces, the latter of which always feels like a bug to me.
Second, like an action game, the attack has to physically hit the opponent. As a result, odd placement like around corners or behind a fence can lead to you missing attacks without being able to do anything about it. It's not too common, but enough to be annoying. Perhaps more frustrating is the lack of consistency with spells (or skills, as they are called in-game), as some will require your character to run up to the target and others will simply teleport them nearby. This'd be fine if it didn't feel completely arbitrary and have no apparent logic as far as I can tell. Since skills that affect multiple enemies tend to rely on positioning, this can actually throw you off. It doesn't help that characters kind of circle each other slightly and there is no mechanic for positioning, making things feel disappointingly out of your control.
While the animations for the skills are varied and excellent for each job, there's also a lot of repetition and overlap in my opinion. As they level up, a lot of jobs will unlock new skills that are simply stronger versions of previous skills that cost more MP. This can lead to a bloated skill list on each character, especially since many of them are, at least at a glance in the menu, identical but with different potential status effects. In fact, while all of the offensive skills have a general indication of the amount damage they inflict, it doesn't feel like it's truly reflected in-game, as I've seen skills that do "light" amounts of damage deal as much damage as skills that do "medium" or even "heavy" amounts of damage on occasion. It's no deal-breaker, but it's still a little frustrating.
This is further compounded by the hybrid skills, which are unlocked as a character levels up their jobs. Essentially, similar to some Final Fantasy games for example, characters can retain certain skills from their jobs when switching. However, it's never made clear which ones are kept and which ones aren't (unless I missed something). While this leads to some powerful characters, it's also very discouraging to switch a character's job and seeing their stats reduced so drastically. As a result, I didn't end up leveling many jobs on each character, instead focusing on one or two and leaving many of them completely and unfortunately unexplored. It's also a bit annoying that you have to go to a specific building to change jobs. It further discouraged me from doing so.
That leads me to yet another problem with the game's overall battle system: the grinding. Or rather, the lack of options to do it efficiently. As you progress through the game, regular enemies will quickly grow so easy and worthless in terms of money and EXP that fighting them feels like a waste of time. Even while fighting every enemy I came across and also doing almost every optional quest and dungeon on the way, there were still moments in the story where I found myself underleveled. And unlike the Kiryu saga games, you can't really power through an overleveled opponent through skillful/careful play in most cases. There's a Perfect Guard mechanic in place that's actually a little difficult to time effectively, but it feels like the reward for doing it is pretty low since you still usually take a lot of damage.
Now, I could live with all of the little-to-medium issues I've outlined above, especially since it's Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio's first time making a real JRPG out of their namesake series, but there's one more issue I have with the overall battle system that I think genuinely ruins some high tension fights. Yakuza 7 is a JRPG where, if the main character is KO'd at any time, it's an instant game over, even if you have skills or items that could revive him. This isn't just frustrating if Ichiban gets hit by a powerful attack at the wrong moment, but also because it forces the player to place a larger emphasis on him in battle. It's not very fun either way, and I think it's kind of a mistake, even if I do understand it from a storytelling perspective, because Ichiban imagines all of the JRPG aspects of the game's battles, so if he's knocked out, the presentation stops making sense... but I don't think it's the right way to go from a gameplay perspective.
Thankfully, the game itself isn't too hard outside of a handful of fights. The flipside of not being able to defeat overleveled enemies through skilled play is that you can absolutely defeat overleveled enemies by simply grinding. Plus, there is a summoning system (humorously called Poundmates) that can turn the tides of battle, but can only be used by Ichiban and requires in-game yen to use after the first time. This is where the game gets as wacky as Like A Dragon can get, with over-the-top animations that are just a delight. A similar quality is the Essence Skills, which are essentially Super Skills available per character and job that act as the replacement to Heat Actions from the Kiryu saga games.
Something that got a little frustrating over time was how, only sometimes, enemy levels were inconsistent with their stats. For example, I would fight a group of level 40 enemies that had a level 16 enemy in their midst, and the level 16 enemy had more HP, did more damage, and so on, than the level 40 ones. The opposite also happens sometimes, where you'll have a really high-leveled enemy in a group of (relatively) low-level enemies and yet they die in one attack while the others can survive multiple. It makes it a little harder to strategize at times, and it's just weird.
THERE'S A LOT TO DO IN IJINCHO!
Like any self-respecting Like A Dragon game, Yakuza 7 has oodles of side content to partake in. From the ever-present substories to goofy minigames like Dragon Kart (yes, it's exactly what it sounds like) to a business management simulator, there's always a lot to do inbetween the game's cutscenes. The substories, which are the series' side quests, are wonderful as always, ranging from completely ridiculous to heartwarming. However, I can't tell if it's because I did most of them during the main story and not the post-game like I usually do, but they didn't feel as memorable as they usually do. A handful of them also have rather grindy requirements that are tedious to achieve.
There's also the traditionally overly bloated Completion List, this time taking the name of "Part-Time Hero.com," which has everything you'd typically see on a Like A Dragon Completion List: walk X amount of meters, talk to X amount of people, complete every single minigame, do everything in every single minigame, eat everything at every single restaurant, the list goes on and on. This time around, it allows you to level up Ichiban's personality as well, which is a mechanic that gives you access to certain substories and areas depending on his personality level (which I think is a little undercooked as a mechanic, to be honest). As always with these games, I can't recommend finishing the Part-Time Hero list or even getting through most of it; a lot of it amounts to aimless busywork, but if you play and find yourself unwilling to stop playing after the game is over, it's a perfect way to see literally everything the game has to offer. This time around there's also Rescue Quests that have you fighting tougher enemies and Delivery Quests where you deliver materials or defeat a set amount of a certain type of enemy. These are nothing special, but do give extra cash and items.
The big thing with Like A Dragon games is their habit of throwing in a ton of side content, big and small, with various levels of quality and depth. While this is always fun, as beyond the usual minigames there's always something new in each game, the main problem is their difficulty. Almost every side game in a Like A Dragon game will be on the easy side so everyone can complete it, or so optional you need to go out of your way to find it. Returning classics like the baseball driving range, golf range, mahjong, and various gambling games are here as always, but this time around they're not even tied to any substories and feel like they're there out of obligation as copy-pasted content from previous games. It's still fun, and for new players it's fine, but for returning players like me, it's getting bland. The SEGA arcade games here also tread familiar grounds, with Virtua Fighter and classic games like Space Harrier and Outrun.
Some of the new side games are fun enough, but lack depth as is typical of these games. Dragon Kart is a charming but kind of dull Mario Kart homage with 12 simple tracks and uninspiring items. Can Quest is a fun game with strategy involved, but there's only three stages on the same map so it loses its allure very fast. The big side game of Yakuza 7 is Ichiban Confections, a business management simulator that's simple enough for anyone to grasp. It's a bit long in the tooth, and once you catch on to the ideal strategy, it becomes very dull and like nothing interesting is happening. Even the "fights" (which are shareholder meetings) are handled in a simplistic real-time RPG style that just end up feeling too easy and, again, kind of dull. The only side game that doesn't feel either too short or too long to me is Seagull Cinema, where you have to fight off "REM Rams" so Ichiban doesn't fall asleep watching a movie. There's also a vocational school minigame where you take lightning round-style quizzes for everything from sports and maths to SEGA games and art.
The main hangout spot in the game is a jazz bar named Survive Bar, where you can also play the obligatory karaoke. Every main party member gets a song, and they're all pretty good for once! Nanba even gets to sing the iconic Baka Mitai, and Ken Yasuda absolutely nails it with his own flair. However, it's a bit unfortunate that you can only actually play two of the songs; for all the songs characters other than Ichiban sing, you get to play the "back-up" section which is full of clapping, cheering, tambourine and maracas noises, which I've never really liked in these games.
The other thing you get to do in the bar is bond with your party members once you've leveled up their bond enough through battle and including them in side activities. Every level allows Ichiban to have a private conversation with them and get to learn more about them. It's great in theory and practice, but I couldn't help but notice that every single one of them has to do with a lie of some sort and having to deal with the consequences of it. It's good in theory, but every character having such a story makes it far less interesting to me than it could've been.
As a JRPG, it's only natural to have crafting systems in place. Around Ijincho, there are planters scattered across town where you can plant various seeds that will grow in real time. Using the resulting plants, you can get the bar's bartender to craft various items for you. I never bothered to use this feature, as the possible items didn't seem worth the hassle to me.
There's also weapon and armor crafting which, for the first time in the series, feels like it's properly worth doing. In the Kiryu saga games I very rarely used these systems because of how weapons worked, but this time around they're just standard JRPG equipment so it's almost necessary to interact with. Unfortunately, there's a catch that kind of halfway ruins this: the best weapons are the starting weapons of each job, as they can be upgraded far more than the others. This reduces the build customisation significantly in my opinion, and makes things a bit too straightforward.
A massive disappointment for me in Yakuza 7 is the three maps. Without majorly spoiling anything, Yakuza 7 features three maps: Ijincho, Sotenbori and series regular Kamurocho. However, outside of some extra dungeons, Sotenbori and Kamurocho feel completely superfluous and empty, to the point that there are less enemy encounters there and not a single side game or substory in either of them, which feels like a huge missed opportunity. I was excited to see these maps again only to feel like there was nothing to do there.
Finally, like many JRPGs, Yakuza 7 has a handful of dungeons, with two being a part of the story (and can be replayed afterwards with different enemies). These dungeons are... mediocre to say the least, nothing more than angular corridors with big rooms for each battle. While there are branching paths, they just lead to usually pretty useless treasure. But not always, so I always felt compelled to check. It's unfortunate that the dungeons feel so basic, because this feels like it was an opportunity to showcase the over-the-top nature of the series fully... and instead they're comprised of modular, copy-pasted rooms and corridors. The series' usual superboss, usually tied to substories, is instead confined to a post-game dungeon intended for max level characters, which requires tons of grinding and sounds difficult for the sake of being difficult. I did the easier version of the dungeon and felt satisfied.
There's one annoyance when traveling Ijincho specifically, though. It being how the taxis, which are fast travel points, work now. Ijincho is potentially the biggest map in the series and its areas have different level ranges for enemies. As a result, unlike in previous games you need to interact with a taxi to make it available to fast travel to. This is seemingly to prevent you from traveling somewhere too high-leveled, but it just felt strange to me and actually confused me for a while.
YAKUZA BEATS VOL. 7
As with the rest of the series, Yakuza 7 has a pretty varied soundtrack made by a decent chunk of people. The main contributors are Hidenori Shoji and Chihiro Aoki, with help from many others like Hyd Lunch, ZENTA and 83key. The game still has a similar energy to the rest of the series, but leans a little more towards EDM and hip-hop, having heavier tracks with lots of odd sounds as well as tracks with trap beat leanings. The music gets properly corny in most side games, and cutscenes are always backed with fitting music, not to mention the karaoke is good across the board this time around.
Shoji and Aoki are the most common composers in the game (in fact, Shoji is perhaps the only composer to be featured in every single game of the series), and they kind of make similar music, with both having a lot of range and being able to make good ambient music, pounding EDM tracks, or exciting rock tracks. This time around, I'd say Aoki gets more standouts, including some of the best boss fight themes in the game and some truly bumping EDM tracks. This game's version of the recurring "Receive You" theme is probably my favorite in the series, even! Adorably, all of the game's jingles are chiptune and sound like they could be in an old JRPG, fitting Ichiban's love for Dragon Quest. All in all, a very good soundtrack with a couple of standout tracks, more or less par for the course for this franchise.
Also, as a bonus, you can unlock CDs and listen to a (very) limited amount of songs from other SEGA games and previous Like A Dragon games in Survive Bar. Persona 5 in particular gets more love than the others. It's a cool little bonus, even if there's no real reason to stay in Survive for an extended period of time, especially since it doesn't play during the bonding scenes and your choice isn't saved between visits. Maybe if you're big on the crafting?
PROS AND CONS
PROS
• Great story with excellent character writing that masterfully balances its tone between extremes while staying accessible for newcomers.
• Good combat and decent job system with fun animations aplenty.
• Good soundtrack all around with some of the best boss battle themes in the series.
• Overall great cast of characters on both sides of the main conflict, including one of the better main antagonists of the series.
• Lots of variety when not doing the main story, including solid post-game content.
• Surprisingly deep enemy variety that puts the other games in the franchise to shame, including some of the best bosses.
• Wonderful character graphics, especially when it comes to textures, eyes, and facial expressions.
CONS
• Getting an instant game over when the main character is KO'd genuinely sucks.
• Various game design hiccups that make the combat not feel as good as it should.
• Side content is often either too simple or too short.
• The Like A Dragon franchise's perpetual slight jank is still very much present.
• Two out of three maps feel completely barren and like a waste.
• Uneven leveling pace simultaneously results in some necessary grinding and the devaluation of normal battles, which isn't helped by the lack of good grinding methods outside of tedium.
• The majority of the bosses are unexciting damage sponges.
• Enemy levels sometimes make no sense, making strategizing difficult.
• A central plot point to motivate a lot of the party's actions doesn't come across as genuine to me.
• Some heavy-handed exposition around the midgame kills the narrative pacing a bit.
• Universally dull dungeons on a visual, thematic, and gameplay level.
WORTH PLAYING?
Make no mistake about it; while this review has leaned more on the negatives than the positives, Yakuza: Like A Dragon is a wonderful game with all the hallmarks of a good Like A Dragon game. It's great as a first game in the series for new players yet fresh for seasoned players thanks to its new genre and protagonist (and a fantastic one at that!). I respect the hell out of Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio for doing something so bold so late in the series, especially for going against the grain and making a turn-based RPG out of an action game instead of the opposite.
Sure, it's a bit rough around the edges and has a couple of odd design decisions, but it's a very good first step. While it feels a bit like the devs are throwing everything but the kitchen sink with varying levels of success, that's just how this series goes. As with the rest of the Like A Dragon franchise, I'd argue that Yakuza 7 is better than the sum of its parts, and that's about as Like A Dragon as you can get.
I'm excited to see where Ichiban's story goes in Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth... but I have some spin-off games to play first.
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