Your party's arsenal is made up of real-world items like baseball bats, handbags, and office supplies This also applies to items as well, as characters scarf down bento boxes and chug a soda to recover hit points. Your party's arsenal is made up of real-world items like baseball bats, handbags, and office supplies, and they cast spells with umbrellas and bottles of booze. There are no psychic powers to be found, but the weapons and armor are not typical fantasy wares. In addition to the clear inspiration from Dragon Quest, I also found elements of classic RPG games like Earthbound throughout. Source: Windows Central / Zackery Cuevas (Image credit: Source: Windows Central / Zackery Cuevas) You will still be responsible for button presses, however. If battles become too much for you, you can also set the game on autopilot and have the game fight for you. Sometimes party members even follow up attacks on their own. If an enemy is knocked over, you have a window of opportunity to deliver a follow-up attack that does extra damage. Another interesting mechanic is the ability to score massive damage by hitting an opponent while they are down. You don't have control over your character's movement, but if you're able to line them up with the destructible environment, you may be able to score extra damage from a bench or a flowerpot. The environment also plays a role in combat. Players can also block an incoming attack with a well-timed button press. When using skills, players must time their button presses or tap a button repeatedly to ensure maximum damage. Battles are far from static, though, as the game makes a few changes to the formula to keep battles as dynamic as possible. When a battle begins, you and your party move around the arena, waiting for a command. Yakuza: Like a Dragon borrows heavily from the recent Dragon Quest XI. Wandering gangs in the streets become roaming predators ripe with experience points, gang hideouts morph into dungeons, and your party transforms before your very eyes as they take fighting stances. It's through his gamer brain that the game transforms, both in a figurative and literal sense. While previous games dabbled in RPG elements before, Yakuza: Like a Dragon goes all out by introducing a traditional turn-based battle system, with some key changes.Įarly in the game, Ichiban exclaims that life is like an RPG and that we're constantly grinding for experience to level up in the world. Tossing out the beat 'em up style fighting that made up previous entries, Yakuza: Like a Dragon is an RPG in the traditional sense. This is where Yakuza's second major departure comes into play. Ichiban happens to be a massive gamer and a fan of Dragon Quest in particular. Yakuza Like A Dragon Street Fight At Night (Image credit: Windows Central / Zackery Cuevas) Life is really like an RPG when you think about it The Japanese audio is also available for purists who can't stomach the thought of listening to a dub. Including voice work from George Takei, the main voice cast sounds great, though sometimes the side characters sound a little too similar to one another. Breaking away from another long-standing tradition, this Yakuza marks the first time in fifteen years that the game is receiving an English dub. Special mention should be made to the excellent English dub. I was invested in all of these strikingly human characters whose flaws stem from them being dealt a bad hand in the game of life. Ichiban is so good-hearted that it's hard not to love him, and he grows on you the same way he grows on his new friends. These characters have tragic tales tied to them, but it's Ichiban's endless enthusiasm that convinces them that they can be heroes if they only give themselves a second chance. Ichiban is a middle-aged ex-yakuza who amasses a party of friends that consist of a homeless guy, a bartender, and a disgraced cop. It is what I found most endearing about the game as I was playing, and the characters expand on this thread. Whether it's gang life, homelessness, prostitution, or immigration, Yakuza: Like a Dragon never condemns a person's situation, often shining a sympathetic light on the character instead. The illegal activities, as many as there are, are often a means of survival in a society that sees those people as lesser than. Without giving away any spoilers, the story explores the "gray" areas of Japanese society and the broken people that exist between the cracks. Eighteen years later, Ichiban is released to a world that is unfamiliar to him. The favor? Serve a prison sentence for a murder he did not commit. Ichiban's story starts in 2000 when he is just a young low-ranking yakuza who is asked a favor by his patriarch, Masumi Arakawa, who he sees as a father to him. Nvidia GeForce GTX 660, 2 GB | AMD Radeon HD 7870, 2 GB
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