Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth

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Ah, paradise! Sun, sand, palm trees and the glorious blue of the ocean – it’s all you could want in an escape from the drab workaday life you’ve been saddled with. Vacations are expensive, though, and who has the time? No, you’re better served escaping to paradise through a video game, and we’ve got a great choice: Animal Cross–wait, no, not Animal Crossing? Oh, right, today we’re talking about Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, a Hawaiian RPG adventure with plenty of things to do, people to meet and stuff to see.

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After the events of the original Like a Dragon, protagonist and Hero-by-trade Ichiban Kasuga is trying to make his way in a Yokohama free of the yakuza. He’s chosen to do his part for former members of the underworld by helping them find post-yakuza employment. It’s a good gig that really leans into the guy’s good nature, but we didn’t boot this one up to spend our time handing out temp work. No, instead, one thing leads to another and we wind up at Infinite Wealth’s actual plot, which is about Ichiban heading to Hawaii in search of his long-missing mother Akane. He’s got an address, a plane ticket, a passport and a dream, and if you guessed that the search is going to be a lot more complicated than all of that, you’re absolutely right. This is Yakuza, after all. We don’t do “simple” here.

Infinite Wealth is the second in a new set of RPG-style Yakuza games characterized by turn-based combat; fans of the more traditional brawler style had their game last year with Like a Dragon: The Man who Erased his Name. Lest we forget, Ichiban thinks of himself a Hero in the RPG sense, and heroes let the bad guys have a turn. As you might expect, there’s plenty of Yakuza zaniness to go around, and the Ichiban games really crank that up to 11: you’ve got mechanic-mages casting spells using car batteries, surfers smacking people with boards, the classic homeless guy summoning pigeons of death trick…it’s all here and more.

New to Infinite Wealth is a greater focus on positional attacks, with bonuses available for attacking from behind a baddie or knocking baddies into one another. This was already a pretty competent system and the improvements all add an additional layer of polish.

The RPG setup here doesn’t just apply to combat, though. There’s a full-on job system that allows characters to switch classes and adopt new vocations and skillsets. This doesn’t unlock for a surprisingly long time, but it’s a great way to shake things up when it’s available. Unsurprisingly, there’s plenty of American and Hawaiian flavor here, with sportsballers, surfers, fire-dancers and more all ripe for the leveling. Pick your favorites, mind your skill synergies and get to work cleaning up the Hawaiian streets.

Combat’s only part of the experience, though. Admittedly, this is a series about people making grand speeches, punching each other, striking impressive poses and doing wacky things throughout, so it’s a pretty big part, but there’s a lot of other stuff going on as well. Hawaii is absolutely jam-packed with dozens of different sidequests, minigames and bizarre bonus activities that drastically extend Infinite Wealth’s playtime. These run the gamut of insanity. You’ve got a Pokemon Snap-inspired photography minigame where you help sweep local exhibitionists off the streets. You’ve got numerous Surprise, You’re a Waiter Now moments. You’ve got the usual Sega classic arcade games.

You’ve even got a full-on social network where you can collect friends from around Hawaii and build up your relationship with them for bonuses. You’ve got an absolutely hilarious dating app simulator that has to be experienced to be believed. It’s almost too much.

In fact, one minigame takes the cake above them all, verging on a parallel game of its own. The baddies Ichiban fights, called Sujimon (they’re creeps who make you Super Jittery, after all) are now collectible battle-pals that can be set against other teams of Sujimon in a tournament that covers the entirety of Hawaii. Sujimon come in various elemental types and possess numerous skills, plus there’s tons of ways to make them more powerful and assemble teams that work well together.

There’s even a class, the Sujimancer, that’s all about bringing your Sujimon into “regular” battles so they can help Ichiban out. The whole Sujimon thing is a surprisingly deep chunk of content, the sort of thing that might have been sold as separate DLC in other franchises, but here it’s just kind of a backdrop to the rest of Ichiban’s adventures.

That’s not to say that Infinite Wealth doesn’t want to sell stuff as DLC. In a gaming nontroversy you might not have paid attention to among the din of all the other nontroversies, it turns out that Infinite Wealth’s got a New Game + mode and bonus dungeon locked behind a DLC purchase. Take this as you will, but it merits mention since this is the sort of feature you’d expect to get for free in other games. I mean, it’s not like Infinite Wealth has enough content to keep you playing all on its own…right?

Nontroversy aside, there’s nothing nontroversial about how much you’ll like Infinite Wealth’s presentation. This is a gorgeous game just like its predecessors, one that runs like a dream on decent hardware. The sun-soaked streets of Hawaii only look this good when you visit yourself, and you’ll want to do just that after spending some time with Ichiban and co. Soundwise, there’s plenty of fantastic tropical music to set the scene, and for those of you who like hearing people say stuff we’ve got Japanese and English voice tracks for your listening pleasure. Infinite Wealth is a complete package.

Well, enough of a complete package that you can probably disregard the DLC thing, at least. Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is another great entry in a great series. That should come as no surprise; after all, it’s hard to think of any Yakuza games other than, say, Dead Souls that weren’t superlative experiences. Infinite Wealth is a great chance to return to some of the series’ best characters and explore its densest, most content-packed setting yet. You can also crash into things on an exploding Segway. If that’s not enough to convince you this one’s worth playing, you’re beyond hope.