Like a Dragon: Ishin! Review (overwatch gamer)
This is the first proper review I've written in a long time so it's gonna be a long one.
Just yesterday, 1 day before the full release and the end of early access I finally beat Ishin at 3 AM, feeling tired as all hell still hanging on due to how hooked I was to the story. Was it worth it? Here goes
So first of all I gotta say that as a remake and a localization this game is honestly great. The story is engaging much like every other Like a Dragon game but this time, liking it depends more on how much you like the aspects of Japanese history and culture that it packs. The visuals have been beautifully remastered thanks to the power of UE4 and despite its many shortcomings, overall enhances the aesthetic of the game.
Speaking of UE4 shortcomings however, it's essential that I mention them. The game is very well optimized from my experience, constant 150 FPS on the highest settings on my mid-range computer really says a lot. However it's the common stutters and texture streaming that exists solely to ruin the immersion of the whole experience. Thankfully though it has been addressed and will likely be fixed soon. After all this is pretty much a day 1 review.
Now onto the gameplay. Personally this is my least favourite part of the whole game. Going in I expected it to play just like the original did but boy was I fooled. In its current state the game feels like a mess of balancing and combat flow. Unlike most Yakuza games, Ishin Kiwami feels oddly clunky, even with all your abilities unlocked. I don't know if this is something to blame UE4 for but it sticks out like the sorest of thumbs in gameplay. Stuff like the attacks of the brawler style not connecting naturally or just being able to seemingly connect attacks with enemies on the ground despite you VERY OBVIOUSLY hitting thin air. I don't know if this is just the result of some errors but to me it felt extremely annoying, especially when on the higher difficulties you need to rely on the combat working properly at this rate. Also whoever made Ginryu and Komaki as hard as they are is the devil himself.
Another thing tied to the balancing mess that is Ishin Kiwami are the cards. Personally I didn't use any of them outside of the dungeon and managed to beat the game on Legend difficulty just fine. In my eyes they're a sin of RGG wanting to appeal to an RPG audience but I'll cover that more in a bit. Overall, pretty harmless if you don't care about them.
Now comes the one point that genuinely made me angry. The marketing. Dear lord the marketing in this game is just criminal. Lets begin by saying that Hideo Nakano (Shibusawa/Takechi), Riki Takeuchi (Awano/Takeda) and Hitoshi Ozawa (Kuze/Ito) being in this game just makes me mad. It's as if RGG didn't think that this game would succeed in the west without including these faces which played an extremely important role in, as everyone knows, Yakuza 0. It just shows a lack of faith and is purely done to bring in the crowds just to see their favourite mocapped actors again which is incredibly cheap and scummy. At the very least however it doesn't matter that much to me since they didn't change the story with their inclusion. However they removed Hayashi and that's the second time that man has been disrespected this much by RGG, counting what they did to him in Kiwami 2. Additionally, as what stands as the most offensive piece of DLC I have ever seen, the celebrity cards. I know that it's free, I know that it's optional, I know everything there is to know but that's just downright insulting. Having washed up wrestler #151, twitch thot #124 and "formerly" racist catgirl vtuber in a game about the story of Sakamoto Ryoma? Downright criminal. Absolutely disgusting and I hope that someone feels really guilty about this addition over at RGG. And lets not even talk about how some of the OSTs in this game are recycled songs from Yakuza 6 and Yakuza 0, without getting into spoilers. I'd complain about damage numbers too but they're optional.
Overall I had my fun with the game and I will continue playing to get 100% achievements since at this point it's tradition. Do I feel like a clown for pre-ordering Ishin? Not at all. Do I feel like RGG has robbed me of hours of sweet sleep? Absolutely.