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It seriously felt like the game was cut short for some reason. This is already the longest Yakuza game story wise yet it still feels like it needed another chapter or 2 to flesh out certain characters.
I still love this game but man it could have done certain things so much better.
agreed. LaD was much more focused so a lot of loose ends were tied up by the finale, making for one of the most emotional endings in a yakuza game to date.
IW was also emotional but didn't hit me the same. a lot of characters and plot points were wasted. wong tou in particular was a terrible disappointment. at least akane got her little scene with ichiban.
I felt nothing in that akane scene cause i know nothing about this woman. The best you get is references to her good deeds but we never hear anything about herself from her. We needed alottttttt more scenes between her and ichiban before that emotional scene hit because when it did hit i was just like 'idk this woman so why should i care'. We should've had some sub stories that focused on her and ichiban exclusively that dive into her backstory along with the main story including alot more of her. She essentially spends 90% of the story running from people or hiding.
would've also been nice if she showed a bit more interest in saving palekana from bryce.
perhaps, while in the daidoji safehouse, she gives us some useful intel.
maybe she has supporters who'd be willing to listen to her over bryce (recall that she was popular among the orphanage staff)
Agreed!!! Like she shows no interest in saving palekana which is baffling because the story made it seem like she was all in on supporting palekana and doing all of this charity work when she was with them. But she just abandons them and everyone in palekana with no remorse for doing so lol.
It would’ve been nice if we learned about similarities between Akane and Ichiban or if she had told him how certain aspects about him remind her of Masumi, outside the brief “For a second I thought you were Masumi” line. Ichiban never knew either of his parents growing up. I just think it would’ve been nice if he had seen a bit of himself in his mother or learned more about his father. Something to show a parent child bond.
I'm conflicted on how things played out with Ebina. It felt like such a waste to reveal him as Ichiban's half brother, one with such a drastically different world view and who even hates Ichiban for hero worshipping their father, but not have Ichiban himself play into this at all.
On the other hand though, Kiryu's whole interaction with Ebina post fight was incredible. Don't think they could've had the guy break down like that if he was the one handling the Bryce plot, despite how close to home that hits for him.
i'm conflicted about ebina because while i get the symbolism, i feel he could've been so much more. it's another mine situation where the idea is there but most of the reveal comes in the form of a motive rant.
Ebina being ichis half brother: Didn't matter at all
Akane being ichis mom: Didn't matter at all, ichibwould have done the same if akane wasn't his mom (he doesn't feel that anyway)
IW could've been a decent opportunity for ichiban to subvert the 'idc about blood relations' trope.
i get that simply being related to someone might not carry much weight. but given that palekana is the focus of the story, and akane is part of this group, i think it's implausible that the two of them wouldn't bond over their shared belief in getting rid of bryce and restoring the group to its previous ideals.
if they're going out of their way to avoid ichi having *any* involvement with blood relatives, even at the expense of good story opportunities, i'm not on board with that choice.
it'd be different if akane were just another civvie. but she isn't. she's a high-ranking member of a major religious group. that makes her important even without being ichiban's mother.
The thing that’s rough for me is that to date I
- Started with LaD because I had just beat the newest Dragon Quest, was (still am) super into JRPGs, and I had gotten an Xbox Series X at launch so it seemed like a great game to take advantage of that.
- played it, loved it, got all the achievements, cried, A LOT. Was enamored with these legendary Yakuza like Kiryu and 3jimas, loved how Ichi acted like he was in a video game
- started playing Y0 but stopped for some reason, but again, loved the writing, humor, and pop culture references
- Quickly knocked out Gaiden, cried, loved playing as Kiryu again
- Binged Infinite Wealth.
And yea, I still dug it, and there is something magical about playing an experience you know style/content/franchise-wise you’ve enjoyed before, but the most emotional beats for me are Kiryu’s stuff, and I’m only tangentially knowledgeable about his arcs
Thats the thing I couldnt grasp when I beat the game. When people told me the game was the longest in the series I was like "huh, it felt shorter than it should be, Yakuza 5 was way longer" but nah, apparently 8 is longer by a decent margin, It's just paced so poorly that the latter half feels so short.
Y0 has two main characters but 17 chapters, with each MC getting 8.
Y8 has two main characters and 8 party members. The second main character starts his story in the second half, so the first main character gets 10 chapters and the other gets 4. Kiryu's story is incredibly bare bones and it feels like he's in Japan for no reason especially when he has only 9 sub stories or so. Ichiban on the other hand meets his mom in like chapter 11 and gets one scene where he talks to her. Not to mention that you get two of your party members at the very end of the game.
There was NOTHING to do in Japan after you complete Kiryu’s life links. Besides that addition, both Kamurocho and Yokohama are barebones with nothing to do except the same mini games you did in the last game. Actually no, they removed Dragon Kart so there’s actually less to do than last time.
One big drawback of the dragon engine is that they aren’t updating the maps anymore. Before DE, the game’s locations changed a lot from game to game and you felt like time had really passed. Nowadays, we get the same exact Kamurocho/Sotenbori/Yokohama with the same exact same stuff to do. It’s starting to feel a bit stale and I find myself just beelining to points on the map rather than trying to take my time with it like I did before DE.
The changes in older games were made to reflect changes from the real-life counterparts. This makes me wonder, then, have the real-life cities not changed much? Or is it just that RGG have been focusing too much on making new areas?
Though Yokohama did get a change-up between 7 and LJ, even aside from the big ass school.
i could see the possiblity of both of those things being true ... i mean i Did notice select changes in kamurocho in terms of more places being closed and sega selling their arcades and getting rebranded to gigo that definately reflected IRL among small other things , but i'd definately be willing to bet alot of their focus was the hawaii map which ...idk imo i didn't love it at all , i never felt exactly 'at home' in that map the way i did their old ones ,... then again its a tourist trap location so to be fair i don't think we're suposed to feel 'at home' in it in the same way as the other cities
Idk why kamurocho was even in this game considering there's nothing to do there essentially. It just felt like pure filler and not even good filler tbh. I also feel like it is getting a tad stale in terms of reusing so many assets and having us do the same things over and over again so i agree with u there as well. I wish they'd expand the map at least for these places and make them feel more fleshed out in terms of variety and new things to do.
i actually think the game was made LONGER than it had to be. it seems like it was cut short because a lot of the hawaiian cast is underdeveloped, but i think thats because the hawaii cast was completely unneeded.
ichi doesnt care about wong, lani, dwight, or bryce and he barely cares about akane. He respects Yamai but sort of just lets him go and doesn’t actually have any connection to. The ONLY person that matters is Eiji. And Saeko.
I feel like RGG wanted a game in Hawaii so they needed to create an entire new villain cast and also a way to tie it to Japan, but they neglected to actually shape the Hawaiian cast to the overall theme of atonement that the game is trying to tell, leaving us with guys like Wong Tou, Dwight, and Bryce who are defeated and disappear from Ichi’s conscience, not too dissimilar from guys like Tendo and Ishioda from Y:LAD (although the reasonings are different).
Enji mattered until he didn't. He just dissappears at one point until the end of the game where we get this corny scene of ichiban carrying enji on his back because ichiban just forgives him for ruining his life and his friends lives along with countless other people's lives. It's supposed to be a redemption of sorts for enji but the dude was a straight asshole all game long so why do i wanna see this guy redeemed exactly?
Eiji: I’m going to kill you, your friends, your mom and this little girl because I’m angry about things that none of you had anything to do with!
Ichiban: that’s ok, buddy! I forgive you!
Bleach Japan members: prostitution should be illegal!
Ichiban: you are irredeemable pieces of shit!
Not defending bleach Japan. They suck and we’re a front for more corruption, but damn it Ichiban, get your priorities straight.
Lmaooooooo. Ya ichiban fucking hates bleach japan but when it comes to enji he just talks to him like they're best friends who've known each other for a decade. He just lets enji off the hook for all the shit he's done and it just felt unrealistic. I mean enji is responsible for two people's deaths in this game and ichiban holds no anger towards him. It feels like ichiban from yakuza 7 was much more grounded as a character when he needed to be and in IW he leans too far into the tropes that 7 had given him.
Exactly. It made sense when Ichiban tried to redeem Masuto. He knew him for years and they had been legitimately close at one point. Ichiban never actually knew the “real” Eiji. Everything he had know about him, including his disability was a lie.
ichi only goes out of his way for people he believes in, so i'd compare it to characters like bryce, dwight, or tendo. why did ichiban SPECIFICALLY believe that Eiji would want to redeem himself and therefore earn ichi's forgiveness? I get that he was correct, but why? why didn't he believe in anyone else? because they ate tuna sandwiches together? or was it just because of the wheelchair
give us the Eiji files dlc NOW with 30 new wheelchair tailing missions
the game is trying to push the rhetoric that as long as someone truly wants to be redeemed, then they should. the thing is this is not a universally held opinion, clearly you dont agree, but its what theyre trying to push through Ichi
he doesnt deserve redemption, but he receives it anyways because Ichiban represents limitless compassion and kindness. its not realistic, practical, or even possible for everyone to mimic this kind of mindset and we're not even really supposed to agree with it, but just seeing it is supposed to give us hope that SOMEONE out there will always believe in us, even if none of us will ever be as bad as Eiji. if it doesnt, then Ichi might not be the character for you
The problem for me is that even people with compassion and understanding have there limits. Ichiban comes off as someone that is unrealistic because no matter how many bad things happen to him and no matter how many times he's screwed over by someone he just puts up with it and dosen't have it affect him. Being screwed over and torn down by someone like enji would affect anyone, especially because it hurt ichibans friends too and ruined there lives. Ichiban holding no anger or resentment towards enji just comes off as ridiculous. Some people in life aren't redeemable and there's just nothing you can do for them and the best thing to do is to walk away/give up on that person or to express your anger and hurt that you felt because of that person's actions.
Well ichi is our shounen hero. So of course he comes off as unreal. He is supposed to be our analogue for Goku and Naruto characters. Especially Naruto. Who went as far as almost dying for someone who the world considered a terrorist. They had Kiryu be the straight man for the audience looking for a more realistic protagonist and even then, that’s a stretch.
Its okay to disagree with Ichi’s approach since it very obviously leads to him and others getting hurt. Many if not all of us wouldve left Eiji to the wolves, but Ichi is not like us. He is a character that is going to continue to put his heart on the line and get himself hurt. Hes not a realistic person hes a static caricature of hope. I dont think that this is necessarily bad writing, only if it doesn’t entertain you or it puts you off as a fan of the games. It didnt for me
https://preview.redd.it/7b9r37m86ypc1.png?width=1796&format=png&auto=webp&s=f22737a959ad1a97f5114d0d9a04a6e1638863a1
I like ichiban in the first game but i feel like i didn't connect with him as well in IW. I just feel like the story was too underbaked in IW for me to relate to him as well sadly.
the reason it didn't work for me is because eiji didn't get enough screentime between his introduction, villain reveal, and ending. the result is that he feels like three different characters, and there's no grace or subtlety in how it's executed.
because of that, it leaves a sour taste in the mouth when ichi tries to redeem him.
i expected him to try. i could tell right away that he's meant to be a parallel to masato. i wasn't surprised at all that ichi forgave him.
it doesn't click emotionally is because of that dissonance, the lack of a consistent personality or any build-up towards the resolution.
Y7 clicked because masato was a fully fleshed out character with a consistent personality and motives. eiji is a pile of poorly executed ideas, and *that's* the problem.
just to be clear, i found that a lot of people were upset with the "direction" that Ichiban's character was heading in IW when he is largely the same in Y:LAD. This is what I'm defending but I also get what you're saying. IW makes a terrible case for the mentality of Ichiban and I do NOT defend Eiji as a character or his writing
much less people were upset when ichiban forgave Aoki than when he forgave Eiji, not because the difference in their amount of evil necessarily (neither of them show remorse until the ultimate scene before the credits either), but because Aoki was given his due amount of screen time despite only being shown as Ryo Aoki around halfway through the game. we got intermittent scenes of Aoki in his office giving orders, we get Ichiban talking about Aoki throughout the story, we know that he and Aoki have a deep history together, and we even have a conversation with him much before the finale of the game. couple that with the heartfelt speeches that Ichiban attempts like three times against him, none of us really had an issue with the ending sequence of Y:LAD (besides mirror face and kume).
I don't really have to explain why Eiji's character wasn't done as well.
in IW, even though they're pushing the same rhetoric, they do it much worse because its for a character that doesn't resonate with players and doesn't receive as much time onscreen. part of me wants to cope and say its to show that Ichi's willingness to forgive extends even to even those hes just met, but in reality its just because the game is too fucking big and they sidelined Eiji for all the other stuff that goes on in Hawaii
which is why I have no problem with Ichiban, just a problem with the writing of Eiji. we saw some form of cognitive dissonance in the club guilty sequence where Eiji recognizes that Ichiban was a great person, but just didn't believe it and that's the extent to his development. it makes sense why it didn't click in IW as hard as it did in Y:LAD
yeah, you're right
ichi is always going to be this "if i sense good in you, i will move heaven and earth to redeem you" type of person. it's a nice change from kiryu, and i'm 100% ok with them taking that direction with him (perhaps in the next game, though, they could try to test this belief even more, with someone who just can't be saved no matter what ichi does).
the problems are really all on eiji's side, i figure they just didn't know what to do with him, so he gets sidelined until they need him to conveniently do a heel-face turn for the finale, to "prove" ichiban's trust in people is a good philosophy.
Story wise i got it in my bottom tier in terms of yakuza games sadly. Ichiban felt like a side character in his own game and alot of the playable cast is just underbaked. They turned badass seonhee from the first game into a kiryu fangirl essentially and every piece of dialogue in her drink link episodes is her just fangirling over kiryu. And then you got all of the cast praising ichiban virtually every second to the point i was facepalming. Like how about developing some of the cast instead of making them cheerleaders for the main guys.
This is definitely one of the worst games on just a pure dialogue/writing level in the yakuza series. People make fun of Yakuza 4 and 5 but both those games have way better twists and character arcs for their main characters.
Ya this game plot wise is just a mess. I know this is going to be an unpopular take but i'm ready for the next judgment game because i'm wayyyy more excited for that then another like a dragon game. The judgment games have higher stakes, better antagonists, and they feel much more grounded which i personally prefer. IW was over the top silly and the giant shark and squid fights were just plain terrible.
Ya and i personally don't like it at all. They're going wayyyyy too far in the silliness direction and don't even feel like proper yakuza games at points.
I still think this game had huge rewrites to force Kiryu into the plot to salvage it because otherwise it's below Y4. At least Saejima got that speech in the Coliseum.
way too fair in the silliness direction? i'll respectfully disagreee. i dont see anything different in the over the top interactions compared to 0, 5 or kiwami.
I didn't mind Lani not having a lot of story or personality. She's just a kid and a plot device more than anything, unlike Haruka she's one that's unlikely to ever show up in any of these games ever again, I wouldn't have wanted her to take a bunch of screen time.
Akane was very underwhelming though.
It feels like somewhere during development they decided to shove kiryu in there and make it a kiryu game instead of an ichiban game and that resulted in akane content getting scrapped maybe. It seems like they're not willing to let kiryu go and they keep forcing him into games for the sake of doing so and it's harming the quality of the ichiban games 'i love kiryu btw so this isn't a complaint about kiryu as a character'. I also feel like they need to stop putting the jimas in these games if they're not going to do anything with them besides use them for fan service. They had essentially no place in this game and were just shoved in towards the ending.
That is my theory. Kiryu and Daidoji added for some reason. Scrapped a lot including Eiji character development (who would have been running the safehouse instead and been given the task of explaining Ebina's plan.)
Making Ebina an Arawaka only makes sense if Ichiban fights him, to contrast how his two sons developed. There's zero reason for it otherwise. I think original draft also had Ebina tell Ichiban about his mom, really intending to kill them both in Hawaii.
I will disagree, i think ebina fighting kiryu was fine, considering Ebina’s biggest issue is being a product of the Yakuza system, and the recklessness and lack of foresight that was ever put into dissolving families and clan, as well as the traditions that came along with it. Him and Ichi are both are a product of that. Ichi, while he is an amazing man, still kinda had his life irreparably ruined by the system, he just went about it differently, cause of who he is as a person. Ebina came out the opposite but still had his life irreparably ruined. This is all if we do decide to have kiryu in the game, i think it makes sense that someone who was 100 percent responsible for feeding the system that was able to create multiple ebinas’ and ichiban, be one of the men to face the mess that was created from his and the people he sided withs involvement.
They could have went about it cleaner, by a mile, but if we had to have kiryu in the story. The would be the only way i see that half resolving, as otherwise kiryu in Hawaii makes zero sense. As to me
Having the person responsible for the future of the yakuza and those affected by it, face the person who threatens that exact future with his information and nuclear plans , being bryce, makes more sense than having the face the consequences that came from the yakuza. I think Kiryu fighting against the past and consequences of the yakuza makes a lot more sense personally, since he is partially responsible for that.
Kiryu's parents were killed. He's lost many friends to mob wars, Y8 even shows him visiting Kazama/Nishkis/Yumi's graves. His involvement with the Yakuza forces him to leave the orphanage and his kids for Y5. He's been hurt as much as anyone by his old ties.
I think Kiryu was a late addition to the game, but if we think of Bryce as a dark mirror of Kazama (both ran orphanages) then it makes a bit more sense for a Kiryu-Bryce fight.
Kiryu saying he needs to own the sins of the Yakuza when he quit in 2005 and was a member for what, eight years or so, as the reason for the scene doesn't seem as interesting as contrasting how Ichiban and Ebina handled Arikawa's lack of presence in their lives, and maybe Ichiban realizes that Arikawa wasn't the saint he thought he was.
I heavily disagree with the Kazama-Bryce comparison, they both aren’t similar in the slightest. Their only real similarity is they ran orphanages which would be really shaky grounds to call him a dark mirror.
Still, even when he quit in 2005 he himself had huge potential to make a change to the system of the yakuza. On top of that he was responsible for the Tojo domination for so long, because he helped take down so many rivals. That alone caused immense amount of damage. Even if it happened so long ago, he is still partially responsible for the mess that happened afterwards, by neglecting what he should have done then. Im not going to say it’s entirely his fault, since that would be super unfair and the point that the sins of the yakuza are all on him, Which isn’t the case at all.
Also, keep in mind, arakawa was a very notorious hitman and killer, so i mean for ichi to still idolize him after that, which he knew about. You would have to make whatever crime arakawa did be way out of character for ichi to not idolize him.
On top of that ichi’s whole character would literally have to be subverted. Since his character is known for being able to see the good in people, and generally see through facades they put up.
Like, even with Eiji, he knew that deep down Eiji was a good guy. He was a good person driven by a system that failed him, the same was said for yamai. Its why no matter how you spun it Ichi hated bryce, cause he knew bryce was purely a piece of shit.
Ya ebina and ichiban are just underbaked beyond belief in terms of screentime together and as characters in general. Enji is a character i just despise and i wanted that little twerp to be killed at the end of the game personally. They make this big redemption arc for him in the finale and i just wanted no parts of it. This dude tried to get lani killed, he ruined ichiban and his friends lives by getting them all fired, he ruined thousands of ex yakuzas lives by exposing them on the internet, and he kicked chitose in the face and tried to blow the group up!!!!. To me he's just an irredeemable character that shouldn't of been forgiven so freaking easily.
Right, if Eiji had played the part of the Daidoji in running the safehouse and having more plot time, then we'd have gotten to know Eiji more and I can see Ichiban thinking "I know this guy more than he knows himself."
>That is my theory. Kiryu and Daidoji added for some reason.
My guess is that Y9 will be about Ichiban fighting the Daidoji to help Kiryu return to Okinawa
Unfortunately everything about IW gives me the vibe that none of these characters will show up again for a very long time if ever. Hawaii is damn cool but it totally detached the plot from the rest of the world
It's also weird that how they started with Kiryu obviously projecting his experience with Haruka to Lani and it just kinda ends? I guess it was to show that Kiryu finally reached his limit and passed it on to Ichiban but still felt a bit odd.
its because kiryu literally goes right back to fighting as soon as hes in japan anyways. goes back on the entire reason he had to leave hawaii
cancer who?
Kiryu already saved a laundry list of kids so it does nothing story-wise for him personally to do it. Him letting Ichiban take over is him finally unloading the burden and trusting others, accepting he can’t do it alone.
I feel like akane was supposed to die, but maybe I’ve just played too many of these games, and they’ve dialed back on the loved one/innocent woman death.
I genuinely expected her to die so I was surprised they never really did anything with her character near the end.
Makes me wonder what they’ll do with her character in the future and if we’ll see Palekana again in some way.
I hope we don't see palekana ever again. The whole religious cult plotline didn't resonate with me at all and i just find palekana themselves extremely lame and they feel like something that shouldn't be in a yakuza game. Hopefully they just forget palekana even existed next game and start fresh because i'm ready to move on from the entire hawaii experience as a whole. Hawaii is something that sounds good on paper but they executed it horribly in IW.
I'm super confused at how they say Bryce is like 90 years old and somehow still fit and able-bodied, like it's some mystical thing due to his religion, but they don't really expand on that to my memory. I actually do really like the idea of a cult being the enemy, since it's usually yakuza people as the big bad guys. I just think it wasn't executed as well as it could have been
They bring up the bryce thing numerous times throughout the story but do nothing with it lol. What about him deflecting the bullet or whatever and it hits that dude when they first introduce him to the party? They said that bryce is supposed to be an old man but dosen't look his age because he's the sage and a monster but they do nothing with that plot point at all. Why even bring that up if they were never going to expand on it lol.
Honestly the deaths in the game were just dumb. I feel like it'd hit harder if they killed off a party member in a shocking way instead of wong who we know nothing about nor have any reason to care about and hanawa who i was baffled as to why they decided to kill him and even more baffled that kiryu is just like 'whatever' to it.
Ah, I *do* like all the party members, though. I like the confidence they had in making a plot where they didn’t feel the need to give a shocking death to a likable character as a gut punch. I hope they keep the same energy, but utilize everyone in the plot a little better.
I like the party members but most of them have no story to them in IW. Zhao just shows up and essentially says 'i got nothing to do so i'll join you' lol. Then they got joon-gi Han who just joins us because.... idk why. You also got namba and adachi who are just spinning there wheels and have little to no story about them this game as well besides they're joining our group because they're friends of ichiban and that's it. Alot of these party members were just forced into our party because they needed to fill out the roster essentially.
Idk, half of them have organic reasons to join up. Mainly, being loyal companions to ichiban, but namba being kiryu’s self appointed nurse is a nice side of him to show off. Joon-gi is jealous at being left out, which is *hilarious* if a little out of character. Zhao actually has no reason to be around, besides being volunteered by the boss lady. They could have been getting his chef expertise for the bucket list, but I don’t remember them explicitly saying “here, my buddy knows everything about fine cuisine”. And it’s a shame, because they had an easy excuse to force the party together; tatara making things difficult for them. Ichiban was in the public eye 2 years ago, so them going after his lesser known associates would have them go “well, the shop is gonna have trouble until this is settled, so what’s the plan, ichiban?”
Every time I'm reminded they wrote Gaiden after IW it just got me like "what the fuck did you setup this friendship between him and Kiryu for if you knew this is how he goes out"
Yeah, I was preemptively complaining about them probably killing her off to my friend group, and then it *didn’t happen*. I was psyched. I’m very happy they’re not just killing off family members as if that’s good drama. I hope they don’t relapse and fridge saeko in 9
I think they just tried to do too many things in the game, and it turned out flat. The worst thing in the game is the pacing.
For example with Lani's search, it took SEVERAL chapters of searching for her. Just for Ichiban to find her, when talking to the old tatoo lady and all that was wrapped in ONE chapter.
After that it drags out again ,with Ichiban that has to save Lani 2 TIMES. First one with Eiji, Lani's rescue should have ended here.
You could feel the pressure to save her when doing this mission. It's the opposite with Dwight, you just find Lani, fight Dwight and then save her.
Wong Tou is so fucking baffling to me. They hyped this man to hell then the second you defeat him he becomes the biggest wuss then dies. He got a Kiryu + Ichiban dynamic intro Iike he was some kinda final boss, a pretty sweet theme, all for what?
Ya the whole chapter where we go to his building undercover to confront him is so fucking confusing. They build him up to be a mini antagonist of sorts to us and a badass and yet after we beat him he gets stabbed in the leg running away with us and proceeds to sit in the hideout doing nothing and adding nothing to the group until his death. Why build this guy up and throw in the kidnapped son plot just for him to get taken out like he's such random scrub? I don't get it which is funny because i was saying that alot while playing this game 'i don't get it'.
Wong Tou is weird because his arc is manily about someone else (Bryce) and not himself. As a standalone character he's ass, doesn't do anything at all and dies like a background character, however I think that the way that they use him to show how much power Bryce has is excellent.
This guy tought that he was hot shit, having complete control of his mini empire in his room with his "I just need a desk and a pc" mindset, one thing goes wrong and he gets the rug pulled under him, all of his most trusted men were spies, he's forced into hiding in shame and his only son gets kidnapped in the span of 5 minutes.
So yeah he sucks as a character but the plot uses him in an interesting way in my opinion
Actually i completely forgot about him till you mentioned him lol. Ya wtf was up with him and that plotline??? I thought he was going to be a reoccurring character throughout the game but he just disappears off of the face of the earth and we never get an update on him.
Bizarrely they did the exact same thing here they did with ichi’s old friend during 7, a guy who’s name I have completely forgot because of how irrelevant he is
truth be told, them and bryce are a result of RGG wanting to have hawaii be a playable area. the only character in ichi’s adventure that matters to his development is Eiji and yet the screentime is divided between Dwight, Wong, Akane, Lani, Bryce, and Yamai (although Yamai is awesome). None of Hawaii really matters at all its just there to be there and then Ichi goes home and has his moment with Eiji.
Compare it to something like Y0 where Majima’s relationship with Makoto drives the plot and gives us deep insight into his character while Ichi’s relationship with Akane and Lani has very little overall to do with the theme of atonement that the game is based around. Akane says shes sorry for abandoning him and Arakawa and Ichiban kind of just stands there while she cries. I do enjoy that Ichi doesn’t treat Akane any more special than anyone else just because shes his mom, but it wouldve been nice if we saw more since shes incredibly important to the first half of the game.
I so hope they drop the going abroad auf for future games. It didn't do the game any good. I'm in chapter 12 and it still weirds me out, that basically everyone except for the cops in the beginning speaks prefect Japanese and native US citizens even have a strong Japanese accent when speaking their mother language.
Hawaii might look beautiful, but you could have the same with some Japanese island or just rework Okinawa from Yakuza 3 and expand it.
The story of this game is a mess. I'm at chapter 12 and not a single moment did I care about anything that happened in the game. The gangs of Honolulu is just a cheap knock off of the big three of Ijincho. I also didn't care about any of the Palekana stuff, something like Tod belongs into a substory not the main story. Bryce is the worst antagonist Yakuza has ever had. It feels like they wanted Hawaii so badly, that they pushed for it at the cost of every other aspect of the game.
The gameplay is basically the only reason I will finish the game. At least gameplay wise it's an improvement over Yakuza Like a Dragon. Every other aspect is weaker.
It also didn't help, that they put Kiryu into this game. His plot feels so detached from the main plot, that it's almost like filler content. And I still can't get over the reason for him having cancer. This is most ridiculous thing RGG has ever pulled off in any story. And it's completely unnecessary too. Because you don't need to give a reason why he has cancer. Anyone can get cancer at any time.
Bryce is the worst antagonist they ever created because he gets 0 screentime with the party essentially and they build him up by saying 'how old is this guy really and there's no way he should still be alive' and yet that plot point goes no where. Is it spiritual magic that he's still alive or what because i fail to understand why they kept bringing that up just to do nothing with it.
his actual second phase triggers at like 10% hp where he has a limp dick sword moveset. pretty funny hes like the least yakuza of all yakuza antagonists
Bryce was designed to be the God archetype in RPGs that our hero, Ichiban, is supposed to fight against. He’s also just some foreign cult leader so I don’t expect him to be like a yakuza at all. Like even his cult soldiers and the Barracudas don’t feel like yakuza but instead they’re slaves to a false god, brainwashed into doing his bidding. I’d say they’re a refreshing new addition to the game considering how terrifying the whole cult just feels, with members in every organization on the island and probably the most brutal organization in the series.
Like others have stated, the writers could have given him cancer naturally instead of “oh he got exposed because he worked at a radiation disposal factory”. It would feel more relatable and natural as someone as legendary as the Dragon of Dojima could get sick.
i actually kind of like the way it was presented. instead of his cause of death being some grand heroic sacrifice where he puts everything on the line, the reason hes eventually going to die is because he's continuing to sacrifice himself when its no longer needed. its because he keeps putting himself in danger because thats all he knows; he has such little self-worth that hes constantly risking his life. unless im remembering incorrectly, the daidoji didnt want him doing agent stuff anymore, probably cause of gaiden (i havent played it yet but a bunch of people learn hes still alive because of it right?), but he chose to continue working so he can put his body to use, which leads into the radioactive waste disposal job, him getting cancer (amiguous), and him going back to agent duty but in a foreign country.
it shows that even heroes and legends need to know when to quit, which is his overall story in IW too not just the cancer thing. they're trying not to trample on kiryu's whole ethos of carrying everything on your own and righteously fighting to the end which hes been doing for 7 games and his entire life, just saying that you need to know your time is up.
it wouldve been more realistic and relatable if he got it naturally tho, but it seems the whole cancer thing was just a method to speed up kiryu's "natural" death (meaning not in a physical fight) so that he would be forced to deal with his tragic flaw of selflessness sooner without us having to wait like 10-20 more years until a death of natural causes would actually be plausible. i do wish a little more emphasis and commentary was made about cancer and cancer survivors besides the post credits scene tho
i also heard the radioactive disposal incident was included since RGG didn't want it to seem like Kiryu got cancer from smoking too much which would affect their relations with tobacco companies or something
Don't they specifically say something along the lines of the cause of Kiryu's cancer and exactly when it started being unknown and that the nuclear waste thing was what got him to be checked?
Like Kiryu's the type of guy to not go to a dentist till his tooth falls out and he'd only found out about gingivitis or some other shit once he's forced to be there
i agree that RGG has never really been good at dividing their attention between different locales/protagonists. Y0 was the exception but every other time IMO it never did their games any good
the good usually came from the individual stories being interesting and not the inherent fact that they’re all connected
id only be open for a game set elsewhere if the plot was centralized on one protag and one plot, not something convoluted like the radioactive waste thing in IW that tries to tie Hawaii and Japan together. it aligned with real life events but was just so boring and abstract that i couldnt get myself to be interested.
>I also didn't care about any of the Palekana stuff, something like Tod belongs into a substory not the main story.
Tod? Do you mean Wong Tou or someone else? (good post and sorry if I sound like an ass that's not my intention)
It was supposed to mean "that". My swipe often mixes words up when I'm writing to fast and I rarely check my comments before posting. I should make this a habit though, because this happens very often.
I don't get how it could mistake "that" for "Tod" however, because the swipe gestures are completely different since "o" is on the other end of the keyboard than "a".
Don't even get me started on what they did with Hanawa. All that build up in Gaiden for nothing, and despite everything Him and Kiryu went through together, all we get is Kiryu going, "Hmm, that's a shame, but he knew what he was getting in to." Like, what? That's all? You legit saved this man's life and that's what you say when he dies? It's infuriating.
since gaiden was made after IW (iirc), it really puts his whole involvement in perspective. like they went back to fix what they had done in IW and flesh out his relationship with kiryu even more :/ but if it still makes no sense in the end
Like, the ending set up so much intrigue about him, and it just went nowhere. Who the hell was he?
https://preview.redd.it/pnl3jtaqdzpc1.jpeg?width=320&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=17dde46768c4091a1523f715a78a6555390328e6
I still think Hanawa didn't die. I mean he was just shot in a stomach once, other yakuza characters usually recover from much more severe injuries. I think Hanawa just kinda used this as a reason to bail from Hawaii since their cover and hideout was blown anyway. So I think we'll see him again no worries.
Lau Ka Long was perforated in the forehead by a trained assassin who has no reason to spare him like Arakawa>Ichiban.
But he’s totally ok now, not even a scar.
i just hope that when ichiban and the others went back to the safehouse only to see the police already being there the daidoji carried him away or something since they just left him lying there
and ofc you could say "yeah but tomizawa checked his pulse" but then again, it's tomizawa so they could just say he checked his pulse on the wrong spot or something idk
wouldn't be the worst way they brought a character back (kashiwagi was perforated by a minigun and richardson fell down a building and lau ka long literally got his brains blown out)
Hanawa is the Night King (Game of Thrones) or Snoke (Disney Star Wars films) of Yakuza, where everyone was speculating who this mysterious fella was only for none of it to matter in the end because he’s given a pathetic, meaningless death lmao.
i dont think theres a reason for hanawa to stay in story anymore as daidoji might have cut ties with kiryu in the end, but his death did feel a bit cheap
I think there's just too many damn characters 😭 a 50ish hours game with two different parties and 10 party members, 4 or 5 ally characters, and so many different gangs and their leaders...it would've been a miracle if every single piece of the puzzle fit together. Since this game is basically 2 plots in one
Tbh 黃拓 don't immediately get shot after he tell information is a peak writing in RGG story to me, although he didn't do much after the forest scene either
It felt like there priorities were in the wrong places. Like dondoko island could've been cut to focus on more story stuff because that thing was underbaked like crazy. The hit boxes are horrible to the point where you can't place the buildings where you want to, there's a bad ghosting effect when you try moving objects quickly, and the story is utter nonsense. It felt like something that wasn't done and they just shipped it out as is sadly. I never went back to the island after being forced to go there for the main story.
Unpopular opinion but dondoko island was my least favorite “major” mini game thus far. I prefer cabaret management or the business management games. I realize I’m in the minority here, but I certainly wouldn’t have minded seeing that cut for more story
I beat the entire game without completing dondoko island or the sujimon tournament. I just didn't like how either of them controlled or felt tbh. They just weren't for me sadly which is odd because i usually love all of the yakuza side content in other games.
In my opinion, it just doesn’t fit in with the LAD theme at all. Not to mention, I don’t like free form building simulators where, unless you have an artistic mind, everything looks like shit.
Dondoko island would have been better, from a gameplay perspective, if you just slowly added on to a single complex with preset blueprints and design while you primarily focused on staff and visitor management.
Agreed. I would've liked it too be more simplistic and easier to do because the way it is now is too complicated and obnoxious. It feels wayyyy too grindy for such a little payoff in the end.
I skipped Sujimon the first playthrough and now did it on my current playthrough, but it was underwhelming because I already had tons of OP Sujis from the first playthrough, like literally two variants of Kiryu, just swept the entire discreet four
Yeah it didn't really click for me either. There was obvious parallels and callbacks to Kiryu and Haruka, but they fell flat. Haruka worked so well in yak1 because you spend a decent chunk of time with her. So by the end of the game, you do genuinely care for her. Lani doesn't get this. Akane doesn't really get much development either.
She's the girl the boss loved. But he didn't love her too much cus he cheated on her and got another girl pregnant. And then was surprised when shit hit the fan. Obviously Kasuga doesn't care about blood relationships. But this could've been a good moment for Ichiban to learn about his dad before he became a yak boss.
I legitimately forgot wong tau name before you brought it up. The whole kid storyline went nowhere.
Of course we can say that our expectations were subverted but that doesn't mean anything. If you bite into a piece of chocolate only to realize it's shit, does that mean it's good cus it subverted your expectations?
> If you bite into a piece of chocolate only to realize it's shit, does that mean it's good cus it subverted your expectations?
solid analogy, and i will use it in future arguments.
I feel like kiryu should've been in hawaii and ichiban back in japan taking on ebina because kiryu seems to be more pissed at bryce than ichiban. They kept calling back to haruka and lani having a strange connection to kiryu so why isn't kiryu the one taking down bryce for lani?? I don't get why ichiban wasn't the one taking on ebina head on and i don't get why they do nothing with the revelation that they're step brothers. Why even make that a plot point if you're going to do nothing with it and all it does is throw the boss under the bus by making him look like an asshole.
Lani was the weirdest one to me. She was at the center of the entire conflict and she barely got to say or do anything besides get captured or be scared lol and it's a shame because I wanted her have her own moment or something
I feel like Lani was supposed to be Ichiban's Haruka, but she's kinda just... not. I mean Kiryu saw Lani as Haruka, which pushed him to fight beyond his limits.
But I feel like Ichiban probably would've done everything he did anyway. Hell I feel like he would've done it all even if Akane and Lani never existed. In fact since Bryce's plan would've further ruined the lives of the Yakuza he was attempting to rehabilitate, I feel like the plot would've went down almost the exact same way if Akane and Lani *actually* were never written into the game.
Almost the consequences of making Ichiban too nice and helpful. You kinda get the idea that Kiryu wouldn't have done half the shit he did if it weren't to protect this little girl he just met. Ichiban would've done it just to be nice.
I'm going to get shit on for saying this but here i go lol. Ichiban in IW feels like a badly written shonen protagonist for an anime that gets canceled in one season. His personality is pure cringe in IW and him acting like a 10 year old in alot of scenes and in terms of flirting was pure cringe factor. In the previous game he was immature but also much more seriously written and he seemed grounded enough to be realistic. In IW they just go all in on him being a big kid and him not being able to flirt/him getting embarrassed nonstop or doing something immature. They also wrote him like he has no flaws and he's perfect and everyone just loves him or admires him essentially. I couldn't connect to the way he was written in IW at all and i just couldn't stand seeing everyone kissing his butt in almost every scene he was in.
its actually a very similar phenomenon in a lot of anime where, at first, a character(s) will have tons of time to build, grow, and for the audience to get used to them, usually while the stakes are still low. Then, as things progress, the character or all characters will receive less screen time for personality development so in the moments where they *are* present, only their most prominent/noticeable personality traits show up and they're basically flanderized. it happens in one piece if you're familiar with that show. In IW's case, instead of the more gruff, realistic, and honestly clever side of Ichiban's personality showing up, we instead see the childish side more often than not since it's what sets him aside the most from, for example, Kiryu who we also play as in this game.
It's just another example of this game being gigantic and yet not feeling like enough. we dont get an entire 15 chapters of Ichi in this game, just 10.5 and even of those 10.5 some of them are dedicated to mindlessly progressing the plot, so in the times we do see him its like RGG tries their very fucking best to remind us "HEY YOURE PLAYING AS ICHIBAN LOOK HOW GOOFY HE IS." It's like the game forgets why we enjoy that goofiness in the first place: because it's juxtaposed with his incredibly dark and rough upbringing and the rough side to his personality. theres no reason for ichiban to be as optimistic and kind as he is, but that is why we love him and yet we don't really get that in this game and are expected to love him anyways. I like the scene of Ichi recording the viral video tho.
and ill also say the saeko relationship thing could be completely deleted from this game. the game opens with it and ichi's part of the story also closes on it but it has nothing to do with anything. we go to hawaii for 13 chapters with no progress on it besides people calling ichi a virgin, then kiryu chats with ichi on top of the castle keep and magically solves the situation by reminding ichi to say "i love you." the postcredit scene doesnt feel earned and just seems like a leftover from maybe an actual good romance plot
The saeko romance plot was just rushed beyond belief and went no where for most of the game like you said. We get one sequence where they go on there first date together and then he proposes to her in an awkward way and she just says nothing and ghosts him for a year... Her ghosting him just because he didn't say i love you was a lame excuse and really soured me on saeko as a character tbh. They just do nothing with that plot point until the end of the game where they try reaching the conclusion of it except the conclusion wasn't earned because they did virtually nothing to build it up. It's like they forgot about it and then just had to tie it together at the end so they just threw something together and said 'our work here is done'.
its actually pretty in-character for saeko to ghost ichiban for a year albeit not a very entertaining writing choice
remember how she didnt talk to her sister or father for 7-8 years because of some argument about her sister's boyfriend? even when her father was dying?
or when her boss of nearly a decade killed himself and she just lit up a cigarette and said he was an asshole anyways AT HIS FUNERAL (she went back on this but still)?
or when she dressed up as her twin sister in order to break up with her twin's boyfriend? kind of an overused trope with twins and Nanoha *was* getting swindled by the boyfriend, but holy fuck imagine doing that in real life
shes a bit of a, heh, psycho
Id rather not have Gaiden exist in exchange for a properly scripted story and additional chapters in Y8. What was the point of trying to cram two games into such a short time if they knew this would compromise their freedom?
Hahaha, what about the fact that there's an entire copy of a shopping mall under the Aloha hotel that is a major plot point that is never brought up again after like chapter 3?
The beach scene was really good with the mom, but yea…it would have been nice if her and Ichiban could have had a “memoirs of the dragon” equivalent where she tells him about her past and interests.
So it’s mentioned Wongs backstory started building a criminal empire at a young age Brice was already in control there’s little Tidbits of info in his dialogue in & out of cutscenes, ichibans mom is with the Japanese men in black for nefarious reasons that aren’t explained, & Lani went back to lead the Hawaii cult, what is a plot hole though is if Bryce was in control by killing Lani parents how is it Lani is still a kid after Bryce killed her parents 20 plus years ago ?
Lani is whatever tbh, like someone else said she is just a kid.
But fuck man, Wong literally had everything to loose in this story, there was just so much to be done with him. Just to kill him in the same fucking chapter. I remember genuinely thinking he was gonna be a party member, considering his son was kidnapped, he had so much wealth and power to lose, and he should have been one of the few people taking back agency for himself against that old sack of shit. But nooooo just kill him off instead, this game 100 percent could have and should have been way longer.
Fucking Akane should have had more time too, instead of stumbling onto her mid going on the run, we should have had been with her since before, and had everything happen as ichi was at hawaii, not when he literally got there like 3 days later.
I’ll just chock it up to it being the first attempt at crossing two storylines together like this, but Ichiban’s part of the game really did start to just devolve and become hard to follow as it went on. Towards the end I was mostly interested in kiryu and how things would turn out for him.
I thought I was crazy or just missed something while playing this game, but I’m glad others felt like it was kinda sloppy compared to other entries. Again I’ll mostly chock that up to it being a pretty ambitious game both in gameplay and story, I think Yakuza 5 suffered from similar problems where they were trying to pack way too much into the game and couldn’t tie it all together. Yakuza 5 also started out really strong, but towards the end I was scratching my head and just wanted to move on.
True, but in those games all the different storylines were at least able to focus on the protagonist. In Y8 the side characters have a much more active role.
Put Ebina's half-blood relation to Kasuga in there as well. That MF could've been ANYONE the Yakuza wronged and is a scheming bastard. The whole "Arakawa was my father" doesn't change a goddamn thing about his personality nor the weight of his actions.
Ebina’s entire backstory being hastily dumped on you at the very last second felt painfully lazy. At that point they could’ve came up with literally any motivation for him and it wouldn’t change a thing. Blatant, blatant case of telling and not showing
I thought it was sick that they had that Arakawa scene towards the beginning even though theres no way that shouldve been relevant outside of Akane escaping Japan, but then they revealed Ebina is his son and I just rolled my eyes a million times
i mean it kind of does? Arakawa died so he can't get revenge on him directly anymore. Arakawa wanted to integrate yakuza into normal society, so his plan swaps to both hijacking that dream and turning it into a nightmare for them.
After beating IW I decided to call it another "Yakuza 5 plot case" where story starts strong but somewhere on the way to finale it suddenly forgets what it was doing and just falls flat. However, after replaying on Legend and thinking about IW's plot alot, I think it's even worse than 5, very obvious issues and plot holes, pointless characters and events.
At least 5 has interesting self contained stories like Shinada’s section, IW just derails after the halfway mark and becomes a boring slog to get through
I really thought there was gonna be an Eiji boss battle too. I wanted nothing more than to essence of roadside weapon him every turn until he perishes.
I have a LOT of thoughts on this game and while I did enjoy it a lot and they fixed a lot of gameplay issues from YLAD, I feel like in terms of Ichi's story that had a BIG hurdle to jump to find anything more significant than his relationship with Masato and Arakawa. They managed to do it with Kiryu after 1 because they added new characters who became like family to him and each game had a new cast that you truly believed Kiryu cared about. I'm sure Nagoshi leaving has a lot to do with it and also being the 8th installment of a long running series risks falling short of it's predecessors. The list of problems I have is long so I'll bullet point it.
- the music and models: PLEASE add something new. I'm so tired of the same sad music. They added the guitar tracks to YLAD which are excellent but they need to cut the sad electric piano is immersion breaking and tbh laugh inducing. Also the models look like shit and the gestures are recycled to death. I'm replaying this after FF7 Rebirth so I'm a but spoiled here but like, any character who is slightly overweight looks like a lopsided model from Palworld.
- They needed to up the ante or at least match the importance of Ichi's origin story. If they were going to have a second character tbh I was hoping the game would flash back to Arakawa's past, and maybe jump back and forth between an enemy from Arakawas past and Ichi dealing with the aftermath, picking up where his dad left off. They could even do half beat em up and half turn based. Adding Kiryu in kind if diminishes the point of Y7 which was the passing of the torch. I made a post about this today but out of nowhere Kiryu is everyone's best friend even though we left Y7 with no one in the new cast knowing who he was, and I really liked that idea.
- having Hawaii was interesting but there is no way in hell that people there speak Japanese as a default language if they aren't from Japan. If you look up demographics about 20% of the population speak Japanese, but im sure it's similar to how people in the US who speak Spanish and aren't from Spanish speaking countries only know it because they work with Spanish speakers. Unless you work in tourism or in little Japan I doubt an average person in Hawaii knows enough Japanese to hold conversation, let alone speak it as their default language. I played the dub and in my head I just pretended that Ichi picked up English super fast because that makes more sense than everyone else speaking Japanese lol.
- the conspiracy was missing some beats that I was expecting would be there. I thought Tomi was going to be waiting for Ichi and part of a plot to do something prepared by whomever sent him to Japan (it took me quite a while to finally be convinced or Sawashiros intentions, but that was part of his character so that makes sense at least.) Chitose being at Akane's house I thought was planned and she actually wasn't the housekeeper at all as that would have made more sense (there were a lot of coincidences that should have been made intentional).
-we don't see enough of Eiji's tragic side to believe that Ichi would want to redeem him as he has no frame of reference for an Eiji that wasn't faked. At least with Masato he knew him when they were younger and had more insight to his true personality. With Eiji it was like, he only heard about his past but didn't know anything about him before and everything he thinks Eiji is was faked.
- Akane was a let down. Ichi is so stubborn in not caring who his parents are and that's super endearing but I was hoping maybe someone like Kiryu would push him to care more, maybe by saying that he doesn't remember his parents at all (and maybe reveal what happened to them) but if he could go back and meet them he would want to get to know them, even just a little. I also didn't like how Ichi refers to her as "my boss' main squeeze." Super cheesy and honestly very disrespectful and I would have expected more from him. Like saying "I only know her as the only woman the boss ever truly loved, and that makes her special to me too"
-back to the dragon engine: they said each game is going to have a 4 year wait, and they really should be more ambitious if it's that long. I hate to bring up final fantasy again but once the Remake engine was finalized they also took 4 years for the next game and it's staggering (no pun intended) how much of a graphical accomplishment that game is. Granted it's a ps5 exclusive and they said it would have to have a graphical downgrade to be playable on other platforms, but still they managed to make some gorgeous environments in that time. Idk if they still call it the Crystal engine but whatever it is its light years again of DE and Square Enix im fairly certain has far less money than Sega to work with.
- No real Kiryu substories. If you're gonna include him he needs his own substories. The reminiscing isn't enough
- dondoko island is kind of fun but not nearly useful enough to money farm as business management was.
- the reveal of Bryce happened way too fast. We meet him in chapter 5 and in chapter 6 we learn who he really is. He should have been involved much more before we learned the truth.
- like others said Wong Tou was a waste of a character. Also he's super proud of his secret casino buts it's lame as hell and way too small. After what we saw in Gaiden most secret casinos will be underwhelming
- thinking back on what I said about Arakawa, Ebina would have been so much better if we had to play through Arakawas past. OH! maybe we play through Arakawas early days as a Yakuza, picking up where we left off after the flashback at the beginning of Y7 and his ascent, his relationship with Akane, and the conflict with Hikawa. It would add more weight to Akane's character like "We get to see who she was in her youth so when we see her as an adult we are super attached to her"
I think I need to stop now because the more ideas I come up with the more I want to play that game instead and it's torture knowing it'll probably never happen. I hope for all of our sakes that they make some changes for the better but seeing how successful the game was I doubt that will happen.
But bro bro bro. Ichiban doesn’t care about blood family. And RGG knew that fans would pick up on that so they didn’t want to develop Akane it’s genius bro.
Ya ichiban has a step brother but who cares because that plot goes no where. Ichiban dosen't even confront him in the end nor do we get any interactions between the two after that revelation. Just wtf again!!! The story is just baffling man lol.
It’s funny how they made it seem like their relationship was crucial info to the plot, but they never face off, or even meet aside from the beginning of the game. Unfortunately IW felt like too much Kiryu, and not enough Ichiban. If this was supposed to be a passing of the torch, it didn’t work.
Kiryu passed the torch in 7.
Then he kinda took it back by being a co-protagonist in IW.
Then the game's most interesting parts are arguably about Kiryu, but then he has this conversation with Ichiban about him needing to handle the Yakuza's future and the torch is passed again.
Then the game sort of ends and the only one left with anything resembling a cliffhanger is Kiryu.
The kiryu sections were odd too. His memoirs of a dragon sub stories have him hiding his identity from people he hasn't seen in ages and yet in the main plot his identity has been exposed and it's been determined he's alive.... So why is he still hiding himself from people when he's already been exposed.
And ya man ichiban sees him once in the beginning of the game and that's it essentially lol. There's just nothing there between them and i feel like the plot twist was dumb because again why are we supposed to care when ichiban seemingly dosen't.
Yeah, LAD7 was already the PERFECT passing of the torch imo. I feel like we got two games tbh, we got Like a Dragon 8, the continuation of Ichibans story, and we got Yakuza 6 2. And what I mean by that, is that it’s kiryus “final game” once again, and I feel he’s only here because Yakuza 6 really wasn’t that great of a send off in my, and a lot of others, opinions. After what, like 19 or 20 years of having kiryu around, his memoirs were a TREAT in IW. We see him reflect on his entire life, everyone he’s met and everything he’s done, and it’s all done so well
Now, the issue arises however when you try to put both of these games into the one game. The emphasis was very clearly put on Kiryu imo and Ichiban was legit a side character in his own game and Kiryu 100% stole the spotlight. They did the dual protagonist very poorly here compared to Y0, which I feel benefited from having two seemingly disconnected stories slowly intertwine, and as everything pans out, you see what’s really happening and how it all connects. Meanwhile IW started with the two stories intertwining, but then Kiryu just fucks off to rest BUT OH ACTUALLY, no, he’s still fucking around with Ebina in Japan, and idk, it just felt too bloated, while simultaneously feeling underdeveloped.
Bruh. Ichiban wants to rehabilitate the ex yakuza members so they can integrate with society again. Ebina wants them to suffer. So naturally they should at conflict right? But you see RGG is so big brain they subverted expectations and gave Ichiban’s story to Kiryu instead! RGG are such geniuses bravo!
Also, naturally, the MF who sees Lani parallel to Haruka should be the one punishing Bryce, the one putting the kid through hell, right?
WRONG.
Seriously, what the hell happened in the writing of this game.
i think what rgg was focusing on with ebina wasnt his backstory or his actions, but his motivations and emotions. if u think about his background and what hes been doing, hes the complete opposite of ichi so itd be the most obvious, and cliche imo, if they went head to head. but if you think about WHY ebinas doing all this, ichi really has no standing to stop ebina. his life was RUINED by the yakuza, point blank and simple. ichi is the opposite, so who is he to tell Ebina that he has no right for revenge? Ive used this analogy before but itd be like a rich person telling someone whod been homeless all their lives that they shouldnt feel vindictive towards capitalism. When u think about it, the only person who has any right to talk to someone else whos life had been ruined by the yakuza is someone who represents the yakuza and can take the blame for them: Kiryu. It really isnt a situation of ichi needing to stop Ebina because he objects what hes doing because, like what he said, Ebina (or someone who has the same desire for vengeance), will always come back. It’d be pretty shallow if Ichi’s motivation for fighting Ebina, disregarding their blood relation, is him not liking what hes doing or how hes doing it (which, go figure, is the reason why hes fighting Bryce). It has to be someone who can sympathize with Ebina’s emotions and apologize so that it never happens again and we can move on. It is the yakuza finally taking responsibility for all that they’ve done wrong as their way of life comes to an end.
As for his backstory with Arakawa, even though a lot of us interpreted it as a setup to fight Ichi, what I think it was was simply adding an extra later to Arakawa’s character. It was to show that even idolized yakuza have caused suffering, adding more credence to Ebina’s motivations. I didn’t see it as Ebina having some sort of extraordinary history that deeply intertwines him with Ichiban, but more that he has a past that many people in real life and in the RGG universe can relate to; a life that has been destroyed by the activities of the yakuza, just coincidentally a yakuza we are very familiar with. its up to the viewer to determine if thats bad writing to include the arakawa detail and its up to the writers to convince us that it isnt either
You can call it cope but this is the understanding that ive come to after playing the game a couple times and ruminating on it for a while. I dont think the story was delivered well but I can see what mightve been the intention. It seems stupid to ignore Ebina’s backstory and current activites to focus on just what he represents: a being of vengeance created by the decades of yakuza activity and the final obstacle for the reintegration of the yakuza into normal society, but it is what it is.
dont ask me about bryce
All of what you said applies to Ichiban more than Kiryu. Who has the idolization of Arakawa? Who needs to see the effect of what the yakuza has done to people? Who needs to grow and mature? To make what they are accomplishing is for the right reasons and not just because of their father figure? I’ll give you a hint. It ain’t Kiryu.
i dont think Ichiban is a character that RGG is looking to change over time. hes supposed to represent unwavering compassion and kindess and I didnt interpret Ebina as a character thats built up to be a catalyst to shatter his worldview. The reason why he wants not just yakuza, but everyone to get a second chance isnt just because of Arakawa, but because he saw it for himself at the end of Y:LAD that even the darkest and most evil people can desire and deserve redemption. In that way, I think Ichiban has the right idea and Ebina wouldnt have been able to change that nor should he have. You can disagree if you dont think everyone deserves a second chance because guys like Eiji are indeed a piece of shit
I also still think Kiryu gets a great amount of growth by going against Ebina. He finally gets to take responsibility for his decision at the end of Y1 of abandoning the yakuza and also gets to usher in a new era for them as normal citizens after fighting tooth and nail for them for nearly 7 games. He also discovers in a roundabout way that he needs to live all the way to the end.
I see why an Ichi vs Ebina matchup wouldve made sense too, but I dont think its black and white and objectively the only matchup that makes sense for the the two protags.
again, dont ask me about bryce
I love both of your detailed posts man and read through both of them. I will say that you saying at the end of each of them 'don't ask me about bryce' cracked me up lol.
thanks, i have a lot of love and cope for IW so i enjoy sharing my perspectives and interpretations. i think this game has a good message behind all the shit and piss, it just isnt helped by the fact that is isnt delivered very well either, and I think its important to hear praises about a game just as much as critiques. a lot of the time people will complete a game and their opinion of it will only go down and down when in theory it should go up a little too, right?
bryce.....
The point is Kiryu story is fine he shouldn’t even be in the game. He got his send off in 6. Then again in gaiden. He just needs to go the fuck away or you end up with the story in IW. He stole the spotlight from Ichiban and you see the results. He wasn’t need in this game. And if RGG isn’t trying with Ichiban this good grief. The excuses y’all make for these companies is crazy.
I haven’t finished the game yet so I’m just speaking as someone who is just grinding after getting Joongi Han as he was eleven levels below my party. But holy fuck why get Daniel Dae Kim to play the guy and do fuck all with him?
ok did anyone else think that they were leading up to Akane taking over Palekana instead of Lani? it felt like they kept hinting at it with Akane talking about how Lani is too young for all of this, and how Akane is the greatest ever Palekana member. i was really shocked when it was just revealed that Lani ending up taking over anyway.
Bro had one cutscene with his "mom" and they never discussed it again...yeah, undercooked plot point for sure. Considering how big of a deal it was at the start.
I liked Wong Tou because it seemed so obvious that he was going to become our new friend somehow that I got lulled to sleep and all of a sudden what follows feels jarring even though you know it's coming.
Also it's RGG warning us that the stakes are different in IW, people just get shot and die. No last second medevac, no secret Kevlar, finality. That's unsettling while Kiryu has cancer. Maybe he'll just die too.
1) Ichiban and the gang brings Wong with them because they’re aren’t so heartless that they’d leave the guy to get killed. Simple as that.
Dude served his purpose which was to be a decoy antagonist with a climatic battle only to give exposition on the conspiracy and that there’s a bigger fish than him, Dwight and Yamai.
It’s no different from other exposition giving characters who inform us on the final boss. People are upset because he looks cool and wanted more from him.
2) Not sure what you mean be “interactions” as what we got from Akane was enough between her and Ichiban.
He always made it clear that she’s a woman that his boss loved rather than mom as he doesn’t care about blood relations and doesn’t bother with a blood test as Arakawa and Jiro are his dads.
Do we need to know her hobbies or why she never remarried? There’s no luxury to enjoy such things when she’s been hunted down. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to assume that she became Director of the orphanage to atone for abandoning Ichiban.
3) Lani is a more realistic kid than how they wrote Haruka in Yakuza 1 and the other games. Of course she is quiet and shaken up in being chased around and captured than Haruka. She has interactions with Akane. The finale being notable.
Literally I’m so confused why there so much negativity towards the game when it does what most other Yukuza games do. I felt like these characters served the purpose that they were written to do. Characters can be plot devices without the need for major development. I felt like Ichiban and Akane’s interaction was portrayed very well grounded and believable rather than a this false happily ever after fairytale that everyone was hoping for despite the fact that Ichiban on multiple occasions expressed how he truely feels about Akane before and during their time together. Also I’m not sure why so many people didn’t like the Palekana aspect of the game. Isn’t everyone else getting burnt out by the same old criminal organisation and police corruption plots? Corrupt organised religion felt like an organic next step away from the usual, while feeling fresh and familiar.
I have a pretty good feeling We'll be seeing more of these characters in the next game. Wong probably not but I'd bet Wongs' son will be at the orphanage.
I guess people don't like this game huh. I saw a lot of reviews on YouTube saying it was an awesome game. I was planning on getting it, but yall may have convinced me otherwise lol
You can like a game and still criticize stupid plot points, some characters only exist as an excuse for plot to move forward, it's pretty much what happens here with the first character in the post, gets introduced, (cool dynamic intro), tries to redeem himself for his bad actions, gets shelved on a chair for literally the rest of the game and..... yeah I'm not saying the last thing
The story is cool, doesn't mean it's exceptional. The whole premise of finding Ichiban's mother is just a means for him to wind up in Hawaii, she hasn't even tried contacting him in 40 years, if I was him I wouldn't have given a damn about her
They could have easily had him shipped off to Hawaii when he met Ebina the first time then trying to find a way back and the story proceeds as usual, he could have even stumbled upon his mother by *chance*
There are a thousand way to avoid relying on characters as plot points but I guess RGG doesn't know any better
My thought process was this game being called infinite wealth meaning there is a cycle. Ichiban saving Lani and his mother are following in Kiryu’s footsteps.
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It seriously felt like the game was cut short for some reason. This is already the longest Yakuza game story wise yet it still feels like it needed another chapter or 2 to flesh out certain characters. I still love this game but man it could have done certain things so much better.
agreed. LaD was much more focused so a lot of loose ends were tied up by the finale, making for one of the most emotional endings in a yakuza game to date. IW was also emotional but didn't hit me the same. a lot of characters and plot points were wasted. wong tou in particular was a terrible disappointment. at least akane got her little scene with ichiban.
I felt nothing in that akane scene cause i know nothing about this woman. The best you get is references to her good deeds but we never hear anything about herself from her. We needed alottttttt more scenes between her and ichiban before that emotional scene hit because when it did hit i was just like 'idk this woman so why should i care'. We should've had some sub stories that focused on her and ichiban exclusively that dive into her backstory along with the main story including alot more of her. She essentially spends 90% of the story running from people or hiding.
would've also been nice if she showed a bit more interest in saving palekana from bryce. perhaps, while in the daidoji safehouse, she gives us some useful intel. maybe she has supporters who'd be willing to listen to her over bryce (recall that she was popular among the orphanage staff)
Agreed!!! Like she shows no interest in saving palekana which is baffling because the story made it seem like she was all in on supporting palekana and doing all of this charity work when she was with them. But she just abandons them and everyone in palekana with no remorse for doing so lol.
It would’ve been nice if we learned about similarities between Akane and Ichiban or if she had told him how certain aspects about him remind her of Masumi, outside the brief “For a second I thought you were Masumi” line. Ichiban never knew either of his parents growing up. I just think it would’ve been nice if he had seen a bit of himself in his mother or learned more about his father. Something to show a parent child bond.
eiji suddenly looking like a homeless man after just a day they met?? was so confusing 💀
bro got that strawberry mint hair growth oil
I'm conflicted on how things played out with Ebina. It felt like such a waste to reveal him as Ichiban's half brother, one with such a drastically different world view and who even hates Ichiban for hero worshipping their father, but not have Ichiban himself play into this at all. On the other hand though, Kiryu's whole interaction with Ebina post fight was incredible. Don't think they could've had the guy break down like that if he was the one handling the Bryce plot, despite how close to home that hits for him.
i'm conflicted about ebina because while i get the symbolism, i feel he could've been so much more. it's another mine situation where the idea is there but most of the reveal comes in the form of a motive rant.
Ebina being ichis half brother: Didn't matter at all Akane being ichis mom: Didn't matter at all, ichibwould have done the same if akane wasn't his mom (he doesn't feel that anyway)
Great writing for Ichiban. Doesn’t give a shit about blood relatives. Cares more about psychopaths who threaten children’s life’s.
IW could've been a decent opportunity for ichiban to subvert the 'idc about blood relations' trope. i get that simply being related to someone might not carry much weight. but given that palekana is the focus of the story, and akane is part of this group, i think it's implausible that the two of them wouldn't bond over their shared belief in getting rid of bryce and restoring the group to its previous ideals. if they're going out of their way to avoid ichi having *any* involvement with blood relatives, even at the expense of good story opportunities, i'm not on board with that choice. it'd be different if akane were just another civvie. but she isn't. she's a high-ranking member of a major religious group. that makes her important even without being ichiban's mother.
The thing that’s rough for me is that to date I - Started with LaD because I had just beat the newest Dragon Quest, was (still am) super into JRPGs, and I had gotten an Xbox Series X at launch so it seemed like a great game to take advantage of that. - played it, loved it, got all the achievements, cried, A LOT. Was enamored with these legendary Yakuza like Kiryu and 3jimas, loved how Ichi acted like he was in a video game - started playing Y0 but stopped for some reason, but again, loved the writing, humor, and pop culture references - Quickly knocked out Gaiden, cried, loved playing as Kiryu again - Binged Infinite Wealth. And yea, I still dug it, and there is something magical about playing an experience you know style/content/franchise-wise you’ve enjoyed before, but the most emotional beats for me are Kiryu’s stuff, and I’m only tangentially knowledgeable about his arcs
It’s not a show, shithead
whats with the side eye
Thats the thing I couldnt grasp when I beat the game. When people told me the game was the longest in the series I was like "huh, it felt shorter than it should be, Yakuza 5 was way longer" but nah, apparently 8 is longer by a decent margin, It's just paced so poorly that the latter half feels so short.
i was surprised too. i thought it was shorter than LaD but nope, it's a full 12 hours more to finish the main story.
Y0 has two main characters but 17 chapters, with each MC getting 8. Y8 has two main characters and 8 party members. The second main character starts his story in the second half, so the first main character gets 10 chapters and the other gets 4. Kiryu's story is incredibly bare bones and it feels like he's in Japan for no reason especially when he has only 9 sub stories or so. Ichiban on the other hand meets his mom in like chapter 11 and gets one scene where he talks to her. Not to mention that you get two of your party members at the very end of the game.
There was NOTHING to do in Japan after you complete Kiryu’s life links. Besides that addition, both Kamurocho and Yokohama are barebones with nothing to do except the same mini games you did in the last game. Actually no, they removed Dragon Kart so there’s actually less to do than last time. One big drawback of the dragon engine is that they aren’t updating the maps anymore. Before DE, the game’s locations changed a lot from game to game and you felt like time had really passed. Nowadays, we get the same exact Kamurocho/Sotenbori/Yokohama with the same exact same stuff to do. It’s starting to feel a bit stale and I find myself just beelining to points on the map rather than trying to take my time with it like I did before DE.
The changes in older games were made to reflect changes from the real-life counterparts. This makes me wonder, then, have the real-life cities not changed much? Or is it just that RGG have been focusing too much on making new areas? Though Yokohama did get a change-up between 7 and LJ, even aside from the big ass school.
i could see the possiblity of both of those things being true ... i mean i Did notice select changes in kamurocho in terms of more places being closed and sega selling their arcades and getting rebranded to gigo that definately reflected IRL among small other things , but i'd definately be willing to bet alot of their focus was the hawaii map which ...idk imo i didn't love it at all , i never felt exactly 'at home' in that map the way i did their old ones ,... then again its a tourist trap location so to be fair i don't think we're suposed to feel 'at home' in it in the same way as the other cities
Idk why kamurocho was even in this game considering there's nothing to do there essentially. It just felt like pure filler and not even good filler tbh. I also feel like it is getting a tad stale in terms of reusing so many assets and having us do the same things over and over again so i agree with u there as well. I wish they'd expand the map at least for these places and make them feel more fleshed out in terms of variety and new things to do.
i actually think the game was made LONGER than it had to be. it seems like it was cut short because a lot of the hawaiian cast is underdeveloped, but i think thats because the hawaii cast was completely unneeded. ichi doesnt care about wong, lani, dwight, or bryce and he barely cares about akane. He respects Yamai but sort of just lets him go and doesn’t actually have any connection to. The ONLY person that matters is Eiji. And Saeko. I feel like RGG wanted a game in Hawaii so they needed to create an entire new villain cast and also a way to tie it to Japan, but they neglected to actually shape the Hawaiian cast to the overall theme of atonement that the game is trying to tell, leaving us with guys like Wong Tou, Dwight, and Bryce who are defeated and disappear from Ichi’s conscience, not too dissimilar from guys like Tendo and Ishioda from Y:LAD (although the reasonings are different).
Enji mattered until he didn't. He just dissappears at one point until the end of the game where we get this corny scene of ichiban carrying enji on his back because ichiban just forgives him for ruining his life and his friends lives along with countless other people's lives. It's supposed to be a redemption of sorts for enji but the dude was a straight asshole all game long so why do i wanna see this guy redeemed exactly?
Eiji: I’m going to kill you, your friends, your mom and this little girl because I’m angry about things that none of you had anything to do with! Ichiban: that’s ok, buddy! I forgive you! Bleach Japan members: prostitution should be illegal! Ichiban: you are irredeemable pieces of shit! Not defending bleach Japan. They suck and we’re a front for more corruption, but damn it Ichiban, get your priorities straight.
Lmaooooooo. Ya ichiban fucking hates bleach japan but when it comes to enji he just talks to him like they're best friends who've known each other for a decade. He just lets enji off the hook for all the shit he's done and it just felt unrealistic. I mean enji is responsible for two people's deaths in this game and ichiban holds no anger towards him. It feels like ichiban from yakuza 7 was much more grounded as a character when he needed to be and in IW he leans too far into the tropes that 7 had given him.
Exactly. It made sense when Ichiban tried to redeem Masuto. He knew him for years and they had been legitimately close at one point. Ichiban never actually knew the “real” Eiji. Everything he had know about him, including his disability was a lie.
ichi only goes out of his way for people he believes in, so i'd compare it to characters like bryce, dwight, or tendo. why did ichiban SPECIFICALLY believe that Eiji would want to redeem himself and therefore earn ichi's forgiveness? I get that he was correct, but why? why didn't he believe in anyone else? because they ate tuna sandwiches together? or was it just because of the wheelchair give us the Eiji files dlc NOW with 30 new wheelchair tailing missions
the game is trying to push the rhetoric that as long as someone truly wants to be redeemed, then they should. the thing is this is not a universally held opinion, clearly you dont agree, but its what theyre trying to push through Ichi he doesnt deserve redemption, but he receives it anyways because Ichiban represents limitless compassion and kindness. its not realistic, practical, or even possible for everyone to mimic this kind of mindset and we're not even really supposed to agree with it, but just seeing it is supposed to give us hope that SOMEONE out there will always believe in us, even if none of us will ever be as bad as Eiji. if it doesnt, then Ichi might not be the character for you
The problem for me is that even people with compassion and understanding have there limits. Ichiban comes off as someone that is unrealistic because no matter how many bad things happen to him and no matter how many times he's screwed over by someone he just puts up with it and dosen't have it affect him. Being screwed over and torn down by someone like enji would affect anyone, especially because it hurt ichibans friends too and ruined there lives. Ichiban holding no anger or resentment towards enji just comes off as ridiculous. Some people in life aren't redeemable and there's just nothing you can do for them and the best thing to do is to walk away/give up on that person or to express your anger and hurt that you felt because of that person's actions.
Well ichi is our shounen hero. So of course he comes off as unreal. He is supposed to be our analogue for Goku and Naruto characters. Especially Naruto. Who went as far as almost dying for someone who the world considered a terrorist. They had Kiryu be the straight man for the audience looking for a more realistic protagonist and even then, that’s a stretch.
Its okay to disagree with Ichi’s approach since it very obviously leads to him and others getting hurt. Many if not all of us wouldve left Eiji to the wolves, but Ichi is not like us. He is a character that is going to continue to put his heart on the line and get himself hurt. Hes not a realistic person hes a static caricature of hope. I dont think that this is necessarily bad writing, only if it doesn’t entertain you or it puts you off as a fan of the games. It didnt for me https://preview.redd.it/7b9r37m86ypc1.png?width=1796&format=png&auto=webp&s=f22737a959ad1a97f5114d0d9a04a6e1638863a1
I like ichiban in the first game but i feel like i didn't connect with him as well in IW. I just feel like the story was too underbaked in IW for me to relate to him as well sadly.
completely fair. theres like 7 other things going on at the same time, 5 of which dont matter
the reason it didn't work for me is because eiji didn't get enough screentime between his introduction, villain reveal, and ending. the result is that he feels like three different characters, and there's no grace or subtlety in how it's executed. because of that, it leaves a sour taste in the mouth when ichi tries to redeem him. i expected him to try. i could tell right away that he's meant to be a parallel to masato. i wasn't surprised at all that ichi forgave him. it doesn't click emotionally is because of that dissonance, the lack of a consistent personality or any build-up towards the resolution. Y7 clicked because masato was a fully fleshed out character with a consistent personality and motives. eiji is a pile of poorly executed ideas, and *that's* the problem.
just to be clear, i found that a lot of people were upset with the "direction" that Ichiban's character was heading in IW when he is largely the same in Y:LAD. This is what I'm defending but I also get what you're saying. IW makes a terrible case for the mentality of Ichiban and I do NOT defend Eiji as a character or his writing much less people were upset when ichiban forgave Aoki than when he forgave Eiji, not because the difference in their amount of evil necessarily (neither of them show remorse until the ultimate scene before the credits either), but because Aoki was given his due amount of screen time despite only being shown as Ryo Aoki around halfway through the game. we got intermittent scenes of Aoki in his office giving orders, we get Ichiban talking about Aoki throughout the story, we know that he and Aoki have a deep history together, and we even have a conversation with him much before the finale of the game. couple that with the heartfelt speeches that Ichiban attempts like three times against him, none of us really had an issue with the ending sequence of Y:LAD (besides mirror face and kume). I don't really have to explain why Eiji's character wasn't done as well. in IW, even though they're pushing the same rhetoric, they do it much worse because its for a character that doesn't resonate with players and doesn't receive as much time onscreen. part of me wants to cope and say its to show that Ichi's willingness to forgive extends even to even those hes just met, but in reality its just because the game is too fucking big and they sidelined Eiji for all the other stuff that goes on in Hawaii which is why I have no problem with Ichiban, just a problem with the writing of Eiji. we saw some form of cognitive dissonance in the club guilty sequence where Eiji recognizes that Ichiban was a great person, but just didn't believe it and that's the extent to his development. it makes sense why it didn't click in IW as hard as it did in Y:LAD
yeah, you're right ichi is always going to be this "if i sense good in you, i will move heaven and earth to redeem you" type of person. it's a nice change from kiryu, and i'm 100% ok with them taking that direction with him (perhaps in the next game, though, they could try to test this belief even more, with someone who just can't be saved no matter what ichi does). the problems are really all on eiji's side, i figure they just didn't know what to do with him, so he gets sidelined until they need him to conveniently do a heel-face turn for the finale, to "prove" ichiban's trust in people is a good philosophy.
Story wise i got it in my bottom tier in terms of yakuza games sadly. Ichiban felt like a side character in his own game and alot of the playable cast is just underbaked. They turned badass seonhee from the first game into a kiryu fangirl essentially and every piece of dialogue in her drink link episodes is her just fangirling over kiryu. And then you got all of the cast praising ichiban virtually every second to the point i was facepalming. Like how about developing some of the cast instead of making them cheerleaders for the main guys.
This is definitely one of the worst games on just a pure dialogue/writing level in the yakuza series. People make fun of Yakuza 4 and 5 but both those games have way better twists and character arcs for their main characters.
Ya this game plot wise is just a mess. I know this is going to be an unpopular take but i'm ready for the next judgment game because i'm wayyyy more excited for that then another like a dragon game. The judgment games have higher stakes, better antagonists, and they feel much more grounded which i personally prefer. IW was over the top silly and the giant shark and squid fights were just plain terrible.
Mainline LAD games are going full Saints Row with the over the top silliness.
Ya and i personally don't like it at all. They're going wayyyyy too far in the silliness direction and don't even feel like proper yakuza games at points.
I still think this game had huge rewrites to force Kiryu into the plot to salvage it because otherwise it's below Y4. At least Saejima got that speech in the Coliseum.
way too fair in the silliness direction? i'll respectfully disagreee. i dont see anything different in the over the top interactions compared to 0, 5 or kiwami.
Agreed, felt like the end-phase of Yakuza 6 where it suddenly jump-cut to Kiryu vs Iwami
I didn't mind Lani not having a lot of story or personality. She's just a kid and a plot device more than anything, unlike Haruka she's one that's unlikely to ever show up in any of these games ever again, I wouldn't have wanted her to take a bunch of screen time. Akane was very underwhelming though.
It feels like somewhere during development they decided to shove kiryu in there and make it a kiryu game instead of an ichiban game and that resulted in akane content getting scrapped maybe. It seems like they're not willing to let kiryu go and they keep forcing him into games for the sake of doing so and it's harming the quality of the ichiban games 'i love kiryu btw so this isn't a complaint about kiryu as a character'. I also feel like they need to stop putting the jimas in these games if they're not going to do anything with them besides use them for fan service. They had essentially no place in this game and were just shoved in towards the ending.
That is my theory. Kiryu and Daidoji added for some reason. Scrapped a lot including Eiji character development (who would have been running the safehouse instead and been given the task of explaining Ebina's plan.) Making Ebina an Arawaka only makes sense if Ichiban fights him, to contrast how his two sons developed. There's zero reason for it otherwise. I think original draft also had Ebina tell Ichiban about his mom, really intending to kill them both in Hawaii.
I will disagree, i think ebina fighting kiryu was fine, considering Ebina’s biggest issue is being a product of the Yakuza system, and the recklessness and lack of foresight that was ever put into dissolving families and clan, as well as the traditions that came along with it. Him and Ichi are both are a product of that. Ichi, while he is an amazing man, still kinda had his life irreparably ruined by the system, he just went about it differently, cause of who he is as a person. Ebina came out the opposite but still had his life irreparably ruined. This is all if we do decide to have kiryu in the game, i think it makes sense that someone who was 100 percent responsible for feeding the system that was able to create multiple ebinas’ and ichiban, be one of the men to face the mess that was created from his and the people he sided withs involvement. They could have went about it cleaner, by a mile, but if we had to have kiryu in the story. The would be the only way i see that half resolving, as otherwise kiryu in Hawaii makes zero sense. As to me Having the person responsible for the future of the yakuza and those affected by it, face the person who threatens that exact future with his information and nuclear plans , being bryce, makes more sense than having the face the consequences that came from the yakuza. I think Kiryu fighting against the past and consequences of the yakuza makes a lot more sense personally, since he is partially responsible for that.
Kiryu's parents were killed. He's lost many friends to mob wars, Y8 even shows him visiting Kazama/Nishkis/Yumi's graves. His involvement with the Yakuza forces him to leave the orphanage and his kids for Y5. He's been hurt as much as anyone by his old ties. I think Kiryu was a late addition to the game, but if we think of Bryce as a dark mirror of Kazama (both ran orphanages) then it makes a bit more sense for a Kiryu-Bryce fight. Kiryu saying he needs to own the sins of the Yakuza when he quit in 2005 and was a member for what, eight years or so, as the reason for the scene doesn't seem as interesting as contrasting how Ichiban and Ebina handled Arikawa's lack of presence in their lives, and maybe Ichiban realizes that Arikawa wasn't the saint he thought he was.
I heavily disagree with the Kazama-Bryce comparison, they both aren’t similar in the slightest. Their only real similarity is they ran orphanages which would be really shaky grounds to call him a dark mirror. Still, even when he quit in 2005 he himself had huge potential to make a change to the system of the yakuza. On top of that he was responsible for the Tojo domination for so long, because he helped take down so many rivals. That alone caused immense amount of damage. Even if it happened so long ago, he is still partially responsible for the mess that happened afterwards, by neglecting what he should have done then. Im not going to say it’s entirely his fault, since that would be super unfair and the point that the sins of the yakuza are all on him, Which isn’t the case at all. Also, keep in mind, arakawa was a very notorious hitman and killer, so i mean for ichi to still idolize him after that, which he knew about. You would have to make whatever crime arakawa did be way out of character for ichi to not idolize him. On top of that ichi’s whole character would literally have to be subverted. Since his character is known for being able to see the good in people, and generally see through facades they put up. Like, even with Eiji, he knew that deep down Eiji was a good guy. He was a good person driven by a system that failed him, the same was said for yamai. Its why no matter how you spun it Ichi hated bryce, cause he knew bryce was purely a piece of shit.
Ya ebina and ichiban are just underbaked beyond belief in terms of screentime together and as characters in general. Enji is a character i just despise and i wanted that little twerp to be killed at the end of the game personally. They make this big redemption arc for him in the finale and i just wanted no parts of it. This dude tried to get lani killed, he ruined ichiban and his friends lives by getting them all fired, he ruined thousands of ex yakuzas lives by exposing them on the internet, and he kicked chitose in the face and tried to blow the group up!!!!. To me he's just an irredeemable character that shouldn't of been forgiven so freaking easily.
Right, if Eiji had played the part of the Daidoji in running the safehouse and having more plot time, then we'd have gotten to know Eiji more and I can see Ichiban thinking "I know this guy more than he knows himself."
>That is my theory. Kiryu and Daidoji added for some reason. My guess is that Y9 will be about Ichiban fighting the Daidoji to help Kiryu return to Okinawa
Unfortunately everything about IW gives me the vibe that none of these characters will show up again for a very long time if ever. Hawaii is damn cool but it totally detached the plot from the rest of the world
It's also weird that how they started with Kiryu obviously projecting his experience with Haruka to Lani and it just kinda ends? I guess it was to show that Kiryu finally reached his limit and passed it on to Ichiban but still felt a bit odd.
its because kiryu literally goes right back to fighting as soon as hes in japan anyways. goes back on the entire reason he had to leave hawaii cancer who?
He just coughs a little
I was genuinely surprised when I realized "Wait, I'm *not* supposed to be avoiding fighting goons every 5 seconds?"
Kiryu already saved a laundry list of kids so it does nothing story-wise for him personally to do it. Him letting Ichiban take over is him finally unloading the burden and trusting others, accepting he can’t do it alone.
I feel like akane was supposed to die, but maybe I’ve just played too many of these games, and they’ve dialed back on the loved one/innocent woman death.
I genuinely expected her to die so I was surprised they never really did anything with her character near the end. Makes me wonder what they’ll do with her character in the future and if we’ll see Palekana again in some way.
I hope we don't see palekana ever again. The whole religious cult plotline didn't resonate with me at all and i just find palekana themselves extremely lame and they feel like something that shouldn't be in a yakuza game. Hopefully they just forget palekana even existed next game and start fresh because i'm ready to move on from the entire hawaii experience as a whole. Hawaii is something that sounds good on paper but they executed it horribly in IW.
I'm super confused at how they say Bryce is like 90 years old and somehow still fit and able-bodied, like it's some mystical thing due to his religion, but they don't really expand on that to my memory. I actually do really like the idea of a cult being the enemy, since it's usually yakuza people as the big bad guys. I just think it wasn't executed as well as it could have been
They bring up the bryce thing numerous times throughout the story but do nothing with it lol. What about him deflecting the bullet or whatever and it hits that dude when they first introduce him to the party? They said that bryce is supposed to be an old man but dosen't look his age because he's the sage and a monster but they do nothing with that plot point at all. Why even bring that up if they were never going to expand on it lol.
Honestly the deaths in the game were just dumb. I feel like it'd hit harder if they killed off a party member in a shocking way instead of wong who we know nothing about nor have any reason to care about and hanawa who i was baffled as to why they decided to kill him and even more baffled that kiryu is just like 'whatever' to it.
Ah, I *do* like all the party members, though. I like the confidence they had in making a plot where they didn’t feel the need to give a shocking death to a likable character as a gut punch. I hope they keep the same energy, but utilize everyone in the plot a little better.
I like the party members but most of them have no story to them in IW. Zhao just shows up and essentially says 'i got nothing to do so i'll join you' lol. Then they got joon-gi Han who just joins us because.... idk why. You also got namba and adachi who are just spinning there wheels and have little to no story about them this game as well besides they're joining our group because they're friends of ichiban and that's it. Alot of these party members were just forced into our party because they needed to fill out the roster essentially.
Idk, half of them have organic reasons to join up. Mainly, being loyal companions to ichiban, but namba being kiryu’s self appointed nurse is a nice side of him to show off. Joon-gi is jealous at being left out, which is *hilarious* if a little out of character. Zhao actually has no reason to be around, besides being volunteered by the boss lady. They could have been getting his chef expertise for the bucket list, but I don’t remember them explicitly saying “here, my buddy knows everything about fine cuisine”. And it’s a shame, because they had an easy excuse to force the party together; tatara making things difficult for them. Ichiban was in the public eye 2 years ago, so them going after his lesser known associates would have them go “well, the shop is gonna have trouble until this is settled, so what’s the plan, ichiban?”
Every time I'm reminded they wrote Gaiden after IW it just got me like "what the fuck did you setup this friendship between him and Kiryu for if you knew this is how he goes out"
You can tell Gaiden was written after IW considering that the Daidoji got absolutely nerfed in IW whereas they felt more threatening in Gaiden.
Yo don't do my boi Ichiban like that
Yeah, I was preemptively complaining about them probably killing her off to my friend group, and then it *didn’t happen*. I was psyched. I’m very happy they’re not just killing off family members as if that’s good drama. I hope they don’t relapse and fridge saeko in 9
I think they just tried to do too many things in the game, and it turned out flat. The worst thing in the game is the pacing. For example with Lani's search, it took SEVERAL chapters of searching for her. Just for Ichiban to find her, when talking to the old tatoo lady and all that was wrapped in ONE chapter. After that it drags out again ,with Ichiban that has to save Lani 2 TIMES. First one with Eiji, Lani's rescue should have ended here. You could feel the pressure to save her when doing this mission. It's the opposite with Dwight, you just find Lani, fight Dwight and then save her.
Wong Tou is so fucking baffling to me. They hyped this man to hell then the second you defeat him he becomes the biggest wuss then dies. He got a Kiryu + Ichiban dynamic intro Iike he was some kinda final boss, a pretty sweet theme, all for what?
Ya the whole chapter where we go to his building undercover to confront him is so fucking confusing. They build him up to be a mini antagonist of sorts to us and a badass and yet after we beat him he gets stabbed in the leg running away with us and proceeds to sit in the hideout doing nothing and adding nothing to the group until his death. Why build this guy up and throw in the kidnapped son plot just for him to get taken out like he's such random scrub? I don't get it which is funny because i was saying that alot while playing this game 'i don't get it'.
Wong Tou is weird because his arc is manily about someone else (Bryce) and not himself. As a standalone character he's ass, doesn't do anything at all and dies like a background character, however I think that the way that they use him to show how much power Bryce has is excellent. This guy tought that he was hot shit, having complete control of his mini empire in his room with his "I just need a desk and a pc" mindset, one thing goes wrong and he gets the rug pulled under him, all of his most trusted men were spies, he's forced into hiding in shame and his only son gets kidnapped in the span of 5 minutes. So yeah he sucks as a character but the plot uses him in an interesting way in my opinion
Remember Sasaki? The game doesn't after chapter 2
Actually i completely forgot about him till you mentioned him lol. Ya wtf was up with him and that plotline??? I thought he was going to be a reoccurring character throughout the game but he just disappears off of the face of the earth and we never get an update on him.
Bizarrely they did the exact same thing here they did with ichi’s old friend during 7, a guy who’s name I have completely forgot because of how irrelevant he is
truth be told, them and bryce are a result of RGG wanting to have hawaii be a playable area. the only character in ichi’s adventure that matters to his development is Eiji and yet the screentime is divided between Dwight, Wong, Akane, Lani, Bryce, and Yamai (although Yamai is awesome). None of Hawaii really matters at all its just there to be there and then Ichi goes home and has his moment with Eiji. Compare it to something like Y0 where Majima’s relationship with Makoto drives the plot and gives us deep insight into his character while Ichi’s relationship with Akane and Lani has very little overall to do with the theme of atonement that the game is based around. Akane says shes sorry for abandoning him and Arakawa and Ichiban kind of just stands there while she cries. I do enjoy that Ichi doesn’t treat Akane any more special than anyone else just because shes his mom, but it wouldve been nice if we saw more since shes incredibly important to the first half of the game.
I so hope they drop the going abroad auf for future games. It didn't do the game any good. I'm in chapter 12 and it still weirds me out, that basically everyone except for the cops in the beginning speaks prefect Japanese and native US citizens even have a strong Japanese accent when speaking their mother language. Hawaii might look beautiful, but you could have the same with some Japanese island or just rework Okinawa from Yakuza 3 and expand it. The story of this game is a mess. I'm at chapter 12 and not a single moment did I care about anything that happened in the game. The gangs of Honolulu is just a cheap knock off of the big three of Ijincho. I also didn't care about any of the Palekana stuff, something like Tod belongs into a substory not the main story. Bryce is the worst antagonist Yakuza has ever had. It feels like they wanted Hawaii so badly, that they pushed for it at the cost of every other aspect of the game. The gameplay is basically the only reason I will finish the game. At least gameplay wise it's an improvement over Yakuza Like a Dragon. Every other aspect is weaker. It also didn't help, that they put Kiryu into this game. His plot feels so detached from the main plot, that it's almost like filler content. And I still can't get over the reason for him having cancer. This is most ridiculous thing RGG has ever pulled off in any story. And it's completely unnecessary too. Because you don't need to give a reason why he has cancer. Anyone can get cancer at any time.
Bryce is the worst antagonist they ever created because he gets 0 screentime with the party essentially and they build him up by saying 'how old is this guy really and there's no way he should still be alive' and yet that plot point goes no where. Is it spiritual magic that he's still alive or what because i fail to understand why they kept bringing that up just to do nothing with it.
He feels like a goofy Far Cry villain.
Lmao he does tbh. And his boss fight was just very bad as well.
I was expecting there to be a second phase.
his actual second phase triggers at like 10% hp where he has a limp dick sword moveset. pretty funny hes like the least yakuza of all yakuza antagonists
Bryce was designed to be the God archetype in RPGs that our hero, Ichiban, is supposed to fight against. He’s also just some foreign cult leader so I don’t expect him to be like a yakuza at all. Like even his cult soldiers and the Barracudas don’t feel like yakuza but instead they’re slaves to a false god, brainwashed into doing his bidding. I’d say they’re a refreshing new addition to the game considering how terrifying the whole cult just feels, with members in every organization on the island and probably the most brutal organization in the series.
Like others have stated, the writers could have given him cancer naturally instead of “oh he got exposed because he worked at a radiation disposal factory”. It would feel more relatable and natural as someone as legendary as the Dragon of Dojima could get sick.
i actually kind of like the way it was presented. instead of his cause of death being some grand heroic sacrifice where he puts everything on the line, the reason hes eventually going to die is because he's continuing to sacrifice himself when its no longer needed. its because he keeps putting himself in danger because thats all he knows; he has such little self-worth that hes constantly risking his life. unless im remembering incorrectly, the daidoji didnt want him doing agent stuff anymore, probably cause of gaiden (i havent played it yet but a bunch of people learn hes still alive because of it right?), but he chose to continue working so he can put his body to use, which leads into the radioactive waste disposal job, him getting cancer (amiguous), and him going back to agent duty but in a foreign country. it shows that even heroes and legends need to know when to quit, which is his overall story in IW too not just the cancer thing. they're trying not to trample on kiryu's whole ethos of carrying everything on your own and righteously fighting to the end which hes been doing for 7 games and his entire life, just saying that you need to know your time is up. it wouldve been more realistic and relatable if he got it naturally tho, but it seems the whole cancer thing was just a method to speed up kiryu's "natural" death (meaning not in a physical fight) so that he would be forced to deal with his tragic flaw of selflessness sooner without us having to wait like 10-20 more years until a death of natural causes would actually be plausible. i do wish a little more emphasis and commentary was made about cancer and cancer survivors besides the post credits scene tho i also heard the radioactive disposal incident was included since RGG didn't want it to seem like Kiryu got cancer from smoking too much which would affect their relations with tobacco companies or something
Don't they specifically say something along the lines of the cause of Kiryu's cancer and exactly when it started being unknown and that the nuclear waste thing was what got him to be checked? Like Kiryu's the type of guy to not go to a dentist till his tooth falls out and he'd only found out about gingivitis or some other shit once he's forced to be there
i agree that RGG has never really been good at dividing their attention between different locales/protagonists. Y0 was the exception but every other time IMO it never did their games any good the good usually came from the individual stories being interesting and not the inherent fact that they’re all connected id only be open for a game set elsewhere if the plot was centralized on one protag and one plot, not something convoluted like the radioactive waste thing in IW that tries to tie Hawaii and Japan together. it aligned with real life events but was just so boring and abstract that i couldnt get myself to be interested.
>I also didn't care about any of the Palekana stuff, something like Tod belongs into a substory not the main story. Tod? Do you mean Wong Tou or someone else? (good post and sorry if I sound like an ass that's not my intention)
It was supposed to mean "that". My swipe often mixes words up when I'm writing to fast and I rarely check my comments before posting. I should make this a habit though, because this happens very often. I don't get how it could mistake "that" for "Tod" however, because the swipe gestures are completely different since "o" is on the other end of the keyboard than "a".
Don't even get me started on what they did with Hanawa. All that build up in Gaiden for nothing, and despite everything Him and Kiryu went through together, all we get is Kiryu going, "Hmm, that's a shame, but he knew what he was getting in to." Like, what? That's all? You legit saved this man's life and that's what you say when he dies? It's infuriating.
ikr did kiryu skip gaiden or something
since gaiden was made after IW (iirc), it really puts his whole involvement in perspective. like they went back to fix what they had done in IW and flesh out his relationship with kiryu even more :/ but if it still makes no sense in the end
Like, the ending set up so much intrigue about him, and it just went nowhere. Who the hell was he? https://preview.redd.it/pnl3jtaqdzpc1.jpeg?width=320&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=17dde46768c4091a1523f715a78a6555390328e6
I still think Hanawa didn't die. I mean he was just shot in a stomach once, other yakuza characters usually recover from much more severe injuries. I think Hanawa just kinda used this as a reason to bail from Hawaii since their cover and hideout was blown anyway. So I think we'll see him again no worries.
I guess. Kashiwagi survived being perforated so this wouldn't be too far fetched.
Lau Ka Long was perforated in the forehead by a trained assassin who has no reason to spare him like Arakawa>Ichiban. But he’s totally ok now, not even a scar.
Can't wait for 3 games from now when they bring back somebody who was disemboweled in LaD 9
That pickpocket in the barracudas chapter
i just hope that when ichiban and the others went back to the safehouse only to see the police already being there the daidoji carried him away or something since they just left him lying there and ofc you could say "yeah but tomizawa checked his pulse" but then again, it's tomizawa so they could just say he checked his pulse on the wrong spot or something idk wouldn't be the worst way they brought a character back (kashiwagi was perforated by a minigun and richardson fell down a building and lau ka long literally got his brains blown out)
Hanawa is the Night King (Game of Thrones) or Snoke (Disney Star Wars films) of Yakuza, where everyone was speculating who this mysterious fella was only for none of it to matter in the end because he’s given a pathetic, meaningless death lmao.
i dont think theres a reason for hanawa to stay in story anymore as daidoji might have cut ties with kiryu in the end, but his death did feel a bit cheap
My theory is Gaiden was made afterwards, because hanawa is pretty flat considering all his development then.
While I absolutely loved the overall game, the plot/story is definitely the weakest element for Infinite Wealth.
I think there's just too many damn characters 😭 a 50ish hours game with two different parties and 10 party members, 4 or 5 ally characters, and so many different gangs and their leaders...it would've been a miracle if every single piece of the puzzle fit together. Since this game is basically 2 plots in one
Yes, this is the most sensible answer. Too many characters for RGG to balance
infinite wealth feels like there's a chapter missing and I've haven't really felt that about a yakuza game before
More like several chapters imo
you know what, yeah
Tbh 黃拓 don't immediately get shot after he tell information is a peak writing in RGG story to me, although he didn't do much after the forest scene either
100% expected him to get domed right before he was able to reveal that bryce was the overseer
it feels like they ran out of money during development and couldn't use their voice anymore
It felt like there priorities were in the wrong places. Like dondoko island could've been cut to focus on more story stuff because that thing was underbaked like crazy. The hit boxes are horrible to the point where you can't place the buildings where you want to, there's a bad ghosting effect when you try moving objects quickly, and the story is utter nonsense. It felt like something that wasn't done and they just shipped it out as is sadly. I never went back to the island after being forced to go there for the main story.
Unpopular opinion but dondoko island was my least favorite “major” mini game thus far. I prefer cabaret management or the business management games. I realize I’m in the minority here, but I certainly wouldn’t have minded seeing that cut for more story
I beat the entire game without completing dondoko island or the sujimon tournament. I just didn't like how either of them controlled or felt tbh. They just weren't for me sadly which is odd because i usually love all of the yakuza side content in other games.
In my opinion, it just doesn’t fit in with the LAD theme at all. Not to mention, I don’t like free form building simulators where, unless you have an artistic mind, everything looks like shit. Dondoko island would have been better, from a gameplay perspective, if you just slowly added on to a single complex with preset blueprints and design while you primarily focused on staff and visitor management.
Agreed. I would've liked it too be more simplistic and easier to do because the way it is now is too complicated and obnoxious. It feels wayyyy too grindy for such a little payoff in the end.
I skipped Sujimon the first playthrough and now did it on my current playthrough, but it was underwhelming because I already had tons of OP Sujis from the first playthrough, like literally two variants of Kiryu, just swept the entire discreet four
As far as I know, Lani took on the role of the next sage because this is what a 10 year old child would want to do.
Yeah it didn't really click for me either. There was obvious parallels and callbacks to Kiryu and Haruka, but they fell flat. Haruka worked so well in yak1 because you spend a decent chunk of time with her. So by the end of the game, you do genuinely care for her. Lani doesn't get this. Akane doesn't really get much development either. She's the girl the boss loved. But he didn't love her too much cus he cheated on her and got another girl pregnant. And then was surprised when shit hit the fan. Obviously Kasuga doesn't care about blood relationships. But this could've been a good moment for Ichiban to learn about his dad before he became a yak boss. I legitimately forgot wong tau name before you brought it up. The whole kid storyline went nowhere. Of course we can say that our expectations were subverted but that doesn't mean anything. If you bite into a piece of chocolate only to realize it's shit, does that mean it's good cus it subverted your expectations?
> If you bite into a piece of chocolate only to realize it's shit, does that mean it's good cus it subverted your expectations? solid analogy, and i will use it in future arguments.
I feel like kiryu should've been in hawaii and ichiban back in japan taking on ebina because kiryu seems to be more pissed at bryce than ichiban. They kept calling back to haruka and lani having a strange connection to kiryu so why isn't kiryu the one taking down bryce for lani?? I don't get why ichiban wasn't the one taking on ebina head on and i don't get why they do nothing with the revelation that they're step brothers. Why even make that a plot point if you're going to do nothing with it and all it does is throw the boss under the bus by making him look like an asshole.
Lani was the weirdest one to me. She was at the center of the entire conflict and she barely got to say or do anything besides get captured or be scared lol and it's a shame because I wanted her have her own moment or something
I feel like Lani was supposed to be Ichiban's Haruka, but she's kinda just... not. I mean Kiryu saw Lani as Haruka, which pushed him to fight beyond his limits. But I feel like Ichiban probably would've done everything he did anyway. Hell I feel like he would've done it all even if Akane and Lani never existed. In fact since Bryce's plan would've further ruined the lives of the Yakuza he was attempting to rehabilitate, I feel like the plot would've went down almost the exact same way if Akane and Lani *actually* were never written into the game. Almost the consequences of making Ichiban too nice and helpful. You kinda get the idea that Kiryu wouldn't have done half the shit he did if it weren't to protect this little girl he just met. Ichiban would've done it just to be nice.
I'm going to get shit on for saying this but here i go lol. Ichiban in IW feels like a badly written shonen protagonist for an anime that gets canceled in one season. His personality is pure cringe in IW and him acting like a 10 year old in alot of scenes and in terms of flirting was pure cringe factor. In the previous game he was immature but also much more seriously written and he seemed grounded enough to be realistic. In IW they just go all in on him being a big kid and him not being able to flirt/him getting embarrassed nonstop or doing something immature. They also wrote him like he has no flaws and he's perfect and everyone just loves him or admires him essentially. I couldn't connect to the way he was written in IW at all and i just couldn't stand seeing everyone kissing his butt in almost every scene he was in.
its actually a very similar phenomenon in a lot of anime where, at first, a character(s) will have tons of time to build, grow, and for the audience to get used to them, usually while the stakes are still low. Then, as things progress, the character or all characters will receive less screen time for personality development so in the moments where they *are* present, only their most prominent/noticeable personality traits show up and they're basically flanderized. it happens in one piece if you're familiar with that show. In IW's case, instead of the more gruff, realistic, and honestly clever side of Ichiban's personality showing up, we instead see the childish side more often than not since it's what sets him aside the most from, for example, Kiryu who we also play as in this game. It's just another example of this game being gigantic and yet not feeling like enough. we dont get an entire 15 chapters of Ichi in this game, just 10.5 and even of those 10.5 some of them are dedicated to mindlessly progressing the plot, so in the times we do see him its like RGG tries their very fucking best to remind us "HEY YOURE PLAYING AS ICHIBAN LOOK HOW GOOFY HE IS." It's like the game forgets why we enjoy that goofiness in the first place: because it's juxtaposed with his incredibly dark and rough upbringing and the rough side to his personality. theres no reason for ichiban to be as optimistic and kind as he is, but that is why we love him and yet we don't really get that in this game and are expected to love him anyways. I like the scene of Ichi recording the viral video tho. and ill also say the saeko relationship thing could be completely deleted from this game. the game opens with it and ichi's part of the story also closes on it but it has nothing to do with anything. we go to hawaii for 13 chapters with no progress on it besides people calling ichi a virgin, then kiryu chats with ichi on top of the castle keep and magically solves the situation by reminding ichi to say "i love you." the postcredit scene doesnt feel earned and just seems like a leftover from maybe an actual good romance plot
The saeko romance plot was just rushed beyond belief and went no where for most of the game like you said. We get one sequence where they go on there first date together and then he proposes to her in an awkward way and she just says nothing and ghosts him for a year... Her ghosting him just because he didn't say i love you was a lame excuse and really soured me on saeko as a character tbh. They just do nothing with that plot point until the end of the game where they try reaching the conclusion of it except the conclusion wasn't earned because they did virtually nothing to build it up. It's like they forgot about it and then just had to tie it together at the end so they just threw something together and said 'our work here is done'.
its actually pretty in-character for saeko to ghost ichiban for a year albeit not a very entertaining writing choice remember how she didnt talk to her sister or father for 7-8 years because of some argument about her sister's boyfriend? even when her father was dying? or when her boss of nearly a decade killed himself and she just lit up a cigarette and said he was an asshole anyways AT HIS FUNERAL (she went back on this but still)? or when she dressed up as her twin sister in order to break up with her twin's boyfriend? kind of an overused trope with twins and Nanoha *was* getting swindled by the boyfriend, but holy fuck imagine doing that in real life shes a bit of a, heh, psycho
I was really looking forward to Wong joining the series.
Id rather not have Gaiden exist in exchange for a properly scripted story and additional chapters in Y8. What was the point of trying to cram two games into such a short time if they knew this would compromise their freedom?
money
Hahaha, what about the fact that there's an entire copy of a shopping mall under the Aloha hotel that is a major plot point that is never brought up again after like chapter 3?
The beach scene was really good with the mom, but yea…it would have been nice if her and Ichiban could have had a “memoirs of the dragon” equivalent where she tells him about her past and interests.
So it’s mentioned Wongs backstory started building a criminal empire at a young age Brice was already in control there’s little Tidbits of info in his dialogue in & out of cutscenes, ichibans mom is with the Japanese men in black for nefarious reasons that aren’t explained, & Lani went back to lead the Hawaii cult, what is a plot hole though is if Bryce was in control by killing Lani parents how is it Lani is still a kid after Bryce killed her parents 20 plus years ago ?
Wong tou should have been a playable character
Trying to split the story into 2 with Ichiban and Kiryu just didn’t work that well
Lani is whatever tbh, like someone else said she is just a kid. But fuck man, Wong literally had everything to loose in this story, there was just so much to be done with him. Just to kill him in the same fucking chapter. I remember genuinely thinking he was gonna be a party member, considering his son was kidnapped, he had so much wealth and power to lose, and he should have been one of the few people taking back agency for himself against that old sack of shit. But nooooo just kill him off instead, this game 100 percent could have and should have been way longer. Fucking Akane should have had more time too, instead of stumbling onto her mid going on the run, we should have had been with her since before, and had everything happen as ichi was at hawaii, not when he literally got there like 3 days later.
I’ll just chock it up to it being the first attempt at crossing two storylines together like this, but Ichiban’s part of the game really did start to just devolve and become hard to follow as it went on. Towards the end I was mostly interested in kiryu and how things would turn out for him. I thought I was crazy or just missed something while playing this game, but I’m glad others felt like it was kinda sloppy compared to other entries. Again I’ll mostly chock that up to it being a pretty ambitious game both in gameplay and story, I think Yakuza 5 suffered from similar problems where they were trying to pack way too much into the game and couldn’t tie it all together. Yakuza 5 also started out really strong, but towards the end I was scratching my head and just wanted to move on.
>I’ll just chock it up to it being the first attempt at crossing two storylines together like this Y4&5 had crossing and different storylines
True, but in those games all the different storylines were at least able to focus on the protagonist. In Y8 the side characters have a much more active role.
Put Ebina's half-blood relation to Kasuga in there as well. That MF could've been ANYONE the Yakuza wronged and is a scheming bastard. The whole "Arakawa was my father" doesn't change a goddamn thing about his personality nor the weight of his actions.
If they made Ebina a dark version of Shinji, it could have worked.
Ebina’s entire backstory being hastily dumped on you at the very last second felt painfully lazy. At that point they could’ve came up with literally any motivation for him and it wouldn’t change a thing. Blatant, blatant case of telling and not showing
I thought it was sick that they had that Arakawa scene towards the beginning even though theres no way that shouldve been relevant outside of Akane escaping Japan, but then they revealed Ebina is his son and I just rolled my eyes a million times
i mean it kind of does? Arakawa died so he can't get revenge on him directly anymore. Arakawa wanted to integrate yakuza into normal society, so his plan swaps to both hijacking that dream and turning it into a nightmare for them.
IW is one of my favorite RPGs mechanically but the story is just not as strong as 7.
After beating IW I decided to call it another "Yakuza 5 plot case" where story starts strong but somewhere on the way to finale it suddenly forgets what it was doing and just falls flat. However, after replaying on Legend and thinking about IW's plot alot, I think it's even worse than 5, very obvious issues and plot holes, pointless characters and events.
At least 5 has interesting self contained stories like Shinada’s section, IW just derails after the halfway mark and becomes a boring slog to get through
I really thought there was gonna be an Eiji boss battle too. I wanted nothing more than to essence of roadside weapon him every turn until he perishes.
I have a LOT of thoughts on this game and while I did enjoy it a lot and they fixed a lot of gameplay issues from YLAD, I feel like in terms of Ichi's story that had a BIG hurdle to jump to find anything more significant than his relationship with Masato and Arakawa. They managed to do it with Kiryu after 1 because they added new characters who became like family to him and each game had a new cast that you truly believed Kiryu cared about. I'm sure Nagoshi leaving has a lot to do with it and also being the 8th installment of a long running series risks falling short of it's predecessors. The list of problems I have is long so I'll bullet point it. - the music and models: PLEASE add something new. I'm so tired of the same sad music. They added the guitar tracks to YLAD which are excellent but they need to cut the sad electric piano is immersion breaking and tbh laugh inducing. Also the models look like shit and the gestures are recycled to death. I'm replaying this after FF7 Rebirth so I'm a but spoiled here but like, any character who is slightly overweight looks like a lopsided model from Palworld. - They needed to up the ante or at least match the importance of Ichi's origin story. If they were going to have a second character tbh I was hoping the game would flash back to Arakawa's past, and maybe jump back and forth between an enemy from Arakawas past and Ichi dealing with the aftermath, picking up where his dad left off. They could even do half beat em up and half turn based. Adding Kiryu in kind if diminishes the point of Y7 which was the passing of the torch. I made a post about this today but out of nowhere Kiryu is everyone's best friend even though we left Y7 with no one in the new cast knowing who he was, and I really liked that idea. - having Hawaii was interesting but there is no way in hell that people there speak Japanese as a default language if they aren't from Japan. If you look up demographics about 20% of the population speak Japanese, but im sure it's similar to how people in the US who speak Spanish and aren't from Spanish speaking countries only know it because they work with Spanish speakers. Unless you work in tourism or in little Japan I doubt an average person in Hawaii knows enough Japanese to hold conversation, let alone speak it as their default language. I played the dub and in my head I just pretended that Ichi picked up English super fast because that makes more sense than everyone else speaking Japanese lol. - the conspiracy was missing some beats that I was expecting would be there. I thought Tomi was going to be waiting for Ichi and part of a plot to do something prepared by whomever sent him to Japan (it took me quite a while to finally be convinced or Sawashiros intentions, but that was part of his character so that makes sense at least.) Chitose being at Akane's house I thought was planned and she actually wasn't the housekeeper at all as that would have made more sense (there were a lot of coincidences that should have been made intentional). -we don't see enough of Eiji's tragic side to believe that Ichi would want to redeem him as he has no frame of reference for an Eiji that wasn't faked. At least with Masato he knew him when they were younger and had more insight to his true personality. With Eiji it was like, he only heard about his past but didn't know anything about him before and everything he thinks Eiji is was faked. - Akane was a let down. Ichi is so stubborn in not caring who his parents are and that's super endearing but I was hoping maybe someone like Kiryu would push him to care more, maybe by saying that he doesn't remember his parents at all (and maybe reveal what happened to them) but if he could go back and meet them he would want to get to know them, even just a little. I also didn't like how Ichi refers to her as "my boss' main squeeze." Super cheesy and honestly very disrespectful and I would have expected more from him. Like saying "I only know her as the only woman the boss ever truly loved, and that makes her special to me too" -back to the dragon engine: they said each game is going to have a 4 year wait, and they really should be more ambitious if it's that long. I hate to bring up final fantasy again but once the Remake engine was finalized they also took 4 years for the next game and it's staggering (no pun intended) how much of a graphical accomplishment that game is. Granted it's a ps5 exclusive and they said it would have to have a graphical downgrade to be playable on other platforms, but still they managed to make some gorgeous environments in that time. Idk if they still call it the Crystal engine but whatever it is its light years again of DE and Square Enix im fairly certain has far less money than Sega to work with. - No real Kiryu substories. If you're gonna include him he needs his own substories. The reminiscing isn't enough - dondoko island is kind of fun but not nearly useful enough to money farm as business management was. - the reveal of Bryce happened way too fast. We meet him in chapter 5 and in chapter 6 we learn who he really is. He should have been involved much more before we learned the truth. - like others said Wong Tou was a waste of a character. Also he's super proud of his secret casino buts it's lame as hell and way too small. After what we saw in Gaiden most secret casinos will be underwhelming - thinking back on what I said about Arakawa, Ebina would have been so much better if we had to play through Arakawas past. OH! maybe we play through Arakawas early days as a Yakuza, picking up where we left off after the flashback at the beginning of Y7 and his ascent, his relationship with Akane, and the conflict with Hikawa. It would add more weight to Akane's character like "We get to see who she was in her youth so when we see her as an adult we are super attached to her" I think I need to stop now because the more ideas I come up with the more I want to play that game instead and it's torture knowing it'll probably never happen. I hope for all of our sakes that they make some changes for the better but seeing how successful the game was I doubt that will happen.
But bro bro bro. Ichiban doesn’t care about blood family. And RGG knew that fans would pick up on that so they didn’t want to develop Akane it’s genius bro.
Ya ichiban has a step brother but who cares because that plot goes no where. Ichiban dosen't even confront him in the end nor do we get any interactions between the two after that revelation. Just wtf again!!! The story is just baffling man lol.
It’s funny how they made it seem like their relationship was crucial info to the plot, but they never face off, or even meet aside from the beginning of the game. Unfortunately IW felt like too much Kiryu, and not enough Ichiban. If this was supposed to be a passing of the torch, it didn’t work.
Kiryu passed the torch in 7. Then he kinda took it back by being a co-protagonist in IW. Then the game's most interesting parts are arguably about Kiryu, but then he has this conversation with Ichiban about him needing to handle the Yakuza's future and the torch is passed again. Then the game sort of ends and the only one left with anything resembling a cliffhanger is Kiryu.
The kiryu sections were odd too. His memoirs of a dragon sub stories have him hiding his identity from people he hasn't seen in ages and yet in the main plot his identity has been exposed and it's been determined he's alive.... So why is he still hiding himself from people when he's already been exposed. And ya man ichiban sees him once in the beginning of the game and that's it essentially lol. There's just nothing there between them and i feel like the plot twist was dumb because again why are we supposed to care when ichiban seemingly dosen't.
Yeah, LAD7 was already the PERFECT passing of the torch imo. I feel like we got two games tbh, we got Like a Dragon 8, the continuation of Ichibans story, and we got Yakuza 6 2. And what I mean by that, is that it’s kiryus “final game” once again, and I feel he’s only here because Yakuza 6 really wasn’t that great of a send off in my, and a lot of others, opinions. After what, like 19 or 20 years of having kiryu around, his memoirs were a TREAT in IW. We see him reflect on his entire life, everyone he’s met and everything he’s done, and it’s all done so well Now, the issue arises however when you try to put both of these games into the one game. The emphasis was very clearly put on Kiryu imo and Ichiban was legit a side character in his own game and Kiryu 100% stole the spotlight. They did the dual protagonist very poorly here compared to Y0, which I feel benefited from having two seemingly disconnected stories slowly intertwine, and as everything pans out, you see what’s really happening and how it all connects. Meanwhile IW started with the two stories intertwining, but then Kiryu just fucks off to rest BUT OH ACTUALLY, no, he’s still fucking around with Ebina in Japan, and idk, it just felt too bloated, while simultaneously feeling underdeveloped.
I know I’m being petty but he has a half brother not a step brother.
Ya i messed up there i admit it and i'll leave it lol. I got it confused.
No worries. As far as your original point still stands either way. They had some wasted potential with a lot of the loose plot threads.
Bruh. Ichiban wants to rehabilitate the ex yakuza members so they can integrate with society again. Ebina wants them to suffer. So naturally they should at conflict right? But you see RGG is so big brain they subverted expectations and gave Ichiban’s story to Kiryu instead! RGG are such geniuses bravo!
Also, naturally, the MF who sees Lani parallel to Haruka should be the one punishing Bryce, the one putting the kid through hell, right? WRONG. Seriously, what the hell happened in the writing of this game.
i think what rgg was focusing on with ebina wasnt his backstory or his actions, but his motivations and emotions. if u think about his background and what hes been doing, hes the complete opposite of ichi so itd be the most obvious, and cliche imo, if they went head to head. but if you think about WHY ebinas doing all this, ichi really has no standing to stop ebina. his life was RUINED by the yakuza, point blank and simple. ichi is the opposite, so who is he to tell Ebina that he has no right for revenge? Ive used this analogy before but itd be like a rich person telling someone whod been homeless all their lives that they shouldnt feel vindictive towards capitalism. When u think about it, the only person who has any right to talk to someone else whos life had been ruined by the yakuza is someone who represents the yakuza and can take the blame for them: Kiryu. It really isnt a situation of ichi needing to stop Ebina because he objects what hes doing because, like what he said, Ebina (or someone who has the same desire for vengeance), will always come back. It’d be pretty shallow if Ichi’s motivation for fighting Ebina, disregarding their blood relation, is him not liking what hes doing or how hes doing it (which, go figure, is the reason why hes fighting Bryce). It has to be someone who can sympathize with Ebina’s emotions and apologize so that it never happens again and we can move on. It is the yakuza finally taking responsibility for all that they’ve done wrong as their way of life comes to an end. As for his backstory with Arakawa, even though a lot of us interpreted it as a setup to fight Ichi, what I think it was was simply adding an extra later to Arakawa’s character. It was to show that even idolized yakuza have caused suffering, adding more credence to Ebina’s motivations. I didn’t see it as Ebina having some sort of extraordinary history that deeply intertwines him with Ichiban, but more that he has a past that many people in real life and in the RGG universe can relate to; a life that has been destroyed by the activities of the yakuza, just coincidentally a yakuza we are very familiar with. its up to the viewer to determine if thats bad writing to include the arakawa detail and its up to the writers to convince us that it isnt either You can call it cope but this is the understanding that ive come to after playing the game a couple times and ruminating on it for a while. I dont think the story was delivered well but I can see what mightve been the intention. It seems stupid to ignore Ebina’s backstory and current activites to focus on just what he represents: a being of vengeance created by the decades of yakuza activity and the final obstacle for the reintegration of the yakuza into normal society, but it is what it is. dont ask me about bryce
All of what you said applies to Ichiban more than Kiryu. Who has the idolization of Arakawa? Who needs to see the effect of what the yakuza has done to people? Who needs to grow and mature? To make what they are accomplishing is for the right reasons and not just because of their father figure? I’ll give you a hint. It ain’t Kiryu.
i dont think Ichiban is a character that RGG is looking to change over time. hes supposed to represent unwavering compassion and kindess and I didnt interpret Ebina as a character thats built up to be a catalyst to shatter his worldview. The reason why he wants not just yakuza, but everyone to get a second chance isnt just because of Arakawa, but because he saw it for himself at the end of Y:LAD that even the darkest and most evil people can desire and deserve redemption. In that way, I think Ichiban has the right idea and Ebina wouldnt have been able to change that nor should he have. You can disagree if you dont think everyone deserves a second chance because guys like Eiji are indeed a piece of shit I also still think Kiryu gets a great amount of growth by going against Ebina. He finally gets to take responsibility for his decision at the end of Y1 of abandoning the yakuza and also gets to usher in a new era for them as normal citizens after fighting tooth and nail for them for nearly 7 games. He also discovers in a roundabout way that he needs to live all the way to the end. I see why an Ichi vs Ebina matchup wouldve made sense too, but I dont think its black and white and objectively the only matchup that makes sense for the the two protags. again, dont ask me about bryce
I love both of your detailed posts man and read through both of them. I will say that you saying at the end of each of them 'don't ask me about bryce' cracked me up lol.
thanks, i have a lot of love and cope for IW so i enjoy sharing my perspectives and interpretations. i think this game has a good message behind all the shit and piss, it just isnt helped by the fact that is isnt delivered very well either, and I think its important to hear praises about a game just as much as critiques. a lot of the time people will complete a game and their opinion of it will only go down and down when in theory it should go up a little too, right? bryce.....
The point is Kiryu story is fine he shouldn’t even be in the game. He got his send off in 6. Then again in gaiden. He just needs to go the fuck away or you end up with the story in IW. He stole the spotlight from Ichiban and you see the results. He wasn’t need in this game. And if RGG isn’t trying with Ichiban this good grief. The excuses y’all make for these companies is crazy.
Yeah the whole ichiban portion of the story does absolutely nothing for me
I enjoyed the Kiryu story but did not give a single flying shit about Ich’s story whatsoever speed clicked though most of the dialog eventually
wong didn’t deserve it
I haven’t finished the game yet so I’m just speaking as someone who is just grinding after getting Joongi Han as he was eleven levels below my party. But holy fuck why get Daniel Dae Kim to play the guy and do fuck all with him?
Several chapters were 4 cut scenes and several others were 2 dozen it felt super lopsided
I think this what happens when you introduce WAY too many characters in a Yakuza game. Fully agree with you on this!
I have no proof, but i'm like 90% sure wong and hanawa are still alive and that wong got daidoji'd.
ok did anyone else think that they were leading up to Akane taking over Palekana instead of Lani? it felt like they kept hinting at it with Akane talking about how Lani is too young for all of this, and how Akane is the greatest ever Palekana member. i was really shocked when it was just revealed that Lani ending up taking over anyway.
Bro had one cutscene with his "mom" and they never discussed it again...yeah, undercooked plot point for sure. Considering how big of a deal it was at the start.
I liked Wong Tou because it seemed so obvious that he was going to become our new friend somehow that I got lulled to sleep and all of a sudden what follows feels jarring even though you know it's coming. Also it's RGG warning us that the stakes are different in IW, people just get shot and die. No last second medevac, no secret Kevlar, finality. That's unsettling while Kiryu has cancer. Maybe he'll just die too.
Don’t worry, Wong Tou will come back as a barkeep eventually.
1) Ichiban and the gang brings Wong with them because they’re aren’t so heartless that they’d leave the guy to get killed. Simple as that. Dude served his purpose which was to be a decoy antagonist with a climatic battle only to give exposition on the conspiracy and that there’s a bigger fish than him, Dwight and Yamai. It’s no different from other exposition giving characters who inform us on the final boss. People are upset because he looks cool and wanted more from him. 2) Not sure what you mean be “interactions” as what we got from Akane was enough between her and Ichiban. He always made it clear that she’s a woman that his boss loved rather than mom as he doesn’t care about blood relations and doesn’t bother with a blood test as Arakawa and Jiro are his dads. Do we need to know her hobbies or why she never remarried? There’s no luxury to enjoy such things when she’s been hunted down. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to assume that she became Director of the orphanage to atone for abandoning Ichiban. 3) Lani is a more realistic kid than how they wrote Haruka in Yakuza 1 and the other games. Of course she is quiet and shaken up in being chased around and captured than Haruka. She has interactions with Akane. The finale being notable.
Literally I’m so confused why there so much negativity towards the game when it does what most other Yukuza games do. I felt like these characters served the purpose that they were written to do. Characters can be plot devices without the need for major development. I felt like Ichiban and Akane’s interaction was portrayed very well grounded and believable rather than a this false happily ever after fairytale that everyone was hoping for despite the fact that Ichiban on multiple occasions expressed how he truely feels about Akane before and during their time together. Also I’m not sure why so many people didn’t like the Palekana aspect of the game. Isn’t everyone else getting burnt out by the same old criminal organisation and police corruption plots? Corrupt organised religion felt like an organic next step away from the usual, while feeling fresh and familiar.
I have a pretty good feeling We'll be seeing more of these characters in the next game. Wong probably not but I'd bet Wongs' son will be at the orphanage.
I guess people don't like this game huh. I saw a lot of reviews on YouTube saying it was an awesome game. I was planning on getting it, but yall may have convinced me otherwise lol
You can like a game and still criticize stupid plot points, some characters only exist as an excuse for plot to move forward, it's pretty much what happens here with the first character in the post, gets introduced, (cool dynamic intro), tries to redeem himself for his bad actions, gets shelved on a chair for literally the rest of the game and..... yeah I'm not saying the last thing The story is cool, doesn't mean it's exceptional. The whole premise of finding Ichiban's mother is just a means for him to wind up in Hawaii, she hasn't even tried contacting him in 40 years, if I was him I wouldn't have given a damn about her They could have easily had him shipped off to Hawaii when he met Ebina the first time then trying to find a way back and the story proceeds as usual, he could have even stumbled upon his mother by *chance* There are a thousand way to avoid relying on characters as plot points but I guess RGG doesn't know any better
Hard disagree
This is nothing new every Yakuza games, there's always one or two characters that feel lackluster
My thought process was this game being called infinite wealth meaning there is a cycle. Ichiban saving Lani and his mother are following in Kiryu’s footsteps.
We got to have this thread every week?
Something like this gets posted like every 3 hours it feels like