3/5 ★ – MPT's review of Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name.

Yakuza is a series built on repetition but with how much there is to do and the great quality of it all it’s never a problem. it’s the opposite. when you see your favourite minigames and areas return better than ever it’s a lovely feeling, and this game has that. but this is the first Yakuza where i’ve actually felt the repetition in a bad way, probably because it’s the first that feels like filler instead of its own unique thing. as far as the ones i’ve played go this my least favourite, but it’s by no means bad, just quite disappointing when considering how high the rest of the series reaches. where nearly every single entry is so unique and substantial, absolute behemoths with their own distinct personalities and so much meat on their bones, this feels like a DLC to Like a Dragon existing purely to fill in gaps. it’s light on content in the story and open world departments but there’s still a lot worthwhile here narratively and it salvages some admittedly great things out of what little it has. thankfully one of the these things is the best iteration of the Coliseum in the series. above all else it’s very replayable with a lot of variety and nice freedom of choice. there’s 4 different match types across 3 different difficulties with a handful of special matches with unique modifiers or against unique opponents, and the star of the show, the team building. this is an absolute riot. you not only get to recruit and level up a wide group of dumbass funny as hell fighters and then rumble with them, but it’s an excuse to bring back and cameo a heap of main and side characters from the series. in silly side content like this, nostalgia works very well. there’s also the revolutionary idea that you even get to play as every single one of them. each have their own movesets, which just opens the experimentation this iteration of the Coliseum allows to an insane degree. you can go through every event with every character if you really wanted to. never thought i’d be able to fight in a Yakuza coliseum as Chicken Man or Sheep Man but here we are. Gaiden’s Coliseum is a stellar way to line the pockets, experiment with cool and bizarre systems and smash up some thugs. and beating the piss out of people feels real real smooth. combat is as flashy and kinetic as beat ‘em up style yakuza should be. Yakuza style is kiryu’s classic heavy beat ‘em to a pulp fighting. juggling enemies with charge attacks never gets old. neither does the new Agent style, a fantastic completely new style that plays the yin to Yakuza’s yang perfectly. you feel quick and technical and dance around enemies like nobody’s business. there’s no particularly incredible new heat moves though which is sad. there’s standouts but they’re either imported (eg ultimate essence, the goat) or few and far between. but this is thankfully balanced with Agent’s gadgets, a fire fire fire addition. wiring a group of enemies and flinging them across the room then calling in drones to distract the rest then dashing into them at light speed after nuking them with an exploding cigarette makes you want to put blackout shades on in real life. when you’re not fighting you’ve got the minigames which, aside from the Coliseum, are still strong. while Gaiden plays it incredibly safe with what’s available (basically just every minigame that’s been available at some point or other from the start of the series) they’re all high quality and there’s a lot of them. all the arcade games, karaoke, darts, golf, plenty of gambling, mahjong - all back and better than ever. even a few old favourites that haven’t been featured in a while return, like pool. but there’s only 1 i care about. beloved Pocket Circuit is BACK and better than ever, holy shit it’s thrilling. the GOAT of minigames, and one that’s only available in 2 other games besides this, comes back with a vengeance and is the deepest and probably most difficult version yet. it had me there for hours customising my cars, crying as they flew off the track, smashing rivals into the dust, winning championships and generally revelling in the nostalgia of it all. again, this is how you do nostalgia properly, tweak it in the side content and make it satisfying and worthwhile, do NOT oversaturate your main story with it (more on that later). Gaiden is divided into 2 play spaces: Sotenbori and The Castle. the former is the weakest by a decent amount. it’s been done a million times by this point, but that was never the issue. area repetition is Yakuza’s bread and butter. but it just so happens to be a small sized one in a game already light on content and bland to top it off. there’s nothing about it that’s distinct to Gaiden. it’s just regular old Sotenbori taken straight from Like a Dragon, a game which also had 2 more huge areas in Kamurocho and Isezaki Ijincho. it’s also overshadowed to in insane degree by The Castle, a totally new area for the game that’s beautiful as shit. the aesthetic of the place, with grand architecture, towering golden statues, fireworks blasting and constant glitz and glamour gives it such a unique personality. it kicks Sotenbori in the dirt and spits on it. aside from looking incredible, the Coliseum’s there, the gambling halls are there and a new shop’s there that allows you to customise your clothes. this might sound minor but it’s pretty huge, and the options it gives you for both everyday outfits and arena fighting gear are funny as hell. it’s a wonder this wasn’t added into any Yakuza before now. for the first time in a while though the substories are only serviceable. the main issue (and a recurring theme of the game) is that there simply aren’t that many of them. most are just doing odd jobs, beating up a gang or powerful enemy and the usual scam stuff. you blink and you’ve done them all. but a lot of them revel in callbacks and nostalgia, which works well here since they’re (again) 1) goofy substories and 2) NOT the main story, and these are the best ones. seeing that cougar lady Etsuko appear again and knowing Kiryu and Kaito crossed paths just warms my heart. Amon as usual also kicks ass. but an incredibly important part of Yakuza are its main narratives. in general they’re towering, engrossing, overly dramatic, messy, corny, huge, beautiful stories that slam you with gripping monologues and fire one liners and monstrously long cutscenes, extremely dangerous villains and almost indestructible heroes. these thing are (when they’re good) so so peak. Gaiden has a story with problems that set it below many other Yakuzas, but has so many great qualities it’s also painful to talk shit on it. what it suffers most from is length, and this comes from the simple fact that (as mentioned) it feels like a DLC. Gaiden feels like an expansion (the name literally means side story) that’s grabbing at whatever it can to just say reach the mark of being a full game. where recent games like Lost Judgement had 13 chapters and Yakuza 0 had fucking 17, Gaiden’s 5 are small time in comparison. it’s the most clear sign this thing shouldn’t be a separate entity from LaD. the RGG boys should’ve either kept it as is/ shortened it slightly and made it an expansion because despite the short length there’s a lot of filler. for one, a lot of the game is taken up by progressing through the Coliseum. reaching its different ranks (silver, gold, platinum) takes up some of the main story’s objectives. plenty Yakuzas have side content that’s interwoven into the main story, but with the game’s short length it’s pretty silly. another big example of filler is a large part of a chapter being dedicated to blowing money in Sotenbori with your homeboys. what could’ve been a cutscene montage of loads of cash being spent is you walking around town playing minigames and getting intro fights for 30 mins. it’s not like it isn’t fun because the characters have great banter and the minigames themselves are great, but it’s just side content jammed into the main story and very obviously there to pad time. again, in a game as short as this that’s very bold. there’s also the Daidoji that are a bit of a pain in the ass writing-wise. an all-powerful secret organisation that Kiryu works for in exchange for them keeping him hidden, they’re a major player and it seems they’re being set up as a big new possibly antagonistic threat that have loads of big yakuza members under their thumb, shown by Kiryu and the fact they kidnap this game’s villains, Nisitani and Shishido, to work for them. but this aspect and how the Daidoji is written represents a big issue with the modern state of the series for me: the writers don’t seem to know where they’re going and are holding onto nostalgia for dear life. nothing speaks to this like retcons which absolutely destroy any chance of good writing. Mine’s death being written over for the 3 remake so that he can come back and work for the Daidoji is just a shameless way of removing an impactful moment because the writers simply want this iconic fan favourite character to stay. if this can happen then how is there any meaningful consequence to anything that happens? moments can just get suddenly written over for the sake of characters being kept around for nostalgia, so why take any powerful story moment seriously? this is the same issue with Kiryu. some hated his Yakuza 6 ending and some loved it but either way it was a definitive way to close his story out. coming back for cameos would’ve been sweet but now he’s just a major character again. what’s the point of such final, hard-hitting endings for characters if they’re just gonna be brought back because the writers are scared of leaving them behind?? the retcon of Mine, Kiryu’s staying power, the Daidoji as a whole and characters being taken to work for them - it just spells out to me that they’re a new new faction written with the only major plan being that they keep big iconic characters around so they can be used again. this sums up the misuse of nostalgia i keep mentioning. jamming it into the goofy side content is nice and heartwarming. it’s great when characters from other games show up for substories or old minigames come back better than ever. even in the main story it can be used tastefully. but when the main story arguably uses it the most, it becomes an obnoxious crutch that cripples the narrative and stops the game having its own personality. but the actual writing is just as bad. they’re trying to keep Kiryu concealed but they send him out to rip and tear through Sotenbori wearing sunglasses as a disguise?? this instantly recognisable yakuza legend who gets involved in criminal conflicts everywhere he goes is being sent out on missions?? even by Yakuza standards it’s silly. the “this was just a test!” scene is as bad as it sounds and by the 30th “my name isn’t kiryu i don’t know who that is” response when he’s recognised i had a gun to my head. by jumping through so many silly hoops to keep Kiryu in action it just shows to me that they don’t know definitively where they want Yakuza to go. even worse, it takes away from the greatness of Ichiban Kasuga. this is what i mean when i say nostalgia can cripple the narrative. the greatest thing Yakuza has going for it right now is Ichiban and his games. LaD took huge risks and they paid off and he’s a perfect replacement for Kiryu as the series’ main lead, and now Kiryu’s presence overshadows him because he’s being kept around front and centre. RGG are limping around with a nostalgic Kiryu walking stick and are refusing the cure for their bad leg called Ichiban Kasuga. the wacky spinoffs, the turn based games mixed with the standard brawler games, the retcons, the controversial remakes, the Daidoji being weightless - the series seems to be going through a crisis and Gaiden represents a lot of that for me. so Yakuza has big overarching issues that affect this game quite a bit. but they’re thankfully offset somewhat by the story’s strengths, and these are things the series does incredibly well on an individual game-by-game basis. it’s the heroes and villains, the presentation, the acting and the action, the emotional beats that hit with force - in this game they’re stellar. RGG might be clutching to Kiryu like a scared child clutches a blanket but he’s still just the GOAT, mega principled and hard as nails until the very end. there’s some extremely emotional character moments that rival some of the best written, acted and directed in the franchise. when he watches the video of his grave and starts crying, DAMN that shit hits. RGG really do have the sauce when they aren’t fumbling. new allies like Tsuruno and Akame keep things fresh, and on the other side of the same coin, Nishitani III is a gleefully nuts and brutal villain and tasteful callback to Nishitani from 0, and Shishido is even better. bro’s design is crazy good and he’s the perfect bad guy for this game and antithesis to Kiryu at this point in his life. he’s the embodiment of hanging for dear life onto the wealth and power through violence that the yakuza brings. born and bred into this life, it’s all he knows and sees, and he’s wanting to seize the reigns and take the glory and esteem he thinks it has for himself. but after 6 mainline games, Kiryu couldn’t be more sick of it. the dissolution of the Tojo and Omi is a great plot point LaD introduced that swings for the fences, and it’s great Gaiden explores it more. these 2 groups have been integral to every single game, and the final boss fight of Shishido vs Kiryu is a perfect sendoff for them and the final battle of ideals for their survival. it’s undoubtedly, story and gameplay-wise, one of the series’ absolute best battles. Gaiden to me can be summed as the opposite of LaD. it plays it safe in many ways. while that game took the biggest risks the series has ever seen, it keeps things more minimal and lowkey. while LaD is huge and expansive. it feels like it’s scared to let go of the past while LaD sets up the series’ bold new future. when it does its own things this game really succeeds - there’s some incredible characters, plot points and an exciting new location, the combat is fire, the presentation is top notch, and there’s a mix of side content that improves on past work (love you Coliseum) and revels in the past (my GOAT Pocket Circuit). but more often than not it doesn’t try to be ambitious or give itself a distinct personality, emphasised by its small scale, a lot of questionable writing and a tight grip on nostalgia that feels in this game like a crutch for the future of the series. Gaiden feels and acts like a DLC and represents a lot of the issues facing the modern series, but it’s still a Yakuza game so how can it not still rip absolute ass? just make Judgement 3 and i’ll be happy.