I have been playing through Yakuza: Like a Dragon over the past week. I’m in the last third of the game (maybe even the last quarter) and I still feel like I have barely scratched the surface of what the game offers. There are a _ton_ of mini games (examples include various gambling games, baseball, golf, darts, and cart racing) the majority of which I haven’t really played. Most of my time in the mini games has been spent on the business simulator, which is the quickest way I have found to earn cash.
I made it into chapter 12, which I heard came with a big difficulty spike. I haven’t noticed a difficulty spike. Instead, it feels like a rather frustrating design. First, the game requires you to get three million yen to advance the story. For me, that entailed a lot of time in the business simulator. After raising the money, the game advances to a new area and nudges you to complete a large battle arena. It’s just a series of fights that feels like grinding for experience points. Before this, I found myself enjoying most of the battle sequences, but this sucked the joy right out. I’m still playing through this part.
Despite these annoyances, I’m pretty confident that the game will find a spot in my top 10 games of all time. It’s really been a joy to play. Ichiban is a very endearing character and the interplay between the various cast members has been entertaining. It’s also been refreshing to see the protagonist is over 40 and most of the cast members are in
their 30s or older. In my experience, it’s quite rare to see games featuring older characters.Â