Broken Star

Tag: blaugust2025

  • Yakuza: Like a Dragon Review – Heartfelt RPG Experience

    Few RPGs have ever made me laugh and tear up in equal measure, but Yakuza: Like a Dragon pulled it off.I recently finished Yakuza: Like a Dragon and wasn’t surprised to see it land among my favorite games of all time. I had heard it get a lot of praise as being an interesting story with a unexpected amount of heart, so I wasn’t entirely surprised to have enjoyed it so much.

    Yakuza: Like a Dragon follows Ichiban Kasuga, a low-ranking yakuza member who takes the fall for a crime he didn’t commit. After serving 18 years in prison, he’s betrayed by his former boss and left for dead in Yokohama. Determined to uncover the truth and rebuild his life, Ichiban gathers a band of misfits and fights to expose corruption while chasing his dream of becoming a hero. What surprised me most was how earnest Ichiban is—he’s a goofy, big-hearted mess of a character, and that’s exactly what makes him so lovable. Most of the side quests and the main story largely consists of Ichiban trying to help people. 

    The game is a turn-based RPG, which was a shift for the Yakuza series. I haven’t played any of the previous games, so I can’t comment on the how it compares to the beat-em-up games that preceded it, but I found the turn-based combat to be pretty enjoyable. It’s relatively basic RPG fare with the usual buffs/de-buffs, special skills, and upgradable weapons. The job system, which lets characters switch between quirky roles like chef or breakdancer, adds personality—even if I mostly stuck to defaults.

    The overall story could be broadly described as a redemption arc that sees Ichiban left-for-dead in a homeless camp and sees him uncover the mystery around how he ended up there. It intersects with his life story and he learns a lot about who he is and where he came from. It feels a bit like a soap opera with lots of twists and turns, but for the most part, it’s engaging and I was invested in it. 

    The biggest drawback for me was the difficulty spikes—they dragged the pacing down and forced me into hours of grinding I didn’t enjoy. In Chapter 12, the game basically prompts you to start grinding levels via the 30-story Sotenbori Battle Arena. You get some good gear, but it feels like padding. There are other similar dungeons — Yokohama Underground and Kamurocho Underground — that exist primarily for grinding. They are dull and felt very tedious. Near the end of the game, I basically had to spend several hours grinding to level up my character for the rather difficult final section. I generally don’t mind grinding when it’s something I decide to do, but this felt mandatory.

    Grinding aside, Yakuza: Like a Dragon reminded me why I love games that balance heart with humor. If Infinite Wealth builds on this foundation, I can’t wait to see where Ichiban’s journey goes next.

  • WitchSpring R Review: A Cozy RPG Adventure

    I recently finished WitchSpring R, and it turned out to be a short, breezy RPG that I enjoyed from beginning to end.

    Originally a mobile game from 2015, WitchSpring has been reimagined here as a full remake. While developed by a South Korean studio, it shares plenty of DNA with classic JRPGs—turn-based combat, dungeon crawling, quirky characters, and the familiar sense of leveling and progression.

    You play as Pieberry, a young witch living in exile deep in a forest, cut off from the outside world where witches are hunted. The narrative gradually unfolds as you explore, uncover more about the world, and learn where Pieberry fits within it. The story isn’t groundbreaking, but it’s told in a charming way that kept me engaged.

    Combat is relatively straightforward turn-based fare, but it introduces some neat wrinkles—like turn bonuses, which reward you with extra actions for defeating enemies with physical attacks. The game also discourages grinding by limiting experience gains to an enemy’s first defeat. Instead, progress comes from training Pieberry’s skills through mini-games, collecting pets that can fight alongside you, and dabbling in some light crafting. (I didn’t spend much time on crafting and still managed fine.)

    On the presentation side, the game shines. Its art direction is colorful and whimsical, and it looked great running on my PlayStation 5.

    Overall: WitchSpring R is a cozy, compact RPG that doesn’t overstay its welcome. If you’re looking for something light, charming, and relatively short, I’d recommend giving it a try.

  • Jailbreaking my Kindle Paperwhite

    Early this year, I heard that it was possible to jailbreak most Amazon Kindle devices. I was interested, but ultimately decided against it. The deal-breaker for me was Libby. If jailbreaking meant losing access to library books, I was out. I couldn’t find a good answer to this initially, so I held off. Since the height of the COVID pandemic, I’ve switched reading almost exclusively on my second-hand Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (7th Generation), so I didn’t want to disrupt my reading.

    Last week, the topic of jailbreaking ereaders came up on the Reading Glasses podcast and it reminded me that it was something I was considering. Best of all, they gave a nice, non-technical overview of why one might want to do it. The increased flexibility was enough to get me interested again, and they confirmed that it still works with Libby. They also shared a helpful video overview:



    I’ve rooted a few Android devices in the past and the process for jailbreaking the Amazon Kindle was very easy and well-documented. A great website provides step-by-step directions. I set aside about half an hour and was able to complete it without encountering any issues.


    Once the jailbreak was done, there are additional steps to take to disable over-the-air updates from Amazon (these could potentially remove the jailbreak) and install a custom reader. I followed the guide and installed KOReader, which is a popular reader for e-ink devices. It gives you the ability to read a wider range of file formats (for example, ePub) as well as more customization options, faster PDF handling, and custom fonts. It also doesn’t send analytics to Amazon, which the privacy nerd in me enjoys. I struggled a bit with understanding the UI, but skimming the User Guide helped and after a few minutes, I had a nice optimized layout.

    A good part of why I wanted to do the jailbreak was to hopefully get the Amazon ads removed from the lock screen. I haven’t figured out that part yet, but hopefully soon. Overall, it feels good to loosen Amazon’s grip — even if their ads are still clinging to my lock screen for now.

  • Book Review: Review: Incredible Doom, Volumes 1 and 2

    Before the Internet, there were BBSes — hidden communities you had to know how to find. Incredible Doom (by Matthew Bogart, illustrated by Jesse Holden) drops you into that world, where teenage misfits built entire universes one message at a time.

    I don’t remember how I came across the book, but it’s been on my mind since I read the first volume a few years ago. It’s a graphic novel that tells the intertwined story of a group of teenagers growing up in the 1990s who discover the world of online computer bulletin board systems (BBSes). The kids all come from different but challenging backgrounds and find refuge in the world of the mysterious “Evol BBS”.

    I was able to relate quite a bit to the stories in the book. In the 1990s, finding out about computer BBSes felt like a lifeline. Much like the characters in the book, BBSes provided me with a group of friends with shared interests (so hard to find in the real world). It was invigorating to find a digital community of folks who were interested in computers, underground music, and teenage rebellion.Some of my BBS friends would become my punk rock friends. Like the characters in Incredible Doom, I often found the lines between the digital and offline worlds blurring.

    Aesthetically, the book is a joy to look at with a stark black, blue, and white color palette for its illustrations. The pages in between the sections feature ascii and ansi characters, which is quite evocative of the era. The art is a perfect accompaniment to the bittersweet story that it tells. 

    I recently read volume two and found it just as engaging as the first volume. It focused more on the fissures in the community that folks were building around Evol BBS and their collective living situation, which was a nice progression. Often these seeming teen utopias had their own internal challenges, so it’s nice to see the characters struggle with them, even if it did occasionally feel rather bleak. It also introduced a touring band and underground music shows, which again mirrored my experience.

    I’d definitely recommend Incredible Doom to anyone with nostalgia for the 1990s and the (mostly) pre-Internet era. If you grew up in that period with similar experiences, it will no doubt prompt a lot of reflection.