It’s a brilliant conclusion to Kazuma Kiryu’s story, allowing you to play as him in his final months. And the game sprinkles several spots where Kiryu can reminisce about his past in specific locations and he can meet with characters from the previous games to see how far they’ve come thanks to him. Every time you do this, Kiryu regains more of his power, so you even have a mechanical incentive to do it. Some might call this blatant fan service, but I see it as the game rewarding you for putting in the time to play all the games preceding it. Also it’s a great way to remind you that what you’re playing is connected to all the games that came before.
It’s also a great sequel to Yakuza: Like a Dragon. The turn-based combat I thought was iffy and clunky in that game has been vastly improved here. Now characters can move around, they can knock enemies into each other like bowling pins, damage is dependent on proximity and angle, and so much more. There’s a lot of strategy that goes into how you handle the fights now.
My biggest complaint about Yakuza: Like a Dragon was that the only way to level up was by fighting, which had never been the case before. In Infinite Wealth, that’s still true, but to soften the blow, there are several other important things to level up as well, which don’t require fighting. Job types, Ichiban’s personality, Kiryu’s Awakening, and friendship meters. Yes, you HAVE to fight to level up, but fighting is more fun now, and it felt a lot less grindy as well.
I can’t ignore the New Game + being locked behind a paywall. That is an extremely scummy tactic, and I hope it dies with this game. I also can’t ignore how long this game is. I complained about Yakuza 5 being 60 hours. This game is 75+. Look, it NEEDED to be that length to fit everything in, but the reason I love Kiwami so much is that the cutscenes got to the point and were short enough so you could get to the action. Every Yakuza game since 5 had cutscenes that were so long your controller would disconnect.
Minor complaints aside, this is definitely in my top 3 Yakuza games. I’m still debating whether it’s above Yakuza 4 or not.
