Hawaiian Punch
HIGH Dondoku Island
LOW Dondoku Island ends
WTF I don’t know how to tell my friends on Dondoku Island that they’re terrifying
I have written numerous reviews for the works of Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio on this site, and I’ve occasionally opined about when this stupendous developer was finally going to reach market saturation. While I am about to write a whole bunch of words explaining in adequate detail how badass Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth is, I think we might have finally reached that point.
This, their most recent work, is the seventh game I have played of theirs on current-gen hardware.
It is the third Like a Dragon game (We’ve made the pivot from Yakuza at this point) that has been released in the last ten months.
I now need extra shelf space for the shelf designated specifically for this developer’s titles.
Don’t get me wrong, despite the quality of this title and the fact that I am overjoyed at the continued success of what has become one of my favorite franchises, I am ready for RGGS to make something not involving Japanese organized crime.
Set a couple years after the momentous events of the first Like A Dragon, we are once again in the shoes of everyone’s favorite lovably earnest idiot, Ichiban Kasuga. He’s trying to make it as a regular guy — as are the vast majority of Japan’s yakuza population — who also have found themselves out of work due to previous events. Eventually Kasuga gets cancelled in a rather hilarious turn of events, and loses his job at the local employment office. Shortly thereafter, he gets a good excuse to go to Hawaii and, without spoiling anything, goes on a brand new quest. He makes a whole bunch of new friends because how the hell could you not be Ichiban’s buddy, and also runs into franchise legend Kazuma Kiryu. Turns out he also happens to be on the exact same quest as Kasuga, so they team up to unravel a mystery worthy of the twist-heavy franchise LaD spawned from.
As mentioned earlier, franchise fatigue is perhaps starting to set in, but what keeps Infinite Wealth going is the old ’70s TV trope “when in doubt, go tropical”. Hawaii is a fantastic setting not only because of its distinct environment, but the rich shared history between it and Japan leads to great cultural crossover for the developers to work with. It allows the characters to visit a wildly different locale without relying on a lot of the typical “fish-out-of-water” stuff one might expect.
Once again, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio has shown the ability to write believable humans in bonkers scenarios, and Infinite Weath has yet another cast full of wonderfully developed party members that I loved palling around with. They are flawed, they make mistakes, but there is good in all of them, and Ichiban’s relentless optimism ties the whole thing together by bringing out the best in everyone. Infinite Wealth, in line with the previous Like a Dragon, has also turned up the goofy to a level usually reserved for the sidequests in Yakuza, and it’s quite successful at it. This stuff is legitimately funny, and good comedy is hard to come by in this medium.
The only downside to this narrative (without spoilers) is that it ends a little on the messy side, with too many absurd circumstances tied up into too many perfect bows. Furthermore, everything involving Kazuma leads to a somewhat unsatisfying conclusion considering this is supposed to be his big send-off. It still ends better than some others in the Yakuza series, but considering how astoundingly impactful the end of The Man Who Erased His Name was, this doesn’t hit the same heights.
Outside of a generally well-told story, Infinite Wealth also excels because it’s just a better JRPG than the first Like A Dragon. While the combat was good enough in the previous entry considering the developers completely changed genres, it wasn’t the smoothest transition. Thankfully, many of the kinks have been ironed out to leave a solid, traditional JRPG that expands on most of what was good last time.
For example, the environments that battles take place are more fully integrated, allowing for characters to pick stuff up and bash peoples’ brains in. Positioning is also important, items are more useful and interesting, and the job system has been dramatically expanded with a wonderfully Hawaiian-themed flourish. There are now jobs like Pyrodancer and Aquanaut which have some spot-on costumes reflecting the locale.
That same Hawaiian flourish seeps into most of the side content as well. First off is the Sujimon — a shockingly deep monster-collecting minigame with random hobos becoming cogs in an underground fighting league, complete with ranked trainers. It’s nuts and I love it, but my heart truly goes aflutter at the mention of Dondoku island, where Kasuga has to beat up pirates and piles of trash with a baseball bat while also managing a dying island resort. Both of these chunks of content are huge and will take hours to finish, so I guess instead of making new games, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio are just gonna put more games into their games.
Infinite Wealth also maintains the exceptional production values the studio is known for. While this engine is nearly a decade old, the strengths still shine through. These are good-looking humans with expressive faces and good detail. The hair, clothes and skin all look right, and while it’s obviously not the most graphically-intensive title on modern hardware, it runs well at a solid 60FPS and stays sharp.
I cannot speak to the quality of the English dub outside of also wishing to pile on Sega for hiring some nasally, smut-peddling dweeb to play Kazuma Kiryu, the biggest B.A.M.F. on Earth, but this franchise is so wholly Japanese that it’s one of the few I wish to play in its native tongue. The Japanese voicework is outstanding, and I appreciate the goofiness of the English spoken dialogue in the Japanese dub — don’t forget, Infinite Wealth takes place in Hawaii, so Ichiban meets plenty of people who don’t speak Japanese. I don’t know if this is the case in the English dub, but there’s a real “it’s 1997 in Japan and we hired our foreign drinking buddies who work in the Eikaiwa across the street” zest to line delivery here, and I am 100% here for it.
As far as criticisms go, it’s still profoundly annoying that a Game Over is triggered whenever Ichiban is KO’d, especially considering I have direct control over characters who have revival spells and healing items, but that’s something one can easily adjust to from a gameplay standpoint.
More serious is the controversy involving the game paywalling New Game+ behind a deluxe edition. While NG+ isn’t generally something that’s a big issue for me personally, it’s a common feature that many players expect, and charging an extra $20 for such while also not making it easy to upgrade into later is highly questionable.
With that said, Infinite Wealth is another fabulous title from one of the best developers on Earth. The necessary improvements to combat have been made, it tells a great story centered around a fantastic protagonist, and Hawaii is a spectacular new location for the franchise. Even though the New Game+ situation outright sucks, there’s still an astounding amount of content in the base game, which helps alleviate the pain. With this release, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio has successfully closed the book on Yakuza, and will let the Like a Dragon flag fly free for the foreseeable future.
2024 is off to a great start.
RATING: 8.5 out of 10
Disclosures: This game was developed by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio and published by SEGA. The game is available on Steam, PS4/5 and XBO/X/S. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on PS5. Approximately 63 hours of play were devoted to playing the game, and the campaign was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.
Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and features Blood, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Partial Nudity, and Sexual Themes. This one is an easy ‘no’ for parents. All of the ESRB warnings listed previously are very much in effect here. The script is extremely crass, there is extensive nudity, and sex toys are bountiful. Infinite Wealth also has some incredibly violent scenes even for this franchise, so it should probably be kept from the young ones.
Colorblind Modes: The game features Three colorblind modes: Green Color Blindness, Red Color Blindness, and Blue-Yellow Color Blindless. There is also a slider to turn up/down its intensity
Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: The game features voiced cutscenes, and the dialogue is presented in white font. The size of the text is not remappable. All dialogue and instructions are provided in text, and there are no necessary audio cues. Especially given the nature of it’s turn-based combat, I’d say it’s fully accessible.
Remappable Controls: The game’s controls are fully remappable
He is currently attending graduate school at Pacific University seeking a Master's In Teaching with a focus on secondary social studies. From 2015-2020, Jarrod worked as a school teacher in various countries throughout Asia, and is now seeking certification to teach in his home country so a global pandemic doesn't leave him stranded again.
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