Weird how I seem to be playing Like a Dragon games more often than I’ve ever played the typical Ubisoft games, but the burnout is far less noticeable… Seriously, though, RGG Studio has been putting out games set in this universe not just annually lately, but often with several games coming out the same year. And in situations like with this game, I’m not sure if there was the point. Not that I disliked Like a Dragon Gaiden, quite the opposite, but it does feel almost unnecessary at points…
Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name is a new entry in the long running series of titles that erased their old international name (which was Yakuza), but remained mainly open world action adventure titles with beat ’em up combat and cinematic stories. This entry, as the title itself says (Gaiden in Japanese media usually stands for “side story”), is a sort of a lower importance story that is set during the events of Yakuza: Like a Dragon, but despite the short visit to Isezaki Ijincho (the main setting of that game), most of the events happen in the classic Sotenbori that was originally seen in Yakuza 2.
At this point I usually write that the “open world” section is not big but is otherwise dense with stories, but it isn’t exactly the case in this game. It’s not fully embracing a typical open world onslaught of icons pointing to busywork tasks, but for whatever reason the substories do go in this direction this time around. Not that there are no longer more deep side stories for you to explore, but most of the optional content this time around is far closer to how substories were in the earliest entries, with simple “bring me X item” tasks. While the longer more involved substories rarely do anything interesting even when their premise is good. There’s one wonderful crossover exception, but apart from it, the substories are pretty weak in this one.
Same goes for the main story, really. You do get to learn more about some secret agent-like society that was first hinted upon in Yakuza 6 and some of the characters shown there seem to be set up to reappear in a later game. But as far as the current story goes, you get some minor details and some new emotional scenes talking about things you already knew from other games and it’s not particularly fulfilling. Some of the new characters are really nice and Kiryu, for a change, has more range in his personality, but it’s not a game that will interest anyone with its story but the biggest fans of the series.
So what did I like about Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name? It plays really goddamn well. Just like with Lost Judgment, combat controls are extremely fun and better than they’ve ever been in the series. Every fight just flows well and provides enough challenge (on a highest difficulty) for those who like it, while providing a perfect amount of challenge (on other difficulties) for people who just want to have fun. Granted, some mini-games still go really unfair, unless you grind or look up best solutions, but those are an exception and most of the time this game is just really fun to play.
Yet it puts it in a weird spot. If you like RGG universe games for gameplay and it alone can interest you, this is a good game for you. It’s unlikely to become your favorite, but it’s really really fun. But if you like the RGG universe for the story, you really can skip this one and not miss out on anything the games won’t recap if needed later on. I liked it, but at the same time, it was a rather forgettable even if enjoyable time.