Yakuza: Like A Dragon Review – Humanizing Me As An Immigrant

This contains spoilers for Yakuza: Like A Dragon

I was very scared to play Yakuza: Like A Dragon as it promised to be a vastly different feel to the previous games in the series I hold so dear. But the second the intro started rolling, I  fell in love with everything it had to offer, from its new battle system to the cast of all new characters to get to know. While I knew Like A Dragon would give me new fictional folks to fawn over, I was surprised to find that it also gave me a sense of comfort in my own real and scary reality here as an immigrant in the U.S.

Yakuza: Like A Dragon follows the story of a new protagonist, Ichiban Kasuga, a yakuza from the Arakawa Family branch of the Tojo Clan in Kamurocho. Masumi Arakawa, the patriarch of Ichiban’s family and Ichiban’s idol, asks Ichi to go to prison, after stressing that someone needs to go in place of another member higher in the ranks to not disrupt what little they had with the Tojo Clan. Ichiban agrees, no questions asked, and spends 18 years in prison. The day Ichi leaves a free man at the ripe age of 42, his beloved yakuza family is nowhere in sight, with only a washed up detective, Adachi, to greet him and let him know that the Tojo Clan is no more. Then Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio does what it does best,  crafting a story that incorporates an appreciation for the working class of Japan, betrayal, unexpected, Bop-It style twists, and attention to minute details on par with a Latin novela. With characters you will obsess over, a new city to explore set in Yokohama, Japan, and a turn-based battle system with outrageous summons that hasn’t been done before in this series, this game has easily become my new favorite.

After finding out that Kiryu was not going to be the protagonist of Like A Dragon, and watching Otaquest’s interview with Toshihiro Nagoshi talking about the new battle system and how he was a little worried about how folks will like the new RPG route the game was taking, like any fan, I was a bit scared that the game was going to feel too different from what I learned to love. “What if I don’t like this new protag? What if the fighting isn’t fun? What if the story feels too copy and paste from Kiryu’s?” Seeing how silly trailers were and what RGG was posting on its Twitter, I was afraid of the series getting the Saints Row treatment, where nothing is serious and it’s all jokes. I was not the most confident going into the game, but the excitement of Nagoshi and RGG cooking up something new kept me motivated.

Now, let me tell you how wrong I was for even THINKING this game would miss.

For me, the frightening thing going into most JRPGs is seeing roles, percentages, and a turn-based system. These elements are always implemented in JRPGS, and they’re the reason I have trouble keeping steam going when I start them. That’s why it’s taken me three years to beat Final Fantasy XIII, and why I have a lengthy love/hate relationship with Pokemon. I like being more of a story-time gamer, with simple mechanics that will be easy on the brain. Some games get a pass, these systems try to make you think more about what you do, but have players still get away with forwarding in the story if you are just vibing through it (a formula I religiously followed in the other Yakuza games). So yeah, I don’t like grinding, I don’t like turn-based, I don’t like thinking. Yakuza: Like a Dragon stresses the need to put in the work to continue as the map is large and extensive, with high level enemies ready to eat you up if you look their way, all while reflecting real life with useful items that look just like what you might have at home. Enemies you encounter look like people you’ve seen downtown on a Friday night. This was like some sort of immersion therapy for me, because I fell madly in love with everything I hated before. Feeling self assured in Ichiban’s strength, resistance, and defense, unlocked a galaxy brain emotion that I cannot put down in words. It had me giving the JRPG nerds in the gaming community some credit like “maybe they were onto something being die hard fans of this genre.” Though, I think my new-found love of grinding and thinking hard on my next move in battle came from how much I genuinely cared for my party members.

Yakuza: Like A Dragon explores bonds between characters like it hasn’t in  previous games. Aside from the vast dimensions these characters hold, the emotional investment and intimacy you get from bonds with your party goes to a whole other level in this game. From buying certain meal combos in the eateries you can explore, triggering certain conversations when walking around the city, to night time talks over a nice drink of whisky to strengthen bond levels, you find out, to the littlest detail, what your characters are into. 

With your first main party, you have Nanba, a now homeless nurse, who is an avid hot milk drinker and will die on this hill to prove the health benefits from it. Adachi is the laid off detective who just KNOWS he would be a sweet dad, or as he says, “a sugar daddy.” Saeko,is an outspoken bartender who can really hold her drinks, enjoys small and cute things, like warm and sugared lattes, to help cope with the loss of closeness with her family. All these little things I wouldn’t have known if I didn’t stumble across these events that needed those specific triggers to get there. Makes me think how much deeper we can dig into these people we come to fall in love with. But hey, it doesn’t stop with those three, as your party grows, you have more opportunities to get to know the new folks flowing in. I found myself taking hours to do side missions across the map, finding different ways to get from point A to B just to see what bond event I could open up.

As well as getting to know your party better, you also come across new stories and NPCs in side missions that feel a lot longer, where more work has to be put into them. Again, something that used to really not be into until playing Yakuza: Like A Dragon. Playing through it made me appreciate how long these took since I got to know who I was helping better. This gave it a chance for more depth, something I desperately want more of from characters in video games. And when the jobs were finished up, I felt satisfied in the amount of work I put into them. The side missions take you to experience the paranormal, some diaper-wearing boys,

boosting the confidence and changing the life of a homeless man, and more. These are stories you didn’t know you needed in your life, and honestly that’s good ol’ Yakuza fashion for you.

There are so many treats this game gives you. Like Dragon Quest references that fuel Ichiban’s #GamerLife personality, costume sets that will leave you audibly yelling “why!”, cameos from characters of past games to surprise you and remind you that this is all taking place in the same universe, which could be easy to forget trekking around a new map. Not to mention a killer soundtrack, with some songs paying an homage to stuff played in previous games. 

The crazy plot caused me to gasp over and over, and will leave you at the edge of your seat. It highlights the fake figure economy and how it hurts businesses. Plus there are even more hot characters to submit your life to. And, gosh, the list goes on, I have four pages worth of notes of just the cool treasures this game offers. Though, there was this one shining treasure that this game gave to me: and that’s seeing me as a person. When living as an immigrant, you have days where it can feel impossible to see yourself as human.

Ichiban’s quest for the truth and saving the city of Ijincho, goes through a 15 chapter long adventure that could not be done without the help of Ijincho’s working class, and the game will remind us in each interaction how much we owe to them. Society likes to paint the working class as leeches who are only worthy, if and when, they follow bootstrap theory and come out of poverty. Seeing Yakuza: Like A Dragon highlighting how difficult life can be when life itself puts us in positions we didn’t ask for, and having to make do with what we have, reminded me a lot of the people I knew growing up. I saw folks that mirrored feelings in the rush of finding jobs in the Hello Work temp job agency, and in the side missions you come across. It was folks who knew what it was like to be at the bottom of the barrel, that helped me and mom beat homelessness, gave my mom and I a chance for a new beginnings with decent under the table pay to keep us afloat when “respected” companies exploited non-English speakers (like my mother at time) to the best of their abilities to reap as much work and effort we had to offer, and spit us out. It was only those who understood what it was like, that would help us, like how characters helped Ichiban and his quest for the truth.

Immigration is a hot topic I am very loud about, and just as my luck would have it, this game is on the same page with me. Coming to the States illegally as a toddler left me aware of my place here regarding citizenship all my life basically. My mom tried her best to keep my childhood away from thinking about this constantly, but it was difficult. Letting me know to never answer the door, not because of ‘stranger danger’ like most parents tell their kids, but because the police might take us away from our lives, or not being able to see family back home because that would mean being blacklisted from airports if we tried coming back. Even though my mother and I are legal now and our quality of life has been better, we still haven’t seen family back in Colombia since we got here because our current immigration policy keeps us from doing just that.

My mom came here for a new life free from crime, poverty, and to keep history from repeating itself when trying to raise me. In her eyes, it was either a life she could not bear her own daughter to go through, or the risk of coming to a new country to try and escape that future from ever happening. Immigration in the US is a decade long wait, full of heartbreak, painful patience, and being aware that there are people who do not see you as a human but as a leech of the government, despite immigrants usually not being able to qualify for said “leached” benefits. Receiving my DACA when I was 16 meant I was finally legal, was able to get jobs on a payroll, but not be able to receive most government benefits, not be allowed to vote, cannot leave the states without permission that costs $400+ to even ask for (which you can be denied of anyway), with application and legal fees that become more expensive each year. And with this game coming out during the year of an active election, Bleach Japan’s (the “liberal” political party in the game) efforts to help people by dragging down those with less means, became too real when I see folks praising Democrats for their flashy promises to the middle class, ignoring how much they will hurt the lower class.

The constant fight over DACA’s existence, and the debate of immigrants wanting to live here despite all the work we do to prove that we deserve to be here, is highlighted in its own way in Yakuza: Like A Dragon. While the gig economy and sex work are still not respected in the mainstream, the game reminds its players how people have made this their only way to survive a system that is constantly out to hurt them. You can feel real stress from characters who so badly want things to be different, but feel so lost and powerless because with any move they make, all that hard work could just disappear. They show you bluntly how easily money can change someone’s life, how they are now able to chase ambitions they are in their right to want to do. Something I was fortunate to have, but that my mom was never able to  because she had to live for survival, and still does.

Hamako is a tough as nails older character in the game, who shelters sex workers who do not have a place to call home, and are illegal immigrants to Japan. With countries and people in them who can take advantage and easily dispose of women in this line of work, she gives them refuge in a safe environment where she knows they will not be abused while they are in her care. In efforts to keep her girls safe, Bleach Japan reached out to her about a new opportunity in working in a shelter that houses women who are illegally in Japan, get them on the track to citizenship, and turn over a new leaf. Only to come and find that these schemes are usually a trap for mass deportations to happen. You see how much pain she is in telling the news to Ichiban, that if she found out about it sooner, she wouldn’t have let them go, that Bleach Japan were taking them to countries where they have no family or life whatsoever, putting them in even more danger.

This reality is similar to someone who is an immigrant here in the US. A fear we wake up with every day is: “Is it going to happen today? Will we suddenly lose our residency and have to leave? My life will be over, what will I do? Will my friends and family get deported?” News of ridiculous deportation buses being set up, and legal citizens being detained or deported despite being citizens in the States here show that my existence as I know it can just disappear, and that every day more Americans are succumbing to this hurtful influence. This sometimes makes me feel not human at all, and more of a pest the longer I live here. That if Americans are trying so hard to get me out, then maybe I should, maybe I don’t deserve to live here.

While people can easily just say, “if it’s so hard here, why can’t you just go back to your home country?” This game tells players how ignorant such a statement is. For some people, like me, living in a foreign country, no matter where you are, is sometimes the only place you know, the life you made here is the only life you had, and to say something so senseless and empty is just stupid.

Yakuza: Like A Dragon reminds me that I’m a person. That even though the mainstream wants to tell me so bad that I am a bother, people on my level are here to shake me up and tell me that the constant work I put into my life to make it better, to make my mom’s life better, is worth it, and I deserve good things and deserve my want of rightful citizenship. The stories in this game of picking yourself up against a system that wants to keep you down are nothing more than inspiring, and if you aren’t interested in the picking this up, even though it’s been wildly loved for its charming main character and fun battles, the way this game hits the nail on the head in terms of humanizing people– perhaps teaching centrist and right wing gamers a thing or two–is worth the buy.