Yakuza: Like a Dragon is the 8th mainline entry in the long-running Yakuza series, of which I've played 0-6 and a couple of the spin-offs. It's one of my favorites series, having a really cool mix of serious main story with funny side stories, tons of minigames and content, and one of the better explorable worlds in gaming.

I actually played a bit of this one several years ago and sort of bounced off of it because this game massively switches up the gameplay style. All thed Yakuza games prior to this entry are beat-em-up action games, while this one switches it into a turn-based RPG akin to Dragon Quest. I like turn-based games, but back when I first tried this one I must not have been in the mood. I think I played a bunch of Yakuza games back to back and got a little burned out.

Now, I'm playing the upgraded PS5 version. It looks and plays great, and Ichiban is a fun new main character. I haven't been able to dive too deep into the side content yet, but it's a Yakuza game, and that's good enough for me.

Verdict: Keep Playing

Part of the Game Library Project