Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth Review

We’ve now had three Like A Dragon games in less than a year. Is Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth worth playing, or should you take a break from the series? Check out our review and find out.

Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth Review

Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth follows the story of Ichiban, a former Yakuza member and the hero of Yakuza Like A Dragon. Ichiban’s life is riding high right about now. He has a sweet job helping out former Yakuza, he’s respected around town, he has friends and drinking buddies, and he even has a date coming up. Anyone who has played a Yakuza game before knows how this ends, with everything crashing down around you. A Youtuber reveals secrets about your shady past, which cost you your job, and most of the former Yakuza you’ve helped out get fired, too.

So you take a new job from an old friend and head to Hawaii to atone for past sins and to move on with your life. Sadly, things do not go much better here. You are mugged, drugged, and left on the beach naked. Eventually, you gather some new allies and set out to try and figure out what is going on on this island. The game is the longest in the series, and as of writing this, I have 91 hours in it with plenty left to do.

The Like A Dragon series has turn-based combat but still has the Yakuza flair. Your basic attacks feel heavy and impactful. Your special skills have you breathing fire, using cheese graters on enemies, or tossing dynamite at them. You can pick up weapons mid-battle and smash them into enemies, knocking them to the floor. My point is that even though it is turn-based, it is still entertaining, and you still have to think to succeed. There is an auto-battle option, but the AI does some silly things during combat so I rarely used it. Also, if you are at a high enough level, you can one-hit entire enemy groups, which feels good.

It’s vital that combat feels satisfying to play because there is a ton of it. I don’t know how much actual crime is in Honolulu, but this game makes it seem like you’ll be attacked on every street corner. Since I enjoy the combat, I’m fine with that; some players might not be. Another way they help keep fighting fresh is via the class system. Most characters can switch between five or six classes after you unlock them. Each of them has their own skills, stats, and weapons. That alone would incentivize players to try new classes, but the skill inheritance makes it even more juicy. Grinding up a character to an incredible skill and bringing it to a new class really encourages you to try everything. Honestly, all the classes were good, and I enjoyed playing each.

When you aren’t fighting, you have lots of choices of side activities to do—the arcade returns, with Sega Bass Fishing being the big game this time. The crane game, darts, Shoji, Majong, and a few others also return. One of the new, somewhat passive side activities is called Aloha Links. All you do with this is walk around the island, waving at people with green faces over their heads. Do this enough, and you become friends with them and get a stat boost to your personality. As you’ll see, the game constantly encourages you to explore the island and find hidden treasures and secrets. You can tell the devs are confident in their game world, and that confidence extends to nearly all avenues of the game.

Before I forget, let’s talk about the personality traits. Ichiban has six core stat that rise as he does things in the game. For instance, fighting enough bad guys will raise your Passion skill. As that skill goes up, you get more and more passive buffs like sleep and fear resistance. It’s not just fighting that earns you points for your personality. It’s almost everything in the game. Your challenge list details how to get more points, but here are a few examples. Eating at restaurants, riding taxis, spending money, swimming, playing mini-games, and chatting with random citizens are all things you can do to raise those stats. Again, go out and do something, and you’ll be rewarded.

The meat and potatoes mini game of Infinite Wealth is Dondoko Island, an Animal Cross lite mode. When you start working at Dondoko Island, it is a trash heap with hardly any value. You clean it up and turn it into a resort for tourists. When you start, there are two or three buildings on the island, and it is up to you to create and place more. You mold this island in your vision and slowly raise the rating of the resort. Eventually, you invite some customers in and start making a little scratch on the side. These customers will all have their wants and needs, and you can give them gifts to raise their happiness. The more happy a guest is, the bigger your tip will be. It is simple to understand and a blast to play. My only complaint is that you can get to the max star resort pretty quickly if you focus on it.

I want to mention a few other things before we wrap this up. There is a pizza delivery mini-game that is very much like Crazy Taxi, and it is very fun. I lost hours to it and still want to play more. You can upgrade and craft weapons, making the game easier for you. There are fewer dungeons, but there is a dungeon area where you can farm mobs and materials. The game has choices, but they only affect your personality, and drinking with your buddies is a great way to raise your bonds. And lastly, cars will hit you if you get punched into them.

As for annoyances, the game is turn-based, and you can always see who is next but not the whole turn order. When fighting certain bosses, they would skip the turn order and get multiple turns in a row. I’m not sure if it was based on agility or what, but that got me killed a couple of times. The game has an English dub, but certain characters are not great, and they stick out. Also, I still don’t understand Majong or Shoji and don’t know if I ever will.

Tech-wise, the game ran great, and I didn’t see any frame drops, bugs, or crashes.

2024 picks up right where 2023 left off with a banger of a title in Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth. Anyone who likes big, meaty RPGs should give this one a whirl.