Like a Dragon: Ishin! - A fascinating period piece
Ryu Ga Gotoku, also known as Yakuza and Like a Dragon in the west, is currently one of SEGA’s main franchises. Created by Toshihiro Nagoshi in 2005, the series had tons of hardships establishing itself in the west: for 10 long years there were desperate attempts by SEGA to make it appealing to an audience that was either unaware of its existence, or completely uninterested because they saw it as just another Grand Theft Auto clone. I had that same wrong conviction myself.
It was at the dawn of the series’s tenth anniversary that Yakuza 0 came out on a Playstation 4, still in its infancy, that the series got a sudden spike in interest and to this day is still going incredibly strong, and all the games are all easily available on every console, and even Nintendo is starting to move their first steps to feature this series on their systems.
Despite the huge success, there were still two titles missing from the western market: Ryu Ga Gotoku: Kenzan and Ryu Ga Gotoku: Ishin. These two spin offs were set in two different periods of feudal japan, and I was instantly interested in playing them since it’s very rare to see videogames set in this time period that don’t fall into the fantasy genre. SEGA, unfortunately, was very hesitant about bringing these games here for fear of poor sales, especially regarding Kenzan, that being a game from 2008 might need a lot more work to make it playable today.
One wish was granted though in 2023, with Like a Dragon Ishin finally coming out on PC and Consoles. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to play it at launch but this year I’m set on catching up with all the games I had missed, so if you’re Yakuza fans like me, this blog might be a lot of fun for you this year!
Like A Dragon: Ishin!
About the Plot
Ryoma Sakamoto is finally coming home after a long year studying the way of the blade in Edo. Upon his return he reunites with adoptive father Yoshida Toyo and his step brother Takechi Hanpeita, both of them have formed a movement called “The Loyalist party of Tosa”, which objective is to reform the current society of japan by removing the caste system, which is oppressing the population in endless cycle of abuse by the higher caste.
However, Yoshida Toyo gets killed, and Ryoma gets erroneously accused of being the killer. The night of the murder Ryoma tried to fend off the true killer, but his ability with the sword wasn't enough and thus the killer, whose identity was hidden behind a mask, managed to escape. Ryoma is distraught by this turn of events and decides to leave Tosa in order to chase the assassin and take revenge, but by doing so will mark his family with dishonor, but that doesn’t matter to Ryoma.
Takechi tries in vain to persuade Ryoma about taking this road, he has the means to restore his honor, bringing him back to the loyalist party and protecting him. He knows that to bring forward their father’s vision the brothers have to stick together. Unfortunately Ryoma has already made his decision.
The only hint for the assassin’s identity is a peculiar combat style he used, a style called Tennen Rishin, which was only practiced in a specific dojo in Edo and all their practitioners ended up serving for the Shinsengumi, a sort of Police squad in service of the shogunate to suppress the emperor’s supporters.
Thus Ryoma Sakamoto joins the Shinsengumi, under the name of Saito Hajime, in order to discover the truth about his father’s assassination. What began as a story of vengeance will slowly evolve in a fight for the future of Japan as a whole. The situation gets even more complicated when a new figure emerges determined to kickstart a new nation wide conflict, another man called Ryoma Sakamoto.
The story is mainly a mystery and it masterfully handles the tension of the situation, Ryoma has to navigate this world by constantly hiding his identity and everyone is rightfully very suspicious of him being such a late new recruit, especially in a time period of constant turmoil for Japan, which is moving past feudalism and into the modern world at alarming speed.
Facing up to change is the main theme of this story. Ryoma has to face the tragic death of his father, and the separation with his own brother, who’s taking on a road he cannot follow because against his principles, the discovery of the truth behind his father’s murder and his own role in this new world.
There’s a constant feeling of fear and confusion in the face of change, which is the driving force for everyone in the cast, everyone has their own idea of what the future of Japan should be: be it to embrace the changes to society, refuse the changes in order to keep everything the same, or even selling the nation out to foreign nations! It doesn’t matter if that would mean sacrificing their entire identity as a nation, because to them there’s no future for Japan in this world.
I really enjoyed how the relationships within the Shinsengumi evolved through the story. In the beginning I was very alert to who could’ve been the mastermind of Toyo’s death, who could’ve actually been a noble person and who was just a bloodthirsty madman. The narration plays off masterfully with red herrings and there’s a lot of tension with Ryoma desperately trying to cling to his own morals while at the same time not compromising his cover as Saito.
When all dots connect at the end you have a cast of characters with a lot of camaraderie between them and it’s great to see them joined together during the final battle. The only issue is that, sometimes, some mysteries feel like they got resolved a bit too quickly, like they could’ve done something more, but it was put to the side in favour of recreating some historical key events of the time.
The game does take some liberties with history: Sakamoto Ryoma and Saito Hajime for instance, are two completely different people in real life, but doing some research I did find that it seems mostly accurate with the sequence of events. As someone who never studied Japanese history, I am legitimately very interested about the actual history of the conflict.
In terms of presentation, it has been very funny to see the characters of the Yakuza series giving their appearance to these historical figures, it's like in universe they all got together to shoot a movie together! It’s a cute detail, although sometimes the line between historical figures and Yakuza characters becomes a bit too blurry, especially with Soji Okita, a character “played” by Goro Majima and nicknamed “The mad dog of the Shinsengumi”
This also plays a further trick on your expectations, as a long time fan of the series, when the character in the game is being played by a very important Yakuza villain. When I see characters like Yoshitaka Mine, Daisaku Kuze and Keiji Shibusawa, my mind cannot help but think what their role in this story will be, especially when they keep acting suspiciously. For the long time fans I feel it’s gonna be very fun to see these characters play out these new identities.
The story is overall very enjoyable, you have high drama when the truths are revealed, the mystery always kept me on edge with every new twist and turns and I was glued to the screen waiting for the truth to be revealed. It’s also very rare to live in this kind of historical period and thus I wholeheartedly enjoyed the experience.
About the Gameplay
As with all the titles of the Yakuza series, the gameplay has pretty much remained the same. Instead of being in the heart of Kamurocho, we find ourselves in the city districts of Kyo, known today as Kyoto. As Ryoma we’re gonna explore the city, interact with the inhabitants, beating up every troublemaker and following plot thread after plot thread while doing our duties for the Shinsengumi.
Just like Kamurocho, Kyo is very small but incredibly dense with content: from the classic Karaoke, a dance theater, the plentiful gambling dens and also fishing! Ryoma will also inherit a house for himself where we could manage our little vegetable garden, cooking up dishes with some very Cooking Mama like minigames and also adopt various pets.
Something that gets emphasized a lot in this chapter is the social aspect. Ryoma can make friendships with many NPCs in town, being them clerks from various stores and restaurants you visit to people you meet during substories who need your help. Building up a reputation is also vital to gather “Faith”, a new currency to be spent at Shinto Temples to receive various rewards: this is especially important if you want to really take advantage of both your cooking and your garden.
Combat is the component of this game that left me more bewildered. Let’s start with the positives: you have four different combat styles: bare handed, sword, gun and sword + gun. Having more combat styles is excellent in a game like this for me, it breaks up the monotony of the constant fights, allowing you to change your approach as you will, instead of spamming the same moves. The game also encourages mixing up every style, as they each have their own experience meter which fills up the more it gets used. This in conjunction with Ryoma’s own level ups, which can be used to level up every style of our choosing, leaves us with a ton of flexibility.
At least that’s how it should be on paper.
In actuality I found the combat styles to be incredibly unbalanced. Let’s start with saying that I barely put any time into the Gun style since I really disliked it: limited mobility and too expensive to manage the special bullets for the gun, which felt mandatory if you wanted to make any real damage. The bare handed combat, the more typical for the series, in this context feels a lot less accessible, in particular because there doesn’t seem to be any good damage scaling on our punches. You can still take advantage of environmental items to use as weapons, but without them the low damage doesn’t make it seem really worth the effort.
All these left me with only two actually viable styles, sword and sword + gun. The first one being more suited for single enemy combat while the other felt more suited for crowd control. Unfortunately the Sword + Gun style also seems to suffer from damage scaling issues, even with the best possible sword I could equip the damage was half of what the sword style could manage, and thus left me with just one style for most of the game.
This not only brought to light an issue of repetitiveness in the long run, but it also led me into managing my equipment in a way I never really bothered to do in the other games of this series. I was constantly hunting for money and materials for the blacksmith in order to constantly upgrade my sword and make battles faster. Needless to say this approach did pay off in the end, but I would’ve preferred having a more even utility from all the combat styles.
It doesn’t also help that most of the enemies in this game seem to have a larger than usual health bar, which I think was on purpose in order to put more emphasis in a new mechanic exclusive for this game: Soldiers recruitment for the Shinsengumi.
You can attach three to four soldiers on every combat style and their effect can be activated during battles: there are many categories from attackers, defenders and supporters, and some that give you access to more peculiar types of attack. A wise and thoughtful use of these soldiers can make the game fly a lot quicker but there’s a reason why I immediately lost interest in this mechanic…. Most of these soldiers are locked behind a gacha!
The excessive cost of the gacha, combined with the fact that you only get a single recruit, combined with not even having the guarantee of a high rarity drop even after paying 10 Ryo were the main reasons why I immediately lost interest in this mechanic. I got by with what I managed to find and be cool with it. Fortunately this only seems to be an essential mechanic only if you plan to complete the secondary Shinsengumi dungeon, but it’s completely optional for the main story, which is great!
I personally hope to never see this type of mechanic again in a context related to combat, I find it way too intrusive.
In Conclusion
If you’re passionate about period pieces I think this game is right up your alley. It is not in continuity with any of the other Yakuza games and it’s also a self-contained story, making it perfect for newbies. The game is available on every console with Nintendo being the only exception.
There’s been a renewed interest with feudal japan and samurais recently in the world of gaming. We got games like Ghost of Tsushima, Rise of the Ronin, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, and Capcom has recently announced a brand new Onimusha! I hope this new wave will convince SEGA to go the extra mile and finally bring Ryu Ga Gotoku: Kenzan in the west and finally close the circle.
If you decide to play it let me know what you think about it. The Yakuza series is one of my absolute favorites and I’m very curious to know how newcomers feel about these games, how they enjoy the gameplay and especially, the narration. For all the others as always follow me to the…
SPOILER SECTION - Proceed at your own risk
So, who was the puppet master in this giant web of subterfuge that orchestrated the murder of Yoshida Toyo? And who was the other Ryoma Sakamoto that brought Japan on the brink of a civil war? Both questions lead to the same person: Takechi Hanpeita!
The relationship between Ryoma and Takechi is one of the best parts of the game, a testament to the high level of narrative that’s found in all of RGG Studio games. Both of them were adopted by the same father but their formative paths couldn’t be more different. While Ryoma was studying the blade in Edo, Takechi remained in Tosa and dedicated his life to politics, with the end goal of leading the Loyalist Party.
Takechi has deeply studied and experienced the corruption that was leading the country, the discrimination of the caste system, being himself of humble origins, and watched first hand how the leading figures went into panic when the black ships reached their shores. Japan needed a new leadership and Takechi had a vision for it, growing up with the conviction that his father was preparing him for that moment when he would’ve led the nation in a new direction.
His convictions fall apart once his father Toyo decides that his methods are way too aggressive and ruthless, and thus wants to make it so that Ryoma would be at the helm of the party. In that moment something snaps inside of Takechi, and decides to take the situation in his own hands. The first step is his father’s assassination, the second is to disown his name, steal the identity of his brother and become the Ryoma Sakamoto that would lead the rebirth of Japan under the ideals of Takechi Hanpeita.
Ryoma is oblivious of these schemes for most of the game, his relationship with Takechi is very lovable and supportive, there’s a really strong brotherly bond between them, and it’s very believable, between the years of distance and completely diverging opinions, that they would keep such a strong bond of affection. One of the more touching moments is a break up between them when Ryoma even dares to tell him that the next time they meet might be as enemies, and yet Ryoma still tries to follow his road to vengeance without trying to step on Takechi’s plans for the future of Tosa.
The moment when Ryoma manages to comprehend, realizes that he’s been used by Takechi all this time, his spirit collapses. He tries to drown his sorrows in alcohol, denying the truth as much as possible, not wanting to accept that the brother he loves so much has been turned into a monster that would let the entire of Japan burn in order to further his planes: there’s not a single time when the two are forced into battle that Ryoma doesn’t have tears in his eyes in seeing what his brother has become, and it’s absolutely fantastic.
Scenes like these are what makes Yakuza one of my favourite series ever. Despite all the humorous and silly comics you might see online, the story has always been a point that RGG Studio has tackled with utmost seriousness. Their strong suit is to create drama between the characters, believable and solid relationships, moments when you feel like dying when the characters end up facing the most important person of their lives, in an attempt to save them from a path to darkness, they might never be able to escape.
What did you think about this game and Takechi Hanpeita? Did you think it was done well? Might be a little confusing or rushed? There were scenes you would’ve done differently? Let me know what you thought. In the meantime if you enjoyed this little space dedicated to the Yakuza series, I have good news for you, the next chapter on the list is Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name so stay tuned for when this chapter will also receive his own dedicated blog!
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