The Man Who Erased His Name - An enjoyable appetizer
One of the biggest hurdles when you’re passionate about a long running series, with an overarching plot spanning multiple chapters, is convincing others, your friends in particular, to join in the fun. It doesn’t matter how well written, thrilling and touching it could be, it’s hard to make them invest a large chunk of free time in a series that, in the case of Yakuza, has now reached its eighth canonical entry. It’s for this reason that I was happy when in 2020, Yakuza: Like a Dragon marked a turning point for the series, with a new cast of characters people could latch on to. As much as the story still has some threads from the past, it’s an entirely new beginning for the series, and a passing of the torch from Kazuma Kiryu to Ichiban Kasuga as the new face of the series. If you never played a Yakuza game and the Kiryu saga feels too overbearing, Yakuza: Like a Dragon can be the perfect compromise , since it doesn’t carry such a continuity baggage that makes you feel completely los...