Like A Dragon Ishin: A mini-review | Kaser Focus

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March 25, 2023

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It’s a strange week when the announcement of Counter-Strike 2 is the highlight. We had a lot of interesting news from GDC, and peeks at upcoming games like Redfall and a TMNT game adaptation of The Last Ronin.

But I’ve been in a mood to talk about games themselves. So indulge me while I talk about a title that got eclipsed when Resident Evil 4 Remake dropped into my lap: Like A Dragon: Ishin! I returned to playing the game after RE4R and have a few thoughts about it.

Ishin takes place in Bakumatsu-era Japan, and follows a fictionalized telling of real ronin Ryoma Sakamoto. He, like every other character in the story, is “played” by a character from the mainline Like a Dragon (formerly known as Yakuza) series — in Ryoma’s case, he’s played by longtime series hero Kazuma Kiryu. As per usual in this series, you have a serious main story about revenge and societal justice, offset by wacky side activities and funny NPCs. There’s even a whole in-game life-sim side quest where Ryoma buys a house and starts a farm for no particular reason.

I didn’t get enough time with the game before starting RE4R to pass judgement. I’m still working on finishing, but I have enjoyed my time with it. I would easily recommend it to fans of the series.

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Ishin! has the same silly, charming fun as the rest of the series. It’s just a bit strange to me that we time-traveled centuries into the past and one of the first things the game does is give Kiryu a gun. The whole blacksmithing subquest was needless busywork, but I still enjoyed the game and give it a thumbs-up.

In addition to more of Ishin!, I’ll also be working on a third run-through of Resident Evil 4 Remake — let’s see if I can make it on Professional mode. I’ll also check out Tchia, if only because I feel like I must see what the new day-one launch on PlayStation Plus is like. It feels like we’ve already had several good releases this year, and I look forward to the Star Wars/Zelda one-two punch that’s coming in just a few weeks.