A Brief History of the Yakuza/Like a Dragon Series
There is a series of video games that’s been releasing entries every couple years since 2005. It has over-the-top action, explorable city districts densely packed with surprises, dozens of minigames and side activities, and TV-drama-like stories full of some of the greatest characters to ever exist in the video game medium. Sure, its combat isn’t going to win it Game of the Year awards, but it’s simple fun, and everything else the games offer more than make up for that.
That series is called Yakuza. Or, wait, actually now it’s called Like a Dragon. Which is a direct translation of the series’ title in Japan, Ryu ga Gotoku. In 2006, the Sega people in the US thought they’d market it as a crime game because everyone wanted to be GTA at the time, but it didn’t really work because…. Wait, I’m getting ahead of myself.
Look, Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth recently released. I have finished it. It’s an incredible game. I was going to start writing about it. Then I got needlessly caught up in explaining the whole history of the series, because I find it interesting. So I realized I might as well make that into its own post and talk about the game I originally intended to talk about in the next post.
So here we go. A brief, not at all comprehensive, history of the Like a Dragon or Yakuza series, mostly looking from the perspective of Western players.
2005 - 2015: The PS2 and PS3 Era
Ryu ga Gotoku is a PlayStation 2 game released in 2005. When the project was first announced, the producer, Toshihiro Nagoshi, said: “For a while now, I've wanted to create a powerful, gritty drama where you feel the sense of humanity. After a lot of thought, this is the product that we've arrived at.”
I’m gonna be honest, I have not played the original game. What I understand is that, like the later games I have played, it has cinematic storytelling inspired by yakuza movies. It’s a game where you get in fist fights with annoying guys in beat-em-up style combat and can freely explore Kamurocho, a fictional district closely based on the real-life Kabukicho.
A PS2 sequel to Ryu ga Gotoku followed the very next year. Then the series moved to PlayStation 3 in 2008 with a spinoff set in samurai times (a game that has never been localized in the West). Ryu ga Gotoku 3 followed the next year, and after that, they released a new game every year until 2013. Fun fact: in 2011, the new game was a zombie shooter spinoff.
On the Western side, the first game was released under the name Yakuza in 2006. The stories always involve yakuza, so it’s a fair title, though I don’t know if it really casts a similar impression as the Japanese name. The game had English dubbing, and there wasn’t room for two audio tracks of this size on PS2 discs, so there was no way to switch between your preferred language back then. The English voices were apparently not super well-received by fans, so Yakuza 2 was released without the dub.
Yakuza 3, 4, and Dead Souls (zombie game) each came to the West after about a year after each Japanese release. They were not big sellers. I’m not sure Sega understood why people like these games. I saw some of the ads they had for Yakuza 4, and they had this gruff narrator trying to convince you that this game was all about being one bad dude. Or, four bad dudes. Oooh, so edgy. These may be games for adults, but I don’t think any fan would describe any of the protagonists as the morally ambiguous fellas this trailer is selling them as. Like if I bought Yakuza 4 based on those trailers, I’d probably be disappointed. They’re not hitmen! In fact you can really only fight in self-defense. It’s not GTA at all.
Since the series was not really taking off in the West, Yakuza 5, which released in Japan in 2012, did not get localized for a long while. Fans had to wait until December 2015 to play it in English, and it was a digital-only release at that. It must have felt like this series had little future for Western fans. After all, Yakuza 0 had already released in Japan by that point, not to mention Ishin, another historical spinoff game.
2016 - 2019: The PS4 Era (The Series Rises in the West)
Despite how bleak things seemed in 2015, two years later, Western fans saw SEGA begin to give the series another serious shot. The publisher brought 0 over as a PS4-only release (it released on PS3 and PS4 in Japan). I think the timing of this made extra sense considering the runaway success of the PS4 compared to the more modest success of the PS3—there’s a bigger potential audience now than back then. Plus, being chronologically first in the series meant people wouldn’t feel the need to play any other games in the series. And also, I don’t know if they knew this, but 0 is one of the very best games in the series. It was an absolutely perfect time to get more people on board.
Notably, more care was taken in localization than in the past to preserve every element possible for global audiences. Part of this effort included writing a huge explanation of mahjong, because none of us know how to play that crud! But it’s in the game if you want to play it! There are other changes in how they handle things too, of course, like preserving the way characters refer to each other in Japanese instead of just using their first names all the time. This more faithful localization has continued since
Sega’s bet on Yakuza 0 must have paid off. After 0’s Western release, they started playing catchup and cranking out localized Yakuza titles like crazy. First was Kiwami, a remake of the original Yakuza game built with the tech and gameplay of Yakuza 0. This was followed by Yakuza 6, which featured a brand new fancy game engine built for PS4. Kiwami 2, a remake of Yakuza 2, followed shortly after. Following the pattern of the first Kiwami, it used Yakuza 6 as its foundation.
One notable element of Kiwami 2’s localization is that we actually got the licensed songs this time. Previous games had original replacement tracks, which were good, but come on, I want the songs! And happily, ever since this game came over, we have gotten them.
Meanwhile, 0 also came to PC in 2018, and more games would make the same jump in the future. Starting in 2020, Xbox One would receive ports as well.
When it came to bringing new games over for the first time, though, it was difficult to catch up completely, because a few months after Kiwami 2’s release, in December 2018, the Japan side released yet another game: a detective spinoff called Judge Eyes, which would be localized as Judgment. The wait for Western fans wasn’t too long, though, as the game arrived over here just six months later—and for the first time since the original game, Sega did an English dub.
Also in 2019, Yakuza 3, 4, and 5 were brought to PS4 in a collection. Cut content was restored, and changes were made to the script to match the style of localization of the more recent releases.
Within just a few years, the state of the Yakuza franchise in the West had transformed drastically. In 2015 it must have felt to fans like Sega of America was all but abandoning the series. But by 2019, any Western fan with a PS4 had access to Kiryu’s entire story. Well, except for the historical stuff and zombies. But that’s not canon, right?
2020 - Present: The Like a Dragon Era
In early 2020, Ryu ga Gotoku 7 released in Japan. This marked a major shift for the franchise, as it featured a brand new protagonist to succeed Kiryu, who had starred in every prior game. Unlike Kiryu, this new protagonist travels with a party of friends. When he encounters enemies, instead of entering the frantic beat-em-up combat the series has featured since the beginning, the game goes into turn-based RPG combat. As crazy as that sounds, fans for the most part have been welcoming of this new style.
Around this time, a couple of the games, which were previously all PlayStation exclusive, came to more platforms, namely PC and Xbox. (There was a Wii U remaster of the original two games at one point though)!
There were some crazy twists from the usual when 7 was announced for the West. First of all, the game would release not only on PS4 (the only platform it was on in Japan), but also on the new Xbox consoles and PC at the same time (The PS5 release was delayed for goofy contractural reasons). And second, instead of calling the game Yakuza 7, they called it Yakuza: Like a Dragon.
In my opinion, launching on a brand new Xbox console must have seemed to Sega’s marketing people like a huge opportunity to bring in players who’ve never heard of the series before, and they didn’t want to scare such players off with the number 7—especially when only a minority of titles in the series were on the platform at that time. Plus, with the new protagonist and gameplay style, it was reasonable to explain it is as sort of a spinoff series…even though it’s really not a spinoff. I mean, story-wise, it is definitely Yakuza 7.
The next game in the series, Lost Judgment, was particularly notable because for the first time, it was a simultaneous worldwide release. And such releases have been the standard ever since. This series is now kind of a big deal for Sega, and not just in Japan.
In 2023, we got a remake of the 2014 historical spinoff game Ishin! (though it was less of a makeover than the other Kiwami games) which was quite a lovely surprise. And we got Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, a smaller game to explain what Kiryu was up to during the events of 7.
Both of these releases ditched the Yakuza name! That change caused a fair bit of online discussion, and fans, including myself, still use the Yakuza name to refer to the series sometimes (it’s quicker, after all), but it has not, in fact, caused mass confusion. To the contrary, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth has sold incredibly well so far, likely thanks in part to an unprecedented (for this series) marketing push.
So uh, yeah, that should get you somewhat caught up on how we got here, but there is a ton more to say about the series and why people like it.
However, for the rest of this post I am going to talk about how I personally became a fan.
My Personal History With The Series
Kiwami
I discovered Yakuza in early 2020, before all that quarantine stuff happened. I saw some funny clips from the game on YouTube and said, “I should try playing this.” Especially since it was a Japanese game.
So I bought a used copy of Yakuza Kiwami, a remake of the original game.
I know there’s a debate of whether you should start with Yakuza 0 (a prequel) or Yakuza Kiwami. I think you can start with either; there are pros and cons either way. At the time I was going with my “release order only” rule, but Kiwami was made after and influenced by 0. So if you want to be a true purist for the release order, you really gotta go play the original PS2 game. Which I haven’t done.
Anyway, Kiwami was cool. I was impressed by the visual beauty of its nighttime Tokyo. The combat was fun, though the way bosses recovered health was annoying. But I didn’t finish the game initially—I think I got more than halfway through the story? That was around when I was trying to get the platinum in Persona 5. And then there was the new Animal Crossing. And then I had to get Persona 5 Royal too, so… I was busy.
But eventually, I felt like going back to Yakuza Kiwami. It was probably summer by then. And I guess at this point I found some of the game’s funnier substories. Laughing out loud at dialogue definitely warmed me up to the game, so I continued further through the story. I made it all the way to the end. It was a challenging final battle, and the ending was bittersweet but pretty satisfying overall.
0
At this point I knew it was time to go backward in history to Yakuza 0, which I got on PlayStation for $10.
0 really blew me away. I knew Kiryu, but seeing him as a young yakuza grunt in the beginning of the game hooked me immediately. That, and the 80s setting: the way they present it in the beginning makes it look so flashy and stylish. Kiryu gets into some major trouble, and it gets pretty tense.
But then the Majima story? Man, this guy seems way different than the Majima I met in Kiwami. (That’s one benefit to not playing 0 first, by the way, but I still think it doesn’t matter that much). Majima ends up having to protect this blind woman, and at the end, I am just in tears. It’s one of the best stories in the series. And the combat is fun too; I mean Majima has breakdancing and a baseball bat.
I really got sucked into the minigame where you manage a cabaret club. You have to send girls to customers’ tables, and then answer their requests for help when they need it—there are these hand signals you gotta learn if you wanna do it quickly. Of course you also want to recruit more girls to the club, so the game extends outside of the club too.
The Kiryu real estate management game is fun too. But not as fun.
Kiwami 2
After finishing 0, I’m thinking I absolutely want to see more of these characters. So what’s next? Kiwami 2. The graphics look more impressive. The game even has a Majima side story involving an important character from 0. So I gotta buy it, of course.
I have to say, I was bummed about the absence of the multiple fighting styles thing when I started playing Kiwami 2. But when it comes to experiencing the sights and sounds of a city, wow this game blew my mind. Walking down the street in Sotenbori, taking in all the sounds, and being able to walk in and out of stores without any loading screens—it was just magical.
Now, as for the story of this game? It was fine. As a love story, I didn’t find it impressive. But it was a fun time.
The cabaret management game returned, and that was awesome.
The Majima story was pretty barebones in terms of gameplay, but it has a cutscene that offers a lot of closure, so it was worth it just for that.
3
Pretty soon after I finished that game, I picked up The Remastered Collection and began Yakuza 3. See, I really felt a desire to see all of Kiryu’s story at this point. I mean, he’s got Haruka to take care of. He almost died pointlessly in a tower and made out with a cop instead of running away. I gotta see what this guy does next!
Playing Yakuza 3 meant going back to PS3 graphics and gameplay, but that didn’t bother me too much. I’ve heard a lot of groaning about the gameplay, but I dunno, I got through it on normal difficulty in twenty hours, which felt fine. What I love about this game is that Kiryu has become the guardian of a bunch of orphans in Okinawa. All the stories involving these kids are precious and some made me cry. As for the rest of the story, there’s some conspiracy and a group called Black Monday and there’s an American guy you have to fight. Look I don’t remember the details. There’s also some local Okinawa yakuza you’ll grow to love. I like Yakuza 3 but I will say I didn’t bother with much of the side content.
4
Yakuza 4. So here we have 4 protagonists. You start as one Shun Akiyama. And man, this guy is cool, and he’s fun to play as. Then Taiga Saejima is obviously pretty cool as well. The third guy Tanimura is also fun to play as because he had a parry, if I remember right. And Kiryu is Kiryu. What I remember about this game is that although Kamurocho is the only city you play in, there’s a large underground portion, which I thought was pretty neat. I mainlined this game and like 3, finished it in around twenty hours. It was a fun ride. There is a twist in this game that people make fun of, but as goofy as it is if you think about it, I still enjoyed it! I didn’t know about any memes beforehand anyway, and that’s the way it should be!
Wait wasn’t 4 the game with the wack final boss? Mighta been. Anyway, another fun ride.
5
Yakuza 5 is a big game. Lots of different cities, lots of different protagonists. This is where they really started making side activities bigger. Kiryu is trying to live quietly under the name Taichi Suzuki. He works as a taxi driver. The taxi side content is awesome because there’s a realistic city driving simulator side to it, and then a crazy highway racing side. Saejima gets a hunting simulator. I always wanted to play more of that but I just never got back to it. The part I was most curious about was Haruka’s. I thought maybe she would beat up bad guys, but instead she has no combat. Instead she does idol things. So basically that whole section is a rhythm game RPG. And I love it. Akiyama is back. There’s also this other guy who I didn’t really vibe with, but he used to be a baseball player.
Yakuza 5 was probably the least comprehensible story for me. When I got to the final boss, I had no idea why I was fighting him. Even so, the moment-to-moment storytelling is, more often than not, engaging, even if I lose track of the bigger picture.
There’s this woman from Kiryu’s part of the story that just completely disappears for the rest of the game. I thought that was weird.
The most annoying thing about 5 is the rate at which you encounter enemies on the street. It’s way, way too high. You can avoid a fight by walking, but that takes a long time too.
In Yakuza 5 it took me forty hours to finish the main story, though a large chunk of that was me enjoying dance battles with Haruka. I really enjoyed my time with the game, and I respect it for setting the direction of the following games: they all have insanely big side games. They mighta just made this one too big.
6
The thing about all these games is that even if I lost track of the overall story, I was still having fun. It’s just fun watching the cutscenes and being like, “Oh, what’s Daigo doing now?”
That said, moving on to Yakuza 6, I found this to be one of the better stories.
6 is a really cool game because half of it is spend in the small seaside town of Onomichi, Hiroshima. It’s also a big graphical upgrade (being the first game in their new engine, called the Dragon Engine), and just about every single bit of dialogue is voiced—that might have been setting the bar too high, though. Kiwami 2, of course, was built from reusing the tech and assets from this game.
Anyway, Yakuza 6, for the first half anyway, offers a big mystery that’s very personal to Kiryu. I the player am just as desperate for answers as he is. Now, later in the game, after you know the answer to that initial mystery, it’s not quite as compelling. But it’s still good.
Yakuza 6 also introduces the absolute legend ONO MICHIO!!!!! NICE TO MICHI!!!!!
Ahem.
Another thing I really love about 6 is the dang baseball sim minigame. These games all have batting cages, but in this one you get a whole baseball team. And it’s kind of an RPG; you boost your players’ stats and recruit more players so you can beat tougher and tougher teams. Each game’s progress is represented by simple 2D graphics, but sometimes you get the chance to hit the ball yourself, just like in the batting cages. I really love this mode and I don’t see people talk about it ever. I dunno if English-speaking fans of this series just don’t like baseball or what.
The game also has a fun RTS type minigame which I did enjoy for a while. However there’s a trophy associated with maxing a unit’s stats and it’s just too much of a grind, so that’s the main reason I don’t have a platinum for this game even though I wanted it at one point.
Anyway, yeah, I loved Yakuza 6.
7
I played 3 through 6 in the last few months of 2020. I did not, however, play Judgment in this period, or get Yakuza: Like a Dragon right at launch.
But I got Yakuza: Like a Dragon just after Christmas! I started the game on either New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day, which was very appropriate either way.
I love 7. Ichiban is great. The story is great. The combat is fun… but eventually gets old. I’ll talk more about it when I talk about Infinite Wealth.
That’s pretty much all the relevant parts of my journey through the Yakuza series. I later played the two Judgment games as well, but I’ll leave out the details for today. Because this is all about the leadup to Yakuza 8, baby, and those games don’t involve Kiryu or Kasuga. They’re good games, though.
And as for Gaiden, I talked about that a bit on an earlier post. The ending of that game really made me happy I played all the other games.
So, you might ask: should you take the journey through the series?
Yes.
But, if you’re doing it just to get caught up for 8…then maybe not. If you get impatient, you’re just going to get frustrated. If you want to play 8, play 8. But if you feel the desire to get to know Kiryu from the beginning, then do that, but take your time. If something interests you in the game, pursue it. Spend hours on fun side content. Don’t worry. The rest of the games aren’t going anywhere.
But you know, if you really want to just jump into 8, you might want to at least play 7.