Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth Spoiler Talk
Well I was gonna write this earlier. But then I got pretty sucked into Persona 3 Reload. Or more accurately, I just didn’t much feel like writing for reasons unrelated to me playing a different video game. It’s funner to blame the video game though, because then I get to mention a video game.
Anyway, let’s talk about Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth once again. Last time, I gave a review free of story spoilers. This time, I’m going to talk about nothing but story spoilers. In messy fashion.
I’m serious. This is all spoilers.
The Kiryu Thing
I watched a lot of the trailers for this game as they released. Later I wondered if maybe I shouldn’t have?
I mean I played through almost the whole series knowing practically nothing about each story beforehand. Yakuza: Like a Dragon had a couple trailers for its English release, but they were brief and didn’t spoil much.
With Infinite Wealth, though, there was this ten-minute long story trailer. And heck yeah I watched it. I was eager to know what Ichiban and the gang would get up to next.
But in this trailer, some crazy news came out. Kiryu has cancer.
I just know this would have devastated me if I had heard it for the first time in the actual game. Even in the trailer, it was shocking. But man. This is one spoiler I wish I could have avoided.
That’s ok though.
Seeing Kiryu struggle and lose some of his strength was difficult! This man has been stabbed and shot several times—in cutscenes, no less, where damage really counts—and always pulled through. But this is him in a state we’ve never really seen before.
And then, when the party learns they need to protect a young girl, Kiryu remembers his past, when he first met Haruka—the event that set the course of the entire series.
It’s like, somehow I feel closer to Kiryu than ever.
Because the marketing for this game focused almost entirely on Hawaii, I wasn’t sure how much of the game would take place in Japan. But then Kiryu ends up going back to Japan, and the answer is clear: we get two separate parties, one in Hawaii, the other in Japan! As cool as it was to have Kasuga and Kiryu fighting together, I thought this was a great surprise too.
And in Japan, Kiryu is gonna be doing some serious remembering. They introduce a feature called “Memoirs of a Dragon” where basically you go to locations and Kiryu will reminisce on something from a previous Yakuza game. And they included something from pretty much every game. Including the zombie one.
I will admit, by the time I found all these, I started to wish there was a little something extra in Japan aside from them. A new minigame or something. But those are all in Hawaii.
That’s ok though, because all the nostalgia is great.
There’s a whole story where Kiryu happens to run into the little girl from Yakuza 6 who was scared to have surgery and needed Ono Michio’s encouragement. She’s in high school now. I mean how precious is that?
Good old detective Date is in this game and he’s on a quest to bring people from Kiryu’s life into contact with Kiryu—actually, no, in most cases it’s not quite contact, it’s close proximity—without blowing his cover. This rules.
And during this series of meetings, we finally get the return of Shun Akiyama. YEAHHHHH!!!!! Honestly, Yakuza 6 feels like so long ago somehow.
They even brought back Kaoru Sayama, and uh… I feel a little bad that she’s still a bit hung-up on Kiryu after more than fifteen years? And she doesn’t even get to know he’s alive? At least let her move on, if nothing else.
Koyuki and Yuki are in this game. It seems like the devs simply reused the Kiwami 2 models and slapped different outfits on them, because these two ladies have not aged at all! And Yuki’s gotta be in her fifties by now! Not complaining, it’s just funny. I was so excited when I found out they were in this game. It’s like the Smash Ultimate trailer: EVERYONE. IS. HERE!
But uh, while those two legends are in the game, you don’t get to run a cabaret club again, sadly. However, the summon you get from doing their storyline is incredible.
Let’s talk about the game’s ending—Kiryu’s part of it, anyway. Kiryu beats up the bad guy and desperately apologizes for the pain the yakuza have caused this fellow. Kuroda (the voice of Kiryu) gives a knockout emotional performance as always. And then Kiryu collapses.
But in the very end, Kiryu is in a hospital. Finally, it seems he has decided to try to live longer rather than accepting his fate. And he’s going to live once again under his real name.
Also Haruka and Haruto (MY BOY, HARUTOOOOO!!) are there but we don’t get to see them talk to Kiryu. Which I would really like to see, but at least we know that that is something that will happen at least offscreen.
I think this is a great place to leave Kiryu in this series. I liked the ending of Yakuza 6 and would have been satisfied if that was Kiryu’s ending for good. But if we’re going to bring him back anyway… it’s nice to let him be with his family!!
In my opinion, it doesn’t seem like he will be back in action in the next game. This story seemed like a proper passing of the torch. But if we get the chance to still talk with him occasionally in future games, then yeah, that’d be great.
People were scared Kiryu would die in this game. I didn’t want that either, and playing through the game, I really didn’t think they would do that.
After all, the whole point of the Kiryu side was that Nanba wanted him to remember the joy of living so that he’d get some treatment, right? It wouldn’t be very satisfying if he just died right as he was expressing his sincere desire to make up for the sins of the yakuza.
They did have me nervous for a moment though, I won’t lie.
Twist Villains
Let’s talk about some of the villains. First of all, I gotta talk about Chitose Fujinomiya. She is ultimately not a villain, obviously. But for a while, you wonder what she’s up to. They’re not shy about the hints. She’s reporting to someone on Kasuga’s activities. The question is: WHO?
But before we get to that question, let me talk about the dang Tatara Channel. Man I thought this was clever.
First there’s this part where Chitose is like “Hey guys, let’s make a video to find Akane!” She has the video-making know-how, clearly. But ok. That didn’t strike me as odd. Lots of people know how to use, you know, iMovie or whatever.
But then later the group is talking about the revenue from the video. And she knows exactly how little the video is gonna make. She claims “everyone my age has done this math” but thaaaat’s still a little suspicious, isn’t it? It certainly crossed my mind at this point that she could be behind Tatara, but the thing is, when would she even have the time to make those videos? I kind of just dismissed it as unlikely.
But yeah, soon after that, we find out who was really behind it.
And when Chitose demonstrated the Tatara voice………………. Chika-chan?????
How did I not realize her identity earlier?
Well that’s because there’s a voice-changer in use on the actual videos, so it would be hard to nail down. But yeah, that was a fun moment.
As for the one forcing Chitose to make these videos, that would be Eiji, the guy in the wheelchair. This got me pretty good. He seems like a nice guy, even helping you out with his tablet and all that. Nah, he’s actually a huge jerk who knew how to appeal directly to Kasuga’s sympathies. He isn’t even actually wheelchair-bound!
Oh yeah, I just remembered there was another part before the big reveal where Chitose had a quite unusual reaction to meeting Eiji. I didn’t know what to do with that either.
Just a great twist villain. Quite a bit of foreshadowing, but not obvious enough to spoil the surprise.
On the other hand, there is a villain named Bryce who initially is introduced as a religious leader who is beloved by orphans—surely no reason to doubt him, right? Yeah, no, sorry, but I’ve watched TV before. Anytime you see the leader of a fictional religion and he kind of acts like he’s on a higher plane of existence and people really like him, you pretty much can guarantee he’s gonna be a villain.
So Bryce wasn’t the most memorable villain. But he was definitely very evil.
What I will remember about him is his English. See, for some of the characters in this game, they let the Japanese actors do English lines. Tomizawa’s few English lines are not too bad. Eiji’s? Completely incomprehensible. Meanwhile for a couple characters, they got completely different people to do the English lines, which is funny. It is pretty unbelievable how many Americans in this game speak Japanese but it’d be too much of a pain for this game to work if they took a realistic approach to that.
Anyway, the villain on the top of the ladder in this game is Ebina. He was pretty good. One of those Yakuza villains who seems reasonable for a while, hiding their true aim.
Also can I talk about Yamai? I feel like “minor antagonist who teams up with you later” is one of the greatest tropes. This guy really comes in clutch late in the story. And he is also just weird.
I will say, a lot of Yakuza games have too many villains who I struggle to keep track of. It generally doesn’t bother me, because I just enjoy the ride (the end of Yakuza 5 pushed it a little too far though. Like why are we fighting). This game, I can actually tell you who all the villains are. I would have said that I can tell you their motivations too, but then I realized I forgot Eiji’s motivation. Whoops. But still, they did a good job balancing things here. There are twists, but the story doesn’t get impossible to follow.
The Saeko Thing
Rewinding to the beginning of this game’s story, we have some BIG DRAMA(!!!) Ichiban has a little crush on Saeko, it seems, and Nanba and Adachi push him to ask her out on a date. Which he does—and they have a good time. But then Ichiban, with his limitless passion and sincerity, decides to propose marriage to her!
She doesn’t like that. Well, she acts like she wasn’t bothered by it when Ichiban apologizes, but then we skip ahead in time many months, and Saeko is not talking to him.
Naturally, she doesn’t get to go on the Hawaii trip. But when Kiryu returns to Japan, she teams up with him. During the “Drink Links” with Saeko at the Survive bar, Ichiban does become a topic of conversation.
I was really impressed by the character writing here. Ichiban’s proposal didn’t anger Saeko simply because she just doesn’t like him, or because some of the stuff he said might’ve been sexist (like Nanba and Adachi thought). Ichiban had made a big speech at her like it was a sales pitch. It was like he was trying to convince her that if she married him, everything would work out perfectly. And that’s not what she was looking for.
Ichiban doesn’t realize the real problem with his proposal until almost the end of the game, when he gets a chance to talk to Kiryu about love. This is another great scene.
Ichiban finally redeems himself at the very end of the game, before doing another stupid thing right afterward that made me laugh a lot. But he and Saeko will be ok, I think!
You might ask whether this subplot has much to do with the main plot or the game’s themes. I think it is one part of a bit of a character arc Ichiban has, which is demonstrated most clearly by the game’s final scene before the credits. And it ties in directly with the title of the game.
What Does "Infinite Wealth" Mean?
At the end of the game, we hear a song. It’s a song by Ringo Sheena that’s actually from 2009, unlike a lot of recent games in the series that got brand new songs. The official English name of the song is “The Invaluable,” but a more literal way to translate it would be “Excessive Wealth.” Or perhaps… infinite wealth? Yes, this song is the key to the whole story, which is why the English version makes sure to provide subtitles.
“Even if they’ve taken something from you/It really doesn’t matter/You don’t need to make them give it back/I’ll tell you why, value inheres life.”
At the beginning of the game, Ichiban’s job where he felt like he was making a difference was taken from him because of the false accusations of a V-Tuber. Of course he was upset about that; anyone would be.
But then you look at him at the end of the game. He carries Eiji through an angry mob out for blood. He runs into the same exact loser trying to make a video of him from before. The dude starts punching him, but Ichiban doesn’t fight back this time. He just takes it. And when the dude is done, Ichiban just kind of shoves him out of the way and keeps walking to the police station. It’s like he’s become unflinching and no one’s opinion can ever bother him anymore. As long as he knows he’s doing the right thing, he doesn’t care what you say.
And yeah, he was already that way to a very large extent from the day we met him, but it’s like he got even stronger in that determination.
Ichiban got betrayed like three or maybe four times in this game. Tomi-chan, Chi-chan, and even Ei-chan. And never did he hold a grudge. Rather, he went out of his way to help Eiji do what it will take to get back on the right path. Eiji was a massive jerk. Ichiban believes in him regardless.
I do not know of a more inspiring character in all of fiction.
“Value inheres life.” “Inheres” is a word we don’t really use in common day-to-day speech—“inherent” is more common though, so you can pretty much infer what it means. But to be clear, the definition of “inhere” is to “exist essentially or permanently in.”
So value is found in life itself, no matter what.
Ichiban and Saeko’s potential new romance fits in perfectly with this theme. Ichiban was promising her an easier life. She won’t have to work, he’ll help take care of the kids, blah blah blah. Putting aside the fact that Saeko likes her work, Ichiban took the complete wrong angle.
“When I think of marriage,” Saeko says to Kiryu, “I think of a place two lovers end up after affirming their feelings for one another.” The promise of an easy life was irrelevant. What mattered to her was simply two people wanting to be together.
Infinite wealth, babyyyyyy.
Remember how Nanba and the others wanted Kiryu to remember the joy of living so he would get treatment for his cancer? What do you know? That contributes to this idea of the inherent value in life pretty clearly, eh?
I think capping the game off with “The Invaluable” which just ties the game together thematically is one of the most beautiful moments the series has given me. I had to rewatch the sequence to do a good job writing this part and I’m glad I did because man, it all is just amazing and profound.
Tomi and Chi-chan
I know I already talked about Chitose a bit. Because I like her, and she’s hot, and all that. I just thought her part of the story was real good. She is this clever young woman who frequently seems to be deceiving people. She gets Ichiban in trouble with the law, ‘cause she don’t really care! The thing she fears the most is her family finding out what she’s been up to with the Tatara Channel, and because of that, she has to do whatever Eiji says.
But at the end of the game, she’s done running away. Ironically, she says that Ichiban saying she could run away and be free is what gave her the courage to… not do that! Instead, while briefly back in Japan, she goes right to her father. Because of that, she is then able to enlist his help in exposing Bryce’s toxic waste dump to the world. Not only that, but she reveals her own identity as Tatara and confesses that her videos were full of harmful falsehoods.
She really has the greatest cell phone coverage in the world to be able to do all that live from inside that cave.
Chitose doesn’t appear in the game’s post-credits epilogue, because it turns out she’s taking over the Fujinomiya Group.
That makes me doubt that she’ll be a party member in the next game. Well, as long as she plays a part somehow, I’ll be fine. Anyway.
Eric Tomizawa in the beginning of the game is just a random robber and part of a small yakuza syndicate in Hawaii. In the past, his life got really messed up by some nasty people, but now he’s kinda messing up other people’s lives too. I mean, he eats Ichiban’s letter for no good reason! That’s just petty!
But after spending time with Ichiban, who continues putting his trust in him despite all the reasons not to, he changes completely. He courageously confronts the man responsible for ruining his life. And he really becomes a steadfast ally for the rest of the game.
So his character arc plays out on a much shorter timeline than Chitose’s—but that works well for this story. The final act has enough going on as it is.
Both Tomizawa and Chitose1 start the game running away. Tomizawa is running from his past, just trying to survive however he can. Chitose is running from her family.
I saw this YouTube comment the other day that made me realize that Kiryu has been running too. He erased his name. He’s declining to get treatment for the cancer that will soon end his life. But at the end of the game, he, too, has turned around. He’s reclaimed his name. He’s in the hospital, trying to overcome his sickness.
There is a thematic consistency to all these parts of this big story that wasn’t obvious to me immediately. But think about it.
Truly, this game is smart. And also really stupid. Isn’t it great?
Miscellaneous Favorite Stuff
I think I’ve talked about the stuff I wanted to, for the most part. But I’ll add on a few extra things.
I think I said this in my last post, but it’s always such a treat when you see a pre-rendered cutscene start playing. I’m gonna start leaning forward in my chair in those moments, because you’re either gonna get a serious heart-to-heart, or some violence. Well other things can happen too, but you know what I mean.
I haven’t really talked about Ichiban meeting his mom at all, but that is a thing that happens in this game. There’s a cutscene where they talk alone that’s really great and heartfelt.
Ichiban and Chitose have a scene where they talk on the beach. Hey did you notice she might kinda be into Ichiban? But Ichiban only likes Saeko. Also, based on what he says to Nanba, he’s not really down to date someone twenty years younger than him. Unlike a certain detective (well that depends on the player’s choices, but still, Yagami can date some very young women, and it’s kinda weird). Anyway let’s move on.
The scene where the truth about Eiji is revealed and Hanawa gets shot is super intense. Edge of my seat.
I mentioned in my other review that there are some crazy fights in this game. Like where you’re surrounded by all this fire. Or where a dang SHARK keeps swimming up and chomping on people on the ship! That was insane. You gotta love how this series can do stuff like that.
There were many great substories, as usual.
There was one where you do stunts for a movie director, but I gotta say, controlling the minigame for that one is quite a pain! I don’t like getting ran over by a semi! But I do love the ridiculousness of it.
The substory where a guy is trying to create snow was brilliant. After you encounter the guy a couple times and find out what he’s doing, you then experience a seemingly unrelated encounter with Patriarch Gondawa from the previous game. Which occurs as you chase a stroller down the sidewalk and witness it somehow leap over obstacles. The substory ends with a truly touching conversation—then you cut to the diaper-wearing yakuza on the roof and I just burst out laughing. They outdid themselves with this one.
The only bad substories are the ones that happen when Ichiban gives women gifts several times. I mean they are funny in a way but also kind of disturbing. Stop giving women gifts, Ichiban, they always end up going crazy.
What else. Uhhhhh karaoke! Some good new songs here. Of course Chitose’s was in the demo. It’s a city pop tune, and the funniest thing here is the way Ichiban goes “DAA DAA DAA DAA DAA!” I mean it’s not funny at all if I describe it, but if you’ve heard it you know what I’m talking about. Eventually I found out after you beat the game, if you play the song in Yokohama, Kiryu will do the “Daa daa daa” part instead, although he sounds less psycho than Kasuga. Anyway, I love the song, and the singing is great, Anju Inami you are a legend
Oh right, I just remembered I never really talked about the jobs. Ok, first of all, Desperado. That one is my favorite. I mentioned in my previous post that they didn’t feel the need to make all the jobs anywhere close to realistic this time, and so we get a cowboy class who just shoots everybody up with a revolver.
There’s also the housekeeper class…. I understand why people wouldn’t like this one (the game gave the women a maid job?), but the thing is, it’s fun to play. Because you just beat everybody up with a vacuum and have a move where you thoroughly scrub enemies with a brush. We also have action star, where you get nunchaku and kung-fu. I love Ichiban’s voice lines in this class.
Heck, the unique jobs are fun too. Chitose’s final kiwami move where she just does a whole long dance with the enemy you target is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in these games.
So yeah, with how fun these jobs are, I didn’t want to just spoil them in the last post. Once again, I say bravo to Ryu ga Gotoku Studio.
Well I’m pretty much out of things to talk about at this point. And so we close the book on a series of posts about Like a Dragon.
But outside of work, I’ve had no life this winter (and so far, spring hasn’t been much different) so the next post I write will probably also be about video games! Wooo!