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Ichiban Kasuga is on a very serious mission. The former yakuza, middle-aged and with a great mop of curly hair, is searching for his estranged mother who is embroiled in the organised crime underworlds of both Japan and Hawaii. But this mission is far from straightforward. For Ichiban, and you as the player, its many detours include delivering fast food to the ravenous residents of Honolulu, enjoying the city’s sights while riding a Segway, and, strangest of all, matchmaking Ichiban’s pet lobster, Nancy, with a member of the native crustacean population.
Such sudden shifts in tone are the calling card of Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, the Tokyo-based creator of the long-running Yakuza series. Since 2005 the Yakuza games, mostly set in the fictional Tokyo district of Kamurochō, have balanced the brutality of their yakuza movie inspirations with the over-the-top daftness of arcade video games and a beguiling sense of verisimilitude. One moment you’re cracking skulls, the next you’re playing a karaoke mini-game, all while wandering through a richly detailed open world of car parks, malls and supermarkets. Shifting the action to sunny Hawaii, a land of blue sea, golden sand and extreme income inequality, means that the latest entry in the series, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, is easily the most contradictory yet, a gangland epic of pure postmodern absurdity.
Ichiban Kasuga is the perfect protagonist to marshal this web of emotional and mechanical styles. He is physically ripped, with a heart made of gold; one character says she has “never met someone so sincere in my whole life”. Where others might baulk at each increasingly silly plot point, Ichiban simply throws himself into the action with naive abandon. Often, this takes the form of bruising and hugely enjoyable turn-based combat in which Ichiban, raised on the 1986 Japanese role-playing game Dragon Quest, imagines his everyday foes as strange cartoon characters. In the blink of an eye, street thugs become spandex-clad wrestlers with superpowers; special moves trigger kaleidoscopic eruptions of colour.
For all its zaniness, the game is not lightweight. Series highpoint, 2015’s Yakuza 0, satirised Japan’s “bubble economy” of the 1980s. That same socio-economic bite courses through Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, whose plot homes in on Hawaii’s homelessness crisis, the rapacious development of the island for tourism, and an international waste management racket. With both pathos and humour, it’s revealed that Ichiban’s sympathies lie not with the real estate moguls or immaculately dressed yakuza but with the downtrodden for whom the American dream in Hawaii, the 50th state, is little more than a sun-kissed sham.
But not all of Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is so clear-sighted. New gameplay additions such as the island management mode, “Dondoko Island” (Animal Crossing with baseball bats), and “Sujimon” (Pokémon with humans) provide little to chew on thematically while further slowing its already lackadaisical pacing.
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is long, some 50 hours all told. You couldn’t possibly experience everything it has to offer during a single playthrough, which makes the decision of publisher Sega to make you pay extra for a new game plus (the ability to restart the game using your items and experience from the first playthrough) all the more infuriating. This is a Scrooge-esque wrinkle in an otherwise generous game, one that’s enthralling in its best moments, maddening at its worst, and offers, for all its extravagance, a fine-drawn portrait of modern life through the eyes of one exceptionally sweet yakuza.
★★★☆☆
Available now on PC, PlayStation consoles, and Xbox consoles
