Like a Dragon: Ishin: The Whole is Greater Than the Parts

When I got into the Yakuza series and learned of the existence of Ishin, a spin-off set in the samurai era, it jumped to the top of the list of games I most wanted to see localized.

After years of hoping and wondering, its localization was finally announced last year in an exciting State of Play.

Now I’ve finally finished it.

Like a Dragon: Ishin is a remake of the original Ishin with some changes and additions, the most notable one being changing several characters’ appearances to match those of characters from Yakuza games that came out since then.

You see, even though Ishin has its own cast primarily based on historical figures, they all share the likenesses of characters from the mainline series.

For example, you play as Sakamoto Ryoma (who is also Saito Hajime, because Ishin has fun playing around with historical details for the sake of its story), but he looks and sounds like Kiryu.

Ryoma pointing Ace Attorney style during a mochi theft substory

(And let me tell you, I’m not going to be able to play Hakuoki any time soon, because most of the love interests in that game are historical figures who are also in Ishin.)

It was a lot of fun waiting to see whenever a new character was introduced if it would be someone I recognized from the main series. Despite falling back on their main series counterparts from time to time if I forgot someone’s name, I eventually got used to their roles here.

So, was Like a Dragon Ishin as good as I hoped, after anticipating it for so long? I find my feelings on this one to be almost contradictory.

The story in Ishin is interesting enough. I feel like some of its plot points would hit harder if I was more familiar with the historical context. For the first time, I understood the concerns that Ishin wouldn’t resonate as well with an audience that doesn’t know Japanese history. However, while it lacked the real emotional pull that kept me on the edge of my seat in games like Yakuza 0 and Judgment, it was still exciting enough for me to be invested in the story.

Combat is fine, a little difficult to get used to at first because of its different styles. You have a traditional brawler style, but also swordsman style, gunman style, and wild dancer style, in which you wield a sword in one hand and a gun in the other. Despite initially trying to balance my use of them, I ended up using swordsman almost always. And I have to say, even if they gave me trouble at times, sword battles are as cool as I’d hoped.

One change from the original Ishin is that you now get “troopers” to equip, which basically give you special abilities to use on a cooldown. While I didn’t use the trooper system a whole lot, I liked having those extra powers to assist in tricky situations.

I do have a minor combat nitpick, which is that bosses don’t have multiple health bars, so instead you chip away at one big health bar. Even if it’s functionally the same, seeing those health bars disappear makes it feel like I’m doing more damage.

My other criticism of Ishin relates to its substories. Don’t get me wrong, Ishin has some really great, funny substories! However, a significant number of them just introduce you to a new friend, and then the substory ends. The friendship system, meanwhile, has far too many where you need to give the NPC an item, then come back later to give them another item, over and over until their friendship gauge fills up. You can’t give them the items all at once, and there are so many friendships like this that it feels tedious. On the other hand, a lot of the stories surrounding these friendship were amusing and/or heartwarming.

A lot of the usual mini-games return, as well as some new ones. I love the Edo-style remixes of the karaoke songs, which made this my favorite iteration of karaoke. Meanwhile, the courtesan’s mini-games frustrated me to no end, but made up for it by being some of the most hilariously what-the-heck mini-games in the series. Never change, RGG Studio. Please.

Finally, Ishin is yet another in the series that has a sizeable side activity alongside the other content. This time, it’s farming. Yes, you get a little house with a little farm, where you can grow crops, cook meals, and fulfill customer orders by selling your crops/fish/etc. It’s simple, yet addicting, and gives the game a strangely cozy feel despite the main story being bloody and violent.

(You can also adopt cats and dogs and interact with them at your home, which is already enough to make Ishin climb a few ranks.)

And this is where we come to my contradictory feelings about Ishin. Does it have the best story in the series? No. Does it have the best combat? No. Does it have the best substories? No. Does it have the best side content? No. Yet all of these aspects are enjoyable enough, and without any glaring flaws, that Ishin rose above many other games in the series for me and stands among my favorites.

Despite burning out on the amount of tedious activities for completion and being ready to finish the game, part of me didn’t want to leave. I wanted to keep tending my farm and visiting my friends in the city forever. I wish we could return to Kyo like how we always return to Kamurocho, except I know being historical fiction means it can’t be done in the same way.

All the different aspects of Like a Dragon: Ishin came together to make it a game that I really enjoyed, even if it doesn’t excel in any one area.

Now I’ll return to working through the main series and hoping Kenzan gets the same treatment someday.