The Yakuza/Like a Dragon franchise is known for eccentric side content and surprisingly deep mini-games. I fell in love with the series thanks to hilarious sub-stories like tracking down the Santa Hunters in Yakuza 5 and ludicrously addictive activities such as the real-estate empire building in Yakuza 0. A great Like a Dragon titles immerses you in modern Japanese culture in all the best ways. In the case of Like a Dragon: Ishin, the same spirit is applied to the historical Bakumutsu period between 1853-1867.
The side content is just as unique and wild as you’d expect after playing any of the mainline games in the series. Ryoma, the main playable protagonist of this adventure, is one of the most helpful samurai to have ever lived. When walking about town, you will encounter people who need your help for one creative reason or another (it’s one of the reasons why our Mohamed suggested you avoid fast travel in the game). Ryoma’s helpful nature is truly put on display when you meet a girl named Haruka. Due to unfortunate circumstances, she is racked with untenable debt and is far too young to work. Ryoma agrees to help her pay it all back, so she can keep the villa her parents left in their wake.
You’d think paying off debt in a digital game would not be enjoyable in the slightest, but hey, just look at the popularity of mortgage simulator Animal Crossing. Like a Dragon: Ishin captures that same energy by allowing you to pay off and upgrade the Villa. Considering that Haruka owes a whopping 100 Ryo (roughly ten grand), keeping up with the arrears consumes a substantial portion of playtime. Money for this task can be acquired anywhere in the game world, though the property itself provides everything you need to generate substantial business revenue.
As you start working on the villa, your reputation as a man of many talents will spread throughout the town. This opens up business opportunities in the form of delivery orders. These missions allow you to trade resources for payouts that are far more lucrative than visiting one of the game’s pawn shops. Where this feature truly shines is how it makes otherwise useless items incredibly valuable under the right circumstances. Do you have a bunch of tissue paper clogging your inventory? Someone will pay handsomely for it once the order list refreshes. Accidentally ruin that dish with too much seasoning? Some off-screen hero ensures your time spent in the cooking mini-game wasn’t a complete waste. This dynamic makes everything you do seem worthwhile, even when you don’t see an immediate use for your recently acquired goods.
Ryoma’s Villa quickly dominates your thought process once you unlock it. Each mechanic seamlessly flows into other parts of the adventure. For instance, your home includes a kitchen that allows you to cook various meals that serve as healing items in battle. Many recipes use the same items needed for delivery orders, so managing where each resource winds up is key to maximizing your efficiency. Each successful cooking sesh also increases your bond with Haruka and awards you virtue points.
Virtue is a secondary currency that can be exchanged for a slew of useful upgrades that affect both Ryoma’s Villa and character progression. This introduces another batch of tense decisions to ponder, such as whether you’d rather increase your sprint speed, or upgrade the size of your farm. There is always an incentive to keep grinding the various Villa activities to obtain more virtue.
It’s a wholesome life at the villa, and you can cultivate the land to produce a collection of different vegetables. Each veggie is useful in a variety of ways, from delivery orders to feeding hungry NPCs throughout the village. Laying out the crops reminds me of the Resident Evil 4 inventory screen. Each vegetable takes up a set number of the grid squares that compose your garden. You can freely move and rotate the veggies with precision, and optimizing each harvest requires you to carefully arrange each crop to fill the entire space, just as you would the various ammo boxes, grenades, and weapons in RE4.
If you still needed more reasons to hop on the boat to Haruka’s, there is an entire pet system that becomes available once you max out your bond meter with one of the stray dogs or cats around town. You can eventually have up to six furry friends running around the Villa. From there, you can manage their happiness by playing with them or keeping them fed. Happy dogs bring back treasures that spawn at their house and content cats invoke favorable fortune whenever you complete delivery orders. Much like the farm and kitchen, you can upgrade your pet’s accommodations to increase the rarity of items you receive from them.
The most striking thing about the above systems is how each one perfectly intermingles with the rest of the game’s progression metrics. I am obsessed with Ryoma’s Villa, but the same can be said about all aspects of Like a Dragon Ishin! Leveling up your character’s combat styles, crafting new gear at the blacksmith, and completing battle dungeons offer the perfect foil to your simple life as a farmer in the Villa. Even though Ishin takes place in a radically different era than the rest of the franchise, it provides the same roller coaster of experiences that make the series so memorable.
Now excuse me, I have crops to harvest, dogs to pet, and some meals to prepare.
