Infinite Wealth Side Content
With both Ichiban and Kiryu as protagonists, their stat menus and completion lists reflect their unique circumstances. Those who played Like a Dragon will recognize Ichiban’s menu, with his Personality wheel and substories, as well as his Drink Links with party members to build up bonds. Completing substories, playing mini-games and filling out his completion list will raise Ichiban’s Personality, unlocking more substories and, new to Infinite Wealth, new jobs, which are reliant on specific Personality stats in order to access the corresponding vacation package at Alo-Happy Tours. Ichiban can also fill out Aloha Links by greeting various NPCs around Hawaii, which you can keep track of in his menu. Ichiban can also engage in several substories throughout the game, some of which unlock full-fledged mini-games. These run the gamut from being frivolous and silly to emotionally devastating and are well worth your time.
As part of Kiryu’s journey to confront his past and address his regrets, he has his own Bucket List. Unfinished Business is the usual checklist of eating at every restaurant, taking part in street brawls, playing an assortment of arcade games, etc. His dedicated leveling system for Brawler, Rush and Beast styles, similar to Ichiban’s Personality system, is Awakening. Like Ichiban, Kiryu can enjoy a drink or two with his party members to deepen his bonds with them. Kiryu also has Memoirs of the Dragon and Life Links, both of which help unlock his ultimate abilities. Memoirs are a collection of recollections scattered throughout Japan that allow him to reminiscence on the events of his life and the people he’s met. Life Links are similar to Ichiban’s substories and provide Kiryu with closure regarding those he can no longer see, but who mean the most to him. They are, by far, the most emotionally impactful story sequences in the game, especially if you’ve experienced all of Kiryu’s journey through the Yakuza franchise.
Dondoko Island
Ichiban can access two fully fleshed out mini-games, the first of which is Dondoko Island. This Animal Crossing clone took me roughly six hours to complete and was a joy to do. Circumstances find Ichiban on a mostly-abandoned island that used to be a resort, but that has since fallen into significant disrepair. The only islanders who remain are the resort’s proprietor, Matayoshi, and mascots Gachapin and Mukku. Pirates have targeted the island as a place to dump all their garbage, all but ensuring no one will ever visit again, but Ichiban can help clean up the place by destroying the trash piles and gathering resources to rebuild the resort. Matayoshi can’t pay for your services in actual cash, but he will reward you with your own house and Dondoko bucks, which you can exchange for housing items, new tools and upgrades, building materials, and even marketing to attract people to the island.
Much like Animal Crossing, you start out small, building simple items with just the wood and stone you gather from the island. You can also collect glass, metal, wood, cloth and electronics from the garbage piles you destroy, or collect an assortment of bugs, plants and fish. Everything you make is categorized into four groups: Sleazy, Rustic, Pop and Elegant. The guests you eventually lure to the island each have a preference for one of these categories, and the more you appeal to their sensibilities, the more money they’ll give you. The more of each type of item you place on the island, the higher that group’s rank. You’ll want to eventually max out all types. You’ll also want to increase the level of lodgings you offer. Lodging starts out with simple tents and can upgrade to villas, which you’ll need if you want to invite S rank guests. You can also gift items to your guests, including the bugs, plants and other items you collect or create.
Over the course of 40 island days (no time passes in Honolulu while doing Dondoko Island activities), I managed to clean up each of the resort’s areas, attain a 5-star ranking, beat up a bunch of pirates, upgrade all my tools and my house, and rake in a few million Dondoko bucks. These can be exchanged whenever you leave the island for real cash, though the exchange rate isn’t that great (it’s 1 million Dondoko bucks for $10,000). As a money maker, the time you need to dedicate isn’t worth it, but this was definitely my favorite substory/mini-game in Infinite Wealth for how well-realized and addicting it was.
Sujimon Battles
As I mentioned before, Sujimon are back this time with an entire Pokémon-esque mini-game attached to them. During his travels around Hawaii, Ichiban can “capture” the Sujimon he encounters. Once captured, Sujimon can be leveled by either feeding them special power drinks or battling against other Sujimon. You can also level them on Dondoko Island, which has an entire area dedicated to using your Sujimon for manual labor. Scattered around Honolulu are several Sujimon rivals of varying rank. Battling them will net you experience and some money, so it’s a pretty quick way to make a buck. Sujimon battles play out as glorified rock-paper-scissor fights depending on elemental alignment. These are three-on-three battles, with your Sujimon doing more damage to the enemy directly in front of them rather than ones kitty-corner to them. Once per turn you can swap a Sujimon’s position to take advantage of this, pitting stronger elements against weaker ones to whittle down your enemy faster. (Keep in mind, your opponent can do the same on their turn.) As you give and take damage, you build up a meter that allows you to access your Sujimon’s special attacks. Balancing when to use your specials with swapping around Sujimon is the easiest way to victory, especially if you want to take on stronger opponents.
Along with leveling, you can also Awaken and Evolve your Sujimon. Each Sujimon has three stars. By “feeding” a Sujimon another of its type, you fill these stars in, until you can eventually Evolve it into a stronger class. You can also use Committee members to Awaken Sujimon. Specific Sujimon can be obtained by either taking part in Raids or using Gacha tickets. If you have any interest in Ichiban’s Sujimancer job, you will want to engage with the Awakening and Evolution systems, but if all you care about is getting through the substory, I found this aspect of the mini-game to be mostly superfluous.
Every ten levels or so, you can unlock substory battles against the Sujimon League’s top brass, the Discreet Four. These always play out as a series of three battles – two flunkies and then the boss – and were, overall, really easy. The story here is actually pretty fun and definitely worth seeing through to the end. If you’re expecting a deep mechanical experience akin to Pokémon, though, Sujimon is pretty rudimentary. Considering the size of this game, the fact Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio managed to create an entire Pokémon mini-game at all is pretty phenomenal, just keep your expectations in check.
Other than Dondoko Island and Sujimon Battles, Infinite Wealth includes a couple other mini-games that aren’t nearly as fleshed out, but still offer some fun diversions. There’s Miss Match, a dating app Ichiban can use to meet new and interesting people while building up his confidence in talking to women. This plays out as a series of chat messages where you need to press the face buttons in sequence within a set amount of time, otherwise Ichiban will fumble his answer. You can set your profile to match the interests of the other users in order to better your odds of hooking up, and some of the options are, honestly, hilarious. Each change to your profile costs money, but cash is far less a problem in this game than it was in RGG7. There are 10 women to chat with, and it takes a little over an hour to do all of them.
The other major mini-games are Crazy Delivery and Sicko Snap. Crazy Delivery is Crazy Taxi but with a bicycle, and acts as Honolulu’s Can Quest. (You can still play that mini-game in Yokohama.) It’s not a particularly good money-maker, but there are some decent items locked behind its point collection system. Sicko Snap takes place on Honolulu’s tram system and has Ichiban taking pictures of scantily clad men throughout the city. It’s a fun diversion, but I actually forgot it existed for the majority of my playthrough.
