REVIEW: Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth

Complaints

I adored Infinite Wealth, but it wasn’t without its faults. The biggest one for me is actually the game’s story. Without getting into spoilers, the payoff for Infinite Wealth just didn’t quite land for me, with several story threads that felt incomplete or unsatisfactory. It felt like the game was juggling too many characters and too many plot lines, and the back half of the game really suffers for it. As I mentioned before, the game starts strong with the language barrier once Ichiban arrives in Hawaii, but this is dropped almost entirely by the time Chitose joins the crew, and is handwaved completely for all subquests. Everyone Ichiban encounters during these bits is apparently completely fluent in Japanese, regardless of who they are or how realistic that would come across, and it feels like a real missed opportunity to lean into the setting. The game’s story also falters whenever the Daidoji are involved, especially if you played Gaiden. That game was developed after Infinite Wealth was in production, and you can feel it in how the Daidoji are characterized here in comparison. Kiryu’s motivations also feel disjointed when compared to where he ended up in Gaiden.

Speaking of Kiryu, he overshadows Ichiban as a protagonist for the majority of Infinite Wealth, which is slightly inevitable considering his history with the series, but disappointing as well. As only the second game in Ichiban’s stint, it’s frustrating for him and his crew to play second fiddle, even when it’s to a character as beloved as Kiryu. Kiryu’s storyline also carries the majority of the emotional weight this time around, leaving Ichiban’s sections feeling a bit toothless and underwhelming.

Outside my story issues, there’s some really annoying localization choices here. One of the first substories you open involves a podcast you can listen to on your phone. This podcast is entirely in Japanese and there are no subtitles or translation for the broadcast. There’s a sister broadcast in English, but they are not the same show, and even the English broadcast does not have any subtitles. (It’s also not translated for Japanese players.) I’m not entirely sure why they went this route, but it annoyed me. Both podcasts will also interrupt if you greet someone on the street or get into a fight, and I ended up just not using the feature at all because it was more distracting than engaging.

Graphically, the game looked fine, but is definitely beginning to show its age. Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio is at the point where they need to think about moving on from last gen’s consoles and dedicating the increased power of the Series X|S and PS5 toward their aging assets. Hawaii looked beautiful, but several NPCs felt like they were pulled straight out of Yakuza 0, with flat features and stiffer animations. When placed beside the high fidelity facial captures of characters like Tomizawa, it really shows. RGG games have always had charming jank and have historically made use of older assets to decrease production time, but it’s getting to the point where they hamper what the team can do.

Performance also suffered slightly when I played on PC. The PlayStation 5 version of the game ran flawlessly with little to no slow down or hiccups, but on the Xbox Series X and Windows version, I’d get some stutter, especially when entering battles or fishing on Dondoko Island. Oddly enough, I did not really experience this on the Xbox Series S. DLSS was a known issue to cause stuttering on the PC, but even turning that off didn’t help. I was never able to isolate what caused the issue, and it wasn’t enough to ruin my experience, but it was frustrating.

Infinite Wealth also suffered from some poor audio mixing, particularly in regards to the karaoke. While most of the songs were bangers (as usual), they sounded terrible in-game compared to their full-spec versions, which has never been an issue in previous games. It was particularly noticeable on Seonhee’s and Saeko’s songs, as well as the Ichiban version of “Judgement.” It’s especially baffling when compared to the recently released Gaiden, which had excellent audio mixing. Some of the singing also just sounds off, like the in-game versions were the first take and the actors weren’t asked to do a better one. (For the record, I played with the Japanese voices.) Whether this is because the mixing is poor or they wanted to sell more copies of the OST would be speculation on my part, but it did put a dent in an otherwise enjoyable recurring series pastime.

Conclusion

I love the Ryu Ga Gotoku series. Ichiban is my favorite character, and getting to return to his world and see him off on another adventure was fantastic. The story this time around was big and bombastic and stretched a bit too thin in places, but even with some frustrations, I enjoyed the ride. I spent more than 120 hours in this world and I don’t regret it. Having two protagonists gave a lot of room to explore different sides of similar themes, as well as showcase new and old friends, but did end up robbing Ichiban’s side of the narrative of a real emotional through line. I think the more focused story in RGG7 was better executed, but Infinite Wealth was still a crowning achievement that I adored. If you’re a fan of this series, or just looking for a fun turn-based RPG, Infinite Wealth is more than worth your while, though if this is your first foray into the world of Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s stories, I suggest at least checking out Yakuza: Like a Dragon first.

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