Hello, dear readers! I've been absent for quite a bit, huh? Of course, I'm still incredibly busy in my work life, but the reason for this long delay in content is actually because there are not one, but two games that I've spent at least 100 hours in since the last game I reviewed, Dredge. I only recently completed both of these games, which has kept me from getting started on the review for one or the other, so while I understand that it probably seems odd to have a double-review format for two games that have taken up at least 200 hours of my life in total, I kinda need to hit the ground running here before the floodgates open up and I have to get to reviewing the other items in my queue! So, let's not delay this any longer!
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio
Available for: Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Microsoft Windows
Reviewed for: Playstation 5
Like a Dragon: Ishin is basically a spin-off of the excellent (except for the last one that was turn-based) Yakuza franchise. It eschews the traditional modern-day setting in favor of a historical setting during the last days of Japan's caste system, and it trades the characters we all know and love for...the same cast of characters playing the role of historical figures from this time. The game tells the undoubtedly highly-exaggerated story of Sakamoto Ryoma, a real-life figure from Japanese history who was evidently responsible for the end of said caste system. The story as this game tells goes about as follows: After returning to his home province of Tosa, Sakamoto Ryoma is briefly appointed as the representative for the Tosa Loyalist Party: a group of warriors who seek to restore power to the emperor and remove the shogunate from the equation. However, he ends up framed for the murder of his adoptive father, a high ranking official, and exiles himself from Tosa to the province of Kyo (modern day Kyoto), where he hunts his father's killer with only one lead to go on: a peculiar sword style called Tennin-Rishin. In Kyo, he finds that this sword style is housed within a bloodthirsty militia known as the Shisengumi, who serve as the long arm of the Bakufu, who are kind of an arm of the shogunate...there's a lot of little connecting threads here that are confusing to folks like me who aren't well-versed in Japanese history, but I think you get the gist. From here, our hero has to live a double-life playing both sides of Japan's power struggle, all while nefarious forces plot Japan's downfall from the shadows. It's about as intricate as any Yakuza story is: filled with nonstop plot twists, double crosses, double-triple-quadruple double agents switching sides, etc. So if you're down with this style of storytelling like I am, you'll get what you paid for!
So while Ishin doesn't change much in how these games tell their stories, it does change things up in terms of gameplay. Ishin features four combat styles: Swordsman, Brawler, Gunman, and Wild Dancer. Swordsman has Ryoma use a katana with the ability to block and parry, all while attacking at around a medium speed. Brawler is the Yakuza combat style you're used to, although rendered somewhat useless due to low damage, with the only upsides being a quite useful block that serves as a redirect and some abilities that allow you to switch between combat styles on the fly. Gunman has Ryoma use a pistol that never needs to reload and never runs out of ammo, which is useful for chipping away at enemy health as they run to you. Finally, Wild Dancer has Ryoma use both his katana and a gun, where he attacks with wild speed in exchange for decreased damage per hit with both weapons and a more limited block/parry ability.
Each combat style has its own upgrade tree containing upgrades to the damage of that style, special attacks, and increases to health/heat (fuel for special attacks). In this way, in order to max out Ryoma's stats, it's a good idea to try and improve all four of these combat styles. There's some degree of flexibility in how you do this: leveling up the style itself, and leveling up Ryoma himself. When Ryoma levels up, he gains a "training" orb that can be spent in any of the skill trees. When he uses a particular style to defeat enough enemies, the style levels up and he gains a specific "style" orb that can only be spent in the skill tree for the relevant style. After spending a training orb in a skill tree, that orb can be replaced with a style orb to regain that training orb for use in another tree. So if you're really wanting that next special attack in the gunman skill tree, you can grab it with a training orb, level up the gunman style once more, then replace that training orb with your newly acquired skill orb and spend that training orb somewhere else...or you can just spend your new skill orb on the special attack after the one you spent the training orb to get. How you go about upgrading Ryoma is up to you in this way!
But it wouldn't be a Yakuza game without a ton of side stuff to do, and I'm proud to report that this is the best ensemble of side content since Yakuza 0! Of course, you have the best side activity, Karaoke (complete with a ye-olde version of Baka Mitai)! But beyond that, you also have: Buyo dancing, shogi, mahjong, cho-han, koi-koi, the newly discovered western game "Poker" (complete with something like 7 different variants), no less than 3 or 4 other dice/card-based gambling games I've forgotten the name of, chicken races, a fruit ninja-esque game where you slice/shoot a literal cannonball, an obstacle course where you try to destroy mannequins in x amount of time in various combat styles, an arena with multiple challenge types, fishing, a cozy farming simulation with pets, cooking, a shop-owning simulation, a side job in an udon shop, mail delivery, a drinking contest/rock paper scissors/galaga package in which you compete against a courtesan, a job board to take down a series of bandits dressed as tengu, a set of diligence records with menial tasks to complete (such as spending x amount of restaurants, defeating x amount of enemies, etc), ohhhh and a dungeon system with just shy of FIFTY levels of varying difficulty for you to take on for large amounts of xp and rare materials. And that's just all I can remember off the top of my head, I'm sure I'm forgetting one or two things! And that's just the side activities. There's also, of course, a wealth of side quests that are all more creative than you'd ever imagine (a staple of this saga), and several "friendships" across the city with their own quest lines. Any Yakuza game is worth whatever money it asks because the return on investment is unparalleled, but even by those standards, Like a Dragon: Ishin is exceptional!
I did literally all of these activities. I reached the maximum ranks for the singing/dancing/cannonball slicing/mannequin obstacle course/courtesan games/dungeon delving/farming simulation. For the rest of the activities, I gained as much progress as was needed for a trophy/to complete a diligence record (most of those don't have a maximum rank of anything quantifiable like that). I completed all friendships, 99% of the side quests, and around 94% of the diligence records. And that's just because I wanted to. I believe that 20-30 hours of my time was probably spent between the farming sim/shop simulation, and I ended up spending enough time in the Mahjong parlor to realize that I actually love mahjong and to get good enough at it to win several beginner's tournaments against the AI. If you were to just speed through the story, I'd estimate it would take you maybe 20 hours if you really, really died a lot, with 15 hours being the bare minimum I can imagine. I spent over a hundred hours in this game. So, take my word for it, this is a game where you're going to find fun in every corner, and you're likely going to be able to take that fun and run with it for an ungodly amount of time!
On the technical side of things, this game is mostly solid. The framerate is silky smooth, with the only exception being a late-game chapter where, because of all that's happening on the screen, the framerate absolutely tanks. It's one instance, but it's a blip in an otherwise well-performing experience. The character models aren't particularly great, but they never are in these games. There are some animation issues, such as palanquin carriers running in place while an in-game cutscene plays out because they can't physically move past a character standing in the way, but that's a pretty minor complaint. Beyond these small things and caveats to good things, the soundtrack in this game is the best one in the series so far! What's more, in terms of level design, Ishin seems to address a problem that I've grown increasingly frustrated with as this saga has gone on: The frequency of enemy encounters. They're still a frequent occurrence, but despite spending over a hundred hours with this game, it never grated on me. Part of this is because 80% of the time, enemies are already walking away from you, so you aren't getting spotted instantly. Part of this is also just because the layout of Kyo seems to have far more ways of reaching the same place than Kamurocho does. Whatever way you slice it, this problem that has been chipping away at my scores for Yakuza games over the years is no longer a problem in this title.
Like a Dragon: Ishin has been out for most of 2023, so it's not like I'm breaking out a review on the newest, freshest product right now. But that just serves to prove how much time I spent in its world! I don't know if I've mentioned it until now, but my playtime was stretched out among weeks and months because of other released that I've already reviewed. Yet, despite having put the game down several times over the past several months, I've always emphatically come back for more. Even now, as I go on to newer games, I still will hop back in for half an hour for another round or two of Mahjong from time to time! I don't know what else I can say to emphasize how thoroughly I recommend this game, so if any of this has sounded compelling, I don't think you'll regret the purchase!
Let us review:
-Minor technical problems - 0.5
The final score for Like a Dragon: Ishin is...
9.5/10 - Near Masterpiece
Excellent work, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, excellent work!
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo
Available for: Nintendo Switch
Reviewed for: Nintendo Switch
I'm going to say something that could get me stabbed with a knife covered in cheeto dust, body odor, and links to incel forums...but I'll say it anyway: Breath of the Wild is not, nor has it ever been, GOTY material. Yeah, you could lift things with a magnet and drop them on enemies.....woooooooo, so much fun on the fiftieth try when you finally succeed! Yeah, you could block enemy attacks by raising a pillar of ice in the water between you and them....woooo, so awesome if you've never heard of a shield! And then there's the weapon durability and the rain's impact on climbing. Breath of the Wild was a good game, for sure, but anyone who pretended it was the best game of 2017 is someone whose judgement I seriously question. Why open this review on such a combative note?
Because Tears of the Kingdom actually is the kind of game that I could see being GOTY depending on how my numbers turn out in the end! I seem to remember someone saying that TotK makes BotW look like a rough draft, and I find myself agreeing. Not much has changed between the two, but this is the version that is worth all the praise that the nostalgia-blinded Nintendo shills pretended BotW was worth! For context, I played BotW twice...and my one playthrough of TotK lasted longer than both of the playthroughs of the original game combined. So, this is, in my opinion, the objectively superior version of this new breed of Zelda game. Even so...if you're the kind of mentally unstable man-child that shills for Nintendo in the first place, this review will still find a way to piss you off, because, spoiler alert, TotK is NOT a 10/10. So, strap in, and let's talk about why Tears of the Kingdom is excellent, but not perfect!
In terms of actual story beats, TotK is about as bare-bones as BotW, but the story does actually take several twists and turns that I didn't expect, so that's worth noting. Once again you play as Link, the iconic swordsman tasked with the protection of the titular princess Zelda. Following the events of BotW, Link and Zelda are exploring a previously undiscovered secret passage under Hyrule Castle that reveals a bunch of new lore. In the earliest days of the kingdom, a race called "the Zonai" descended from the heavens to establish Hyrule, and soon after this, an evil entity known as "the demon king" rose to power before eventually being imprisoned. As our protagonists proceed further into the passage, they happen to stumble across the skeletal, imprisoned form of the demon king, and after he breaks free (remarkable timing, truly), he defeats our heroes with one hit, destroying the master sword and taking Link's arm in the process. Link awakes some time later to find an unknown arm attached to him and an unknown voice in his ear. While he slept, strange changes have taken place across Hyrule: a series of floating islands suddenly appeared, a vast expanse beneath the kingdom opened up, and the weather across the land has become unstable. Link learns that Zelda is waiting for him someone, but where? From here, we have our narrative. It's nothing groundbreaking for the most part, but as I've already said, it's an unusually clever story for Nintendo.
When it comes to gameplay, I'm only going to talk about new things how this game handles the things I had issues with in the prior title. I mean, if you're on the fence about getting this game at this point, chances are good its because you aren't keen on facing those exact same problems, am I right? Well, I had two major problems with BotW: the weapon degradation and climbing during rain.
I'll level with you: the latter is actually worse than before...but there are ways of mitigating that this time around that I'll discuss in a moment. Trying to climb in the rain is exactly as infuriating as it was in BotW, but this time around there are also certain caves that have water dripping from the ceiling, and the effect is exactly the same. So there are some parts of the world where you can't wait for rain to stop...you're just going to have trouble no matter what. What makes all this even worse is that the game blatantly lies to you and says that you can make potions and get an armor set that circumvents the problem. However, this is, as I've said, a lie. The slip resistant food/potions and the aforementioned armor set don't actually offer a resistance to slipping...they just make it so that you can climb for maybe half a second longer before you slip. I'm sorry fanboys, you don't have a counterargument no matter how much you think you do. It's a lie, and it only serves to give false hope that you don't have to suffer because of Nintendo's unwillingness to improve its bad game design!
The weapon degradation, on the other hand, is actually handled in a way that I highly approve of. Some have said that the degradation is more rapid in this game...and that might be the case, but the game actually turns that system into something of a constant opportunity. See, no strong weapons actually drop. The strongest weapons you're going to see for at least 50 hours are going to be the extra-fragile skeletal arm weapons. This is mitigated by the fact that you have the ability to fuse just about anything with any weapon. At first you'll be fusing things like rocks and metal crates with your weapons, but pretty early on you'll gain access to enemy parts that can be fused for even more damage. As you get stronger and stronger and start taking on tougher and tougher foes, the quality of the parts increases, and your threshhold of damage at the very minimum increases by something like 20 points at the bare minimum. If you're getting into combat, then you're breaking weapons, picking up new weapons, and picking up parts from your foes. In this way, there's a sort of revolving door effect where you keep on going through weapons and applying better and better buffs to better and better weapons as time goes on, all while never running out of the highest quality fusion materials available in the world at the moment. Is that more steps than should be necessary for a weapon system? Yes. Did I like it anyway? Yes. In TotK, when I couldn't pick up another melee weapon, I wasn't upset because now I could run out of weapons at any time. Now I was upset because I had already buffed all the weapons I had, and I wanted to make another one, but I would have to give up one of my creations to do so. There's a personal touch to the weapon system this time around that just wasn't there, and for me, that made a hell of a difference!
As much as I complained about climbing during the rain earlier, I did mention there was a way to mitigate it, remember? This way is also the biggest addition since BotW: the zonai devices and building mechanics. There are several "zonai devices" in the world, each with a specific individual function: a light shines light, a wheel spins, a fan blows a stream of air, a cannon shoots blasts of energy, a "wing" slowly glides through the air, etc. Most of these are useful for their individual uses alone (for instance, put a fan on the ground and turn it on, and you get a free burst of verticality you can use to paraglide down to another surface). But you have the ability to combine these parts together to form a multi-use machine. For instance, attach four wheels to a random wooden plank, and when you turn the wheels on, you have a car. Apply a steering stick zonai device to this random wooden plank, and you have an even more useful car! OR, fuse a rolling cart to the bottom of a wing, fuse three fans onto the back of the wing, and fuse a steering stick in the middle of the wing, and you've created a fully-functioning plane. OR if you want to be simpler with the same concept, fuse a balloon to a balloon base, then stick a flame emitter facing up underneath the balloon, and you have an easy way to gain intense altitude and paraglide down to wherever you want. This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are people who have made full-on battle mechs or automata that can kill bosses within seconds with this building system. So, the use cases go about as far as your imagination can take you! It's in this way that you can most easily mitigate the rain climbing problems. Because the rain can't go through a balloon, for example, you can create a hot air balloon to simply float to the top of whatever cliff you're needing to ascend and go from there. Obviously that's one option, but a faster option could be a hoverbike, where you take two fans and a steering stick and make a floating motorcycle out of those parts. All of these examples are, again, one of millions of possibilities you could roll with depending on how far your imagination goes.
Those many uses of the zonai devices and the building mechanics make Tears of the Kingdom a truly masterful feat of engineering. How Nintendo managed to make this crap work at all on the Switch is beyond my ability to describe as a software engineer myself. And that's why I don't intend to take off points for the many framerate drops this time around. There was no excuse for Breath of the Wild to have these framerate drops, and on better hardware I'd penalize TotK just as much...but this is the Switch, and this one part of the game is so advanced and spectacular that it defies logic, so even though the framerate drops are truly terrible at times, I simply don't think it would've been possible to optimize the game any better given the limitations of the hardware and the inability of the game to be launched anywhere else...and as I hope I've already proved, I don't give Nintendo a free pass on anything, so I really do believe what I'm saying here. What's more, the sheer amount of QA that clearly went into this game is equally mind-boggling to me. One of the new powers in this game lets you pass through surfaces that are up to a certain distance above you. So, if you're under a ramp, for instance, you would dive upwards into the air, wriggle your way through the piece of the ramp directly above you, then pop out on top of that same piece of the ramp. This applies to anything: floating platforms/items, pieces of mountain, dungeon roofs, etc. You can absolutely cheese just about any puzzle in this game if you use this ability wisely, and the fact of the matter is it would be impossible for the developers to account for all possible ways players could use this. So, instead, they fine-tuned the system to such a pristine shine that it's impossible to find yourself falling through the level or getting trapped by using this ability. I can't even fathom that QA work that had to go into making just this one aspect of the game to be as bug-proof as it is! Beyond all this, there's really only one brief thing left to touch on in terms of the technical side: the soundtrack. Unlike BotW, this sequel kills it in the soundtrack department. Pure hype in the moments where it matters, absolutely beautiful when it needs to be, and just as sparse as we'd come to expect in the moments inbetween. Truly a spectacular technical package...minus the framerate of course.
Folks, you likely didn't come to this review as a Legend of Zelda virgin waiting (alongside poor Link) to get your cherry popped. So, I hope you'll forgive the fact that this review isn't very newbie-friendly. If you are a part of that aforementioned crowd, here's what I think you should know: Breath of the Wild was good, but overrated, and Tears of the Kingdom is what I think Breath of the Wild was aspiring to be. You might possibly disagree with my takeaways after getting your hands on the game yourself, but because I'm not a fanboy, I hope you'll find my thoughts more credible whether they convince you to buy the game or stay far away from it! I've always said that the best critics are the ones who give you a good idea of how you'll feel about a game, regardless of their overall take. But in reality, as I said, most of you who are reading this have either already purchased and played this game or are on the fence about purchasing it because of lingering doubts from Breath of the Wild. If you're in the former camp, I hope you enjoyed reading this (and if not, my comments section is not a democracy, and I will post your comment on all my social media to make fun of you). And if you're in the latter camp, I'd offer the same advice as I'd give the newbies: I also had some hangups leftover from the previous game, so trust your gut when it comes to what I report about the changes. Whatever way you slice it (and no matter how fast your knife breaks as you do so), Tears of the Kingdom is the truly rare masterpiece from a studio that has far more "masterpiece" labels than it deserves.
Let us review:
-They doubled down on climbing in the rain and made it worse: -1.0
The final score for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is...
9.0/10 - Fantastic
Excellent work, Nintendo, excellent work!
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