![]() ![]() The game engages with big political questions on class conflict and national sovereignty. Kyo: A dated but beautiful world, filled with character It’s a creative decision that complicates the lionized western depictions of samurai, who in reality were often “ violent landlords.” Hajime recognizes that all cops are bastards, but he’s willing to become a bastard in order to infiltrate the organization that killed his father. These scenes are clearly designed to imitate the big, dramatic crime boss meetings in modern-era Yakuza games where the most serious political conflicts go down, resulting in wonderful parallels that draw a line between the secret police of Ishin and the organized crime groups of other games in the series. As I watched the subtle power plays between the Shinsengumi captains at their cinematic meeting, I realized why the developers chose to give Kiryu a secondary historical role. But Ishin lampshades the Shinsengumi’s reputation by having characters react negatively to Hajime’s police uniform, and by showing scenes of members committing extrajudicial murder for power and profit. The Kiryu from the modern Yakuza games had always been fiercely independent from institutions, so it was somewhat jarring to watch him become a literal cop in Edo Japan. Hajime’s willingness to become one of their captains only increases the tension between himself and his brother. While their job was officially to protect members of the ruling government, historians generally agree that they were bloody assassins who murdered and tortured political dissidents. He accomplishes this by taking on the name “Saito Hajime” and joining the Shinsengumi, a real-world police force that currently harbors his father’s killer. Sakamoto Ryoma (who is both an actual historical figure and, here, is “played by” series protagonist Kazuma Kiryu) has to decide if he’s one of them, or if he’s prepared to carve his own legacy. Even if it means standing up to powerful institutions-or people you love. Like its modern predecessors which feature characters surviving the crushing pressures of capitalism, the power fantasy in Ishin is about being courageous enough to live by your personal values. Like A Dragon games-formerly known as the Yakuza series-are not simple power fantasies about being the strongest or most influential man in the city. “But I can’t see the bigger picture like you do.” His words are self-deprecating, but his tone is defiant. “Sorry,” Sakamoto Ryoma tells his brother, who also happens to be the leader of the royalist faction, Takechi Hanpeita. Instead of bickering like this, we could be changing history. You and I both know it’s what our father would have wanted. All he has to do is turn a blind eye to the powerful lords who could have orchestrated their father’s murder. ![]() A year later, his brother offers him safety and power in exchange for his loyalty. But I'd argue if you're playing Yakuza games for the combat, you're just not going to get why people love these games to begin with and may as well play something else.In the opening chapters of Like A Dragon: Ishin!, a samurai becomes an exiled criminal after his father is assassinated in front of him. Sure, combat in Wo Long is bound to be better, because combat in the Yakuza games has always been really sub-part. It's got a lot of heart to it, as all Yakuza games do. I still prefer Ishin though, as it's a sum of its parts kind of thing. In most cases there isn't much surprise as to what will happen at the end. They often feel like one-off stories rather than characters you sort of accompany, and more like weird situations you happen to come across which resolve quite quickly. It's filled to the brim with stuff to do, though this time around the substories are far less thematically varied as there really wasn't much that could be pulled out because of the setting. This kinda shit is what made Nioh so unappealing to me, too. Wo Long complicates a formula which didn't need any additional bells and whistles to work well, and if it was going to so heavily borrow from Sekiro, it should have dropped the pretense and sticked to what works best. The level design may at first seem similar, but the lack of any real interconnectedness makes them inferior in my view. Animations are too flashy and make parry timing obscured, since a lot of the anticipation phase of attack animations is all a jumbled mess of swooshy movements. Wo Long is an attempt to copy the fundamentals of what made Sekiro work, without really understanding the fundamentals of what made Sekiro work. ![]()
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