Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth Review

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: two ex-Yakuza walk into Hawaii and shenanigans occur. Okay, I’ll admit, I nailed the set-up but borked the landing, let’s see if 2024’s title Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth from developer Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio does the same.

As this one has Ichiban Kasuga as the protagonist, it’s a turn-based roleplaying game, which is honestly why I skipped over his previous title. In that one, from what I played, it felt very static and dry which wasn’t what I wanted from my formerly-known-as-Yakuza titles. However, I played the demo of this one included with Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name and it really clicked, so I went ahead and bought Infinite Wealth — and as it includes Kazuma Kiryu as a main character, that definitely helped convince me. But don’t worry, I’m quite familiar with Ichiban thanks to content creators, so I wasn’t going in blind.

Infinite Wealth sees Ichiban heading to Hawaii where he hopes to be reunited with his estranged birth mother. Almost immediately, things go pear-shaped and he’s rescued from a bit of a situation by fan-favourite Kiryu, so they team up to find the elusive woman. Through circumstances, they are also joined by Eric Tomizawa and Chitose Fujinomiya to round out your party of four, and you have a good look around the city of Honolulu.

This being Like a Dragon, it’s not quite that easy as twists and turns abound — Ichiban’s last game began with his Yakuza boss shooting him for example — and things escalate. Infinite Wealth does a good job of giving players the important information to get you up to speed when it needs to, because Ichiban has a supporting cast based in Ijincho for when the game is set there. Though, admittedly, it’s very sparse with information when it comes to Kiryu, and there are many Easter eggs and references to his games that newcomers will miss. I will say that I really enjoyed the story and leave it at that, lest I give any spoilers.

The cities of Infinite Wealth are full of people to fight, and as I mentioned, the combat is turn-based rather than the more familiar beat ‘em up style. However, it never feels boring in a way that I feel classic roleplaying games can because Ryu Ga Gotoku managed to make it feel very dynamic. The characters will move around the area, as if sizing each other up, which allows you to do extra damage by being closer or even behind enemies. It really adds a strategic element to things. Some special attacks do area-of-effect damage, so aiming them properly is paramount — unfortunately, because everyone is moving around, that can sometimes fail. The worst thing is when your character moves past someone who was actually in the area…

Making its return, curiously late in the game in my opinion, is the job system whereby Ichiban and his friends can use different weapons and attacks depending on which “job” they’re currently assigned. In the previous title they were actually jobs, in this they’re that in name alone, and I’ll leave it at that.

A big source of enjoyment comes from the substories, many of which feature recurring characters either from Ichiban’s game or the franchise as a whole. Sure, it’s a little contrived that so many familiar characters would be in Hawaii at the same time — but some side stories are multi-part and assume that you waited between parts, so the timeline gets a little fuzzy anyway, just roll with it. Most of them only involve Ichiban, even when you’re with the rest of your party, so I liked to think that Kiryu appreciates the irony of his friend being pulled into UFO sightings or delivering food. You know, since he’s had seven games full of being roped into helping a dominatrix, attending a group date, or running an entire cabaret club…

I’ve always enjoyed the substories in these games, but I was surprised that more than one was very emotional. Maybe it’s just that they haven’t stood out in previous Like a Dragon titles and I’ve forgotten them, but I honestly couldn’t remember any that really tugged at my heartstrings. There are funny ones, joyful ones, hilarious ones, and some that are simply heart wrenching. I wouldn’t change a thing about any of them.

In fact, there’s only one thing that I would change about this game, and that’s the misleading title as Infinite Wealth is definitely not on the cards for a lot of the game. Sure, you can make quite a bit of money at certain points, but for just one of the top tier weapons you’re looking at $140,000, and that’s not even including how much you need to pay to upgrade it. Your average fight with goons will net you a couple of hundred bucks at best.

Of course, money isn’t everything, not when you have lots of activities and mini-games to fill the void! Make friends on social media (just wave at them!), get dates through an app (I hope it’s not a catfish!), conquer a labyrinth (gotta save them all!), battle Sujimon (gotta catch ‘em all!), and straight up play Animal Crossing. Okay, so I’ve not played that since 2005 so I’m a little fuzzy, but yeah, there’s an entire mode that is basically that; a life sim. You wind up on Dondoko Island and you’re asked to help make it into a five-star resort by getting rid of trash, crafting things to increase its popularity, making sure guests have things to do, and beating up pirates.

Dondoko Island is an entire game to itself, and while you can spend as little as 40 minutes on it and never go back, I sunk nine hours into it (about 21 in-game days). I was rushing through it, too, so I’m sure I could spend a lot longer there to get everything to 100% by catching more bugs and fish, mining more rocks, constructing more decorations… Sujimon as well is a whole separate thing, as there are 200 of them to collect, and a storyline about defeating The Discreet Four who run the entire Sujimon League. Oh, I should mention that the Sujimon also contribute towards Dondoko Island, so it’s not even as if Ryu Ga Gotoku decided to include these two random things and leave it at that.

There’s so much to say about Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, but I honestly feel like half the fun is discovering what insanity awaits you next in these games, and I really dislike spoilers. If you’re a fan of the franchise then you don’t need me confirming you’ll love it. If this is your first foray into the lives of Ichiban and Kiryu, then I still recommend it — you can fill in the blanks at a later date. If you want all of the information up-front, then play the games in numerical order — Yakuza 0 through Like a Dragon 8 (this one).