The mysterious video I alluded to has officially been released (specifically, the amazing spoilercast with Leon, Froob, Snowiest and myself) and can be found here: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/Zqp_drxyrrq4gHU.htmlsi=ETReFkqPeqfS7yw3 Once again, special thank you to RGG Studio and Guillotine for the copy and I hope the game's success reflects just as positively on the series moving forward, as it did on the community at large!

This is the first review that mentions how useful they made normal attacks in this game, compared to 7. When I was playing 7, spamming skills was the only way for me to do some damage. But in 8, normal attacks can do good damage, and also slightly restore MP.

I think I understand what they meant by "Yamai is the new Majima but for Ichiban" if we're taking the original Yakuza 1 into account - that's the Majima he resembles the most. To counter Ichiban's burning passion and energy, Yamai is literally cold-blooded (which is a real condition), menacing and almost bored, and halfway in it turns out he's an inderect rival and not a real villain

I loved the yakuza series so much I preordered the most expensive version of this game. I didn’t care about all the bonus content I received all I cared about was giving RGG studios more money because they deserve it and I don’t regret the purchase whatsoever. RGG did an amazing job with this and I will doing this again with yakuza 9 or judgement 3

Speaking of how you mentioned Mine’s moveset, the virtua fighter games have their moves reused in these games and AM2 assists in some of them. For example Richardson’s moveset has a lot of moves from Jacky/Sarah and Vanessa, Joji has moves from Jean, and Ricky Mask has some from El Blaze. Some of Ichiban’s skills in this game are from Akira.

Gokudoni with the Balkan reference 🔥 🗣️ WHAT THE FUCK ARE STABLE NEIGHBOURS 🗣️ 🔥

You joke about it but playing that game for hours to 100% 0, Ishin and Judgment actually made me love Mahjong.

So I left this comment on Devilleon podcast, but I think it applies here as well. So if who’s ever reading this, happened to stumble upon my comment there. Just ignore this, it’s just a copy paste job. But with that being said I think I have a different perspective about the ending with Ebina and Eji "redemption." While ebina himself wasn't a super well written character, I think he was more suppose to show kiryu growth in the game. What I gathered. Yakuza 8 was about Ichiban and his influence on others. Ichiban in 7 showed multiple times, that he saw the good in people. It didn't really matter if they deserved it, Ichiban always looked for it and rarely gave up on them. Kiryu on the other hand always prioritized protecting others from harm. Even if it would hurt him in the long run. Example of this would be Nishki, a person he cared for deeply, but once he knew he went in a destructive direction. Kiryu didnt hesitate to put aside his relationship to protect others from Nishki. Ichiban on the other, while still is very protective about innocents. Never forgets the humanity in his adversary's. Like his brother in 7. With a good amount of the beginning having kiryu constantly around Ichiban. It was likely the driving force in Kiryus change. That and the combination of the Yokohama crew, and the date dates. Showed kiryu that it's ok to have attachments, that when bad things happen. It's not his fault. Seeing kiryu beg for forgiveness to ebina, showed the effect Ichiban had on him. Likely wishing he had Ichiban influence, back during the original yakuza. Seeing Ichiban still willing to help Eji. In my opinion shows the strength of Ichiban. People are correct, Eji doesn't deserve forgiveness. That's why everyone was throwing trash at him. But Ichiban still chose to forgive him. That's why Ichiban didn't have much personal growth in the game. He in many ways, was mentoring kiryu and others. This game has problems. I understand everyone’s complaint, but I really really liked the ending (for the most part). The stuff I already talked about and It left a lot of stuff open for me to be excited for 9. Basically this game goated

I did NOT have that issue with the recommended levels. I only got smacked down due to level differences ONCE and it was the last part of the mma fighter quest where he was suddenly 12 levels higher then me. Every other time I was well ahead of the story curve. Granted I was fighting literally everything.

Just finished this game last night. Sunk around 85ish hours into my playthrough. Loved it! Also your podcast episode with the other youtubers was great. I loved seeing the Yakuza community get together like that. (shame my community is toxic)

Gotta admit I’m relatively new to your channel but MAANNNN the excitement I get from seeing a new video from you every single time!! 🎉🎉🎉

Excellent video. Found your channel from the Like a Dragon podcast after trying to find people who wanted to discuss all the spoilery details of the story. Infinite Wealth's new additions pretty much lay the groundwork for many future games being fun and exciting to play, from the quality of life improvements, to the new lore, locations etc. I really hope the next game takes us back to some Y5 towns.

I thought nothing could have topped the school stories side activities of Lost Judgment but Memories of the Dragon in this game may have done it. This game is like the Avenger Endgame of the Yakuza series. Too bad we didnt see the trio protagonists (Kiryu, Ichiban, and Tak) together in Kiryu last game. So sad!!!

A podcast and a review??? Man this day is awesome

Now we wait for Judgeman 3 which gonna be mix of turn based and real time combat trust me guys!!

One thing i adore abt this game is the cutscene directing. Stuff like the ant scene or the cold open are so captivating to watch and tbh i think the best shot cutscene is the invaluable scene. Yes how we got here wasn't great and had many holes but holy shit seeing kiryu be taken by helicopter and seeing ichi drag eiji to prison just is so beautiful to watch. It feels like such a send off for me, hell it makes me like eiji way way way more. Without the scene i'd put him in baba tier. But with that scene i get ichi and i get what he did, plus a good argument is the aoki was just as bad. Still dont like eiji at all but god that scene is amazing

after 100%ing this game it really is one of my personal favorites. Clocked in at 160 hours by the time i was done with everything

Infinite wealth was the most excited I have ever been for a game release and it was fantastic game I wonder what comes next for yakuza

This game is my GOTY. I bought the ultimate edition, but i detest how new game + was DLC alongside difficulty options. I usually play games on the hardest difficulty to stretch them out as much as i can and to embrace even more of the in game world. Off topic, but i love the edit at 25:55 to 26:00 it was very smooth 💜💜🔥🐉. Thank you for a new video. GOAT.

I disagree with the people you mentioned saying the game doesn’t have a plot. no it does wtf do they mean? there’s a clear goal in each chapter that cumulate to the final act i disagree STRONGLY imo.

Very cool video. As if the 4 hour Yakuza 8 discussion super cut wasnt enough 😊

Well I’ve got 3 more chapters, Better get on those before watching this

Thanks for making these videos on the Like A Dragon games. I enjoy your takes and really appreciate the time and effort you take to do this! Go balls out Gokudoni balls out!

As someone who's played all the games aside from 7, I was initially worried about the turn based combat going in. However, once I started playing 8 I felt as if it was still spiritually still an action game, it was engaging and as you said, the button prompts really help ground the combat into the action. I really appreciate your videos Gokudoni, it's nice to have a Yakuza youtuber looking at the games from an analytical & academic perspective, thanks for your great work. If I may make a suggestion, would you consider ever doing a live stream? I think it'd be interesting to see your thoughts on certain aspects of the series live. Keep up the great content man!

A banger as usual Gokudoni, keep up the good stuff. Back in September I made a half-baked prediction that Infinite Wealth would be Yakuza 5 2 in terms of "big game with lots of fun stuff but holy shit is it long". I hate that I was at least 50% right on the Yakuza 5 2 prediction in the "lots of fun stuff" category, "hellscape pacing" category, and "thoroughly divisive final boss" category. Despite those last two issues I still found it to be a fun package that I can't wait to talk about with friends if they ever get to this point in the series.

all in all, top 3-5 games in the entire RGG lineup easily, the only thing that wasn't the best was the story in a few minor places, otherwise 9-9.5/10 easily

Great video!

Tekken JRPG Turn Based wish they had the 2 Crazy Ken Band songs from OG2 in Infinite Wealth cause their music rocks

Just beat the game last night and now I'm ready for this video. 🤩

Honestly the RPG guy in me is kinda glad they split into two parties because it gave me more of a reason to use everybody and make me feel like everybody contributed, even the ones who join late. In LAD, you start out with the OG 4 and then at a certain part, I always recruit/max the bond of Eri so she gets her time to shine and then when Joon-gi and Zhao join, they stay in my party to the end. Here, I usually go with my usual 3 but feel like theres a good balance between the two parties gameplay wise.

28:12 this was a great addition, as someone who did both completion lists 100% i can tell you right now it takes another like 60+ hours to do that stuff

I gotta admit, i'm surprised by you mentioning a mandatory grind to meet the recommendation. because i was constantly overleveling the recommendations without even trying, and the only way to let the game catch up to me was to deliberately avoid doing anything except main story for a chapter or two lol Like, the only thing i did to get all those levels was explore the city, do available substories and fight some of the street bosses that were near my level. those grant tons of EXP and unique rewards besides so i really wouldn't call that "grinding," it comes pretty naturally as part of just playing the game to me.

I'm 4 achievements away from platting the game but honestly that's not going to be it for this game for me. The side content along with the sheer vastness of jobs and the banter between characters is so ridiculously charming, and it makes me grin ear to ear. I love the improvements to 7's combat, it felt like making an already shiny diamond glisten. I will say I had some gripes with the story but they were so minute that I love the game despite whatever I may think. My anticipation for Infinite Wealth truly paid off for me personally

It took me all this time to finally finish Infinite Wealth and I really loved it. Of course one of the biggest highlights of finishing it was finally being able to watch the Gokudoni break down /hj

I got the DLC, not for NG+ but for everything else that comes with it. We're lucky they actually bundled it in with stuff instead of standalone NG+ DLC.

Okay, here's how you fix the pacing. It's a very simple solution. Let's take Sujimon as an example. So, the gang wants to infiltrate District 5 to find Chitose, but, they need to stock up on some gear first. Therefore, they go to the mall as suggested by Tomizawa. Once they get there and begin their shopping, Ichiban notices the Sujimon Sensei entering the electronic store and wonders why is he here in Hawaii. He then says to himself that he should check that out later on. You then get a UI prompt telling you that you should come back here later to find out what's going on with the Sujimon Sensei. After that, the gang resumes their shopping. By using this method, you remove the need to interrupt the main story in order to introduce some side content. You leave the player freedom to come back at any time to explore it.

Chitose hooked me from the first scene

I know what i'm watching tonight in bed Thanks bud!!!

I'm so glad you brought up the pacing issues this game has. This is something that's been bothering me since Yakuza 5 - the incessant requirement of substories or side story content being made mandatory to go through in the main story. It's really frustrating, especially on repeated playthroughs. It's also a speedrun-killer. Imagine how cool it would be if the "Dragon's Resurgence" ability was locked behind optional side content instead of being required main story content, as it would actually encourage players to find a way to track it down and uncover every nook and cranny there is to find the world. I honestly think this is a big flaw in RGG's current game design. That being said, if you treat the game more like, say, a Persona game, I think you will have a great time with it, as it's meant to be experienced at a leisurely pace. In spite of it all, the game is still very much deserving of the high review scores it received. Great game.

For me this game it the GOTY and a 10/10 just my opinion after getting the platinums on both ps4 and ps5 versions this it like yakuza 0 the story was very good but the only complaint would be the NG+ problem but i don't really care thet much because i still got 200+ hours on this game😂

I was confused for the breadth of the pacing segment, since doing all the side content usually had me over the recommended level significantly. By the time I finished chapter 4, I had enough exp until the 2nd Dwight fight. Then a single run though the dungeons had me 4 levels above both of the final bosses for the respective parties.

I’m trying my best to speed through P3 Reload with a guide so I can pick back up my save file. Had so much fun 30 hrs into the game and didn’t even unlock Dondoko island, any of the essence skills or jobs lol

I just need to level Kasuga to 70 and I’ll have the Platinum trophy.

everyone favoriate mini game majo ..... imean karoke that made me laugh a good bit lol

Fun Fact: If you take the fist letter from each of the command options, it spells SEGA (Skills, Etc., Guard, Attack).

I loved this game so much, the only issue I saw was if you level to fight every enemy in the open world, this will make the boss fights very easy.

i still prefer brawler to turn based for a yakuza game, but at least it looks more enjoyable than 7. 7 was the only game in the series i couldn't finish, not because i didn't enjoy it, but because i suck at turn based games (even though i love them) and i gave up after 15 unsuccessful tries to beat majima even though i had a much higher level than him at that point (difficulty was easy). i couldn't even get to the part where saejima joins in, and it was getting really boring for me to fight the same enemy more than 5 hours straight, so i couldn't bring myself to keep doing it. and i am a massive fan of the series, i played every yakuza game which is released to pc, including side titles like ishin and gaiden: na wo keshita otoko, and i spent 80-100 hours in every game on average, (i played yakuza 0 for 117 hours) i really love yakuza series main story lines, so i was sad that i couldn't experience and finish the game myself, i had to watch the rest of the cinematic scenes from youtube to complete the story. maybe this one will be easier to beat for me so i can complete it and experience the story first hand.

how did kiryu even find where the jimas were hiding again?

maybe it's just the way i play but because i ran around doing all the side stuff available first i actually found myself overleveled for everything story related

I still dont think this is it for kiryu. I think we'll have another gaiden with kiryu post IW

It's disgustingly disappointing locking out new game plus options and restricting them to digital only editions and I'm 1000% against it, it's what has held me back from buying this game and I absolutely loved Like a dragon, I'll get this game in the future at some point, but yeah locking out new game plus has prevented me from wanting to get this in the first place and when I do eventually get the game that does not mean in the slightest I support this locked out feature tactic, great overview review you've done, I'm really not the only one that thinks this way either so many of my other friends and streamers haven't got the game because of this reason, there definitely missing out on profits on this game because of this reason

Even though I miss a lot the old Yakuza games "feel" (the stories, narration, gameplay, characters and so on, which I think changed with 7), I found LAD 8 a beautiful game, and I am having so much fun with it, and I'd like for at least the last appearance of characters like Akiyama, Tanimura, Shinada, Yuta (which I was sad I didn't see in the game with Haruka and Haruto, and also confused, why wasn't he with them? I hope that Haruka and Yuta didn't break up or something) and so on in the next game, which could probably be the last Kiryu's game, I want them to be the Yakuza 16 all walking towards the Millenium Tower well dressed like in Yakuza 4 with the amazing group, the Yakuza 4, God I miss the Yakuza 4, the best Yakuza 4 of all time. Anyway I played on normal, but I didn't have any problem with the levels, the opposite, I was WAY over the required level, probably because I did almost all the dungeons levels before the end of the game, but still, I was more than 11 levels up (I know it was more than 11 because when you had to run with the gang and there are Barracudas or I don't remember who everywhere I could smackdown everyone), which wasn't the best since the bosses were really easy, they should have made that the enemies, at least the important ones, not the street idiots, leveled up with you lets say, like, if I'm at level 58, the boss is at level 55 or 56, but eh who cares, being super strong can be fun too. Anyway, good video as always :)

7:59

I must have completely missed something.... I only had access to 5 songs for Karaoke and ended up doing them over and over... How do you unlock more?

I bought a diffret region infinite wealth and i want to play bog swell DLC but i can't

Without mincing any words, this is my favourite game in the franchise and ties with Elden Ring for favorite game of all time. Having completed both Kiryu and Ichiban's completion lists, the only flaw I see is the arcade game choice. Gaiden was perfect, I expected the same here. Spikeout was utterly painful, and I couldn't find an ounce of enjoyment in it (not even when I realised R1 was a lock on that allowed you to move faster... the game's idea of dodging), VF3 is the worst entry in the franchise and I cannot fathom how anyone would like Bass fishing and its cryptic controls. Thankfully literally everything else more than makes up for the stain that is the arcade. Especially karaoke... I must have spent over 10hrs just doing karaoke for immersion and enjoyment.

Yeah I would say this game is an easy at least 8/10. Really my only two “complaints” are wildly different. 1 the random encounter dialogue when enemies first see you, and the ending. The ending is neat and all but it just kinda feels awkward so it’s weird. But lol that’s kinda it. I love this game Edit: also please don’t over level the story of infinite wealth, I did and honesty ever bossfight was kinda super lame

17:15 I never had to grind until after beating the game. The side missions do level you up

I also stuck to default jobs. Not only because they were all pretty good, but because by the time the game lets you switch jobs I was not interested in starting over with a level 1 job that had no moves. I'm kinda stunned the game had this flaw after everyone complained about the same flaw in 7. Sure, they changed stat buffs to regular levels instead of job levels, they gave job EXP boosting gear to help grind the catch-up out, but it still takes too long to be able to switch jobs. Why? Let us start changing jobs as soon as we get a few party members in 9. No more "wait until the second half of the game" BS, please. Another thing to fix in 9 - Smackdown. Man that feature is useless in 8. You aren't allowed to use it in fights where you should be able to because the threat level scaling is all wrong. My party of 5 guys gets into a fight with 3 enemies 10 levels lower, but because they had red arrows instead of blue I cannot use Smackdown. Stupid. Fix the threat scaling or just base Smackdown on something else that works properly. And when you can use it, it takes too dang long. Please, RGG, play Earthbound, then copy that. Make it happen with almost no interruption to the game. The point is that they're not a threat, that they're not worth my time. So don't waste so much of my time.

Great video once again :). I feel like an absolute psycho having 100% both completion lists for Ichi and Kiryu and only just finished my first play through

One day I will play it, tho I got the end spoiler, couldn't wait to play 6 more games to see the end. As I still don't have better hardware to play it

They could have just sold the game with all content at one price, 100 dollars and nobody would have said anything. The content definitely worth that much

I can't wait for the next yakuza game. Do you guys believe it can come out in 2025 ?

The pacing didnt feel like a HUGE issue because like i was VERY OVER LEVELED VERY FREAKING EARLY i didnt realize but i accidently spent a lot of time doing side content by accident. I GUESS thats a issue that the games encouragement of side activities made me over leveled. I digress maybe thats just me and my experience but for reference the final encounter wants you to be 48 to 50 i was level 60 with kiryu and 56 as ichiban and his party and i wanna mention i barely touched dondoko island and sujimon i did the starting stuff snd never again im going back to finish it now

To me 7 still is the better game, even combat on 8 should be better but is so easy that to me felt wasted

The grind I had no issues with I was always overleveled because I would go into Hawaii haunt to upgrade my jobs so I ended up breezing through story content

@39:49 you say "dlc isn't required for platinum/[100%] on any platform" which is untrue. on steam, DLC is required for 100%

I wrote this on leon's podcast, so I'll do a copy and paste here: Infinite wealth was a fairly mixed bag for me. On one hand I enjoyed it a lot, and on the other I was disappointed. Combat wise this is was great, but story wise there's so many things that're never explored or left in the air that it feels off, and I think the story is the worst part of the game. For the new companions, Chitose is the ada wong of yakuza. You never know if you can trust her or if she's going to betray you, and that's left in the air even to the end of the game, and I liked that feature of her character. Tomi I personally hated, and I think his personality conflicted too much with the group in an annoying way, rather than an intriguing one, and I'm glad gokudoni said "even if you don't like the character, his job is great" and I agree. Seonhee was a fantastic addition to the game and was a monster DPS. The OST... I think is pretty bad too. There's only a few good tracks in my opinion, and I was also left disappointed by that too. My favorite is wong tou's theme. There's so much to say about this game that it's too much to fully type out. But overall, I would give this game a 7/10. Good combat, fun characters, great areas, but awful story, mediocre OST, and more questions than we got answers.

The level gating system was always a nonissue to me. Every time "reccomended level" showed up I was consistently always ten levels above the reccomendation. Idk how the difficulty selection works but that was on hard first time blind playthrough. To be underleveled in both LaD and Infinite Wealth, you need to basically _refuse_ to participate in any side content. The game was already laughably easy on "hard" and Im no expert Trun Based gamer. Like a Dragon is just that easy and designed to be simple, that I can not agree with the idea of making it even easier. As that would just invalidate gameplay since there is literally already an automatic mode. I would not want the game to be so easy it plays itself. I'd question why you bought a video game if you wanted a movie.

When it comes to Ichiban, the way I'd describe him is that he's a man with all the strengths of Kiryu without his weaknesses.

I wasn’t a big fan of the plot of this one, mostly the antagonists.

The ending felt rushed and half the plotlines ignored. Ichiban never even has a scene with the final boss after he learns his origin. Also, all the memories for Kiryu and not a single one about Kuze? Fucking ODA gets to be remembered but not the most iconic boss in 0?

Love the video Gokudoni. But I'm sorry, I can't like Chitose. What she did was both illegal and deplorable. Even if she was a victim of coercion. Lives were ruined because of her countless acts of cyberlibel. The defamation of Ichiban and the doxxing of Kiryu. Those are real-life CRIMES. Also, she didn't need to rob Icbiban the way she did. Put him in danger and betray him several times too often. And why? She was afraid of her identity being outed? More popular V-tubers have been doxxed, but they didn't suffer. Besides, Chitose's rich family can easily cover up any scandal about her because PUBLIC IMAGE is important to them. Ebina had potential. Even Bryce would fit the narrative if only less time was wasted on him. Yamai and Tomi are amazing additions. Chitose? She only gets more defenders because she is attractive. I started Yakuza on the PS2. Like you, I am a completionist. Have all English plats for all games and spinoffs. Y8 feels like an empty platinum for me. I appreciate the Kiryu arcs, but somehow, it still felt like they were kicking the can down the road. I appreciate the content in the game. I love the graphics and the improved gameplay. But this takes the cake from Y5. Mirei Park seemed deplorable at the outset, but she had a more important goal that's why things happened how they did. Chitose seemed like an utterly selfish person, and Eiji was a pure psychopath. Dwight was a generic but VERY AWESOME bad guy. I love replaying Yakuza games, even the PS2 ones. I don't have the heart to replay I.W. because the main plot pisses me off. Is this how Yakuza is now? Cash grabs and eye candy? It was always the STORY that made the games amazing. Long post, but SERIOUSLY. Y7 introduced Ichiban in the most wonderful way. I was wary of it at first, but the game won me over, and I adored Ichiban. He feels downgraded in 8. Of course, he risked life and limb to save Aoki because they were brothers. Eiji almost had a child killed, and he's forgiven? I'd never trust anyone like that, EVER. I agree with your videos and always loved your thoughts on the games. But I'm so sorry for not agreeing with you about Chitose. Legally speaking, she should at least serve time in jail. Instead, she gets promoted. Even if Ichiban and Kiryu forgave her, she still had a criminal liability against the laws. Cyberlibel is considered a crime against the state as much as it is against persons. From a legal standpoint, all the victims whose lives were ruined because of her defamatory acts have the legal right to sue her each act of cyberlibel. It's just a video game sure, but since when has Yakuza been "just a video game."

Your video has spoiler especially in video format. You should definitively put SPOILER in capital letter in the title, or at least don't put spoiler videos

This game is even more disappointing than Ishin was. Never thought I would be saying this for a mainline entry. Definitely one of the worst RGG titles, without exageration. The story is pretty much a disaster. Really bad pacing issues, there's so much s*** that happened in the first half of the game that I completely forgot about because ultimately it was all bull**** that didn't matter. The couple of chapters just felt so rushed, the build up to the main antagonists just felt so weak. Bryce could have been an interesting final boss, but the execution was seriously boring. Ebina just isn't a cool character. Especially in contrast to Gaiden where Shishido was a cool final boss. There are so many loose ends, by far the most loose ends out of all the games. and people complained about the few in 6. There were so many loose ends, they need 5 gaiden games to even address half of the issues they raised. The side content is meh. Sujimon becomes a repetitive grind rather quickly and the Sujimon Job isn't worth it, even with 999 stats on all elements (tried with all Kiwamis maxed out). Dondoko is one of the most boring minigame they ever thought of. It's basically an AC rip-off. It's not even worth it to grind money since dungeons are better in every aspect. Bucket list will blueballs you to death. However the gameplay is where the game shines, a vast improvement after 7. But the game is still too easy, unbalanced and doesn't offer a slight of challenge. Ailments never work, meaning that strategically planning a fight is a waste of time 5 is still the most ambitious of them all NB : Yokoyama needs to be fired. This man will bury the franchise without Nagoshi to put a leash on him. His writing skills are absolutely non existent. This is Y5 levels of convolution all over again. I thought all of this was behind us since the time.

These series have fell off massively. So corny.. and turn based combat? Yikes! How can og fans even play these new Yakuza games?

The fact that it released with dlc is just scummy. If you made content before release it should all be there. If this continues it will hinder my enjoyment of the series