Why ‘Like a Dragon: Ishin’ should or shouldn’t be your first ‘Yakuza’

There are few things in the world I enjoy more than recommending the Like a Dragon (previously known as Yakuza until a rebrand in late 2022) games to people. Thankfully, the newest (sort of) game in the franchise is worthy of recommendation.

Like a Dragon: Ishin takes the familiar miniature open-world beat-em-up gameplay of the rest of the series and transplants it into 1860s Japan. It’s a remake of a game that originally launched in 2014, but never came to the west until now. Ishin is a grand old time, especially for longtime Yakuza-heads, but it might be a decent jumping-in point for first-timers, as well.

Here’s why Like a Dragon: Ishin either should or shouldn’t be your first trip down Yakuza lane.

Why it should: The setting is great

In case you’re not too familiar with Yakuza/Like a Dragon, almost every other game in the series follows a fella named Kazuma Kiryu as he navigates his way through Japan’s modern-day criminal underworld. He beats up bad guys, uncovers grand conspiracies often involving both domestic and foreign governments, and generally just wants to be a dad. 

That’s not the case here, or at least not entirely. Kiryu’s face and voice have been applied to real-life Japanese historical figure Sakamoto Ryoma, Ishin’s protagonist. This heavily fictionalized historical tale sees Ryoma infiltrate the Shinsengumi, a sort of secret police force of the era. He does so in order to find out who killed his adoptive father, but the story quickly spins into a grand tale of revolution in a time of great cultural and political upheaval in Japan.

The plot itself is fairly exciting and fun to follow, even though, as Polygon(Opens in a new tab) pointed out, it adopts some nationalistic tendencies over time. But divorced from what happens in cutscenes, the setting is probably the greatest part of Ishin. You’ll spend hours and hours running around the city that would become Kyoto, eating at humble little restaurants, ordering sake from tiny bars, betting on chicken races, and even participating in an 1860s iteration of karaoke.

Sure, it’s a cartoonish and probably not especially realistic depiction of that time and place, but it’s got heart. Ishin made me laugh regularly with its zany side characters and optional quests. If you’re into samurai stuff at all, Ishin should be on your radar. However, if you’ve never played another Yakuza, prepare to miss out on some of the juice.

Why it shouldn’t: You’ll miss a lot of references

The most novel aspect of Ishin isn’t just that it’s a Yakuza game in a different setting. Instead, it’s the pure abundance of Cool Guys from the rest of the series that developer RGG Studio managed to transport from one time period to another.

Much in the same way that Ryoma is basically Kiryu in costume, almost every character in Ishin is a real historical figure very loosely brought to life using the character model and voice actor of someone from the modern-day Yakuza games setting. If you’re like me and you’ve played all the other ones, this is a delight. Every time a new character showed up whose face I recognized from a previous Yakuza game, I grinned from ear to ear. 

Every Yakuza fan will tell you that the expansive cast of glistening, musclebound hunks is a big part of why the series is great. Seeing all of them get recast as interpretations of real people is extremely funny and charming. Unfortunately, if you’re not at least a little familiar with the other games, all of this will be lost on you. 

Why it should: It’s more fun to play than most

Similar to the rest of the series (sans 2020’s turn-based Yakuza: Like a Dragon), Ishin has arcadey beat-em-up combat that’s pretty easy to grasp. You’ve got light attacks, heavy attacks, grab moves, and special finishing moves that use up a Heat gauge that fills up as you fight. It hasn’t changed much over the last 15 years, but it not only works in Ishin, it excels.

That’s because you aren’t restricted to just your fists this time around. While other games in the series only sparingly allow the use of weapons, Ishin embraces the art of the sword and the pistol. There are a variety of fighting styles you switch between on the fly. One has Ryoma wielding just a sword, another one has him with just a gun, and the greatest one has him wielding both at the same time.

This style, called Wild Dancer, provided me with the single most fun I’ve ever had in combat in a non-turn-based Yakuza game. Mowing through enemy samurai with spinning blade moves, gunshots, and devastating finishers that utilize both weapons at once is a thrill. Each style can also be upgraded simply by leveling up and using them a lot, too. 

On top of that, there’s a Trooper Card mechanic where you recruit dudes and ladies to join your squad. They don’t actually fight alongside you, but you can utilize their abilities in fights. These can range from simple health regeneration to summoning a pissed off bear to maul your opponent. It rocks.

Why it shouldn’t: The rest are just that damn good

Ishin may have the most fun combat in the series and one of the coolest settings, but that doesn’t make it the greatest Yakuza/Like a Dragon game. Part of that is due to its own pitfalls and part of that is that the series has set incredibly high standards.

Truth be told, Ishin bites off more than it can chew. There’s a whole agrarian metagame where you slowly support and upgrade a farm by growing increasingly valuable vegetables that completely failed to grab me. A big part of upgrading Trooper Cards involves taking them on monotonous, boring treks through repetitive caves that aren’t really worth the effort. And, finally, the story has two or three too many cases of mistaken or stolen identities. The reveals get a little old.

I’d still recommend that newcomers start with Yakuza 0, a game that is both on Game Pass and frequently on sale for like $5. Not only is it a fantastic game, it also sets you up for the rest of the mainline series, something Ishin does not do. 

That said, Ishin is mostly a great time and it’s just nice to see this game finally come to the west. Whether you start with this one or another game in the series doesn’t really matter. Just get started. You won’t regret it.