Like a Dragon: Ishin!, the remake of Ryū ga Gotoku Ishin! from 2014, is one of the many titles that have been announced by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio. As the first to release from a bunch of teased new titles, Ishin follows many familiar faces in a different time and a different place. Running through the years of 1853 to 1867, Ishin puts us in a samurai role rather than a Yakuza role. Was Kiryu born in the wrong decade?
Ancestor Story
Since Ishin is set within an entirely different era, it is hard to say if it’s a different universe to boot with all the familiar faces you’re accustomed to in the main Yakuza/Like a Dragon series. As such, you should not compare the characters too harshly with their in-game models to the ones found in other titles. While they share similarities, such as Kiryu/Ryoma’s stoicism, Okita/Majima’s slight insanity, or a certain character’s ageless fondness of cold soba.
Following the story of Sakamoto Ryōma, a real-world historical figure who has been adapted for the game, we are set on a course of changing the world for the better. As yet another orphan, we are brought up to be an upstanding member that benefits the populace and not the higher society who treads down on the weak, even killing them for not bowing down.
Being introduced to the Tosa loyalist party, Ryoma is put up as its representative to aid in its powerful rise and demands to the leading parties to tear down the rigid social class system that makes life hard for any regular person in the streets.
It wouldn’t be a Like a Dragon game without some twists and turns, with a splash of murder and pinning the blame on the first person you see. Ryoma was just in the wrong place at the wrong time when his father, a higher-up working on the inside, is assassinated, and Ryoma was found by the authorities to thumb him as the culprit.
Some years pass as Ryoma escapes, to join his father’s assassins to find the one who killed his father. As he didn’t want to join the people who hired the assassins to find the one who orchestrated it… It is strange how Ryoma argues his side, as it feels quite hypocritical, and even insane since the assassin saw his face clearly on the night of the murder. But it’s a fantasy we’ll have to live through.
This story of finding the assassin and changing the world’s rules will take you around 24 hours for the main story. For the multitude of extra content, you can easily go over 100 hours. It is hard to get away from a lot of the substories and random events, however, as so many are placed on the paths you’ll take on your journey, so I would say that most people will have play times closer to 30 to 40 hours depending on if they’ll complete what is given to them.
Like almost all other Like a Dragon entries, Ishin has its own post-game and new game plus modes to go through, so another playthrough is easy enough to go with, especially with harder difficulties. There aren’t a lot of choices to make along the way that’ll change much though, so you won’t find too much new in another run.
The Heat of Battle
Ishin plays like almost all the Like a Dragon games before it, an action-adventure game with brawler-type combat not found in many titles outside of their own. You run around a large city map, collect items found in pots, and get into scraps with ne’er-do-wells that you come across on the roads.
When engaged in a fight, you use one of four distinct fighting styles to combat your foes. There’s swordsman, gunman, brawler, and wild dancer. The first is your standard katana combat with an all-around approach. Gunman is by far the strongest if you get a high-speed gun, due to its knockback and infinite ammo. Brawler has more to do with throws and parries, plus the infamous tiger drop. While wild dancer combines sword and gun to spin around to deal with multiple foes at a time.
Each style is engaging, though take a lot of time to master. Once you’ve picked a particular style that you enjoy it is hard to swap out of it, as you will level these styles based on usage, meaning your favourite one will be the strongest one. You will also gain experience to Ryoma’s overall level, allowing you to gain skills in any of the styles, but it takes a bit to normalise all of their power.
Ishin keeps the basic combo systems of previous titles. On Xbox controllers, you use X for light attacks and Y for strong attacks. Pressing Y after any number of X inputs will pull off varying finishers to knock foes down or deal major damage. Depending on the style you can also grab foes with B. Dodging can occur with A presses, with some styles having follow-ups from dodges.
As you fight you will build up heat, allowing you to press Y in certain positions and events to do a heat action. From stabbing a foe several times to throwing them into the river, heat actions deal a lot of damage and can sometimes one-shot foes. Heat is also used for special attacks you can unlock for each style, such as using a pseudo-dead-eye aim with gunman.
Alongside combat, Ryoma can make use of crafting services to improve his gear, finding materials from battles and the environment. You will also gain gear and materials for completing substories that you come across in almost every street and shop. Ishin puts a lot more focus on bonds, meaning you’ll have to talk to the same person up to 10 times to finish their stories.
You’ll also be able to acquire troopers to bring with you, granting passive bonuses and extra attacks in combat. These troopers are assigned to your different styles and level up with you. Going hand-in-hand with the dungeon delves, you can clear out many caves to get extra resources.
Live and Die by the Sword
Ishin brings to the table what you’d expect from many Like a Dragon games, a banging soundtrack. Full of well-fitting tracks for the samurai and 1800s aesthetic, Ishin has plenty of songs to accommodate the action-packed battles with so many personalised numbers for the bosses you’ll be facing. You can bet there are quite a few karaoke and dance tracks to jive to as well.
Difficulty-wise, Ishin like many other titles starts a bit rough and hard. It isn’t until you start to learn the combos and mechanics of each style, and start unlocking upgrades for them, that it gets flipped on its head and becomes far easier. Your encounters do get more difficult and numerous as you progress the story, but if you do a substory here and there you’ll far outpace anything that isn’t a boss.
With the reputation that Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio has for reusing assets and coding, you’re bound to notice the character models being pulled from other games. With this remake, they even swapped in newer models such as was used in Like a Dragon: Like a Dragon, replacing some older models that weren’t up to snuff.
On the other side of reuse, the city found in Ishin is mostly all new. While some food icons are reused, you’ll find that the environment is mostly fresh creations. I can’t say that much about the sound effects or animations sadly. If you’ve played any of their other titles, you’ll see what most people would call lazy design. It isn’t a major down point, but if you’re coming hot off another title in the series, you may feel a bit burnt out.
Ishin is the first time we’re getting this game for English speakers, while there is no dub the game originally was never translated. For fans of the series, this is wonderful news to wake up to, alluding to us getting the whole catalogue of Like a Dragon titles. The game came out in 2014, so some parts are a bit dated, but with the remake, it smooths out most of the rough edges.
Whilst the game did release a bit glitchy, mostly in the freezing department as it loaded heat actions slowly, a recent patch has addressed that issue. Though I do feel the latest patch altered the rates of the lottery draw to be much harsher, I couldn’t find much else at fault with this release.
There are some minor pacing issues here and there, with the main goal of Ryoma feeling way off-track and bizarre, but if you’re able to go along with his shenanigans you’re in for quite the ride.
Overall, Like a Dragon: Ishin! gets a 9/10. The world is beautiful to look at and engage with, holding so many activities to enjoy as well as ruffians to rough up. The story stumbles a bit at times, but generally flows rather well with plenty of twists and turns to keep it exciting. Plenty of improvements to the base game revitalize an almost 10-year-old game to bring it onto current-gen consoles. Fans of the series will love this entry, especially now that is no longer Japan-only, but many may find it too similar to the previous entries to dig too deeply into all of its side content.
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