Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name is, to place it bluntly, not the finest Yakuza or Like a Dragon sport on the market and positively not the finest journey we’ve seen Kiryu star in.
While admittedly a funds entry in the collection extra in keeping with a large-scale enlargement or DLC providing, it’s not with out some notable gaps. Its gameplay can get repetitive quick if gamers attempt to dig into the facet content material, and its story is considerably smaller than in most fashionable entries. It’s even host to a handful of localization errors, which undoubtedly says one thing given the collection’ observe document of meticulously translating or modifying jokes and phrase play from Japanese to English.
All of those flaws may have rightfully dragged Like a Dragon Gaiden down amongst the worst in the collection. But they didn’t; or, extra particularly, they weren’t in a position to thanks to 1 spectacular scene throughout the sport’s ending which recontextualizes the collection and lends some much-needed depth to its main man Kiryu.
As the sport wraps up, Kiryu is again at the Diadoji’s temple considering the whole lot he went by. His handler Hanawa says he’s because of be rewarded for his exhausting work, however in his typical stoic strongman manner, Kiryu brushes this off as pointless.
But then, Hanawa reveals Kiryu’s reward for all of his exhausting work all through the sport — for saving Hanawa, serving to Serizawa disolve the Omi Alliance, and for encouraging Ichiban Kasuga, all in an effort to maintain Morning Glory Orphanage protected — is a video recording through considered one of their surveillance cameras.
It exhibits Haruka, Haruto, and the remainder of the children from the Orphanage have been visiting his grave in Okinawa since his disappearance at the finish of Yakuza 6, and that they’ve by no means forgotten him. Not solely that, however Ayako and Taichi found the digital camera, and on the off likelihood Kiryu was watching them by it, they to let him know that they’re okay; that they’re attempting to assist folks like he did in no matter methods they will, that they’re staying robust, and that they hope he comes again sometime.
They promise they’ll be ready for him, and ask that he give them a signal if he’s nonetheless alive. And to point out how a lot they nonetheless love him, they go away him a reward the subsequent time they go to his grave in the type of a image drawn by Haruto. At its heart is Kiryu, larger and happier than he’s ever regarded.
It’s a sufficiently gut-wrenching scene, and most Yakuza followers would know what to anticipate at this level. Kiryu would usually shed some manly tears, reaffirm his resolve to guard them, and set off on his subsequent journey.
But this isn’t a kind of instances. Instead of holding robust, Kiryu shatters.
The man who has confronted down numerous risks, and who has buried sufficient pals, lovers, and sworn blood brothers to populate the complete of Yakuza: Dead Souls’ zombie hordes, weeps overtly and with unbridled anguish at being reminded of what he can’t have. The ache of being separated from his discovered household, and from the one life he wished to maintain greater than anything, lastly bursts as much as the floor after being hinted at by the whole sport’s story and shrugged off with manly vigor.
It’s uncooked, it’s painful, and it’s fully missing in the overblown dramatics the collection drenches the majority of its emotional moments in. But it’s additionally lovely for these actual causes. After exemplifying fortitude and unwavering dedication it doesn’t matter what stood in entrance of him, the Dragon of Dojima genuinely drops his guard for what looks like the very first time, and the sheer humanity he shows elicits a minimum of emotional obliteration.
Hell, I’m not ashamed to confess that this scene managed to make me weep like no different sport has in a very long time. It humanized a character who I’d in any other case watched be an unflappable motion hero for almost a dozen video games now, and to see him laid naked like that made what was taking part in out on the display screen really feel that rather more visceral.
And to high all of it off, it achieved what Yakuza 6 failed to take action a few years in the past: It made me hope that the collection lastly lets go of Kiryu as a protagonist. To see his continued involvement in the plot inflicting him that a lot emotional misery — whether or not it’s emotionally compelling or not — made his function as the collection’ de facto hero appear much less like a revered title held by a legend and extra like a curse burdening him with out finish.
If I wasn’t a fan of Ichiban taking over the mantle earlier than, there’s little question in my thoughts that I’m behind the collection transferring that manner 100% now. And if the prolonged story trailer put out for Infinite Wealth is something to go off of, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio is of the identical mindset.
Is it a little unhappy to suppose Kiryu would possibly by no means be featured in one other Like a Dragon sport? Undeniably. The stern-faced, muscular fridge of a man is a core motive the collection caught on the manner he did, and he’s considered one of a choose few characters avid gamers can say they actually grew up with because of how meticulously chronicled his life has been throughout the franchise’s video games.
But Like a Dragon Gaiden has confirmed there’s a man behind the stoicism. And regardless of so a few years of being a Dragon, a Tojo Clan Chairman, and the exemplar of dwelling life as one sees match, Kiryu is extra than simply Kiryu. He’s additionally Kazuma, a man who misses his household and deserves to put his weary head to relaxation through a completely satisfied ending.
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