Deck of Souls is an early-access deck-building roguelite. It’s a tried and tested formula, and while Deck of Souls doesn’t do anything particularly innovative, it does what it does well. The art style is simple but consistent, the sound effects and music are excellent and unobtrusive, and the gameplay has enough variety and replayability to immerse you. Let’s get into it!

What’s the skinny? How does Deck of Souls work?

In a series of turn-based combats, you draw and play cards against a variety of well-drawn enemies. You get to play one card per enemy, so combats feel pretty fair and balanced. Like many games in the genre, success in Deck of Souls relies on building a repertoire of cards that synergise with one another.

For example, on one of my more successful runs, I managed to make a build that relied on piling on armour and block to take enemies down. Of course, it’s all luck of the draw – but isn’t that what makes roguelites fun?

Combats and encounters are linked together on an FTL-style map. You can see what flavour of encounter is ahead – be that a fight, a random encounter, a chance to level up etc. – and choose your optimal path.

Defeating enemies grants you souls of various flavours, which you can use to level up your character’s stats or equipment. Bit grim. But we love it.

Story & Art

I’m a big fan of the art style in Deck of Souls. It’s pixelated, but more than detailed enough to know what you’re looking at. It’s colourful without being overwhelming and super consistent.

My one qualm with the art, however, is the UI. It feels a bit programmer-art, a bit placeholder. I can’t be sure if that’s a stylistic choice or if it’s due to be revisited, though. For now, it’s a bit lacking.

The music is great, really helps to set the grim fantasy vibe.

The story is hidden in dialogue with NPCs you encounter and beat the crap out of. There’s a tale of divinity, rebelling agents of higher powers, and redemption. The joy for me in Deck of Souls was discovering the story as I went and figuring out my own character’s motivations, so I won’t be spoiling it here. Suffice it to say, I really like the writing in this game!

Final verdict: Is it worth a go?

I would say if any of the above appeals to you at all, give Deck of Souls a chance. In places, it still feels a bit unpolished, but overall, it has promise. If roguelites or deck builders are in your wheelhouse, this will be a good entry. It fills a Slay the Spire-shaped hole. At less than a tenner, the price is great too.

As the developers move through early access, they have a roadmap of features that, refreshingly for an early-access game, seem realistic and achievable. I’ll certainly be sticking with the development of this one and returning for future updates.

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Go-Go Town! is an unholy mishmash of games that manages to be chaotic, charming, unhinged and compelling all in one. It’s colourful. So, so silly. And it’s fun!

Imagine, if you will, someone taking Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley, and the Mii Parade from the Wii and shoving them in a food blender. Spray the whole thing with brightly coloured paint and add a big dollop of goofy. Now you’ve got Go-Go Town!

The game starts with you, the player character, being flung from a moving vehicle in a duffle bag. After that, one of what seems to be the Men in Black tells you that you’re the new mayor of a half-block of podunk nowhere. He and his cohort of identical Agent Smith lookalikes teach you the basics of running a town, then get the hell out of dodge. You’re the mayor now! Congrats!

What’s a mayor gotta do?

As the player, your job (if you choose to accept it) is simple: grow the town, and make money. That’s about it. At first, you have to gather and process the materials yourself (classic mine rocks-smelt rocks, chop wood-saw wood stuff). You build houses for your residents, businesses for them to work in, and provide the raw materials for their jobs. At first, it’s simple materials, like rocks to make pet rocks (nope – not joking). As the game progresses, however, more lucrative jobs need more complex materials, processed multiple times.

Also, because you’re the mayor, you get to cut a cute little red ribbon for every new building. It’s the little things, isn’t it?

As your town grows, you can get the residents to start doing the grunt work like, for instance, gathering and processing materials. You can hire a courier to ferry materials around, a bin man to collect the rubbish, etc. etc. Who’d have thought? A town where the mayor doesn’t have to empty the bins! Will wonders never cease?

Who’s buying this stuff, you may ask? Firstly, it’s Townies. These are the residents of Go-Go Town! My first Towny, for example, was called Baldo. He was bald. He wouldn’t join my town until I hit 15 people with my car (again – nope, not kidding). Go figure. Secondly, there are the Tourists. These are mainly – and I wish I was kidding – ghosts and werewolves. They pretty much just wander around buying things and gawking at the sights. This generates Ego, which brings us nicely to…

Tech Progression in Go-Go Town!

Ego is the “research” currency in the game. Mainly, it allows you to unlock new structures, recipies and so on. Because each unlock provides a limited number of buildings, you’re gonna want to spend Ego often. Because Go-To Town!‘s progression is in set tiers, each new unlock brings you closer to advancing the whole town. Neat!

Speaking of which, once you reach specific milestones, you unlock Challenges! These, funnily enough, challenge you to hit certain goals (mostly, make x amount of money in y amount of time) and then you level up the town. Radical.

All this combined makes for super addictive gameplay. Because the systems are so complex but intuitive, you find yourself saying things like “If I just gather more octopuses to turn into sausages (somehow), I’ll get enough money to impress all these ghosts into making my town bigger”. Wow, it really is bizarre when you lay it all out like that. However – super fun.

Early access: should you get involved?

Go-Go Town! go-goes into early access on June 18th. We’ve all been burned by early-access games in the past. So, should you get it?

Long story short, yes. If you like cozy resource management games, you’ll like this. Moreover, if you like goofy bizarro weirdness fever dreams, you’ll like this.

Long story long, here’s some pros and cons:

Pros:

++ Compelling gameplay loop

++ Goofy & charming humour

++ Visually and musically lovely

++ Huge amount of content to sink your teeth into

Cons:

— The progression is pretty linear, so replayability isn’t great. As a result you can’t specialise your town, and you’ll always progress through the tiers in pretty much the same way

— Resource gathering is tedious and your Townies are very, very slow at doing it for you

Overall, I’d recommend it. If in doubt, there’s a demo out right now on Steam and you can try it out for yourself!

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It’s 2024 and we’re deep into the ninth generation of consoles. We have graphics that are so beautiful that some people cannot differentiate between what is real life and what is computer-generated when looking at a screenshot. The aforementioned gorgeous scenery is usually paired with a grand score, layers upon layers of instruments and sound effects creating an audio soundscape to invoke feelings and emotions of what is on screen. None of that matters here though. Save Me Mr.Tako is locked into 8-bits but that doesn’t matter either because this game stands out and it stands out well.

Handheld memories

Save Me Mr.Tako is a love letter to the original handheld gaming experience all kids from the 80s and 90s grew up playing, the Game Boy. Using an 8-bit colour palette of those instantly recognisable tones of black and greens, this title limits itself with what they can use visually and proves that when in good hands, less can be more. The default display ratio is 4:3 with a large selection of custom-made overlays to fill in the black bars on the sides.

The opening overlay is a tribute to the Super Game Boy for the SNES. The graphics aren’t just greener on the other side, Save Me Mr.Tako has several different colour palettes to switch between at the press of one of the triggers. You can pick your favourite and play through the entire game with the colour of your choice or set it to auto and have the colours change as you progress each level.

Enough about the graphics, let’s talk about the soundtrack. Each track has a catchy melody that fits the level you’re traversing. I’ve found myself at times during my review just scrolling on my
phone longer than I should have because I was just happily bopping away to the soundtrack in the background. The melodies created here fit each area perfectly and are a match for what’s taking place on screen.

Gameplay

I’m just going to say this out straight with no analogy. The controls are tight and responsive with absolutely no messing about. As far as platformers are concerned, Save Me Mr.Tako has some of the best feeling controls out there today. Any mistake I’ve made during platforming was my fault, never due to the controls or the game itself… sorry, that sentence is a bit of a lie as I never made any mistake during platforming because the controls are that good!

As the game progresses Tako will gain access to hats. These grant you abilities you use in combat and traversing the world. Speaking of combat, Tako shoots ink at his enemies which freezes them in place for a few seconds. While frozen, they become platforms you can traverse on. With time, practice and a keen eye for the environment. You can use enemies to your advantage to reach new and sometimes secret areas with precise shots and movement.

The game has a level select hub, kind of like Super Mario Land and town hubs. Even though the game is level-based like old-school platformers, there are story beats contained within. Unlike Super Mario of old which gives you a piece at the beginning and the ending, Save Me Mr.Tako tells its story throughout with a cast of characters and an engaging story of sea vs land.

One of my favourite moments was being told the princess ran off to the east. When I went back to the level select hub, the next level doorway that opened up was just to the right of me, matching the direction previously provided to me.

Critiques

If I have anything to critique about this game it would be that playing this on a large TV was quite straining on the eyes. I enjoy my old Gameboy games but staring at them on a 53-inch television was hard after a while. If you can pick this up on a handheld I’d push you towards that.

Short and sweet review this time folks, I do recommend you give Save Me Mr.Tako a play if you’re in the market for a new platformer with a little extra sprinkled on top. It’s a blast to play and it’s also a blast from the past too.

These sweet salty words were brought to you by Lewis Magee.

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Arabian Nights no more

Coriolis: The Great Dark is more than just a sequel to The Third Horizon. It expands the universe and drags the story away from the Middle East-influenced Science Fiction of the last books. The setting I thing is much cooler (pun intended). Coriolis: The Great Dark is set far beyond the last iteration of the game. Colony ships have fled the growing war and have followed a faint signal that many think could be the Nadir, sister ship to the Zenith.

As the signal dies the colonists are stranded in a dead system they call Jumuah. To make things worse the portal that should lead them out is dead. The colonists established a single city on an asteroid called, and I shit you not “‘The Ship City of Coriolis the Eternal and Jumuah the First and Last”. I know right but thankfully it gets shortened to City Ship. In true Coriolis style, they decide to send expeditions into the depts. Where they fight Alien ruins and a disease called the Blight.

A new System for a new system

To push home that Coriolis: The Great Dark is an updated version they have modified the previous rule system that flies more closely to the Year Zero Engine (YZE). This is a welcomed change as if you have played any Free League games you will be very familiar with how easy it is to use. Most changes are small like six attributes rather than the usual four, talents instead of skills.

The two big ones for me are no more Darkness Point mechanics. This is replaced with Hope because there is nothing worse than the loss of all Hope. The other is the new Delve mechanic. The group will make Delves into the ruins to retrieve artifacts. With each Delve the group will have to bring significant supplies, oxygen canisters, food, water, batteries, etc… or else they won’t be coming back. Each one has a difficulty rating (0-3) and markers that show what each character needs supply-wise to make it back. Plans will go out the window as unexpected monsters, blight, and sneaky NPC will ruin your day.

Beauty in the darkness

As usual, the book itself looks amazing. The artwork though different than The Third Horizon is still beautiful. It’s dark and lonely and for some reason has a feel of Event Horizon to me in contrast to the warmth of the last books.

In the pack you get Coriolis: The Great Dark, a quickstart book but you also get four pre-generated character sheets. These are for The Algebraist Apprentice with Bird, The Wreck Diver, The Guild Soldier, and The Vacuum Welder.

If you play Coriolis then you will get The Great Dark and if you don’t and want to start from the start then you better hurry up as Free League is discontinuing the printing of The Third Horizon. I would recommend this game especially if space exploration is your bag.

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2024-04-26

Battlefield Earth

Flooded, devastated cities, violent mutated bug monsters, a general sense of hopelessness… no, not modern Britain but the premise of Stellar Blade! Stellar Blade is an action adventure game that borrows from many sources, with admittedly few of its own tricks. As a new first-party exclusive published by Sony and developed by Korean developer Shift Up, this follows Rise of the Ronin as a refreshing change of pace for Sony. Far from their cinematic third person output, this is very much a video game of moment to moment action rather than narrative emphasis. This is a godsend as the narrative is probably the ropiest aspect! So does Stellar Blade live up to its name or is it about to be cut down to size?

Stellar Blade Running

At first then combat comes across as quite basic, the standard attack, counter attack then punish loop. Quickly though you’ll unlock new moves and different types of counter attack opportunities that make fighting monsters a much more engaging process. Every slash feels visceral, the super moves you charge up landing with an exceptional oomph. These moves can break shields and interrupt combos so timing their use is essential. The counter is also very satisfying, not as unforgiving as recent similar games. Knocking enemies into a staggered phase never gets tired. Despite some really wacky enemy designs their attacks are very readable, truly mitigating the usual frustrations of these systems. Exploring the environments for health and attack energy upgrades leads to some interesting traversal opportunities and challenging combat encounters, so going off the beaten track is definitely recommended. Unlocking Souls-style shortcuts to earlier areas is always pleasant, bringing you closer to base camps where you can purchase items , upgrade abilities and save. 

Click to view slideshow.

A Cut Above?

Graphically this is a real tale of two (flooded) cities. The world and monsters look superb, the post-apocalyptic world being a mix of realism and a kind of maximalism seen in classic depictions of Gotham City. However, the human characters… are just plain creepy. Eve and her fellow space-warriors all share a bizarre plastic quality. This, combined with their cartoonish proportions give the impression of playing as an expensive sex doll. Initially decked out in the tightest wet suit it’s a relief when you finally unlock alternate costumes. As opposed to a Bayonetta or a 2B, Eve is just a wet blanket which only adds to the visual awkwardness . A very odd miss for a game with otherwise excellent visuals. The music is mostly melancholy pop-songs with repetitive lyrics. They oddly fit the tone of the game but could be incredibly off-putting for the less musically-forgiving.

Despite some rough edges, Stellar Blade is a rock solid adventure with an addictive gameplay loop. If you look past Eve’s screen-hogging bum, you’ll find a world of downtrodden splendour with alien freaks to battle and side-quests to discover.

If nothing else it’s inspiring to see a fairly new development team create a title this polished and simultaneously large-scale. Indeed, this may be the Eve of something great.

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2024-04-08

An Old Story for a New Beginning

For people out of the loop (myself included), Outcast – A New Beginning is a sequel to the 1999 classic action-adventure Outcast by Appeal. In its heyday, Outcast caused quite a ruckus to its genre. Said ruckus included being named “Action Game of the Year” by Gamespot in 1999! Nonetheless, not many people may know it, Outcast – A New Beginning has some pretty large boots to fill. It may not be fair to callously compare both titles to each other as a lot has changed in the gaming industry since 1999, but it’s worth noting the history and context of Appeal’s latest release today. So, does this classic callback shape up to the modern age of gaming, has Appeal still got it after all these years?

The Right Tool for the Job

Outcast puts you in the boots of one Cutter Slade, (same protagonist as the last game) a former Navy Seal who assisted in dimensional travel in Outcast 1. Set on the planet Adelpha, Cutter is resurrected by the native deities of this planet. A mysterious past haunts him as he traverses his way across a once-familiar Adelpha. But now a shadowy robotic army is extracting its natural resources and exploiting its inhabitants, called the Talan.

You get a lot of Cutter’s character in each cutscene and interaction. I mean A LOT. At first, his snide, quippy remarks do land and get a small smirk out of me. But this quickly runs dry after the tutorial zone. Again, I know this is a character from the 1990s and he sits alongside other greats of his era such as Duke Nukem, and Spyro. However, he feels very played out and more of an annoyance on screen than a loveable titular character. I tried to like him, I really did try but when most of your lines are rhetorical knee-slappers from the stereotypical military man, it just gets exhausting. Particularly against the backdrop of an alien planet such as Adelpha.

The planet of Adelpha can be engrossing at times, even pretty. I want to say the open world is large and expansive, but I would say it’s closer to a medium-sized Ubisoft map! The planet’s inhabitants, the Talan, offer much exposition (opposite the HILARIOUS and corny Slade remarks) and lore to the player which some people will find engrossing. Outside of the story quests, it’s honestly the same old format we see nowadays, unfortunately. Go here, kill things, fetch this, which doesn’t do many favours for Cutter or the story. I do not even think though, that it is the story that will bring people to Outcast – A New Beginning.

Jet Setter

I do think that people will come and stay for Outcast’s gameplay. This is thanks in large part to Cutters equipment he procures in his adventures. Your main tools are your gun, shield and jetpack (courtesy of the invading robot army). Each tool at your disposal has a fairly linear skill tree full of impactful unlocks. You collect certain resources to unlock certain abilities along your journey. Some side quests also reward you with new skills, so as painful as they are they’re generally worth a look.

As soon as I unlocked the hover ability on my jetpack, I understood what Outcast had to offer. It features some of the finest movement mechanics of an action-adventure game I have encountered in a long time. Butter smooth flight mechanics and some solid gunplay kept me locked into Outlast all throughout my playthrough. Shield-smashing robots, gliding around Adelpha for the lolz. I have not enjoyed an action adventure this much since Elden Ring people. I want to give Outcast full marks off the merit of movement, but with everything else combined, I think it’s fair to say Outcast – A New Beginning has superbly well-rounded gameplay.

Verdict

The developers over at Appeal know the essence of action-adventure. Although many story elements, ambience and likeable characters fell by the wayside in this game’s development, Appeal seems to still have a good grasp on what makes action-adventure so fun.

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Granblue Fantasy is a fascinating franchise. It has a vast and wondrous story as well as interesting characters and it has some engaging beat ’em up titles. What it has been missing for me though is a proper RPG. This is where Granblue Fantasy: Relink comes in. It’s an absolute blast.

Following the crew of the GrandCypher as they make their journey to the fabled land of Estalucia, players play as the Captain. Players can still choose between a male or female version of the character. On one particularly fateful day the crew are attacked by monsters and unleashes the primal Bahamut to deal with them. Unfortunately, something happens to Bahamut and he goes berserk, attacking the crew. After an extended and intense battle, Bahamut is subdued. After landing at a new Skyport and trying to figure out what’s wrong Lyria is kidnapped by a cult wishing to use her powers for their own mysterious means.

With our pact partner spirited away by evildoers, it’s up to us and the GrandCypher crew to save her and likely save the world in the process.

Primals, powers and so much more

Granblue Fantasy: Relink is absolutely brilliant. The action elements of this game are stellar and players get access to so many playable characters. The combination attacks are easy to learn and fun to master. There are link attacks which combine all the abilities of your allies to devastating effect and it makes for a strangely communal experience, especially if you go online and play with friends. The best part though is the impressive cast of characters, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.

Granblue Fantasy: Relink is also crammed with stuff to do. There are tons of sidequests that you can undertake with your friends or the AI companions in tow. Though the sidequests become somewhat rinse and repeat they’re a fun way to grind if you’re under-levelled for the main story. Also, they help you build all the resources you need to craft your gear.

The story of Granblue Fantasy: Relink is a fun new chapter in the Granblue franchise and has some great new enemies to contend with. My particular favourite is Id voiced by the legendary Kenjiro Tsuda. He’s equal parts menace and stoic charm. Plus the graphics are gorgeous. The world is flush with vivid colours with an art style that just pops off the screen.

Stacked with lovable characters, intense battles and gameplay mechanics that compel you to keep coming back for more Granblue Fantasy: Relink is a must for RPG fans.

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Cartel Tycoon is a real-time simulation game that focuses on building a drug empire during the “narcotics boom” of the 1980s. As you manage to grow your illegal business across a number of cities, find the optimal locations for maximum profit, muscle your way into rival territories to take over and make sure you have enough respect from your peers to see the light of the next day.

That’s the quick bump of a coin version, but let me cut you a few more in-depth lines as you sit down and relax while reading the review.

Gameplay

There’s more to Cartel Tycoon than simply placing a structure named “marijuana farm” or “cocaine farm”, each point of origin for your drug of choice needs careful planning. Sure, the land next to your airstrip you’ve placed may look neat and make for quick growth and distribution but the land it’s built upon is bad soil and bad soil leads to poor quality product and no one wants to be paying to stick that up their nose on a Saturday night.

Farms require transportation of their product to warehouses and then that product needs to get moved out to the world. Through the tutorial, you’ll be learning the ropes and creating areas that output your product and over time you will be upgrading each building to be more efficient in their jobs.

Of course, this is the drugs business and drugs are bad (m’kay) so with every illegal activity you perform, you’ll start generating more heat with the law and once they catch wind of your operation they’ll shut it down sharpish.

Getting your property back can be done by paying out a fine and unlocking the buildings back to normal or having a chat with the city’s mayor.

Cartel Tycoon has a vast research tree to dive into to help grow your empire. Either by upgrading new tiers for your existing buildings or unlocking new builds for your empire.

Story

The story has five campaigns which will last up to 15 or 20 hours on average to complete, each with their own difficulty assigned to each scenario.

Story beats are told through transcripts, along with some voice acting. A nice touch is that it’s not just the dialogue that is shown on screen but stage directions that help build a scene for the player to picture in their head while listening/reading the conversations on screen.

Should you partake?

Cartel Tycoon is a beefy title with a large amount of content to dive into to kick-start your drug empire. If you have a head for simulation games/city builders, you will have fun with this game. So if you’re looking for a new game to provide that kind of buzz there’s no harm in giving this one a whack.

Words from the addictively sweet Lewis Magee.

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Like my Gaiden review from last year, I will be keeping this as spoiler-free as possible. However, unlike Gaiden, there will be some areas where the spoilers will be impossible to avoid. Spoiler warnings will be given in advance for those who may want to play this game blind. Now without further ado, sit down, strap in and get ready for a journey that’s as long as Ichiban’s flight to Hawaii.  

Hawaiian Roller-coaster Ride

It’s funny, had you told me a year ago that I would be sitting here talking about a game series that quickly shot to my top five, I would have laughed at you. I even would have told you there’s never a chance you’d see me doing reviews. Yet here we are, two Like A Dragon games later and I have no intention of stopping now. Like A Dragon is love, Like A Dragon is life.

Before even starting Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth, I knew it was going to be a long and stacked play-through. But I didn’t care! We had Kazuma Kiryu back as a protagonist alongside Kasuga Ichiban. I knew it was going to be a rollercoaster of emotions. Little did I know how emotional it would get. Given RGG’s past works I shouldn’t have been surprised.  

For both long-time fans of the series and those who may have just jumped in around the time of Like A Dragon’s release, this game is fundamentally more of the same but with some absolutely fantastic QOL changes. For long-time fans, it’s a perfect send-off for Kiryu and the many fan-favourite characters that make appearances throughout the game.

To all the dragons I liked before

As much as I want to gush about Infinite Wealth’s story and the twists and turns it’s taken, I don’t want to get too into spoiler territory. I will say this though, the story up until Chapter 12 is fantastic and the plot points kept me guessing at times where they were planning on going with it(well except for one or two of the bigger twists, GamEir’s Horror Queen got theories on those only a couple of hours into the game, and the bigger of the two sadly ended up being correct).

Once chapter 12 hits the story starts to speed up a bit and not in a good way. Again without going too much into spoiler territory, all I will say is that the last two bosses and quite a portion of the ending felt rushed. Honestly, it felt like a slap to the face with the build-up that came before it, especially Kiryu’s bucket list. There were also some insanely late-game moments shown in trailers which disappointed me as well, with the Shark Boss not appearing until the final chapter and even part of the ending being shown. 

Saying that about the last few chapters though there were some fantastic moments. The main highlights include the boss for Chapter 12( the best boss theme in Yakuza, not just Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth in my opinion) to a moment in the final chapter. I won’t spoil what the moment was obviously, but it was good to hear Receive You play even if the moment itself was short-lived, luckily, we get to hear it even more in a remix during the final boss build-up/labyrinth.

Tonight Ichiban, we party like dragons! 

For the first time, I took part in none of the gambling mini-games. Be it Poker, Blackjack, oicho-kabu, Koi Koi etc. Now saying that, typically, I would hold on until I either had some cheat items or until I had the money necessary to grind out the completion points. Though like the previous LAD none of them are needed outside of 100% completion.  

“Fun” Minigames: 

With a lot of the smaller minigames that have been staples in the series since its inception it has always been good to see that “Club Sega” sign and know that you were either going to be tearing your hair out in the next five minutes because you’re like Squidward with the UFO catchers or you were going to be dominating AI in the likes of Virtua fighter. That’s been changed in Infinite Wealth to mirror the real-life rebranding with them now being called Club GiGo.

Just know, as soon as you walk in to give the new minigames a try, you’re going to be there for a while. The new mini-games added to Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth are some of the most awkward and painful added to the series. Well, next to boxcelios anyway. They actually left me longing for Mahjong. Luckily, these games do not need to be completed for the platinum trophy. But God, I wish I had known that before-hand.  

Aloha Madness

There are also new additions, such as the Crazy Taxi-esque Crazy Eats which sees Ichiban delivering food as fast and as stylishly as possible. Then there’s Sicko Snap which, well I’m sure you can imagine just what THAT entails. Both serve a similar role as can collectors from LAD and so follow a pattern of having course-based difficulties.

Club MeGo Gaga

Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth is the first time we see new UFO catchers. These ones are different, in the sense that they are a box sitting between two parallel bars. And let me tell you, it took me over an hour just to get two of the three pocket circuit racing cars available through the machine. That said, I didn’t need them for anything. I wanted them for completionist’s sake. The old UFO catchers still exist though and luckily, they’ve been made easier to win. Well, that or I’ve just had a lot of practice over nine games.  

Regarding the other minigames you’re going to find in Club GiGO, they are all new ones! Making their first appearances in a Yakuza/LAD game we have:

• Virtua Fighter 3TB
• SpikeOut
• Sega Bass Fishing

Honestly, I completed each of these on easy (they aren’t) and still struggled for at least an hour on each one. To only then find out that none of them were needed for anything beyond some completion points. I will admit, while I was not too happy about that I was a lot happier knowing that these weren’t old enough to make an appearance in the likes of Yakuza 0 with its 100% completion list.  

Clubs, Bats and Balls take flight!

If arcades and arcade-style games aren’t your thing though there is also:

• Baseball
• Darts
• Golf

Honestly, Darts and Golf feel just as good as they did in Gaiden. Once again, I found myself going back to some of the minigames in this far more often than others. Golf and Darts ended up being personal favourites though. Baseball is another returning mini-game to Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth. On one hand, I am glad to see it make a return as the newer variation of baseball is quite a bit better than the original. On the other, the original baseball mechanics combined with the equally insane completion points (hello there Yakuza 3) have turned me off/burned me out on baseball. 

Karaoke has returned in Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth: 

Once again, I will say karaoke is the greatest mini-game in the entirety of the Yakuza/LAD series. This is a hill I will once again die on. The gameplay is the same rhythm-style gameplay you’ve come to know and love. And now there’s an even bigger selection of songs/characters to sing this time. Unlike the last few LAD games though I found myself putting off karaoke quite late into my playthrough. You know what they say, if you’re not Kiryu are you truly the dame da ne-est of them all?

Admittedly, I found this to be one of the weaker entries in regard to the karaoke mini-game. It’s not due to song choice, though. Rather, the mixing on the non-singing characters that you do back-up for seems to be skewed more towards the backup sound effects being louder than the singing voice. This hurt most during Judgment-Shinpan, as we finally had a return to the Nishiki/Kiryu duo that was originally in Yakuza 0. I will admit I still teared up as soon as they started singing together though. 

Now if you’re looking for a whole slew of new songs, I’m sorry to say that isn’t the case. Well, for the most part anyway. If you’re happy with some repeats from older games like Machine Gun Kiss or Baka Mitai you’re in for a treat. If you’re looking for something new, you’ll be in for a treat there too! We have a few new songs to choose from depending on the character. My personal favourite going to Kiryu’s Baka Darou. I would also like to give a shout-out to Seonhee’s version of Like A Butterfly. While not as good as Akame’s from Gaiden, in my opinion, it’s still close to it. 

Darwin’s Cockfighting 

Ahh Sujimon. Never did I think I’d see a Pokémon spin-off in a LAD game. But here we are. Creeps, pervs and thugs acting and being used like Pokémon albeit on a less grand scale. Honestly, I don’t know where to start with the madness that is Sujimon without giving the entire storyline away. I will say that they leaned hard to the idea/aspect of Pokémon. While I didn’t spend a huge amount of time at it thanks to the ultimate edition boosters, and an insanely lucky early game Sujimon Gacha draw dropping me a legendary Sujimon it became a cakewalk very early, very fast.

Whatever you do though, don’t make the mistake I did and continue the storyline once you hit the champion. The jump in levels is a bit bigger than expected. Given all of that though it made for a welcome change of pace to the standard coliseum I’ve come to know from the series. I cannot wait to see where they go with this heading forward. Especially given how it’s tied into the enemy system of the game similar to how it was in Yakuza: LAD.  

Ballroom Blitz 

Ever since the original trailer for Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth dropped, I’ve been curious as to how they’d implement Kiryu’s combat style to Ichiban JRPG gameplay. And they have done it perfectly. For those who know Ichiban’s reasoning for fighting enemies in a turn-based fashion, you possibly had the same worry as me. Thankfully, there’s no reason to worry. While Kiryu himself does take part in the turn-based action, the Dragon of Dojima himself has a skill that allows him to break typical JRPG rules. This allows you to beat enemies up with combat like in previous games, being very similar to the extreme heat mode that made an appearance in Kiwami 2 and 6.  

That isn’t the biggest change they’ve made to the combat in Infinite Wealth. The bigger changes come in the new QOL changes and other implementations. Such as being able to move your party members within a certain range on the battlefield. While that may sound rudimentary change it can often mean the difference between surviving a big attack and seeing the game over screen. Or even taking down a boss with no issues thanks to the new proximity attacks.

The new combat system looks at distance from the enemy as well as the layout of your party. For the most damage, you want to be as close as possible before choosing to attack for a proximity bonus. Depending on the party member you’re playing as, that can mean the difference between a hit combo or a wide-sweeping move hitting multiple enemies in a singular attack. Like proximity bonuses, there are also back attacks which work in the same fashion. These have a higher damage roll and higher crit chance (possibly) but that could be just me seeing things.  

Quit your jibber jobber

Jobs have returned in Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth, but this time with a couple of new ones based on Hawaiian culture. like the Pyro-dancer/Geo-dancer and Western culture like the Desperado and Aquanaut. Now that’s not to say the new jobs aren’t the only jobs available in the game no, far from it. Any fans of the previous LAD will be happy to see the return of most of the jobs in Infinite Wealth. The only ones not returning are the Enforcer and DLC jobs. Personally, I cannot comment on the other jobs outside of the standard job each character starts off with. However, changing jobs doesn’t appear until Chapter 5. If you’re anything like me at that point you’ll easily be close to 50 hours in from doing everything.  

Saying that even unlocking the jobs can be tricky at first. This is due to the pricing on each course for the point in the game at which you can finally change jobs. It is a good idea to swap to each of the jobs when you finally unlock them. This allows you to unlock more skills for use with your main job, through the new skill inheritance system.

Anyone who’s played Yakuza LAD will have a basic idea as to what the skill inheritance mechanic is. Unlike its predecessor, any skills unlocked can be combined with any job through skill inheritance. This gives you more freedom to build the perfect team. The only downside to this new system is it depends heavily on the returning bond system. The entire inheritance tree is locked behind certain bond thresholds, with the final slot being opened at bond level 100.  

Dragons Crossing Infinite Horizons

Before starting up Dondoko Island, I had never really played an Animal Crossing-style game. The closest I ever really got is Viva Pinata but that’s a different topic of a game altogether. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t excited to hit Dondoko at first though. Sadly the excitement wasn’t to last (not totally at least). Dondoko Island doesn’t come into play until Chapter 6. This isn’t surprising, however. The rest of the series was also skewed towards having the money-making minigames/side content be at the mid-point of the game. Prime examples are the cabaret and real estate businesses from Yakuza 0.

Now, there is a story about Dondoko Island. You must get the resort to the highest rank possible In this game, that’s 5 stars. Thankfully, it is a lot easier than it sounds, especially if you have the Ultimate Edition (thanks again RGG/Sega!). For those who’ve played Animal Crossing, you already know how this part of the game goes. For those who haven’t, here’s a quick run-down.

Dondoko Island is an island resort that is currently being used as a dump. It’s up to you to return it to its former glory by cleaning, farming, building, and looking after guests. You must also take on a local pirate crew, who are the ones responsible for all the dumping, causing Dondokos issues and ultimately the main plot point of the side story.  

Dondoko is never done-doko

Before starting off at Dondoko I thought it would probably take a few hours at least to complete. Little did I know, I’d still be there 44 in-game days later. Each day equates to 15 minutes in real life. Eventually, I decided to leave to continue the main story. At that point, an entire fifth of my playtime(about 12/13 hours) with the game had been sucked in with the multitude of things to do on Dondoko. This was all while trying to make the best resort I could.

I sadly didn’t end up doing much with Dondoko after leaving it to continue the main story, outside of cleaning up my island a little bit more to make it more appealing, and a little bit of online so I could get the Seonhee Simp tag(Seonhee is best girl in Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth, fight me). I did return once more after finishing the story but that was simply for a trophy I didn’t get during my original time with it, maybe on one of my NG+ play-throughs I’ll get properly hooked who knows?

An Infinite End, maybe?

While Kiryu doesn’t have a money-making scheme like Ichiban with Dondoko Island what he does have is his Bucket List. This is headed up by another character. I won’t say who but if you’re a longtime fan of the series it should be obvious who it is. I won’t get into too much detail about the bucket list, but I will say that RGG’s writing is some of its strongest here. The choices for returning characters, for the most part, were obvious. This is thanks to how close some people were with Kiryu. Especially due to his near-constant protection of Kamurocho and some other places he’s lived over the saga that is Yakuza.

The memories and feelings that these people share with the character heading up the Bucket List and the fact that none of them believe Kiryu to be dead, drove home the idea that Kiryu is more than just a man. The legacy he has left behind has touched far more people than he realised, which is shown a few times with his reactions to some of the things the returning characters say about him. While some characters had some fantastic life links like Akiyama and Kaoru, the other characters who appear that weren’t revealed in a prior trailer were where the writing for the Bucket List was truly at its best.

Conclusion

Overall, Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth is easily one of the most packed Yakuza/Like A Dragon games and with good reason! RGG have once again outdone themselves with the over-the-top madness I’ve come to expect. Between the absolutely absurd minigames and the rollercoaster that were the sub-stories,I am even more excited to see where Ichibans story is brought in the future. Especially when RGG’s writing just seems to get better with every game. Even with the issues I personally had with some of Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth’s plot points.

The fall of Yakuza’s past and the rise of the dragon’s future

Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth is a fantastic love letter and send-off (I hope) to Kiryu Kazama and the “past” of the Yakuza, while also passing the torch on to Ichiban and the new status quo for the Like A Dragon series going forward in the West. And I for one welcome it. GIVE ME ALL THE TURN BASED JRPG Like A Dragon!

Similarly, to Like A Dragon Gaiden, I do think that Takaya Kuroda is criminally underrated as a VA. He deserves a lot more praise than what he gets. It’s hard to say whether we’ll see him in the series again as Kiryu. But I would not be angry if we don’t see him as a playable character/main protagonist/integral character in a mainline Like A Dragon game again. He deserves rest and happiness, even though after finishing the game it doesn’t feel like that will necessarily happen.

A not so perfect send-off

Overall, Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth is not a perfect outing from RGG, but still one of the better games in the Yakuza/Like A Dragon from a content/minigame standpoint. The story begins to weaken late game and feels almost rushed. Especially when compared to some of the fantastically written sub-stories. Let It Snow is a personal favourite. That’s not to say that I’m not looking forward to the next game in the series though. I’m excited to see where the series goes in the future, and I can’t wait to laugh, cry, scream and shout my way through whatever RGG might plan. Maybe I’ll just go back to Dead Souls to tide me over for a little while, remake/remaster when RGG?  

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Parallel to Perfection

First off, Parallel’s design is surprisingly tight and well done for a free-to-play TCG. I found it easy to quickly understand the layout of the field and what to do on each turn. Everything from the sound effects to the character exposition lines, felt very on them, on point and fantastically set. The design leans into the futuristic theme. You are first put into the shoes of the Marcolian fleet facing off against a motley fleet of pirates. This tutorial is offset by a well-made cutscene. The cutscene grants tremendous exposition and entrenches you within the lore of Parallel.

Battle for Earth

After you complete the tutorial you have access to rookie mode, a game mode with a pool of rookie decks from each major faction. Although a bit lengthy to play all the faction decks, you get a good sense of each faction’s playstyle. The Augencore; a tech-obsessed faction, Earthen; the “good guys” who fight for Mother Earth, the Kathari; a clone faction that’s rapidly decaying, Marcolians humans from Mars, and finally the Shroud; a fanatic religious faction awaiting the arrival of the Great One. You’ll have the opportunity to play each faction at least 5 times in rookie mode, which makes for a great onboarding experience. I thoroughly enjoyed the lore text available on the cards. I am a sucker for lore it has to be said. But it has to be noted the amount of thought and care that went into the lore-building of Parallel.

Fear the Singularity

Outside of the design and lore, the gameplay itself is okay. It hits the mark of a playable competitive TCG but there is a few glaring issues with the current state of the game. The animations and on-screen prompts went a bit too quickly for my liking as I had to give myself a couple of seconds to figure out what had happened in any instance of damage or interaction. You would be assigning defenders, or playing a soldier and BAM a quick succession of almost blurred animations happens wiping your board. It created a strange disorientation which I felt didn’t need to be there so early! This was just after the tutorial mind you. More also has to be done in the way of balancing as the Shroud is by far the best faction, even in rookie mode I’d get stomped by Shroud decks early on.

Now the gameplay isn’t all bad, as I said the rookie decks are great for newbies and the overall design and card synergies with each faction really shine through in games. There is a promising TCG found in Parallel. However, I fear we may be a few patches away from it as the UI and user experience can really let it down early on, which may deter a lot of newcomers!

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