Episode 2: Long Live the Abstraction Machine!

 Piloting Glorious Flesh

Episode 2: Long Live the Abstraction Machine!
Games: Yakuza: Like a Dragon, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth

On November 29th, 2016 Square Enix released their latest entry of their acclaimed Final Fantasy franchise, Final Fantasy XV. Unlike previous entries Final Fantasy XV was a real time Action RPG, leaving behind the franchise’s turn-based design roots. This was a major sticking point to many Classic JRPG fans who prefer more strategic turn-based games. THE big blockbuster franchise seemingly left them behind along with so many other franchises slowing down or dying off altogether.

Only a few days later on December 8th 2016, Sega would release Ryu Ga Gotoku 6: Inochi no Uta (which would be released outside of Japan on April 17th, 2018 as Yakuza 6: The Song of Life). At the time these two major Japanese game releases would seem entirely unrelated. Yakuza 6 was the long awaited finale of the story of the series protagonist Kazuma Kiryu. It was a cinematic, beat-em up inspired action game with a similar progression and world structure to that of a classic JRPG. Honestly I consider this game as much, if not more of a JRPG, than the much hyped Final Fantasy XV, but these vague genre definitions will always seem to exist in some contention. Late 2016 gave us two landmark releases of two major JRPG franchises, one symbolizing a bold new direction towards the future and one signifying the end of its era.

Unbeknownst to us there would be a major paradigm shift moving forward in the Ryu Ga Gotoku (now localized as Like a Dragon) franchise after the finale of Kiryu’s time as the series protagonist. On April 1st 2019 we got a sneak preview of this change in the form of an April Fools Day trailer that features the series new protagonist Ichiban Kasuga and a mock up of what the franchise would be like with classic turn-based JRPG inspired combat. However, we would later learn this was no mere gag, this was the future of Like a Dragon as a franchise. On January 16th, 2020 the next installment of the Like a Dragon franchise Ryu Ga Gotoku 7: Hikari to Yami no Yukue (Like a Dragon 7: Whereabouts of Light and Darkness) would be released starring Ichiban Kasuga as the new protagonist and the complete shift to an explicitly Dragon Quest inspired classic turn-based JRPG combat system. (The game would be released outside of Japan November 10th, 2020 as Yakuza: Like a Dragon)

Before we go any further we must (unfortunately) discuss naming conventions. The franchise in Japan is called Ryu Ga Gotoku which translates to Like a Dragon. Back in 2006 when the original Ryu Ga Gotoku was brought over outside of Japan it was localized as Yakuza.This was a localization decision that made a lot of sense on multiple levels. In the 00s crime games were extremely popular. Grand Theft Auto had taken the game industry by storm in 2001. Crime dramas and hip-hop colored the aesthetic of the decade so many games even unrelated to crime had their own Underground or Street phases or spin-offs.The franchise was also mostly about the Yakuza specifically in the early entries. The first game was primarily about a power struggle within the Tojo Clan with Kiryu being a former member. This would however become a bit of a problem moving forward into more recent entries as they look to expand their focus past the Yakuza. The first entry to be localized with the new Like a Dragon title would be the remake of the Bakumatsu Era period piece spin-off Ryu Ga Gotoku: Ishin! Kiwami as Like a Dragon: Ishin!.

Now personally, I like this change. It's a more accurate title and is more broad and evocative. It also makes a lot of sense thematically for the franchise to shed off its Yakuza branding moving forward (for reasons I will not spoil). However what I do dislike personally was that this decision was made too late for Ryu Ga Gotoku 7: Hikari to Yami no Yukue which came over with the, frankly ugly title Yakuza: Like a Dragon. I hate this title for a lot of reasons. It positions the “Yakuza 7” game as more of a Yakuza spin-off. They were likely too sheepish to completely ditch the Yakuza branding given the massive explosive success of Yakuza 0. The most recent entry Ryu Ga Gotoku 8 ended up being the first mainline entry to be localized without the Yakuza branding as Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth.

Now I need to make myself clear, I hate video game marketing. I think retitling your game in different regions in an attempt to attract people who are afraid of playing a game with an unfamiliar title or playing a sequel with a large number attached to it is foolish at best. In protest I will not be calling the 7th and 8th entries of this franchise by their official titles, but instead simply Like a Dragon 7 and Like a Dragon 8. Although I do think the soft reboot nature of Like a Dragon 7 does present a thematic “reset point” in the franchise so I don’t totally object to a change. Personally I would have called Like a Dragon 7 “Like a Dragon Ichi” which would be a very fitting title as it would mark the new beginning of a new saga as “1” but is also tied to the name of our new protagonist Ichiban Kasuga. They could have then called Like a Dragon 8 “Like a Dragon Ni” as 2 is a much lower and less intimidating number than 8. Of course all of this would still leave a bit of a bad taste as even with my kindergartener’s reading skills of basic Japanese would be able to tell Ryu Ga Gotoku 7 is still called Ryu Ga Gotoku 7… but that’s at least much better than what we got.

Anyway… LIKE A DRAGON 7 is a cinematic turn-based JRPG set in contemporary Japan. It stars the franchise’s new protagonist Ichiban Kasuga, a man who was abandoned at birth and raised in a soapland (we’ll explain that one to you when you are older) and a member of the Arakawa Family, a subsidiary of the Tokyo-based Tojo Clan. His hero’s journey includes him (conveniently for the length of the entire series thus far) spending a long prison sentence on behalf of his patriarch Masumi Arakawa. He is then betrayed, shot, and left for dead by his patriarch and left in the port town of Yokohama where he must make new friends and rebuild his life from being homeless on the streets to uncovering the circumstances of his betrayal, birth, and a conspiracy on the national scale.

So if Like a Dragon 7 is a genre shift from beat-em up style action to turn based combat, what exactly about the franchise has changed? And the answer is, put simply, not as much as you’d think. Personally I had always considered the other Yakuza titles as JRPGs in their own right. They share a lot of genre characteristics with other JRPGs. In Yakuza as you explore the dense urban environments you’ll run into combat encounters much like a classic JRPG. Even in the beat-em up games, the Kiryu games, you can earn experience to upgrade your character and even buy and equip gear to give yourself an edge. Sure the “numbers stuff” isn’t exactly as engaging as a Tabletop Role Playing Game, but I do think the structure of the game's maps and encounters is worth acknowledging. Like a Dragon 7, the Kasuga games, make these elements the star of the show. The Kasuga games adapt the beat-em up combat into a turn based system with you directing the actions of Kasuga and his party members.

The dense urban environments of the Like a Dragon franchise don’t need to change much at all for the Kasuga games. The streets with roaming hostile encounters evokes the feeling of dungeon crawling not unlike the symbol encounters found in more modern Dragon Quest games. They do have one major change in that enemy encounters scale based on the region of the city. This means that traveling into later game portions of the city is potentially very dangerous as you will find yourself at a major statistical disadvantage. This really puts you in the shoes of Kasuga, especially if you have played the Kiryu games prior. He is much less powerful than the legendary Dragon of Dojima from the start of his journey. Kasuga and his friends can’t just casually waltz into enemy territory. They must build their strength from the bottom and rise up like Dragon Quest heroes of old!

The turn-based combat is certainly a very different way to interface with combat than the one-man wrecking crew you can be with Kiryu and friends. The Kasuga games are much more focused on strategy and using your abilities in concert with your party members to succeed. However, you can still feel the old games’ systems under the hood. While the Kasuga games do have accuracy stat checks like most other turn-based RPGs, attacks still have animations that need to connect their hitboxes (the part of the attack that does the hitting) with the enemy’s hurtbox (the part of the enemy model that does the hurting). This occasionally results in a bit of jank where your accuracy roll makes the check, but because your attack animation got caught on some errant obstacle in the environment that put you out of position for your hitbox to intersect with the enemy hurtbox, your attack won’t register. Speaking of bad positioning, you are also frequently at the mercy of your characters’ positioning in the environment. Like a Dragon 8 does alleviate this somewhat by allowing you to manually reposition your current character with some limitations, but that doesn’t really solve all the jank when the enemies and party members are moving around with their own volition. Even with its issues the combat is still a lot of fun. The combat is somewhat basic on its surface which makes it fairly approachable but does have a decent level of depth to explore and experiment with.

By far the most interesting change between the Kiryu and Kasuga games is how the games are designed so we can see the world through Kasuga’s eyes. When Kasuga was young he grew up being obsessed with Dragon Quest. What feels like a bit of a relatable quirk ends up becoming the full blown framing device for Kasuga’s story. We aren’t shown exactly what happens when Kasuga battles. Characters sometimes will comment that Kasuga is a good fighter but he lets enemies get hits in. Kasuga explains that he fights like a Dragon Quest hero who isn't afraid to take hits. This reframes the turn-based combat into an abstract view into how Kasuga sees battles. 

More subtly this informs an important character trait in Kasuga that contrasts with Kiryu the previous protagonist. Kiryu overwhelms his foes with the power of the Dragon. Kiryu’s power is integral to his role as a yakuza legend and a protector of those he loves. But his power often comes at a cost to those around him and himself. Kasuga on the other hand lacks Kiryu’s strength. He cannot do what Kiryu can do alone, but instead Kasuga’s strength comes from his ability to take on punishment to protect others and in turn others will assist him. Kiryu is the unstoppable force, Kasuga is the immovable object.

The abstraction of Kasuga’s perspective evolves during his journey. After a near death experience, potential brain damage, and his resolve leading him to pull an alleged legendary (sword) bat from the stone (sidewalk) the game adds a new layer of fantasy to the contemporary setting, Kasuga’s vivid imagination. At the point that he receives the bat and accepts his role as the Hero of Yokohama Kasuga begins to imagine his battles with the tropes and characteristics of a fantasy adventure. Enemies transform before his eyes from regular street level thugs to hulking monsters and bizarre freaks. Kasuga learns magic skills that can help support his teammates like a classic paladin class. The game begins to reframe mundane elements into fantasy with fascinating, bizarre, and hilarious results.

One major example of this fantasy lens is when Kasuga and his homeless friends need to go get jobs. They go to their local job agency where they can be assigned various jobs by the player. These jobs end up becoming Like a Dragon 7’s class or “Job” system. Like class systems in other JRPGs you can mix and match Jobs on each character and they will change their build, skills, and equipment based on their current job. Learning multiple Jobs is also recommended as you can mix and match some skills between Jobs, not unlike having a varied Job experience on your resume might lead you to have transferable skills between jobs in your career. This system does have one major limitation that holds it back and that is that Jobs are gender exclusive. Women don’t have access to the same pool of Jobs as men and have significantly less options. If I were to be generous I’d say this is an appeal to the naturalism of the world of the Like a Dragon games, or perhaps be some sort of social commentary on the sexism on the job market, but that feels like a stretch.

Kasuga’s imagination also fills the world with magic. Like a Dragon exists in a modern day Japan where supernatural elements are rare and debatably canon. The Japan of these games is often exaggerated, and wacky but rarely outright magical. Kasuga’s mind adds magic into the world by recontextualizing more mundane things within the setting. Kasuga’s homeless friend who can do fire breathing tricks with a lighter and alcohol is Like a Dragon’s equivalent to a wizard. Kasuga’s friend who was a former police officer takes the role of the party’s tank. The Host, Hostess, and Barmaid jobs can spray bottles of champagne or dump buckets of ice which are ice elemental spells. Tasers are the most frequent occurrence of Lightning magic. Words of encouragement, music, or sharing a drink with a friend can heal.

The damage types themselves are particularly fascinating. The game needs to find clever ways to give you a variety of access to different damage types. The game includes physical and magic damage. Physical damage is divided into blunt, blade, and gun types of damage. Blunt and blade damage is relatively straight forward, but guns are a bit more fascinating as guns are pretty rare even in the Japanese underground. Usually attacks that include throwing darts or balls are contextualized as Gun type attacks. The magical elements include non-elemental magic, fire, water, and lighting. Non-elemental magic tends to be associated with various things like baiting pigeons to attack an enemy. The other elements are more straightforward with where they are sourced from.

Although there is an interesting omission from the elements and that is Light or Dark. This is initially not that interesting, but it really stood out to me especially in Like a Dragon 8. In both Kasuga games the Hero Job has an ultimate weapon that is an upgrade of the Legendary Hero’s Bat. In both games this bat is aspected with the Lightning element. It then occurred to me that it’s not quite within the realm of realism, even through Kasuga’s imaginative lens for there to be Light and Dark attacks, so running a current of electricity is the closest thing he can get to having a bat with holy power. In Like a Dragon 8 this stood out even more as there’s an antagonist who exists as a Dark Knight to Kasuga’s holy paladin, and again it's not within the realm of possibility for him to wield darkness so instead he is associated with fire and Kasuga imagines his fire with a purple coloring to give it the appearance of dark magic. This appeared again with another antagonist who’s alignment was unclear. His fight design reflects this as he has different stances he can use that all have different associated elements, Lighting makes him appear Light, Ice makes him appear gray, and Fire makes him appear as Dark.

Ichiban Kasuga is a true hero. And I don’t simply mean he is a nice guy or he does good things. A true hero in my mind is someone who can not only save lives or punch a bad guy real good, but instead lifts up those around him. He would be the kind of friend you can depend on. Someone who might help you no matter the circumstances. Kasuga would not judge you. Kasuga would trust you inherently. We could all use a friend or a hero like Ichiban Kasuga. Long live Ichiban Kasuga!

Kasuga isn’t the only one who’s story is greatly affected by the genre shift. In Like a Dragon 8 Kiryu rejoins the story and much to my surprise is a party member in the turn-based battles. I’m not going to spoil too much of Like a Dragon 8, but the turn-based combat around Kiryu carries a darker context for Kiryu’s story. Kiryu is getting older and seeing the twilight of his life. Kiryu can no longer summon the strength he once could and his shift into the turn-based combat represents him having to slow down.

It is through Kiryu’s perspective I think we finally see the true strength of the change in genre. Kiryu as a character is one to carry the weight of the world on his own. He tries to not involve anyone else in his problems and carries a deep trauma and guilt of what dangers his life gravitates towards him and the ones he loves. Kiryu has always struggled asking for or accepting help from others, but his grave circumstances lead him with no other options. Kiryu warms up to his role as a member of the party and in turn being able to depend on his friends. The turn-based combat humbles Kiryu, but also represents his character arc. It proves that Kasuga is not weaker than Kiryu because he needs others, it proves that Kasuga has a strength that Kiryu lacked and needs to learn. You can have all the power in the world like a dragon, but sometimes even a dragon needs help.

There is… one interesting exception. Like a Dragon 8 includes a new Limit Break or Super Meter type of mechanic, a meter that fills over the course of battle that gains characters access to a special skill when the meter is full. For most characters this is a fun Tag Team Attack with the party leader, however Kiryu’s is unique. When you activate this skill as Kiryu, he finds his inner strength again and immediately BREAKS OUT OF THE TURN BASED COMBAT! For a brief moment you get to play in real time combat as Kiryu. These days Kiryu needs to pick and choose his battles wisely, but when pushed to his limits he can reclaim his overwhelming power and shatter the abstractions that bound the others.

I find Kiryu’s inclusion into Like a Dragon 8 and inclusion in the turn-based combat to be a beautiful statement. It's not too late for Kiryu. Kiryu can learn to depend on others for help when he needs it. Kiryu can learn not to throw his life away recklessly. With Kiryu’s inclusion Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio embraces the change of their franchise with open arms. Long live Kazama Kiryu!

Like a Dragon 7 was more than a mere change in genre for the Like a Dragon franchise. It was a change in tone. It was a new direction. It was an epilogue for the Kiryu saga and the new beginning for Kasuga. Like a Dragon respects its past, loves its past, but accepts that it is time to move on. It's a complete overhaul of the very identity of Like a Dragon. 

Under Kiryu, Like a Dragon was the story of a Yakuza legend and his long, bloody journey through life. Kiryu’s story was the tale of a man shrouded in darkness, alone. Kasuga’s tale is a very different story. Under Kasuga, Like a Dragon is the story of a group of scrappy underdogs who live in the fringes of society who become unlikely heroes. Kiryu is the fantasy of the anti-hero who battles with his inner demons who can take on the world all on his own, Kasuga is the fantasy of the hero who you can depend on to help you unconditionally. Kiryu is a man who looks to sacrifice himself to find an honorable way to die, Kasuga is a man who picks up others from the brink to give them the choice to live.

Like a Dragon 8 is a story of life. It's a story about how life is true value, true wealth. No matter how poor, sick, or dire your circumstances are, no matter what everyone says or thinks of you, no matter how deep a hole you have dug yourself in, no matter how heavy your sins weigh on you, you can still choose to live. You can heal. You can rebuild your life. You can repent for your sins. It's never too late for a second chance, but you must choose to live. As long as you choose to live you have wealth, you have Infinite Wealth.

Long live the fantasy!
        Long live our heroes!

Long live the Abstraction Machine!

Like a Dragon 7: 10/10
Like a Dragon 8: 9/10

Next Time On Piloting Glorious Flesh

Episode 3: Choose to Live

We move on from the Abstraction Machine Duology to something a bit more personal. Instead of reviewing a specific game I am going to dissect a common trope: The Heroic Sacrifice. This will close off both Like a Dragon and Final Fantasy XVI as they are both relevant to the topic at hand. This will contain FULL STORY SPOILERS for Yakuza 6: The Song of Life, Like a Dragon 7, Like a Dragon 8, Final Fantasy XVI, and even Nier Replicant ver.1.22474487139…

A wiseman once spoke to me in a language I do not speak, but in words I could understand. “Abandoning your uniqueness is equivalent to dying. So don’t write generic lyrics based on other concerns. Write what YOU want to write.”

See You Next Mission, Flesh Pilots