Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name Feels Like Home

I was so grateful to be dropped into the middle of Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name‘s absurdity because it felt like an honest-to-god welcome home. Beginning as Kiryu, who is now undercover as the totally-innocuous “Joryu,” boards a ship that (obviously) contains a miniature Las Vegas where bloodsport and gambling run hand in hand, I was just kind of let loose in a playground for half an hour. In that time, I fought many, many men, played dress up, and hilariously visited a cabaret club with a live-action hostess. Which is to say, the formula’s working about as well as it ever has.

I know next to nothing about the Like A Dragon series, formerly known as  Yakuza, other than that Kiryu and Majima are, respectively, that world’s greatest himbo and hedonist. Having played most of Yakuza: Like A Dragon—a confusingly titled game if there ever was one—and Judgement, though, I do at least have a familiarity with either’s combat to note the obvious differences. Dropping into the aforementioned bloodsport first, where you can brawl as a team made up of characters from across the series and even as some of them instead of Kiryu, I put Like A Dragon Gaiden‘s new agent fighting style through its paces to brilliantly stupid effect. Going back to the series’ brawler roots, the new fighting style makes Kiryu cartoonishly efficient at taking out large groups of people. Holding down any of the face buttons quickly enables the use of these tools, like holding the X button to activate rocket boots that allow me to half-glide/half-skate across arenas while bowling dudes over. A fantastic opening move, it lays the foundation for you to then hold the Square button and throw a grenade into the mix. At one point, I lobbed one that bounced off a guy’s head and walked away as they exploded behind me, making my own cool-guy-walking-away-from-an-explosion moment. Holding Triangle prompts a drone turret to fly down and momentarily help out, but my favorite is this kind of laser lasso that can rope up several targets at once. Whipping the analog stick in any direction causes Kiryu to flick his wrist and send them flying, which is its own satisfaction. However, I accidentally got a taste of a combo where I whipped a guy towards me, only for my fist to connect with him mid-air and allow me to juggle the guy until he was done for. I reckon moments like that are going to be the ones that folks who get really into these combat systems are going to relish.

Fight styles or stances in these games have always felt or looked like frivolous things that just come down to personal preference—and this seems no different—but at least the Agent style made for a very fun departure from the basics. If I had to pick between a slow but powerful style and a weaker but fast one in another game, my eyes would’ve rolled to the back of my head. Seeing Kiryu essentially murder people with everything shy of a gun is also just a hoot and felt like a perfect marriage of the outrageous humor and elements of the series melded with its ever-present and hard-hitting melees.