The release ofLike a Dragon: Infinite Wealthmade me finally want to get my butt in gear. I had been sitting back and watching the series pass me by since the release ofYakuza 0. I’d always meant to get to it eventually, but never knew when that would actually be. I even wondered if it would take anadult summer vacation— i.e. three months of uninterrupted time with no work expectations — to finally get up to date on the decades-spanning story of Kiryu and Ichiban.
Then Infinite Wealth got such good reviews and GOTY buzz that I decided to just go for it. But now that I’ve begun my journey, the route to the finish line has been surprisingly circuitous. That’s partially my fault, and partially circumstance, but it all adds up to making it much harder than it needs to be to get caught up.
Let me explain. There were several ways I could have gone about getting ready for Infinite Wealth. For one, I could have just played the directly relevant games in the series. That would mean picking up atYakuza: Like a Dragon— the entry that introduced Ichiban and the series' new turn-based mechanics — moved intoLike a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name— which reveals what Kiryu was up to during Ichiban’s introduction — and then jumped into Infinite Wealth — which features both characters prominently. That would be equivalent to picking up a manga at the start of the most recent arc, and probably would have worked just fine with the occasional delve into the depths of a wiki.
A longer, but still doable route would have been to begin withYakuza 0and play every mainline entry. That path would take me through Yakuza 0, Kiwami, Kiwami 2, and the remasters of 3, 4, and 5. Then I would close up Kiryu’s main character arc with 6, and move on to Like A Dragon and Infinite Wealth.
Of course, there’s the easiest option: just play Infinite Wealth now, and be confused.That’s what my fellow features editor Tessa Kaur did, and it seems to be working out for them.
However, I did not do either of these things. I had previously started both 0 and Like a Dragon and gotten distracted, so I didn’t want to start with either of those games. So, instead, I went to Kiwami. That was a mildly controversial decision, as some fans (including a good friend of mine who I talked to about this) insist that 0 is the best place to start. But, if you’re playing the series all the way through, Kiwami is one of the two most logical starting points, so I’m not too bothered.
Here’s where the hiccup comes in. That playthrough was interrupted bypersistent issues with my PS5coming to a head in the middle of my Kiwami playthrough. I sent it into Sony for repair, and while it was out of commission, I wanted to play something on my PS4. I had a copy ofJudgmentthat I got for Christmas a few years ago and, thinking my PS5 would be gone for a couple weeks, decided to start it up.
Given that this is a spin-off game, it is getting me zero percent closer to my ultimate goal of playing Infinite Wealth. But, I went to the trouble of getting my dusty PS4 out of the closet and I don’t want that (small amount of) effort to be in vain. Plus, I’ve started and not finished so many Yakuza games at this point that I just need to complete one story in Kamurocho to prove to myself that I can actually do it. I’m having a good time with the game and everything, but I’m going to finish it mostly for the sake of proving that I can.
This got complicated further by my PS5 taking under a week to ship, get repaired, and ship back. It was shockingly fast. So, now I’m in the middle of two Yakuza games, with my PS5 and PS4 hooked up next to each other. I am not getting closer to Infinite Wealth at all, but hey, I’m having a good time. Journey not the destination, folks.
