Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name

2025-04-06
Would you like to lasso a man and hurl him into a telephone pole so he develops a permanent speech impediment? If so, let me tell you about Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name. If Yakuza 6 was Kiryu's last hurrah then Gaiden is Kiryu's victory lap. It's the same Kiryu--er, uh, Joryu--we know and love and he still spends his time giving men on the street CTE and chain-smoking cigarettes in between karaoke seshes. But this time he's a secret agent. That means two things. One: he has gadgets like shooting a wire out of his watch so he can lasso dudes and pitch them into the Sotenbori or, my personal favorite, blast around on fucking rocket shoes. Yeah, that's right, Kiryu can rocket slide through enemies which for the larger fights in the game means you're basically bowling with Kiryu as the bowling ball and the enemy combatants as the pins. It is exactly as fun as it sounds. And two: he's got a cool-ass suit. More importantly, like any good secret agent, he has a wealth of sartorial options that you can customize. Thank you, RGG, it only took you almost 10 games but we can finally customize Kiryu's outfit and put him in a skin-tight leather one-sie with clown makeup on. Thank you so much.

But genuinely this might be the most fun I've had in the series since Yakuza 0. The combat is on-point (see: rocket shoes), the Coliseum is a blast, the Akame network is a fun flavoring for tying substories together (with some Judgment appearances), the live-action hostess club is supremely creepy (did you ever want to hear Kiryu say "your boobs are really big"? Well, now you can!), the set pieces are bonkers with a castle on a boat and an extended scene with Kiryu having to spend millions of yen in a night, and, of course, tying it all together is a short but sweet plot that weaves Kiryu into LAD7, sets up LAD8, and made my grown-man-ass cry at the end. Fuck yeah, RGG, ya did it again.