It's barely been a few weeks since I celebrated the fact that the sheer awfulness of RGG's new mobile online Yakuza shovel wear app was so useless that I could happily ignore it upon release. I could take this as an excuse to have a year off from the Like a Dragon franchise and play some other things, not get burnt out on the games I love and maybe find a new obsession or two down the line. (Currently trying to get into the wider spectrum of ATLUS games- Souls Hackers 2 is a bit of an odd one I'm dealing with right now.) See, I had heard the comment earlier in the year about how the next RGG game was absolutely not going to be something that we're expecting and I assumed that was designed to foreshadow that crappy mobile game. Turns out that was such a non-entity they didn't even consider that an actual game upcoming on their docket. This was what they meant.
So by now you've probably heard the news but if you haven't hear it is- RGG are going to release 'Like a Dragon: Pirates in Hawaii' which is going to do pretty much what it says on the tin, give us a new look at the Hawaii setting from the high seas controlling a pirate. And who is this pirate? Do you really need me to tell you that? Which of the cast they chose to become a swashbuckling, sea surfing, treasure hunting plunderer of the deep seas? The only member of the cast to already have an eye-patch rocking up his visage! Oh yeah, it's a Majima starring game making this actually his first run as a leading man since Yakuza 0 (and the short extra campaign designed for Kiwami 2 I suppose- but I really just see that as a wrap up to the 0 storyline) and I believe his first time ever as the sole principal character of a game, barring some obscure side title I currently don't know about.
I wanted an offering so paltry that I had no reason to dedicate my time towards it- and instead they served me up something I and the community have been waiting for since a lot of us first got invested in this franchise to begin with... it's not fair I tells ya! There's so much we don't know about the character of Majima and what's going on in his world. From the end of Yakuza 0 onwards he purposefully puts on a mask of fake-insanity so potent it feels like genuine whip lash when his personal life slips into the forefront for a brief while. Who remembers the stun-lock of learning that Majima had a wife for several years and they got divorced? Just slipped that one into Yakuza 5 and carried on like it was nothing. I've waited so long to touch base with the real man underneath the mask I don't even know if we'll recognise who he is anymore.
Of course, it's not just having Majima be our starring man which has me invested- it's also the fact that this is going to be a real time action game, like all of my favourite games from this franchise are, and it isn't going to just be a copy-paste of fighting styles we've already seen in previous games. Not that I really expect that from RGG, they haven't ever resorted to that before, but considering they're making these games every year and literally just put out their biggest game ever earlier this year- they'd be forgiven for taking their foot off the gas pedal for just a little bit. But of course, RGG are a demonic entity that can slap out game of the year contenders every year whilst western studios struggle to put out high quality sequels with 4 year (at minimum) development cycles. It's like we're looking at totally different industries out there!
Pirate game lovers have of course been pretty raw served in recent times thanks to the 10 year wait for Ubisoft's soft fart of a project, the AAAA 'Skull and Bones' sleeping aide/ game. I can't help but wonder whether this game will provide something more akin the swashbuckling fantasy that people wanted? It's hard to say because, despite a seven minute trailer, there was hardly any actual gameplay to tell us what to expect. It was mostly all story teases and wonderment at the sheer fact this was a game being made at all- I can merely glimpse the odd shot of Majima performing a ship docking or riding into port of the franchise's next ridiculously overt underground pleasure club and assume that means we'll have some sort of ship gameplay. What sort? Hard to say.
At the very least there's going to be a lot more down and dirty sword to sword fighting come this game, and given this a Majima story that means a lot of hand-waving and assuming that what is being done somehow isn't fatal. Majima's new sword movement set literally cuts ribbons of slashes into his opponents, but we're just gonna pretend nothing vital is hit and they get prompt medical treatment after fading off the screen. They did the same thing with Ishin, where despite the fact Ryoma wasn't squeamish about killing every now and then his supremely lethal sword-gun combo was proposed to only cause flesh wounds in most every encounter. I wonder if Majima's ship has canons? Does he fill them with confetti shot?
What I'm struggling with most is the framing device of this, because by all accounts this seems to be a spin-off title: what one might refer to as a... gaiden. But there is no 'Like a Dragon: Gaiden' naming convention whatsover and no information on what to expect- is this a full game's worth of content or not? That price certainly makes it seem like a full game- but then I need to remind myself that 60 is the old premium and not the new premium that Infinite Wealth was sold at... but does that mean this is being treated as a lean side game, or an unrelated but still very much complete (Ishin sized) side game? These are the things I really would like to know, and probably won't get to.
But all this means nothing in the grand scheme. Why? Because the 'grand scheme' is that I'm going to play this game. Because it looks silly and I come to this franchise for silly. I wonder about this new ship-based game mode, it has the potential to be a bit shoddy if not given the full amount of love and attention, but I've not regretted playing a single Like a Dragon game yet. Apart from 3. (Screw 3.) So yes, RGG have got me again and I'll never be able to shake this game from my mind long enough to miss it. Woe is me.
No comments:
Post a Comment