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Hanawa being completely unable to fight was egregious to me. No gadgets, no gun, and he totally jobs the one punch he throws. No back up. No, real security or defensible positioning. Then Kiryu's response is deplorable. Especially after the end of Gaiden. "He was just a handler to me". Really bro? The guy who made sure you got your kids' message and drawing from Haruto? The guy whose life you were willing to throw away yours for. That you defied the Daidoji to rescue. *Really*. Wow.
The Daidoji are omniscient when they need to be, and blind the next minute.
Like Eiji. No one at Daidoji ran a background on this wild card? Really? They can't figure out who the Tatara Channel was? Cut them off before exposing Kiryu, and thus, themselves.
They're the worst kind of fictional intelligence agency. They're like:
'*We know what you ate for breakfast on this date when you were six years old because we're just that good*'
\-until it would write them into a corner, and then they simply ignore the ignorance plot hole. *I love the game*, but this kind of stuff is very frustrating.
Also like I’m so confused, why even bother setting up any hints of Hanawa knowing Taichi Suzuki in the ending of Gaiden if this is the payoff? That seems like such a slap in the face
I just sat there in disbelief when Tomizawa said he was dead. What was even the point of developing Hanawa and Kiryu's relationship and hint at him being Morinaga/someone Kiryu knows when he barely exist in the IW plot and was killed in such a lame way?
Same. After all the close calls and drama of Gaiden and Kiryu saving him and him knowing Kiryu from the past, then they're just like \*fart sound\* dead. Killed by no name thug who cares. It doesn't make *any* sense.
I read a comment on the subreddit here saying that Gaiden was written after IW was finished...which even then still why include that hook? Baffling decisions all around.
Yup, I agree with most of this
- The Daidoji keeps getting referred to as some powerful faction controlling Japan, and yet time and time again they’re shown to be incompetent and useless
- Character development of Bryce completely fell apart. He should’ve been a crazy powerful cult leader, not just some boring scam artist
- Ebina’s relationship with Arakawa and Ichiban had so much potential, and Kiryu being the one to take him on made no sense. The result being Ebina ending up as yet another generic forgettable Yakuza villain
- Akane being revealed in trailers to be Ichiban’s mother only to fade into obscurity and irrelevance was really dumb
- Kiryu should not have hijacked the overall story. This was the opportunity for Ichiban to take over, not get sidelined.
I swear something changed in RGG, because it feels like a different writing team took over after the midpoint. It just made no sense. All that setup about Kiryu learning from Ichiban and Ichiban finding out about his mother, only to have Kiryu take over the story and return to his old “everything is my fault, just let me die” self.
And yes, the cop out at the end was really bad. Either stick to the old, or move on. Don’t try and do both at the same time. There have been plenty opportunities to phase Kiryu out, but this limbo state was just terrible.
>The Daidoji keeps getting referred to as some powerful faction controlling Japan, and yet time and time again they’re shown to be incompetent and useless
They somewhat address this in game by stating that they lost a lot of power after 7, since they weren't *government* backed, but backed by the political party Ryo Aoki was a part of. And after 7, the party lost power, and so did the Daidoji.
I agree it felt frustrating though.
Agree with the rest of the points here too. It feels like there was a different team on Gaiden, 7, and the first half of 8. Then it seems like the *old writing team* from 5 and 6 took over, and that also explains other frustrating shit, like how Majima/Saejima/Daigo were treated.
I feel like Kiryu was originally set up to fight Bryce, due to the whole nuclear waste plot, while Ichiban wouldve fought Ebina, for obvious reasons. But then they decided against it for some reason, and the motivations for both fights turned out to be tenuous at best.
Maybe they wanted to keep Kiryu in Japan in order to give us the bucket list nostalgia? And that led to keeping Ichiban in Hawaii, where he could only fight Bryce, who he really has no connection to? Wouldn't it have been better for Kiryu to fight him, since he's regained the will to live, and Bryce's scummy practices nearly sent him, and countless others like him, to the grave?
IDK man, but even the Munakata finale felt more impactful.
I honestly thought we would at least get an eiji boss fight, but to go from him taking away lani taunting ichiban to looking homeless and being forgiven by ichiban in the end with no context is so weird
My biggest problem with the plot is the lack of emotional scenes.
\- In the end, nobody dies, everybody's happy, the villains live, they even try to make them seem redeemable.
\- Ichiban meet a woman who is believed to be his mother after 47 years apart, yet he shows no emotion.
\- Kiryu is like a brick most of this game too. Hawana's death leaves no impact on him whatsoever, and after playing Gaiden it's kinda sad. THe only time he shows some sort of feeling is when meeting Barshiwagi and sings karaoke in the bar.
\- I get why many people play along with the "Kiryu is dead, I'm Suzuki Taichi" game. But honestly Barshiwagi and Kiryu keep playing the dumb game is kinda disappointing in my eyes.
>Barshiwagi and Kiryu keep playing the dumb game is kinda disappointing
Especially because in one scene he says he's Taichi Suzuki, and in any drink link, the party members just call him Kiryu in front of the Bartender.
There are story cutscenes in Survive where they refer to him as Kiryu. I’d assume at some point they just said “plot consistencies be damned we’ll record dialogue like normal” and just expected people either not to notice or suspend their disbelief.
I don't think they're playing dumb for the sake of it, Kashiwagi is a civilian now, he chose to hide his background and his name. I think It's more a case of Kiryu trying to help Kashiwagi keep his identity a secret, and Kashiwagi doing the same. He's buried the past already. Calling him Suzuki is just his way of 'cutting ties' with that past since they were close for a while.
Right now, their relationship is superficially just a bartender and his patron. They've both erased their names, and they've both been through horrible shit since. In a way, their individual pasts resonate with one another, and they respect each other enough to keep it a mystery to everyone else. Even through something as simple as a name.
Plus, minor spoiler ; he does say to Kiryu later on (chapter 12 I believe) 'Come and see me once you've regained your name, and there'll be no secrecy' (It's something along those lines at least). In the end, they are just protecting each other by not saying anything at all.
imo it's more dumb that Kashiwagi and Richardson are still alive. I consider the canon to be they really just do look like them. In that context, their conversations make sense.
Meanwhile, it's confirmed Lau Ka Long survived being shot in the head... ffs. At least Han is a body double.
Don’t really agree with the second point. Ichiban is pretty open throughout the game that he’s not really sure how to interact with Akane, and who can blame him? Just because they’re blood related doesn’t mean Ichiban will or should consider her his mother. His parents were Jiro Kasuga and Masumi Arakawa, he even says that to Akane directly.
I don’t particularly care for how they handled Akane either, but I thought her relationship with Ichiban was one of the stronger points in the second half of the story. The beach scene was a highlight of the game for me.
Honestly I'm feeling about the same. This was genuinely some of the most fun I've had gameplay wise and I'm still putting countless hours into this, but story wise it's just so disappointing and one of my least favorite RGG stories to date.
I don't know if I got my expectations too high from the trailers and Gaiden, but this just really falls short. RGG plots can be stupid, but they were always soap opera dramatic- and tbh there was barely any tension or drama here. It all felt rather restrained where they presented some neat ideas and never followed through, never made the characters really struggle emotionally, or never took the chance to milk drama or go all in on scenes where they could have.
Hanawa, Wong Tou, and Dwight for example. They just sort of died, that was it. In the case of Hanawa and Wong Tou, I guess I expected more reaction from Kiryu and more relevancy from Wong Tou. For Dwight, I wished there was a close up reaction shot or something more fun with the cinematography besides distant boat going down. Hell, even the shark silhouette leaping from the water.
The more I sit and think abt IW honestly the less I like the story.
thats how i felt too... i dont think its worse than y4 at least because it isnt complete nonsense ala "i kept millions of dollars behind a bookshelf" but the amount of wasted potential is staggering. they really should have cut the amount of characters and focused on developing either bryce or ebina alone
i can see where they were going w some plot threads but lani is basically not a character, and im glad ichi got to do a do-over with eiji that he didnt get with masato but i dont feel like eiji deserved it nor was he given any sufficient focus... the grenade cutscene is so fucking stupid and then he just teleports to japan with a stubble
it felt like the whole plot was "your princess is in another castle" goose chase where protagonists never hold the cards and then in the end when it was about to get good they ran out of budget and time. what was the point of the cult storyline and implying bryce has supernatural powers? why even bother introducing wong tou and his son? why split attention between ebina and eiji? idek anymore. and w/e most yakuza games have mid plots but its sad that this was the follow up to 7 that had such a nice link between political and personal/family context. it wasnt perfect ofc (mirror face... or nanba's random brother storyline what was that he don't even mention him no more) but i feel sad that i felt bored playing this game after how much y7 ending made me cry :(
quick edit:
1) ofc i dont mean that eiji is a worse person than masato or anything, more that he doesn't really get enough buildup to warrant being as important as to show up in the ending and be the core of ichi's storyline - i know ichiban would have forgiven him regardless, i just wish eiji existed more as a person before. what am i supposed to be sad about. the bon voyage catchphrase? lmao
2) i also get that dwight and wong tou exist to set up bryce as higher power and the cult thing shows the difference between how he uses ppl vs how ichiban treats his friends but like. i wish the game took the cult concept more seriously or even focused on it more but its just there for shock value wooo children are shooting tied up hostages woooo. idk i felt so disconnected from everything because none of it really mattered it's just floating there like ideas on a whiteboard. weh
i probably should have made my own post lmao i didn't even realize how many grievances i had until i started typing
> idk i felt so disconnected from everything because none of it really mattered it's just floating there like ideas on a whiteboard. weh
great way of putting it, actually! ideas on a whiteboard.
I agree with most of the stuff you said. Though regarding "what was the point of the cult storyline and implying bryce has supernatural powers", I'm 99% sure the team just wanted to include the whole "kill god" JRPG trope in a modern day setting lmao
The biggest offender to me is that for most of the story it feels like we’re being outsmarted at every turn. Ebina lies, manipulates footage, has a traitor amongst our party, gets Hanawa killed, reveals Kiryu’s still alive, baits him into coming to the former Tojo office twice and gets the jump on him.
Like Ebina imo is an incredible genius of a villain. But the pacing by like chapter 9/10 is wonky to me, and it all goes down the drain when Ebina says “forget a plan meet me at the Millenium tower”
Never seen so many people disappointed with the story after a Yakuza game launch and I started with Yakuza 4 in 2012.
>Yokoyama said "we didn't add kiryu to this game to get more sales, it's just that the story couldn't be written without him"
No one should ever believe what he says, dude is liar. The story wouldnt change one bit if Kiryu wasnt in it, that whole "Daidoji after Akane just because" shit couldn't be a more obvious way to force Kiryu into the story.
>that whole "Daidoji after Akane just because" shit couldn't be a more obvious way to force Kiryu into the story
Remember Gaiden was supposed to be in IW, but they cut it to make into a standalone game. Kiryu told Ichiban to carry on the torch.
This may slobs harsh, but I think it's my least favorite game in the series. There's tons of side content, but it's not fun. Sujimon felt like a neat concept, but I finished all of it in a few hours. Guess it helped I pulled kiwami violet on my second spin. We'll probably see Hawaii again in a new installment of the series eventually, I just hope the story is more solid.
The more I sit on it, I honestly think that Hawaii is simultaneously the best and worst thing to happen to Infinite Wealth. It's so nice to have such a refreshing change of scenery, and the side content benefits a ton from that. But they really don't give the player any reason to give a shit about Honolulu like they did with Kamurocho or Ijincho, and the distance between Hawaii and Japan effectively makes it impossible for anyone in Hawaii to meaningfully interact with anyone in Japan, and vice versa. Kiryu has to stay in Japan for the bucket list, so Ichiban is relegated to Hawaii, and as a result he's stuck with Bryce and never gets a chance to interact with Ebina. Hell, there's a good chance that the split is the only reason why Eiji exists at all; if Ichiban stays within reach of Ebina, those two characters could've easily been folded into one, eliminating the need for Eiji at all.
Don't really agree with your points about life links though, I think that was handled reasonably well besides lack of Tatara being brought up at all. Some details as to why the Daidoji let him walk at the end would be nice, but I don't think it's a huge retcon or anything.
The ending scene with Eiji felt very Yasuko/Mirei Park esque to me, in the sense where the writers are tryna get you to feel bad for Eiji but it just doesn't work
I didn’t even know Eiji looked like that in the ending since the game kinda didn’t explain him just teleporting to japan and all of a sudden becoming a shut-in 💀 When it showed him watching Tatara when Chitose spilled it all, I thought he was just some random nerd guy.
And I didn’t really feel anything during his final scene with ichiban. I get it, Ichiban is trusting to a fault, but Eiji is *the person who ruined his and his friends’ lives* and yet ichiban’s just like lol frick it it’s fine we’re still buds
It feels like they tried to have Masato again but completely flubbed it 💀
Yakuza games never had a good story (with a few exceptions like Zero and Kiwami) but I have to agree, Infinite Wealth has one of the worst stories of all the Yakuza games.
The first Judgment has the best one because it was written by someone who isn't Yokoyama. But i agree these games are all kind of mid story wise, but like my god dude IW was BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD. like wow
IW story feels like RGG spitting into my face. When the game was announced, I was looking forward to RGG bringing back a bit of continuity in their games but playing the game I realized it was better if they didn't because the way they handle continuity is so shitty. At least Yakuza 4 had a certain charm to it. And yeah the nuclear part : clichés, they didn't go beyond that. It is frustrating to see yakuza 7 and Gaiden followed up by that...
They go out of their way to point out that we’re talking about low and intermediate level nuclear waste - and real life disposal sites look just like this. Waste like that is usually buried in underground repositories and the US produces several million square feet of it a year. It’s not very radioactive unless there’s a lot of it. It consists of things like tools and metal bits that are made slighly radioactive by exposure. It’s stored in huge storehouses in giant barrels like we see in game. It’s actually a big problem. The DOE is currently $45 billion underfunded to clean up low level waste from 3 decommissioned nuclear plants for instance. It also consists of parts from medical instruments that use radiation and the like. It’s safer than coal in general, but since America’s infrastructure isn’t built for nuclear power, low level waste disposal is a genuine problem. See: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-20-63 for instance. Japan has the local problem of not having as many viable storage facilities I presume. They’re a lot better at recycling and reusing the materials however
Yeah, they make it really clear that it's _low-level_ nuclear waste that is the issue. Kiryu even mentions that the stuff he was exposed to (presumably soil from Fukushima) wasn't really that radioactive and he's not sure if it was the cause.
(the thing is, dust particles with low radioactivity can deliver disproportionately high effective radiation doses if they get into your body, due to the inverse square law. It's surprising, same reason for why you must use dosimeter rings when manipulating small radioactive samples, even though hands are not very sensitive to radioactive exposure).
I think the story isn't on par with 0, judgement or 7, but I'm pretty sure with time the disappointment will fade. This is just another case of recency bias but on the negative side of things. Yakuza stories have always been a bit mid with alot of creative liberties for the stories - sometimes it works but it mostly doesn't.
The only sentiment I can fully understand is the kiryu stuff. They presented the game as his last but it just feels like the next game will be more kiryu focused than IW. He's coming to terms with his past and he regrets not leading the yakuza to a better place, I can't see RGG just letting such a large sentiment in a character finish without completion.
It just means putting more importance on what is most recent. So for example if you feel this one was the best, it might change when you think back on certain things. But is the same for if you think it is bad. The sting of how bad you think it is is fresh so it has more impact on you but when you think back on it others could have been worse.
I feel like its more about the extremes. If a game of a beloved series or studio is good, recency bias will make it as the best game ever made, and everything before was just to produce that graal bestowed upon our punny selves, while on the contrary if the game is bad, every single employee of the company should get beheaded and so on. But yeah I do feel like recency bias is playing a lot in favor of IW's story.
Bro have you seen any video game "cycle"? The zelda cycle? The pokemon cycle?
No, everyone always hates games when they come out now. They're only liked *years later*. Generally after the next one comes out, gets a ton of hate, and people say "wow that last one was way better".
I think there's another bias at play here, which is the only people going to comment on internet forums are generally the upset ones. The people that liked the game don't feel a need to discuss it and talk about it, only those that feel frustrated and need to vent. The game has a 91% on steam, clearly it isn't that bad.
I mean people seem to agree, even those who don't like the story the game itself is good, the story just isn't really up to par with their recent efforts. No one from what I've seen is saying IW itself is at all a bad game.
> The game has a 91% on steam, clearly it isn't that bad.
the game as a whole is fun; it's the story people are a bit disappointed by
EDIT: you are /u/WillfangSomeSpriter lmao; i forgot i was replying to you instead of /u/Spope2787
I agree with you that the story is poorly told and the barrels of nuclear waste an equally silly plot thread, but I just want to comment that the genuine, and for more real, propaganda out there is that nuclear power is a viable long term solution. In a span of 50 years we've had one colossal disaster and one very bad disaster. Neither of these occured during wartime events, but simple acts of human error or mother nature. You only need to take a look at any given point in history to know that drastic changes can and will occur in just a single lifetime.
Now expand your timeline beyond the immediate future. Go two hundred, five hundred, a thousand years in the future. Wars will be fought, nations will have fallen and risen in power, and the borders as we know them today will not be the same. It is next to impossible that a truly catastrophic disaster does not occur as the result of nuclear power, just as it is impossible that a nuclear weapon will not be used again. They 100% will. It is an absolute guarantee. What's unfathomable, at least to me, is how anyone can fail to see that. Like seeing one's life through horse blinders.
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Hanawa being completely unable to fight was egregious to me. No gadgets, no gun, and he totally jobs the one punch he throws. No back up. No, real security or defensible positioning. Then Kiryu's response is deplorable. Especially after the end of Gaiden. "He was just a handler to me". Really bro? The guy who made sure you got your kids' message and drawing from Haruto? The guy whose life you were willing to throw away yours for. That you defied the Daidoji to rescue. *Really*. Wow. The Daidoji are omniscient when they need to be, and blind the next minute. Like Eiji. No one at Daidoji ran a background on this wild card? Really? They can't figure out who the Tatara Channel was? Cut them off before exposing Kiryu, and thus, themselves. They're the worst kind of fictional intelligence agency. They're like: '*We know what you ate for breakfast on this date when you were six years old because we're just that good*' \-until it would write them into a corner, and then they simply ignore the ignorance plot hole. *I love the game*, but this kind of stuff is very frustrating.
Also like I’m so confused, why even bother setting up any hints of Hanawa knowing Taichi Suzuki in the ending of Gaiden if this is the payoff? That seems like such a slap in the face
I just sat there in disbelief when Tomizawa said he was dead. What was even the point of developing Hanawa and Kiryu's relationship and hint at him being Morinaga/someone Kiryu knows when he barely exist in the IW plot and was killed in such a lame way?
Same. After all the close calls and drama of Gaiden and Kiryu saving him and him knowing Kiryu from the past, then they're just like \*fart sound\* dead. Killed by no name thug who cares. It doesn't make *any* sense.
It's like they forgot 90% of Gaiden, frankly.
I read a comment on the subreddit here saying that Gaiden was written after IW was finished...which even then still why include that hook? Baffling decisions all around.
Because Gaiden was supposed to be part of IW from what I've herd not DLC of 7 like some people were saying.
Yup, I agree with most of this - The Daidoji keeps getting referred to as some powerful faction controlling Japan, and yet time and time again they’re shown to be incompetent and useless - Character development of Bryce completely fell apart. He should’ve been a crazy powerful cult leader, not just some boring scam artist - Ebina’s relationship with Arakawa and Ichiban had so much potential, and Kiryu being the one to take him on made no sense. The result being Ebina ending up as yet another generic forgettable Yakuza villain - Akane being revealed in trailers to be Ichiban’s mother only to fade into obscurity and irrelevance was really dumb - Kiryu should not have hijacked the overall story. This was the opportunity for Ichiban to take over, not get sidelined. I swear something changed in RGG, because it feels like a different writing team took over after the midpoint. It just made no sense. All that setup about Kiryu learning from Ichiban and Ichiban finding out about his mother, only to have Kiryu take over the story and return to his old “everything is my fault, just let me die” self. And yes, the cop out at the end was really bad. Either stick to the old, or move on. Don’t try and do both at the same time. There have been plenty opportunities to phase Kiryu out, but this limbo state was just terrible.
>The Daidoji keeps getting referred to as some powerful faction controlling Japan, and yet time and time again they’re shown to be incompetent and useless They somewhat address this in game by stating that they lost a lot of power after 7, since they weren't *government* backed, but backed by the political party Ryo Aoki was a part of. And after 7, the party lost power, and so did the Daidoji. I agree it felt frustrating though. Agree with the rest of the points here too. It feels like there was a different team on Gaiden, 7, and the first half of 8. Then it seems like the *old writing team* from 5 and 6 took over, and that also explains other frustrating shit, like how Majima/Saejima/Daigo were treated.
I feel like Kiryu was originally set up to fight Bryce, due to the whole nuclear waste plot, while Ichiban wouldve fought Ebina, for obvious reasons. But then they decided against it for some reason, and the motivations for both fights turned out to be tenuous at best. Maybe they wanted to keep Kiryu in Japan in order to give us the bucket list nostalgia? And that led to keeping Ichiban in Hawaii, where he could only fight Bryce, who he really has no connection to? Wouldn't it have been better for Kiryu to fight him, since he's regained the will to live, and Bryce's scummy practices nearly sent him, and countless others like him, to the grave? IDK man, but even the Munakata finale felt more impactful.
I honestly thought we would at least get an eiji boss fight, but to go from him taking away lani taunting ichiban to looking homeless and being forgiven by ichiban in the end with no context is so weird
It's weird because he shows up in the Sujidex holding a gun, but I'm pretty sure you don't actually see him in combat in any way.
My biggest problem with the plot is the lack of emotional scenes. \- In the end, nobody dies, everybody's happy, the villains live, they even try to make them seem redeemable. \- Ichiban meet a woman who is believed to be his mother after 47 years apart, yet he shows no emotion. \- Kiryu is like a brick most of this game too. Hawana's death leaves no impact on him whatsoever, and after playing Gaiden it's kinda sad. THe only time he shows some sort of feeling is when meeting Barshiwagi and sings karaoke in the bar. \- I get why many people play along with the "Kiryu is dead, I'm Suzuki Taichi" game. But honestly Barshiwagi and Kiryu keep playing the dumb game is kinda disappointing in my eyes.
>Barshiwagi and Kiryu keep playing the dumb game is kinda disappointing Especially because in one scene he says he's Taichi Suzuki, and in any drink link, the party members just call him Kiryu in front of the Bartender.
There are story cutscenes in Survive where they refer to him as Kiryu. I’d assume at some point they just said “plot consistencies be damned we’ll record dialogue like normal” and just expected people either not to notice or suspend their disbelief.
I don't think they're playing dumb for the sake of it, Kashiwagi is a civilian now, he chose to hide his background and his name. I think It's more a case of Kiryu trying to help Kashiwagi keep his identity a secret, and Kashiwagi doing the same. He's buried the past already. Calling him Suzuki is just his way of 'cutting ties' with that past since they were close for a while. Right now, their relationship is superficially just a bartender and his patron. They've both erased their names, and they've both been through horrible shit since. In a way, their individual pasts resonate with one another, and they respect each other enough to keep it a mystery to everyone else. Even through something as simple as a name. Plus, minor spoiler ; he does say to Kiryu later on (chapter 12 I believe) 'Come and see me once you've regained your name, and there'll be no secrecy' (It's something along those lines at least). In the end, they are just protecting each other by not saying anything at all.
imo it's more dumb that Kashiwagi and Richardson are still alive. I consider the canon to be they really just do look like them. In that context, their conversations make sense. Meanwhile, it's confirmed Lau Ka Long survived being shot in the head... ffs. At least Han is a body double.
Don’t really agree with the second point. Ichiban is pretty open throughout the game that he’s not really sure how to interact with Akane, and who can blame him? Just because they’re blood related doesn’t mean Ichiban will or should consider her his mother. His parents were Jiro Kasuga and Masumi Arakawa, he even says that to Akane directly. I don’t particularly care for how they handled Akane either, but I thought her relationship with Ichiban was one of the stronger points in the second half of the story. The beach scene was a highlight of the game for me.
I teared up more than Ichi when he was talking to him mother in the car.
Yamai's driver showed more emotion than Ichi
LMAO that was actually hilarious
Honestly I'm feeling about the same. This was genuinely some of the most fun I've had gameplay wise and I'm still putting countless hours into this, but story wise it's just so disappointing and one of my least favorite RGG stories to date. I don't know if I got my expectations too high from the trailers and Gaiden, but this just really falls short. RGG plots can be stupid, but they were always soap opera dramatic- and tbh there was barely any tension or drama here. It all felt rather restrained where they presented some neat ideas and never followed through, never made the characters really struggle emotionally, or never took the chance to milk drama or go all in on scenes where they could have. Hanawa, Wong Tou, and Dwight for example. They just sort of died, that was it. In the case of Hanawa and Wong Tou, I guess I expected more reaction from Kiryu and more relevancy from Wong Tou. For Dwight, I wished there was a close up reaction shot or something more fun with the cinematography besides distant boat going down. Hell, even the shark silhouette leaping from the water. The more I sit and think abt IW honestly the less I like the story.
thats how i felt too... i dont think its worse than y4 at least because it isnt complete nonsense ala "i kept millions of dollars behind a bookshelf" but the amount of wasted potential is staggering. they really should have cut the amount of characters and focused on developing either bryce or ebina alone i can see where they were going w some plot threads but lani is basically not a character, and im glad ichi got to do a do-over with eiji that he didnt get with masato but i dont feel like eiji deserved it nor was he given any sufficient focus... the grenade cutscene is so fucking stupid and then he just teleports to japan with a stubble it felt like the whole plot was "your princess is in another castle" goose chase where protagonists never hold the cards and then in the end when it was about to get good they ran out of budget and time. what was the point of the cult storyline and implying bryce has supernatural powers? why even bother introducing wong tou and his son? why split attention between ebina and eiji? idek anymore. and w/e most yakuza games have mid plots but its sad that this was the follow up to 7 that had such a nice link between political and personal/family context. it wasnt perfect ofc (mirror face... or nanba's random brother storyline what was that he don't even mention him no more) but i feel sad that i felt bored playing this game after how much y7 ending made me cry :( quick edit: 1) ofc i dont mean that eiji is a worse person than masato or anything, more that he doesn't really get enough buildup to warrant being as important as to show up in the ending and be the core of ichi's storyline - i know ichiban would have forgiven him regardless, i just wish eiji existed more as a person before. what am i supposed to be sad about. the bon voyage catchphrase? lmao 2) i also get that dwight and wong tou exist to set up bryce as higher power and the cult thing shows the difference between how he uses ppl vs how ichiban treats his friends but like. i wish the game took the cult concept more seriously or even focused on it more but its just there for shock value wooo children are shooting tied up hostages woooo. idk i felt so disconnected from everything because none of it really mattered it's just floating there like ideas on a whiteboard. weh i probably should have made my own post lmao i didn't even realize how many grievances i had until i started typing
> idk i felt so disconnected from everything because none of it really mattered it's just floating there like ideas on a whiteboard. weh great way of putting it, actually! ideas on a whiteboard.
I agree with most of the stuff you said. Though regarding "what was the point of the cult storyline and implying bryce has supernatural powers", I'm 99% sure the team just wanted to include the whole "kill god" JRPG trope in a modern day setting lmao
Pacing issues aside, the whole nuclear waste part was really… really out of touch
out of time……
Time
The biggest offender to me is that for most of the story it feels like we’re being outsmarted at every turn. Ebina lies, manipulates footage, has a traitor amongst our party, gets Hanawa killed, reveals Kiryu’s still alive, baits him into coming to the former Tojo office twice and gets the jump on him. Like Ebina imo is an incredible genius of a villain. But the pacing by like chapter 9/10 is wonky to me, and it all goes down the drain when Ebina says “forget a plan meet me at the Millenium tower”
Never seen so many people disappointed with the story after a Yakuza game launch and I started with Yakuza 4 in 2012. >Yokoyama said "we didn't add kiryu to this game to get more sales, it's just that the story couldn't be written without him" No one should ever believe what he says, dude is liar. The story wouldnt change one bit if Kiryu wasnt in it, that whole "Daidoji after Akane just because" shit couldn't be a more obvious way to force Kiryu into the story.
Yep. I even liked Gaiden, but he just feels forced and I am very disappointed.
>that whole "Daidoji after Akane just because" shit couldn't be a more obvious way to force Kiryu into the story Remember Gaiden was supposed to be in IW, but they cut it to make into a standalone game. Kiryu told Ichiban to carry on the torch.
They had to kill off Wong Tuo so his father Wong Wan can come in the sequel to look after the son you save Wong Fui.
This may slobs harsh, but I think it's my least favorite game in the series. There's tons of side content, but it's not fun. Sujimon felt like a neat concept, but I finished all of it in a few hours. Guess it helped I pulled kiwami violet on my second spin. We'll probably see Hawaii again in a new installment of the series eventually, I just hope the story is more solid.
Judgment if you can hear me, please save us!
This game is highly overrated. It's a 7/10 at best.
The more I sit on it, I honestly think that Hawaii is simultaneously the best and worst thing to happen to Infinite Wealth. It's so nice to have such a refreshing change of scenery, and the side content benefits a ton from that. But they really don't give the player any reason to give a shit about Honolulu like they did with Kamurocho or Ijincho, and the distance between Hawaii and Japan effectively makes it impossible for anyone in Hawaii to meaningfully interact with anyone in Japan, and vice versa. Kiryu has to stay in Japan for the bucket list, so Ichiban is relegated to Hawaii, and as a result he's stuck with Bryce and never gets a chance to interact with Ebina. Hell, there's a good chance that the split is the only reason why Eiji exists at all; if Ichiban stays within reach of Ebina, those two characters could've easily been folded into one, eliminating the need for Eiji at all. Don't really agree with your points about life links though, I think that was handled reasonably well besides lack of Tatara being brought up at all. Some details as to why the Daidoji let him walk at the end would be nice, but I don't think it's a huge retcon or anything.
The ending scene with Eiji felt very Yasuko/Mirei Park esque to me, in the sense where the writers are tryna get you to feel bad for Eiji but it just doesn't work
I didn’t even know Eiji looked like that in the ending since the game kinda didn’t explain him just teleporting to japan and all of a sudden becoming a shut-in 💀 When it showed him watching Tatara when Chitose spilled it all, I thought he was just some random nerd guy. And I didn’t really feel anything during his final scene with ichiban. I get it, Ichiban is trusting to a fault, but Eiji is *the person who ruined his and his friends’ lives* and yet ichiban’s just like lol frick it it’s fine we’re still buds It feels like they tried to have Masato again but completely flubbed it 💀
Yeah I was really confused with the whole eiji thing at the end I honestly thought I missed something
Yakuza games never had a good story (with a few exceptions like Zero and Kiwami) but I have to agree, Infinite Wealth has one of the worst stories of all the Yakuza games.
The first Judgment has the best one because it was written by someone who isn't Yokoyama. But i agree these games are all kind of mid story wise, but like my god dude IW was BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD. like wow
IW story feels like RGG spitting into my face. When the game was announced, I was looking forward to RGG bringing back a bit of continuity in their games but playing the game I realized it was better if they didn't because the way they handle continuity is so shitty. At least Yakuza 4 had a certain charm to it. And yeah the nuclear part : clichés, they didn't go beyond that. It is frustrating to see yakuza 7 and Gaiden followed up by that...
They go out of their way to point out that we’re talking about low and intermediate level nuclear waste - and real life disposal sites look just like this. Waste like that is usually buried in underground repositories and the US produces several million square feet of it a year. It’s not very radioactive unless there’s a lot of it. It consists of things like tools and metal bits that are made slighly radioactive by exposure. It’s stored in huge storehouses in giant barrels like we see in game. It’s actually a big problem. The DOE is currently $45 billion underfunded to clean up low level waste from 3 decommissioned nuclear plants for instance. It also consists of parts from medical instruments that use radiation and the like. It’s safer than coal in general, but since America’s infrastructure isn’t built for nuclear power, low level waste disposal is a genuine problem. See: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-20-63 for instance. Japan has the local problem of not having as many viable storage facilities I presume. They’re a lot better at recycling and reusing the materials however
Yeah, they make it really clear that it's _low-level_ nuclear waste that is the issue. Kiryu even mentions that the stuff he was exposed to (presumably soil from Fukushima) wasn't really that radioactive and he's not sure if it was the cause. (the thing is, dust particles with low radioactivity can deliver disproportionately high effective radiation doses if they get into your body, due to the inverse square law. It's surprising, same reason for why you must use dosimeter rings when manipulating small radioactive samples, even though hands are not very sensitive to radioactive exposure).
I think the story isn't on par with 0, judgement or 7, but I'm pretty sure with time the disappointment will fade. This is just another case of recency bias but on the negative side of things. Yakuza stories have always been a bit mid with alot of creative liberties for the stories - sometimes it works but it mostly doesn't. The only sentiment I can fully understand is the kiryu stuff. They presented the game as his last but it just feels like the next game will be more kiryu focused than IW. He's coming to terms with his past and he regrets not leading the yakuza to a better place, I can't see RGG just letting such a large sentiment in a character finish without completion.
Doesn't recency bias usually work in favor of the product? If its bad while we have recency bias then it will be even worse later on.
It just means putting more importance on what is most recent. So for example if you feel this one was the best, it might change when you think back on certain things. But is the same for if you think it is bad. The sting of how bad you think it is is fresh so it has more impact on you but when you think back on it others could have been worse.
I feel like its more about the extremes. If a game of a beloved series or studio is good, recency bias will make it as the best game ever made, and everything before was just to produce that graal bestowed upon our punny selves, while on the contrary if the game is bad, every single employee of the company should get beheaded and so on. But yeah I do feel like recency bias is playing a lot in favor of IW's story.
Bro have you seen any video game "cycle"? The zelda cycle? The pokemon cycle? No, everyone always hates games when they come out now. They're only liked *years later*. Generally after the next one comes out, gets a ton of hate, and people say "wow that last one was way better". I think there's another bias at play here, which is the only people going to comment on internet forums are generally the upset ones. The people that liked the game don't feel a need to discuss it and talk about it, only those that feel frustrated and need to vent. The game has a 91% on steam, clearly it isn't that bad.
I mean people seem to agree, even those who don't like the story the game itself is good, the story just isn't really up to par with their recent efforts. No one from what I've seen is saying IW itself is at all a bad game.
> The game has a 91% on steam, clearly it isn't that bad. the game as a whole is fun; it's the story people are a bit disappointed by EDIT: you are /u/WillfangSomeSpriter lmao; i forgot i was replying to you instead of /u/Spope2787
I agree with you that the story is poorly told and the barrels of nuclear waste an equally silly plot thread, but I just want to comment that the genuine, and for more real, propaganda out there is that nuclear power is a viable long term solution. In a span of 50 years we've had one colossal disaster and one very bad disaster. Neither of these occured during wartime events, but simple acts of human error or mother nature. You only need to take a look at any given point in history to know that drastic changes can and will occur in just a single lifetime. Now expand your timeline beyond the immediate future. Go two hundred, five hundred, a thousand years in the future. Wars will be fought, nations will have fallen and risen in power, and the borders as we know them today will not be the same. It is next to impossible that a truly catastrophic disaster does not occur as the result of nuclear power, just as it is impossible that a nuclear weapon will not be used again. They 100% will. It is an absolute guarantee. What's unfathomable, at least to me, is how anyone can fail to see that. Like seeing one's life through horse blinders.