Whether it’s button-mash beatdowns in the original Yakuzas action-brawler combat or the care🙈fully curated skills of Yakuza: Like a Dragon’s turn-based RPG-style combat, fighting on the streets of Kamurocho has always been extremely divisive.
The turn-based combat of LaD was a refreshing change of pace. It was fun to fiddle with party roles and summon weird and wonderful creatures and characters, as well as witness some hilarious special attacks in action, but it got old fast. After the shine wore off and I was sick of seeing Nanba send a flock of pigeons to attack someone for the hundredth time, I felt bogg📖ed down by it all. Combat felt so sluggish that I actively𝔍 avoided it.
I prefer the old beat 'em-up style. The button-mashing brutality of fists to face and the signature Heat Actions that let you pull off savage moves against your opponent were classic Yakuza staples. They could get old after a while too, but they gave you more control and I’d still rather have that over the turn-based combat that the series plans to continue using going forward.
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Like a Dragon: Ishin takes the series’ battle basics and gives them a much-needed polish, offering up the best combat the games have seen so far. It has four battle styles for players to switch between: Brawler, classic Yakuza where your fists do the talking; Swordsman, the katana-wielding powerhouse; Gunman, which uses firearms for long-range damage; and Wild Dancer, which lets you dual-wield your katan🌊a and firearm while you dance around the battlefield for 🍬easy evasion.
On the surface, Ishin looks the same as past titles. Each style has a skill tree that you have to invest in, unlocking stat boosts an🉐d even better, slicker moves that you can pull off. You’ve still got Heat Actions and can grab environmental objects to use as weapons while using Brawler, but the noticeab🌜le difference comes from the styles with permanent weapons.
In past Yakuza titles, you’re mainly using your fists and feet. You can pick up comedic things like traffic cones and bicycles during some battles, but you’l𓂃l also find daggers and guns. You can even equip these serious tools of bloodshed sometimes too, but you get a limited run with each one. They’ll either run out of ammo or durability and then be absolutely worthless until you repair them. They don’t feel like proper weapons, not really. If anything, they feel like an extension of the other items you can grab from the street to smash into people’s faces. They’re just a less funny traffic cone.
Ishin weapons are on a whole other level, and are far more traditional. You equ✤ip them, you can upgrade them, you can craft, buy, or find new and better weapons, and you can even 🍃get special weapons to become more imaginative with how you kill people. A cannon? Sure, why not. There’s none of this durability nonsense, and more importantly, they’re not playing second fiddle to your fists. Weapons are the main stars of the show here.
Usually I’d find a style I jammed with and stick with it because they’re all just variations of punching and kicking, but Ishin encouraged me to mix it up. Wild Dancer was my favourite because it offered the best of both worlds wea♏pon-wise while being fast, evasive, and effective at handling a crowd of thugs. But other than Brawler 🐬(sorry, but why would I punch people when I can slice them up instead), I found myself switching between Swordsman and Gunman as the need arose, which is more often than I first imagined.
Swordsman ✃was great for one-on-one boss battles or those tough enemies with armored HP bars, as it dealt more damage with each hit. When you&rsq🏅uo;re trying to stay out of reach of your enemy’s weapon swings, especially when they can one-shot you with special moves on certain difficulties, you want to be able to defend yourself, while darting in and hitting them hard, before falling back to safety. That’s Swordsman for you.
To no one’s surprise, Gunman is good for taking ♈out distant targets, especially those who are usually toting their own guns and forcing you behind cover. However, I found another great use for it too. The game has strapping great samurai enemies who tower over the normal baddies and can smack down your HP bar faster than a sumo wrestler. The thing is, they tower a little too high and can’t seem to🐷 pass under doorways. I would run back into the hallway and then stand there unloading bullets until they hit the ground. Easy peasy.
All of this alone is enough to make the combat feel fresh, but Trooper Cards enhance the feeling of diversity and strategy even further. They grant you special cooldown abilities and vary in what they offer and its effectiveness, with rarer Trooper cards delivering better results. Some will replenish your health, some give stats boosts, while others trigger a special attack, with 𝓀a few prompting summon-like Heat Action cutscenes. If you unleash a bear or tiger on someone, the game will show those beasts chowing down on that poor sod’s face.
Aside from the sheer joy of being able to lightning strike every enemy in the vicinity or refill my h♌ealth with the help of one superpowered Trooper, it adds an exciting added layer of strategy🌳 to battles. Some cards only benefit certain styles, others are more suited based on weapon types, so you’ll want to use cards that complement each style to maximise just how deadly you can be.
You can assign a formation to each of your four combat styles, with each consisting of a Corporal c🀅ard and up to three normal Trooper cards. You want to choose your Corporals carefully, as cards in this position activate an additional Co🌠rporate Trait, adding even more benefits to weigh up when choosing from your roster of cards.
There’♔s a lot to get to grips with, though not overwhelmingly so. You can use cards in a basic manner and still have a lot of fun, but if you want to get more involved, there’s plenty to lea෴rn. You can level up cards, promote them, or even gift Corporals with weapons to improve their traits. Then there’s also fusion, creating stronger cards by combining two together, with some combos yielding better results than others.
Though still tied to the Battle Dungeon, you can also recruit new Troopers simply by battling enemies in Kyo, purchasing them, or even speaking to deserters by slumming it in Mukurogai. Effectively, you don’t have to do all the Battle Dungeon side st🔜uff to make the most of this feature, and I think the Trooper🍰 cards are such a refreshing element to utilise. They’re like the LaD summons, but good.
I love that Like a Dragon: Ishin’s combat leans a little more into strategy and encourages you to change up your styles more often, as eac🔯h one has a more unique use. You’re not just mindlessly punching and kicking regardless of style and spamming Heat Actions. Though LaD also gave us plenty of options when it came to battles, it doesn’t compare to the fast-paced action combat of Ishin, which also manages to accomplish variety without sacrificing the momentum of an enjoyable, action-filled brutal samurai showdown.