Under its historical clothing, the long-overdue samurai spin-off is a classic Yakuza, but it’s also a lackluster current-gen version.
Like a Dragon: Ishin seems like the next natural step ahead after Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio completely rewrote the series’ concept with Yakuza: Like a Dragon, offering us an open world, turn-based JRPG with a new protagonist in a new setting. It does, after all, take the previous game’s subtitle (which is a direct translation of the game’s Japanese title), give us another new setting, and replace the exclusive Dragon Engine with Unreal, just like a growing number of games made by Japanese creators. In actuality, though, it’s a matter of looking back and granting a nearly ten-year-old wish among Western fans.
Ishin, which was first released in 2014 on the PS3 and PS4, is set in the turbulent Bakumatsu period of 1860s Japan, during the last years of the ruling Shogunate. Despite its unique historical details and niche status, it was always thought unlikely that Ishin would ever be localized for audiences outside of Japan. However, if a samurai game could ever resonate with Western players, it would undoubtedly be one that takes place at the time when Japan started dealing with the West and put an end to its protracted era of isolation.
This is also just as excellent an entrance point for newbies as Yakuza 0, even though it’s set in 19th-century Kyoto (known as Kyo) as opposed to the typical urban roughness of modern Tokyo. This is mostly because all the characters from the series are still there—they just go by various identities and are basically playing different parts in a costume drama—so you don’t really need to know anything about their past.
Though it’s not only longtime protagonist Kiryu as warrior and historical hero Sakomoto Ryoma (following the Japanese practice where the given name follows after the family name), longtime fans may still enjoy what’s effectively a greatest hits list. The likenesses of some characters who debuted in entries released after Ishin’s first release are among the familiar faces that reappear from almost every mainstream installment.
Ishin is a return to real-time fighting, unlike Like a Dragon’s turn-based combat. However, Ryoma is armed with both a pistol and katana, or both at once, and you may switch between each fighting style with a tap of the d-pad. Even though you’ll typically find your enemies alive and grovelling at your feet afterward, there’s an odd dissonance in taking on the role of Kiryu, a stoic protagonist who canonically doesn’t kill but routinely runs his blade through hundreds of street ruffians and spills buckets of blood.
Even if you can stop the blood from flowing, it’s unfortunate that using your hands to block attacks isn’t as effective as using weapons, especially because you may manufacture or obtain stronger weapons at the smithy or throughout the game. You will acquire soul orbs after more encounters, and these orbs may be utilized to open skill trees that provide you longer attack combinations and special Heat moves. The more violent and dramatic takedowns in the game come from these contextual assaults, which must be used by filling up a circular Heat gauge. My favorite part is when Ryoma easily wins a battle by throwing his opponent into the water if they are on a riverbank. Even so, boss battles are still a tediously squishy experience, with a few that you should lower the level for. It is particularly depressing to use your gauge on Heat techniques just to have them deal insignificantly little damage.
Even though ronin attack you on the street frequently, you have to intervene and discipline them when you witness them committing mischief. Similar to this, the most interesting parts of Ishin originate from alternative diversions that force you to look into them after they catch your eye. It also helps that engaging in additional side activities earns you Virtue, which you can use to unlock benefits like enhanced running endurance or enhancements to the whole agricultural simulation mini-game. A quest where a horny lady asks for incredibly phallic-shaped veggies manages to be both silly and repetitive at the same time. Other quests are more routine and involve you bonding with NPCs by providing them desired items each time you walk by. Side missions that offer a peek into the socio-political changes of the Bakumatsu period are more fascinating.
In one subplot, Ryoma comes onto a form of anarchic street dance with the chant “Ee ja nai ka,” which was frequently associated with social and political protest but was also a pretext used by nefarious individuals to incite mob violence. Even though the “black ships” on Japan’s doorstep compelled the country to open up at this time, we also see Western characters who are sincerely trying to have a cultural exchange with the Japanese but are met by xenophobic radicals. The ponderous exchanges of political intrigue in the main tale pale in comparison to these smaller, more intimate episodes in capturing the spirit of the times. In addition to having Kiryu’s face, Ryoma is an idealist who wants to end Japan’s feudal class system. However, her passion is sometimes obscured by the main story’s propensity to make us watch drawn-out cutscenes that explain what actually happened, what happened just now, or what will happen next.
But Ishin isn’t supposed to be a history lesson, as the disclaimer states at the outset. Even while it has no qualms about fusing the settings to match the well-worn Yakuza narrative pattern of double-crossings and secret identities, certain sequences are based on actual happenings or events. Interestingly, our Kiryu double is really playing two historical characters: Saito Hajime, captain of the Shinsengumi, the Bakufu’s fearsome paramilitary, and Ryoma the revolutionary. Here, the former is assuming the identity of the latter.
Even the localization team chose a more contemporary translation, though it was striking to me that very early on an NPC greets Ryoma with, “It’s been a minute.” More bizarrely, you’ll also find 19th century versions of real-life modern businesses like Don Quijote and Watami that have featured in the mainline games. Meanwhile, you can still belt out ‘Baka Mitai’ on stage at a singing bar’s rhythm-based mini-game even a century after karaoke’s invention.
While these kinds of anachronisms may come across as a little off-putting to some, I think they are more justified and genuine coming from RGG, a Japanese studio that created Ishin primarily as a Yakuza/Like a Dragon game for the Japanese market, as opposed to a game about Japan that has been culturally idealized for a worldwide audience. It’s interesting to note that there is a cinematic filter that doesn’t try to imitate Kurosawa’s works.
Ishin does fall short in that it isn’t nearly as good as other remakes of the current generation that we have seen. Although the game was completely redone using Unreal Engine 4, it appears that the designers stuck to the original’s architectural blueprint, with loading screens dividing rooms and surrounding areas and NPCs still having the ungainly, late-PS3 marionette appearance and motion. As a result, this remake is more akin to Kiwami 1 than Kiwami 2. Naturally, those two games were still vast improvements over their PS2 counterparts, but Ishin, which is now available on the PS4, appears to be more of a remaster than a remake. Some characters outside of story cinematics are occasionally badly lit, which may be due to the team’s lack of Unreal expertise. I also came across some accidentally humorous errors where foes were abruptly frozen in midair during a fight, or NPCs sticking in the surroundings.
It’s possible that Japanese gamers may find it more difficult to decide whether this remake is worth the money, but for Western fans who have been waiting almost 10 years for Ishin, simply being able to play this fully localized samurai spin-off is enough. There’s a persistent feeling that there could have been more, though, despite the lengthy wait.