This article is part of a directory: Like A Dragon Week Hub
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Interviews
Interviews
Kasuga VA Kaiji Tang Wanted To Give The Dragon Of Dojima "The Sendoff Of A Lifetime"RGG Studio Knew "The Time Was Right" For Like A Dragon To Move Overseas
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Features
How Yakuza: Dead Souls Almost Killed The Series In The WestXbox Is The Only Way To Play Yakuza: Like A Dragon
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Welcome to Like A Dragon week! We’ve done a few of these themed weeks here at TheGamer before, so you should know the drill, but if not: we’re all writing about the Like A Dragon series for the next week. It really is that simple.
I don’t blame you for not understanding what’s going on; this is my first rodeo, too! The first two themed weeks happened so long ago, I wasn’t even working for TheGamer. The next, focused on Tomb Raider, happened around my first anniversary of writing for the site. Unfortunately, I hadn’t played a single Tomb Raider game so the week flew by with my only contribution being editing others’ work.
When we announced Like A Dragon week internally, I knew I had to change things. I’d also not played a single Like A Dragon game, but I wanted to contribute to proceedings. Luckily, the whole series is available on Game Pass, so I could jump in at any point of my choosing. But which point would that be?
People said Yakuza 0, people said Yakuza: Like A Dragon, people said Kiwami. Some people even said Gaiden… Ultimately, I decided that I didn’t have time to clear every Like A Dragon game in my life, let alone before Like A Dragon week. So I started with the reboot. Kir-who?
I’m so glad my hand was forced. I’m around halfway through Yakuza: Like A Dragon, I’ve beaten up more grunts than I can remember, I would protect Nanba with my life, and all of it was included in my Xbox Game Pass subscription.
But value isn’t the only thing Xbox has going for it. While generally a little underpowered compared to Sony’s flagship console, the PlayStation 5, the combination of Game Pass and Quick Resume always pushed me to prefer the Microsoft console. With Yakuza: Like A Dragon, that feeling has been justified.
Quick Resume is great. It’s super handy for flicking between games without losing your progress and skipping all those dull loading screens. I notice I spend less time on my phone while waiting for games to load up these days – sorry if I haven’t responded to your message, Ichiban needs me urgently – and my gaming is generally better for it. However, there are points in Yakuza: Like A Dragon where you’re not allowed to save, and Quick Resume has come to the rescue.
The sewers of Yokohama are home to some of the weirdest criminals known to man. Fellas disguised as bin bags, fellas hiding in safes, fellas with massive hammers and a bad attitude, you get the picture. In Chapter 6 of the game, you’re forced underground in order to escape the clutches of a crazed Liumang deputy.
There are only certain points where you can save the game here. I’m sure there’s a good reason for this – probably to prevent save scumming or something – but as an adult with a real life, it’s infuriating.
What happens when you’re midway through a dungeon and your daughter wakes up and needs to be settled? What happens if you sneak an hour of gaming in while your wife has a bath, and you can’t save when she comes downstairs and wants to watch something together? What happens if you just want to go to bed? I’m not a man who can do mammoth gaming sessions any more. I’m nearly 30, I have a family and wake up early in the morning. Let me save in a dungeon, I promise not to scum it.
Enter the Xbox. Quick Resume pauses the game exactly where you are, and preserves it for you to pick up later. But it works better than I ever expected. When I was 40 minutes into a dungeon with no end in sight and wanted to watch The Godfather on Channel 4, I just turned my Xbox off. That progress was lost, I thought, but none of the battles had been too difficult. It was a frustrating period of the game that I’d eventually emerge from and never do again. No, I don't care about my Sujimon dex.
When I turned my Xbox on again the next day, Ichiban and co. were there waiting for me. The Xbox had preserved my game at the exact moment I’d turned it off. I was amazed. No progress lost, no frustrating repeats of battles. But equally, I couldn’t use this to save scum. It’s the perfect compromise.
While I’ve used Quick Resume countless times, I never realised that it would work even after the console had been turned off and on again. Maybe I’d experienced it and not noticed, but I was majorly impressed. The dungeon only took another ten minutes, but the fact I didn’t have to repeat three quarters of an hour of turn-based battles made it fly by.
I don’t want to incite any console war shenanigans, but this cemented the fact that, for me, Xbox is the place to play the Like A Dragon series. From the fact that nearly all of the games are included on the Game Pass subscription you almost definitely already pay for, to the Quick Resume feature making annoying dungeons that bit easier for those of us with real lives, it’s perfect. The only problem is the seven other Yakuza games staring at me from the Game Pass menu… I don’t have time right now, fellas. But maybe in the future.
Next: Game Design And ADHD With Games Workshop Veteran James Hewitt
