NPCs will often disrupt players along the main path, too, either introducing a substory or side activity. Players are met with early doses of talking to NPCs until a story marker appears to proceed. The first several hours introduce the historical period, the premise of the plot, and Ryoma’s battle styles. It takes some time for Like a Dragon: Ishin to really get going. Ryoma eventually decides to infiltrate the Shinsengumi, an elite police squad working for the Bakufu (military government), to discover the identity of a certain masked man, and his only lead is that they are a part of the Shinsengumi. He relocates to Kyo sometime later and goes under a new alias, Hajime Saito. Several key narrative developments that occur after the opening chapter cause Ryoma to exile himself from Tosa. After a brief feud, Ryoma reunites with his adopted father, Toyo Yoshida, and his sworn brother, Hanpeita Takechi. Players see the world as Ryoma Sakamoto, a ronin that has made his way back to his hometown of Tosa. Like a Dragon: Ishin turns the clock back to the Bakumatsu period in Japan. Nevertheless, the vast improvements to its gameplay, visuals, and audio make Ishin a blast to play, and it remains one of the most fully-featured games in the entire Like a Dragon / Yakuza series. Some of the new gameplay tweaks present some new minor flaws as well. While Like a Dragon: Ishin’s remake is easily the definitive version of the game, the transition to Unreal Engine 4 hasn’t been the most graceful at times. It also marks a departure from the Dragon Engine that newer RGG Studio releases use, including the recent Yakuza: Like a Dragon and Lost Judgment. This new remake of Like a Dragon: Ishin is a fascinating project that provides a substantial facelift through Unreal Engine 4, since the original version was developed on the engine that powered Yakuza 0 and Yakuza Kiwami. I personally played the original release of this game many years ago and enjoyed it a lot, so I was very excited to see this finally make it to the west. In some ways, several aspects of Like a Dragon: Ishin’s gameplay served as a prototype for Yakuza 0, though its core structure and flow are more reminiscent of Yakuza 3, 4, and 5. Like a Dragon: Ishin’s original release was a cross-generational title that launched for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4. It was the entry that was released right before Yakuza 0 in Japan, and that entry wouldn’t make its way westward until two years later in 2017. Before diving in, I want to provide a bit of context surrounding the original release of this game.
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