These days, it seems like every protagonist in movies, games, TV, and everywhere else imaginable is poignant and serious, save for cartoon mascots. Leave it to the Like a Dragon game series, which is essentially a playable Japanese crime soap opera, to revisit that idea. Ichiban Kasuga is a refreshingly powerful antithesis to this, and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth puts his optimistic and bland outlook on the world to the test.
WARNING: We will be discussing some spoilers for the very early and late parts of the game. Ichiban’s photo is now an opportunity to step aside.
Like a Dragon: Yakuza first introduced Ichiban. As a long-time fan of the series, I was skeptical at first. I was curious, who is this person? Who is this stupid-looking idiot with hair that looks like he bit down on a live wire too hard?
He quickly won over me and many other Yakuza fans with his passion and endless optimism that he could bring to bear whenever he or someone he cared about was cornered.
But it was Like Dragon: Infinite Wealth that solidified him as the new protagonist of the series. Sure, Like a Dragon: Yakuza had its share of dramatic roles, but Infinite Wealth put him through the wringer. He meets his first party member, Tomizawa, while taking them to the back alleys of Honolulu to run a scam. He then meets the second Chitose. She drugged him and left him naked on a public beach (with only the most basic command of English). After a betrayal early in the game, he goes through more, including discovering that one of his warmest recent friendships was a ruse by the man who engineered Ichiban’s dishonorable dismissal from his job.
However, in the final moments of the game, Ichiban tracks down the man and convinces him to call the police. Ichiban takes the man through Kamurocho to the police station even as people throw trash at them.
The game begins with Ichiban trying to help a former Yakuza find a legitimate job, and ends with Ichiban trying to rehabilitate the man who literally tried to destroy both his life and the lives of his friends.
Kiryu has always been my favorite protagonist, but Ichiban’s playstyle reflects a difference in approach. Kiryu is a kind of time traveler who acts like a yakuza from an old crime movie. His mission is often to help people, but it is often framed similarly to life lessons. But for Ichiban, every opportunity to help someone is a chance to fire a cannonball off a diving board. He rushes into it against his own best interests and immediately goes all in. He is first to trust and quick to forgive. As you can see from the opening minutes of the game, it sometimes makes him look naive. But it becomes a rallying point for everyone around it. The person may be naive, but he is also confident, brave, and trustworthy, and he is also a virus that begins to infect everyone around him who has otherwise been cast out of society.
Infinite Wealth allows you to build relationships with each party member, and you have the opportunity to take those relationships to the next level when you all stop by a watering hole to cool off after a hard day’s quest. (i.e.) listening to them talk about their difficult history and helping them overcome it.
Kiryu plays games to honorably isolate himself from everyone he knows and loves, viewing his existence as a curse on their lives and thinking that the drama that comes their way is entirely his fault. But Ichiban is the opposite. He works overtime to unite everyone around him.
Numerous games have put you in the shoes of grim, tortured people, including Alan Wake, Spider-Man 2’s version of Peter Parker, Space Marine 2’s Captain Titus, FFVII’s Cloud, and Silent Hill 2’s James Sunderland, to name a few recent examples. do. Some of my favorite gaming characters are on that list, but Ichiban nonetheless continues to stand out as something special in modern gaming. A video game hero who is happy to be there, ready to make a team, and ready to take on any challenger without ever trying. It comes across as trite, false, or annoying.
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