Yakuza: Like A Dragon Review (2026): A Crime Masterpiece Where You’re Too Nice To Be The Villain
- Niels Gys
- 20 hours ago
- 8 min read
Quick Verdict
Yes, Yakuza: Like a Dragon is absolutely worth playing if you want one of gaming’s best criminal underworld stories.
No, it is not a game where you become Japan’s most terrifying digital crime lord.
This is not Grand Theft Auto with karaoke. You are not building a drug empire, robbing banks, smuggling weapons, bribing officials, or turning Yokohama into your personal tax-free nightmare factory.
Instead, you play as Ichiban Kasuga, a former yakuza member released after spending 18 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. He returns expecting loyalty, respect, and maybe a warm welcome.
He receives a bullet.
Which is generally considered a poor employee retention strategy.
From there, Yakuza: Like a Dragon becomes a huge crime RPG about betrayal, organized crime, political corruption, gang alliances, and one very optimistic man trying to survive a criminal ecosystem held together with secrets, violence, and extremely expensive suits.
It is not a villain simulator.
It is a brilliant crime drama.
And there is a very big difference.
Still building your criminal empire somewhere with slightly fewer friendship speeches and more questionable financial decisions?
Check the GTA Online Weekly Money Guide and see which illegal enterprise is printing cash this week. Because unlike Ichiban, Los Santos criminals usually solve problems with explosives and terrible business ethics.
What Is Yakuza: Like a Dragon?
Yakuza: Like a Dragon is a story-focused Japanese RPG developed by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio and published by SEGA.
It is the seventh main entry in the Yakuza series, but it starts a new chapter with Ichiban Kasuga replacing Kazuma Kiryu as the main protagonist.
The biggest change?
The fighting.
Previous Yakuza games were real-time brawlers where problems were solved using fists, bicycles, traffic cones, and whatever nearby object was unfortunate enough to exist.
Like a Dragon switches everything into a turn-based RPG system.
On paper, this sounds insane.
Turning a gritty yakuza street-fighting series into a party-based RPG sounds like replacing a getaway driver with someone who specializes in interpretive dance.
Somehow, it works.
The reason is Ichiban himself.
He loves classic RPGs, especially Dragon Quest-style adventures, and the combat represents the world through his imagination. Random criminals become bizarre enemies. Normal jobs become fantasy classes. Everyday street fights become heroic battles.
It is ridiculous.
The game knows it is ridiculous.
That is why it works.
What Do You Actually Do?
Most of your time is spent exploring Yokohama, following the main story, completing side missions, fighting enemies, improving your party, changing jobs, upgrading equipment, and getting distracted by an almost irresponsible amount of side activities.
The basic gameplay loop is:
Explore the city.
Find trouble.
Fight trouble.
Discover the trouble is connected to even larger trouble wearing a better suit.
Repeat until an entire criminal organization collapses.
Combat uses a party system where Ichiban recruits allies, each with their own abilities and personalities. Characters can swap jobs, unlocking different skills and roles.
And yes, the jobs are completely absurd.
A chef can weaponize cooking tools.
A musician can fight with music.
Office workers become battlefield threats.
Apparently Yokohama’s employment market operates on the principle that everyone is approximately three bad days away from becoming a superhero.
The Crime Story Is Where Like A Dragon Shines
The criminal world is the real star.
Yakuza: Like a Dragon dives deep into:
Yakuza families
Gang politics
Underworld alliances
Political corruption
Police connections
Counterfeit money operations
Power struggles
Betrayal
Organized crime history
This is where the game earns its reputation.
The best crime stories are rarely about someone saying, “I love crime” while throwing bags of money into a helicopter.
They are about loyalty.
Power.
People doing terrible things while explaining why they had absolutely no choice.
The villains in Like a Dragon are not random evil mannequins placed around the map waiting to be punched. They exist inside a messy web of history, ambition, survival, and corruption.
Everyone has a reason.
Some reasons are understandable.
Some reasons are absolute garbage wearing a designer watch.
That is crime drama.
Can You Play As A Criminal?
Yes and no.
Ichiban is a former yakuza member. He knows the underworld. He understands the rules. The story constantly involves criminals.
But you are not actively running a criminal career.
You cannot:
Build a yakuza empire
Run protection rackets
Plan heists
Control territory
Smuggle illegal goods
Become a villain
Choose an evil path
Ichiban might have a criminal background, but morally he is basically a golden retriever who accidentally joined organized crime.
The man has spent nearly two decades in prison, gets betrayed immediately, wakes up at rock bottom, and somehow still looks at humanity and says:
“Maybe everyone deserves another chance.”
Most people would declare war on civilization after getting bad customer service.
Ichiban gets shot and decides friendship might fix things.
Is The Criminal Fantasy Real?
The setting?
Absolutely.
The gameplay?
Not really.
Yakuza: Like a Dragon gives you the criminal world, but it does not give you criminal freedom.
You are walking through the underworld, not ruling it.
Think of it as being invited inside a mafia headquarters. You see the schemes. You meet the bosses. You discover the secrets.
But nobody hands you the accounting books and says:
“Congratulations, the extortion department is yours now.”
Which is probably responsible.
Ichiban would immediately turn it into a charity.
The Business Management Mode
One of the biggest side activities is business management.
Ichiban takes control of Ichiban Confections and works on growing the company by managing properties, hiring employees, improving businesses, and handling shareholder meetings.
Yes.
Shareholder meetings are battles.
Which is possibly the most accurate thing a video game has ever done.
Anyone who has sat through corporate presentations knows they are already turn-based combat encounters where everyone slowly loses health.
It is a fun side system and a good way to earn money, but do not expect a criminal empire simulator.
This is business.
Not Scarface with spreadsheets.
What Works
The biggest victory is Ichiban Kasuga.
Replacing a legendary protagonist like Kiryu should have been impossible. That is like replacing the engine of a sports car while it is moving and hoping nobody notices.
But Ichiban works because he is completely different.
He is emotional.
Loud.
Optimistic.
Occasionally ridiculous.
And strangely believable.+
The supporting characters are also excellent. Instead of assembling a team of perfect heroes, Like a Dragon gives you a collection of damaged adults trying to rebuild their lives.
A lot of games give you chosen warriors.
This game gives you middle-aged people with emotional baggage and unpaid bills.
Much more terrifying.
The city is another highlight. Yokohama feels dense and alive, packed with strange stories, minigames, restaurants, businesses, and characters.
One minute you are investigating organized crime.
The next you are involved in something so absurd that explaining it out loud would make someone check your temperature.
That contrast is the entire charm.
What Does Not Work?
The pacing can be slow.
Especially early.
Like a Dragon loves dialogue. It loves setup. It loves emotional conversations between men who look like they could destroy a vending machine by staring at it.
If you want nonstop action, the opening hours may test your patience.
The combat also has some issues.
The turn-based system is fun, but encounters can become repetitive. Some dungeons are longer than they need to be, and later difficulty spikes can punish players who ignored leveling, jobs, or equipment.
The game occasionally looks at you and says:
“Remember all those RPG systems we introduced?”
And if your answer is:
“No, I was doing karaoke for six hours.”
The game responds:
“Wonderful. Prepare to suffer.”
Fair enough.
Bugs And Performance
The PC version has been available for years and is generally considered stable today.
The game received patches after release addressing issues, and the current version is not known as a broken PC disaster.
Older complaints include occasional performance problems, stuttering, crashes, or technical issues depending on hardware, but this is not a legendary catastrophe port.
Your computer probably has bigger threats.
Like Windows updates arriving exactly when you need your machine to function.
Yakuza: Like A Dragon Compared To Other Crime Games
Compared To GTA
GTA gives you criminal freedom.
Yakuza gives you criminal storytelling.
If GTA is stealing the getaway car, Yakuza is the three-hour conversation afterward explaining why everyone involved has unresolved childhood trauma.
Compared To Mafia
Mafia is a tighter cinematic crime story.
Like a Dragon is bigger, stranger, funnier, and far more RPG-focused.
Compared To Payday
Payday is about committing the crime.
Like a Dragon is about surviving the consequences of a criminal world.
Very different beasts.
One kicks down the vault door.
The other asks why the vault exists, who owns it, and which corrupt politician secretly funded construction.
Who Should Play Yakuza: Like A Dragon?
Play it if you want:
A fantastic crime story
Deep characters
Yakuza politics
Turn-based RPG progression
A huge amount of side content
Comedy mixed with serious drama
A long single-player adventure
This is one of the strongest crime RPGs available if you care about characters and storytelling.
Who Should Skip It?
Skip it if you want:
A GTA replacement
A heist simulator
An evil playthrough
Criminal sandbox freedom
Fast-paced action combat
A realistic mafia management game
If your dream is becoming a feared criminal mastermind, Like a Dragon will disappoint you.
Ichiban would probably apologize to someone while robbing them.
Then help them carry their groceries home.
Final Verdict
Yakuza: Like a Dragon is not a game about becoming the monster.
It is about walking through a world full of monsters and somehow refusing to become one.
The crime setting is fantastic. The characters are excellent. The villains are memorable. The RPG experiment works far better than it had any reasonable right to.
It does not deliver criminal freedom.
It delivers criminal storytelling.
And sometimes watching the entire underworld collapse because one extremely determined idiot with a baseball bat believes in friendship is exactly the kind of beautiful nonsense gaming needs.
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FAQ
Is Yakuza: Like a Dragon a crime game?
Yes. It is heavily built around yakuza families, criminal factions, corruption, betrayal, counterfeit money, gang politics, and underworld power struggles.
Can you play as a villain in Yakuza: Like a Dragon?
No. Ichiban Kasuga is a former yakuza member, but the game presents him as an antihero, not an evil protagonist.
Does Yakuza: Like a Dragon have heists?
No. It has criminal conspiracies and underworld schemes, but not playable heist planning or robbery systems.
Is Yakuza: Like a Dragon turn-based?
Yes. It uses party-based turn-based JRPG combat instead of the real-time brawler combat used by earlier mainline Yakuza games.
Is Yakuza: Like a Dragon good for GTA fans?
Maybe. GTA fans who want crime atmosphere, city exploration, and criminal factions may enjoy it. GTA fans who mainly want freeform crime will probably bounce off it like a brick off a nightclub bouncer.
Is Yakuza: Like a Dragon grindy?
Sometimes. Many players point to late-game difficulty spikes where leveling, job progress, gear, or side content become much more important.
Is Yakuza: Like a Dragon worth buying?
Yes, especially on sale, if you like story-heavy RPGs and crime drama. It is not worth buying if you mainly want criminal sandbox freedom.
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