Video Game / Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth

Spoilers for all preceding Like a Dragon entries will be left unmarked.

The legends of two dragons go global.^note Foreground from left to right: Kazuma Kiryu, Ichiban Kasuga. Background from top to bottom, left to right: Tianyou Zhao, Seonhee, Saeko Mukouda, Yu Nanba, Eric Tomizawa, Chitose Fujinomiya, Joongi Han, Koichi Adachi

"Allow me to introduce myself. I come from Kamurocho - some would call it the armpit of Tokyo, Japan. Born and raised from the suds of an inner-city soapland, the name's Ichiban Kasuga. Some even call me the Hero of Yokohama. Separated from my mother at birth, I am now on a quest to find her. And so I've traveled land and sea only to find myself right here in Honolulu City. Mom, if you're out there, I just wanna say I love ya! And to everyone else, aloha!"

— Ichiban Kasuga

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, released in Japan as 龍が如く8 (Ryū ga Gotoku 8, lit. Like a Dragon 8) is a 2024 RPG video game, the sequel to Yakuza: Like a Dragon, and the ninth mainline installment in the Like a Dragon franchise, releasing on the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Steam on January 26, 2024. A demo featuring unique story scenes alongside a section of the Hawaii sandbox to explore is available to anyone who completes Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name.

Picking up sometime after the previous game, the story follows Ichiban Kasuga, the Dragon of Rock Bottom, as he travels to Honolulu, Hawaii on a quest to find his birth mother, Akane. Unfortunately, he is soon attacked upon arrival and left naked and broke on the beach. Forced to work his way up from the bottom once more, it is not long before Ichiban re-encounters the Dragon of Dojima, Kazuma Kiryu, who has been contracted to find Akane. Together the two become entangled in a complex plot involving multiple criminal factions, all seeking Akane. Further complicating matters, not only has a malicious VTuber revealed to the world that Kiryu is still alive, but Kiryu is now slowly dying of cancer. With enemies on all sides, Ichiban and Kiryu must work with each other and a host of old friends to untangle a mystery across two nations, locate Akane, get Ichiban home, and perhaps letting Kiryu go out in a blaze of glory befitting of his title as the Dragon of Dojima. Thankfully, as before, this is a journey neither one need take alone: along with Kasuga's old pals, they will join forces with Eric Tomizawa, a down-and-out cabbie; Chitose Fujinomiya, Akane's personal maid and the rebellious heiress of a wealthy family; and Seonhee, the leader of Yokohama's Korean crime syndicate "Geomijul".

As in the previous game, the combat is an old-school turn based RPG system with unlockable classes for party members and a summoning system. In addition to a dramatic story with twists aplenty, minigames abound, from delivering food on a bike to Sujimon battles, alongside returning classics like karaoke, gambling, and arcade games.

Also as in the previous game, Infinite Wealth features a full English dub, with most of that game's cast returning. The dub features Kaiji Tang as Ichiban Kasuga, Yong Yea as Kazuma Kiryu, Greg Chun as Yu Nanba, Andrew Morgado as Koichi Adachi, Elizabeth Maxwell as Saeko Mukoda, Matthew Yang King as Eric Tomizawa, Suzie Yeung as Chitose Fujinomiya, Fiona Rene as Seonhee, Danny Trejo as Dwight Mendéz and Daniel Dae Kim as Masataka Ebina.

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Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth contains examples of the following:

Tropes A-M

• Abominable Auditorium: The Yamai Syndicate's base of operations is a theater that looks normal from the outside, but inside it is run-down and crawling with yakuza (aside from the top floor, which is much nicer).
• Acceptable Breaks from Reality:
  • In the Japanese dub, about everyone you talk to, from plot important characters to random punks you beat up in substories, speak perfect Japanese. Even ones who have no reason to such as the aforementioned punks or a director who specifically mocks a guy for being obsessed with Japan. It doesn't make much sense, but considering the majority of the game takes place in Hawaii, not being able to do substories or Ichiban not understanding anyone would be unfeasible. The English dub changes the context to this, with Ichiban somehow being able to understand and fluently speak English by the third chapter to allow him to converse with the people of Hawaii, despite him barely having any grip of English one in-game day prior. The former is somewhat handwaved by characters mentioning that Hawaii has a disproportionately large Japanese population.
  • Ichiban and Kiryu share money and an inventory even after the plot dictates that they split up.It's even possible to take gear Ichiban's wearing and put it on Kiryu, despite them being in different countries. But then, having separate inventories would be a severe hassle, and also leave Kiryu severely lacking in funds and items, given that he's only taken control of a little over halfway into the story.
  • The exchange rate between the Japanese yen and American dollar is fixed at USD $1 to JPY ¥100, despite the real-life conversion rate not being so clean. Through 2023, the actual average conversion rate for the year was 140.9.
• Achilles in His Tent: Late in the story, Kiryu tracks down his oldest allies— Goro Majima, Taiga Saejima, and Daigo Dojima— who tried to form a legitimate security venture after the events of Yakuza: Like a Dragon, but were forced out of business by the Tatara Channel. They're barely scratching out a miserable existence in a cold and lonely fishing village in northern Japan, and they're so disillusioned by their failure that they're unwilling to come out of retirement and help Kiryu take down the Seiryu Clan... until he riles them up enough to fight him and get their edge back.
• Actor Allusion:
  • Danny Trejo voices an antagonist named Dwight - a crime boss who wields machetes, a weapon long associated with Trejo through the films Spy Kids and Machete.
  • One of the Karaoke songs is a new version of Judgment from Yakuza 0, only with Ichiban in place of Nishiki, another reference to the fact that the two have the same VA.
  • Kei is introduced in a substory called "Welcome to Hawaii, MFer!", which could be a reference to "Good morning, motherfuckers!", the catchphrase of her VA Kson during her life as her previous corporate VTuber persona.
• Actually Pretty Funny: One of Kiryu's memoirs involves him looking back on the time he and Rikiya posed as a gay couple to enter a love hotel and having a laugh about it in hindsight.
• Aliens Steal Cattle: One of the funniest but also hardest to find sidequests is a woman who's complaining to the police that a UFO stole her chicken. Agreeing to help her has her and Ichiban staking out a field in the middle of the night, only to nod off before being awoken as a flying circular object is sucking up a cow! Subverted when it is revealed to be a new flying Sojimaru, created by Professor Okita to clean trash out of the ocean. He's still working on the bugs... And seemingly double subverted for the last moments of the substory to show a cow seemingly being abducted with the now-inactive Sojimaru still standing around in the background.
• All Just a Dream: Mixed with an interesting case of Canon Welding: Three of Kiryu's memories reveal that the events of Yakuza: Dead Souls, Like a Dragon: Kenzan! and Like a Dragon: Ishin! occurred as vivid dreams he previously had. He does entertain the thought that he saw 2 of his previous lives and an alternative timeline, but quickly disregards that as absurd.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • Played with in regards to Kiryu. It's suggested that Kiryu got cancer when he worked as a radiation inspector. However, Kiryu claims that the risks were supposedly low risk (which admittedly is questionable given how serious the radiation leak was) and guessed that he got cancer from many other things. Either Kiryu was unlucky to be on the receiving end of the low risk, simply got cancer from something else, or the radiation exacerbated a developing cancer.
  • After the final boss fight, it's revealed that Ebina didn't actually kill Sawashiro despite making it look like he did. Was this because he actually tried to do so and failed, or was it a change of heart, born from a desire for Kiryu and company to stop him? Seonhee thinks it's the former, while Zhao thinks it's the latter.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • When dealing with underleveled trash mobs, you can initiate a "Smackdown" that immediately wins the fight at the cost of less XP, allowing you to skip fights as well as grind money in a more efficient way.
  • Relating to the above, the game uses different colored icons above mooks' heads to represent their threat level. Blue representing Weak enemies, Red representing Fair enemies, Pink representing Strong enemies, and Black and Red representing Dangerous enemies. This especially useful if you're low on health, healing items, and/or would rather avoid any unnecessary fights if possible, especially against stronger mobs.
  • If you get interrupted by a band of mooks while in the middle of a Party Chat or a Walk and Talk, the characters in question will pick back up close to where from where they left off after the ensuing fight ends.
  • You can now travel to Taxi stands straight from the Map by simply hovering over any Taxi icon on it and pressing a button (Square or X).
  • ATMs once again return, allowing Ichiban and Kiryu a reprieve from tougher fights out in the overworld, as enemies now take a sizeable chunk of money instead when the Party Leader gets knocked out (as opposed to a full-on Game Over). Better to make trips to one every now and then if you'd rather avoid that.
  • Stat changes when changing equipment in the previous game were denoted with red numbers for positive stat changes and blue as negative, which can be seen as confusing considering in most games, it's the exact opposite. Infinite Wealth changes this, with positive stat changes being denoted in blue.
  • In the previous game, characters' friendship gauges were locked at certain intervals, forcing you to go to the Survive Bar to have a Drink Link before the gauge could start to fill again. Those locks are gone in Infinite Wealth, and you can max out characters' friendships and have all of their Drink Links back to back if you so choose (barring the few instances locked behind story progression).
  • Inherited Skills can be assigned to characters you have strong enough friendship with, so you can keep and mix-and-match the best abilities of any job you learned.
  • Minor example, but CDs in the previous game were limited to the jukebox in the Survive Bar, and didn't persist onto the menus. Now, they can be played at any time outside of battle by creating a playlist.
  • Crafting/upgrading weapons at Julie's Gearworks will put the money spent on the process straight into upgrading the facilities, as opposed to in Like a Dragon where money spent on upgrades did not also count for raising the facility rank.
• Arc Words: The story places specific emphasis on the phrase "Bon Voyage" and its meaning, highlighting the foreign setting, as well as Kiryu slowly dying of cancer and how it might will be his last adventure before kicking the bucket. The English Dub uses the Hawaiian phrase "A Hui Hou" in its place.
  • There's also a lot of use of the word "paradise," characters often referring to Hawaii itself. It has an ironic use the further the story goes and it's revealed that there's indeed trouble in paradise down to the point a cult has secretly gained influence over it. Dwight has one of the more interesting uses of the word, using it in a speech describing how artificial Honolulu really is and comparing this "paradise" to the counterfeits he deals in. Funny enough, he arguably runs his own fake paradise in District Five, where the Barracudas entrap foreigners by having them give up their passports for shelter and work. Even the underground recreation of the Anaconda mall is a false "paradise," using the exact trappings of the above-ground version while being the center of his criminal operations.
• The Artifact: Nanba's personal job is still called "Homeless Guy" despite there being no indication that he's still homeless (unless the consequences of him getting fired were that severe, but regardless, it's never stated).
• Artistic License – Animal Care: It's revealed that Ichiban has been keeping Nancy-chan the crayfish as a pet in a small clay pot on his stove since the events of Yakuza: Like A Dragon. This is no where close to what it would actually take to keep a crayfish in captivity (they need flowing water and places to dig burrows, among other things), but then again Nancy-chan doesn't really look or act like a real crayfish, either.
• Artistic License – Biology: On the topic of Nancy, crayfish usually live up to three years (though some species can live up to twenty years, her colorations don't resemble any of them). Given how it's been 4-5 years since she was introduced, she should not be around anymore. Similarly, crayfish can't lift their bodies off the ground while on land, or run, or jump, or make vocalizations of any sort.
• Artistic License – Law:
  • While Kiryu has the excuse of using a government-backed false identity, Ichiban being able to legally travel to the United States on a whim despite being a convicted murderer (legally) less than five years out of prison with recent public yakuza associations is a massive stretch. Given Eiji's presence on the same flight, intentionally as part of Ebina's ploy for him to become The Mole keeping an eye on Ichiban, it's implied that his original outgoing flight was secretly aided by Ebina and Bryce's connections as part of their aim to use Ichiban as bait to lure out Akane, and through her, Lani. All of Ichiban's subsequent trips to Japan and back are aided by Yamai's contacting of the official authorities or the Daoji Faction's direct aid, side-stepping this. His arrest on the beach would also see him face far deeper legal ramifications than is depicted as a result, nevermind resisting arrest on top of that, although the police force in Hawaii are depicted as being willing to frame Ichiban for several cold cases anyway, given his John Doe status, so it's not like he really made things worse for himself. Good thing Kiryu came along when he did (and that a sizeable chunk of Honolulu PD are on the Barracudas' payroll).
  • There's absolutely no way that a private individual would be allowed to negotiate with a foreign government for a deal to store nuclear waste on American soil. The fact that it's a private island is irrelevant, the US government would block any deal that didn't go through them.
• Artistic License – Nuclear Physics: Zig-Zagged regarding nuclear waste disposal.
  • In Chapter 4, Kiryu talks about nuclear waste and his exposure to it in an industry accident as being a potential cause for his cancer, although he quickly admits it may not be what caused it. He tells us that most nuclear waste is just things like contaminated dirt, safety gear, and equipment, also known as low-level waste; In real life, 97% of nuclear waste is this stuff and exposure wouldn't cause long-term damage just like Kiryu says.
  • However, the disposal of nuclear waste is still used as a Kick the Dog moment by the villains: Ebina wants to use ex-yakuza for waste disposal so that he could force them to a fate of slowly dying of radiation, and Bryce wants to use his private island and strike deals with other countries so they offload their nuclear waste there. In reality, nuclear waste has been successfully stored near-surface safely without harm, although Bryce's solution of just throwing the waste barrels into a cavern is barely following procedure, if at all. Ebina lampshades this, saying he knew the plan was doomed from the get-go and it would fail quickly over time, but he was simply taking revenge wherever he could.
• As Long as There Is Evil: This is what Ebina believes. So long as the yakuza exist in some form (be it their exile or legacy), there will always be a chance that the yakuza will rebuild. Deconstructed, in that it's also a justification he uses for a Genocide from the Inside plan, that everyone sympathetic is horrified by; it'd be better for the yakuza to reform than to condemn everyone, even non-violent members Forced into Evil, to cancer.
• Assist Character: The lower cost Poundmates, instead of being the equivalent of Summon Magic, has the called character stick around for 3 turns and do a specified action on each turn.
• Auction of Evil: A White-Collar Crime version. The Barracudas sell counterfeit designer clothing via an auction disguised as a runway show, with masked buyers placing their bids as models come down the runway in the garments for sale.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Discussed. If Kiryu plays a perfect game of bingo golf, he remarks on how the bingo board moving back and forth automatically is pretty impressive. Seonhee then says that the machine is actually the golf center's claim to fame, but they're constantly in the red because of it. Kiryu wonders aloud how they keep the lights on.
• Baby Carriage: Ichiban stops one that careens out of control while exploring the mall in Hawaii. Unfortunately for Ichiban, Patriarch Gondawara is inside it, and all his lackeys roll up in identical carriages when they think Ichiban's harassing the Patriarch (much to Ichi's dismay).
• Bathos: The substory "Let It Snow", despite starting with the odd sight of an old man ordering shaved ice with no flavour before tossing it into the sky, is actually one of the most tragic in the game. Said old man is trying to find a way to make it snow in Hawaii to accommodate his dying wife's Last Request. Eventually, Ichiban finds a solution, and we're shown said dying wife's final moments as her wish comes true in a rather upsetting scene. And yet, the solution comes from the help of the diaper-wearing man baby patriarch Susumu Gondawara. Despite the inherent silliness, the whole thing is played for all the drama it's worth.
• Bad Date: In Chapter One, Ichiban finally asks Saeko out on a date. It actually goes fairly well until the end, when he suddenly proposes to her and gives a long, rambling speech about what he'd do for her if she agreed due to his tendency to ramble when nervous. Then Nanba and Adachi convinced him that he'd ruined things with his behavior, so he tracked her down the next day to give a longer, even more rambling apology. Immediately after that scene, there's a one year time jump and it's revealed that she hadn't talked to him in that entire time.
• Bad Influencer: An in-universe VTuber by the name of Tatara Hisoka spreads slander about Ichiban and revealing Kiryu's survival to the world. Though not by choice; in reality, she's none other than Chitose, and she was being blackmailed by Ebina and Bryce to serve as their instrument of their Heel–Face Door-Slam plan for former yakuza seeking to go straight - when freed from their influence, she ultimately turns her fame to exposing their plot.
• Bag of Spilling: Justified.
  • Ichiban has gotten a bit rusty living comfortably the past three years and is robbed of literally all his belongings shortly into his quest, providing a neat reason for him to have to start over while in Hawaii. Furthermore, as established in Yakuza: Like a Dragon, the RPG mechanics are the result of Ichiban's overactive imagination from playing so many RPGs as a kid, and the hero always starts out the next adventure back at level one.
  • A complicated example when it comes to Kiryu. Despite still kicking ass during Like a Dragon Gaiden, which serves as an interquel between Yakuza: Like a Dragon and Infinite Wealth, in the three year break between Gaiden's ending and this game, Kiryu's health has hit a sharp decline after being diagnosed with cancer. It doesn't stop him from being still clearly ahead of Ichiban and the party's playing field, but it does prevent him from using all of his resolute strength and when he does push himself to fight more like when he was at his prime, he'll steadily start getting tired because he just doesn't have the energy to fight at that level for too long anymore, which necessitates him to rely on Ichiban and his friends more liberally.
  • Early on, Ichiban states that he deleted the Sujimon app from his between games to free up some space on his phone, and since none of the data is backed up on the cloud said data is gone, to the frustration of the Sujimon Professor.
  • Less justified are his personality scores being bumped down to level 1 again despite his dialogue with Ikari making it clear that he got most if not all of the vocational school certifications.
  • The cast have all lost their gear from the last game. Ichiban's been using his Hero bat as a makeshift clothes hanger and let its state degrade, but no mention is made of what happened to everyone else's equipment.
• Balance Buff:
  • Ichiban's Freelancer job has been given a considerable Attack bonus to compensate for not being able to equip weapons, putting it on-par with other jobs.
  • Saeko's Barmaid job has a much better skill set than in Like a Dragon, receiving many skills from the Hostess job (which did not return in this game). Additionally, when she joins the party, she has enough levels in this job to have access to fire and ice skills right off the bat, which can then be inherited when she switches to other jobs.
  • Poundmates' attacks no longer use up your turn as they did in Like a Dragon. However, this does not apply to the Poundmates that fight alongside the party for a few turns, only the ones that attack and immediately leave.
  • Essence of Dodonko Beam, this game's version of Essence of Orbital Laser has it's MP cost halved compared to its previous iteration.
  • Adachi's Detective job, aside from the skill set improvements, also has the success rate of his Arrest skill improve significantly against non-boss enemies.
• Barehanded Blade Block: In the final battle, Kiryu catches a katana stab at his face with a single hand, as opposed to the usual depiction of this trope where two hands are used. Kiryu isn't fazed by doing this at all, despite the blood visibly dripping from his hand, and is implied to be able to stalemate Ebina's own two-handed grip on the handle because of how exhausted the latter is after their gruelling boss fight. He then uses his other arm to snap the katana blade in a single strike.
• Beard of Sorrow: Daigo, Majima and Saejima are sporting some more facial hair than usual when they appear. No surprise given that their security company failed and they're all in self-imposed exile at a remote village.
• Bee-Bee Gun: The Kunoichi job has the ability "Thousand Stings Jutsu" and the more powerful "Essence of Hell Hive", both of which unleash a swarm of hornets onto enemies.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Bryce Fairchild and Masataka Ebina. They are in cahoots and individually serve as the main antagonist of the Hawaii storyline and the Japan storyline respectively.
• Bittersweet Ending: Both Ebina and Bryce are stopped and their crimes revealed to the world, preventing the former's attempts to violently dismantle the yakuza and the latter's plans to profit from using Nele Island as a dumping ground for nuclear waste from coming to fruition. However, many allies, including Hanawa, die along the way, Yamai and Mitamura turn themselves in to the police (after Ichiban convinces the latter), Chitose ultimately takes the reigns of her family's company and abandons the VTuber career she enjoyed, separating her from the party, and Ebina makes it clear that no matter what there'll always be people out to rebuild the yakuza. While Kiryu survives until the end of the game, his cancer had become terminal, and is left wheelchair-bound. However, despite his survival being made irrevocably public, as Haruka and Haruto come to visit Kiryu in hospital, it's clear he's finally free from the Daidoji's leash, as they consider his contributions over the course of the story significant enough to let him spend what's left of his life as Kazuma Kiryu.
• Blood from the Mouth: With the reveal of his cancer, there is a scene of Kiryu coughing up blood.
• Blow You Away: The Geodancer's "Essence of Tropical Tornado" has them literally dance up a windstorm to blow enemies into a Twinkle in the Sky.
• Bookends:
  • Ichiban giving a Love Confession to Saeko but completely botching it by being too over the top that Saeko walks off in embarrassment.
  • The original iteration of "Funk Goes On" from the very first game serves as the encounter theme in Kamurocho for Kiryu's Party, what with this being his final adventure and all.
  • Ebina is first confronted in his main office at the Seiryu Clan's headquarters, but not sitting at his desk. The party confront him for the Final Battle at his main Bleach Japan headquarters in the Millenium Tower, standing aside from the main desk.
  • Ichiban and Eiji's first and last interactions in the story end in a "Bon voyage!" / "A hui hou!". The first time as Ichiban enters Hawaii makes sense, while the second time, as Eiji turns himself in at a police station... doesn't.
  • Kiryu's debut had him protecting a Living MacGuffin from someone who seeks to kill her because her very existence could be a potential catalyst to their machinations. Lo and behold, his final adventure has him help Ichiban with what is essentially the same thing, albeit with some discrepancies. E.g., replace Haruka's, Majima's, and Jingu's respective roles with Lani, Yamai, and Bryce, and the resemblance is pretty clear.
  • Relating to the above, Kiryu's journey began with what was once the Empty Lot, now the Millennium Tower, and his debut adventure ended in a one-on-one skirmish with Nishikiyama, his old Evil Former Friend, in a bar atop the building itself. His very final fight against Ebina likewise takes place atop the Millennium Tower, albeit in Bleach Japan's office.
  • Even further still, Yakuza 0 took place in 1988, which was a year of the Dragon. Infinite Wealth, Kiryu's definitive Swan Song, while taking place in 2023, released in 2024, another year of the Dragon.
• Bowled Over:
  • Encouraged with the game's reworked combat model. Some Skills and even Normal attacks can have an amusingly effective domino effect on enemies that are clumped together. The trajectory of the attack is shown in green at the bottom of your character's feet before executing the Attack or Skill, further encouraging repositioning yourself to get the best possible effect.
  • Kiryu also has a skill (Essence of Bowling) that takes this quite literally, bowling ball and all.
• Breaking Old Trends: This is the first game in the series to feature a Chinese dub in addition to the Japanese and English audio tracks.
• Bruce Lee Clone: The Action Star job for male characters turns them into this, complete with wearing the track suit and using nunchaku and Funny Bruce Lee Noises in combat.
• Breather Episode: After five chapters of relentless tragedy, the start of the finale finally gives the heroes something resembling a break.
• The Bus Came Back: This game being billed as the final starring role for Kiryu means a lot of old faces from the series come back. Stardust hosts Kazuki and Yuya (the former last seen in Yakuza 4, the latter in Yakuza 6), Shun Akiyama (last seen in Yakuza 6), Kaoru Sayama (discounting the Yakuza Kiwami 2 remake, was chronologically last seen at the start of Yakuza 3, leaving Kamurocho for a job she got in America), and Sotaro Komaki (last chronologically seen in Yakuza 5, discounting Yakuza 0 and both Kiwami remakes) return as part of the Life Links storyline and can be recruitable Poundmates.
• …But He Sounds Handsome: One of Kiryu's Bucket List remniscences has him stop in an arcade, and wax lyrical about how "the folks behind all these games must be incredibly creative and unique", how most of them were from a company called Sega that was constantly innovating with every new game and had an incredible line up, and how if he had the chance he would play them all.
• Call-Back:
  • As this is Kiryu's final journey, part of his side content has him reminiscing on his past journeys and his many allies.
  • It also sort of canonizes Ryū ga Gotoku Kenzan!, Like a Dragon: Ishin!, and Yakuza: Dead Souls where Kiryu comments that they seem to be Visions of Another Self in the forms of very vivid dreams he once had.
  • One Group Talk has the Heroes talk about the "Bed, Bath, or Me" schtick, something that Akame was all too eager to offer Joryu back in Gaiden.
  • The achievement for beating the game is called "The Man Who Regained His Name", directly referencing Gaiden's subtitle.
• The Cameo: Fumiya Sugiura and Makoto Tsukumo from Judgment make silent cameos as two of the detectives who help the Heroes of Tomorrow find Kiryu, in turn complimenting Zhao's cameo from Lost Judgment.
• Can't Drop the Hero: Neither Ichiban nor Kiryu can be removed from their respective parties when they serve as leader.
• Cash Gate: Two of them in Ichiban's story. The first, $30 to find out where Ichiban's stolen passport went, is used to introduce Crazy Eats. Later on, Ichiban has to pay the lady at the Volcano tattoo parlor $10000 for the whereabouts of Akane and Lani.
• Cast from Money: The Poundmates system returns, this time with two types of summonable allies: ones that stick around for three turns and perform a given action for each of those turns, which are relatively cheap, and ones that perform a powerful attack and leave immediately afterward like in Like a Dragon, but are much more expensive. In both cases, they can be buffed by spending extra money to summon them "with benefits".
• Central Theme: Atonement. Several characters in the game are trying atone from their past mistakes or misdeeds, either ones during the course of the game, like Tomizawa atoning for how he acted towards Ichiban as a member of Yamai's gang and Chitose for her actions towards Kiryu and Ichiban as Tatara, or ones prior to its events, such as Akane abandoning her lover and her son, Sawashiro failing to save Masato from his darkness, and Daigo, Majima and Saejima making things worse for the ex-yakuza by having their underhanded government deals with their security company exposed. It all comes to a head at end of the game, when Ebina is trying to exact his revenge on the yakuza by killing as many of them as he can, leading to Kiryu, in tears, begging for Ebina not to kill them so they can atone for what they've done.
  • Kiryu's chapters and sub-stories focus more on what it means to have the will to live and what is the worth of someone's life. Kiryu is self-depreciating to the point of nigh-suicide and Nanba clearly sees that Kiryu has all but given up on surviving his bout with cancer. Most of the Kiryu's early chapters are spent on reflecting on what Kiryu wants rather than trying to save someone, namely constructing and ticking off a bucket list. Date's missions are particularly important in this regard, as when reflecting on previous people he met he ONLY remembers the negative impacts he left on their lives and none of the positives. Date notices these and makes it a point to reach out to the people Kiryu touched and show him without any trickery that he did leave positive impacts on them as well, and for some meeting Kiryu is the one thing that kept them going when their lives were going rough.
• Cerebus Syndrome: The first 8 chapters, while it always had something dark in each of them, had Ichiban and Kiryu tackle any obstacles and generally try to have a good time in the situations they were in. But starting with Chapter 9, the story takes a hard turn in darkness…
• Chairman of the Brawl: The Action Star Job has "Essence of Improvisation" which takes this trope and cranks it up to eleven. As it makes use of several kinds of chairs/furnitutres one after the other, from a small wooden bench, an office chair, a steel folding chair, and finally a couch. If that wasn't enough, every single one thrown get stacked into a large tower which the Action Star then climbs up on and proceeds to fall the massive couch ontop of his enemies.
• Chekhov's Gun: In Seonhee's Drink Links, she shows Kiryu a Geomijul mask that an officer left behind after leaving the organization. It turns out the Survive bartender hung on to it after Seonhee left it there — he gives it to Kiryu in Seonhee's final Drink Link so he can help her deal with an insurrection within the Geomijul.
• Chest Monster: Parodied. Some locked chests in the randomly generated dungeons contain men in latex suits covered in question marks who taunt the party before attacking as minibosses. Every time, the party wonders what the appeal is.
• Chronically Killed Actor: Danny Trejo playing a prominent antagonist means he won't make it to the end. Sure enough, Dwight meets his demise by becoming shark food in the game's closing hours.
• City Pop: Chitose's karaoke song "Honolulu City Lights" is a clear pastiche of the genre.
• Company Cross References: This being a Sega title, there's a few to be had.
  • Like the previous game, select tracks from other SEGA titles are available to listen to with the game's music player. Such titles include, but aren't limited to - Sonic Frontiers, Persona 4 (and P5), Shin Megami Tensei V, and Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis, to name a few.
  • Crazy Eats is basically a send-up to Crazy Taxi, down to Charlie looking like Axel from the first game.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: In Sujimon battles, Sujimon can use a special move after a meter is sufficiently charged. But whether this move hits one, two, or three enemies is dependent on the outcome of a wheel spin, possibly even rendering the move Awesome, but Impractical in the face of a full enemy team. But opponents' special moves will hit your entire party without fail.
• Continue Countdown: Just like Ichiban's last outing, if the player fails a major battle, they have a few seconds to decide whether to try again or not before the Game Over screen. However, if Kiryu goes down in a battle where Ichiban isn't around for some reason, he'll take Ichiban's place on the continue screen.
  Kiryu (if choosing to continue): There's no way... I'll let it end here...
• Continuity Nod:
  • The Revolve Bartender's Poundmates summon has him turning enemies to swiss cheese with a pair of pistols while singing "Kamurocho Lullaby" from the third game. This points even more towards the Bartender actually being Andre Richardson, the third game's Big Bad.
  • When meeting Koyuki in Kamurocho, as she begins to recognize Kiryu again, she performs the same "Hmm? Hmmm? Hmmmmmmmm?!" routine Yuki did in Kiwami 2 when she realized that Kiryu isn't who she thought he was. And later, when reuniting with Yuki in Ijincho, she does the exact same thing.
  • During the Poundmate summoning sequence for Yuki and Koyuki, they attack the unfortunate sap on the receiving end of the summon with drinking glasses, a giant ashtray, and an oversized ice bucket. When calling for them, Koyuki makes the appropriate Hand Signals for each one, straight out of 0 and Kiwami 2.
  • If Kiryu is the one to use a job EXP-increasing free magazine, he may declare "That's rad!", just as he did in 0.
  • One of the party chats that happens near Seiryo High, a major location in Lost Judgment, has Seonhee mention the haunted body model Yagami chased in a sidestory in that game.
  • Relating to the above, another party chat has the Heroes discuss a movie poster with face cutouts that Yagami and Kaito got stuck to together in a sidestory.
• Corrupt Church: Palekana was once an organization dedicated to genuine charity, with the previous Sage being a dedicated philanthropist. Then a mobster by the name of Bryce joined their organization and usurped it, turning it into his own private army.
• Cowboy: One of the new Jobs is "Desperado", which wields dual revolvers and aside from shooting enemies has techniques such as lassoing enemies and riding bulls to charge into them.
• *Crack!* "Oh, My Back!": The cutscene for the Beach Yoga vacation event, which unlocks the Kunoichi job for female party members, features Ichiban and Kiryu (or Adachi, after a certain point) painfully throwing their backs out as they try and fail to perform the yoga poses. The latter even grumbles that he's too old for this.
• Cross Counter: The final battle ends this way, with Kiryu and Ebina each throwing a punch straight to each other's faces. In the end, Kiryu's punch overpowers Ebina's.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: The Barracudas aren't called that 'cause it sounds cool, as Ichiban, Kiryu, and Tomizawa would find out. Like their namesake fish, one unfortunate soul early on is on the receiving end of their wrath by way of being disemboweled, nailed to the wall, and impaled with a machete to the chest. Needless to say, even Kiryu and Ichiban are horrified, and Tomizawa's reaction is more than warranted.
• Crutch Character: Kiryu (understandably) turns out to be this, with his strength and connections with the Daidoji faction proving invaluable aid to Ichiban at several points in combat or furthering the plot, but it goes both ways.
  • With Kiryu's cancer diagnosis weakening him to the point he needs to rely on others to get a second wind in combat after over-stressing himself in fights he'd normally breeze through. This gets especially more pronounced when they split up and Kiryu returns to Japan, forming a solo party of his own with the other Heroes of Tomorrow, who rally around him to progress their side of the plot against challenges they are way out of their depth to handle.
  • Gameplay-wise, Kiryu's Dragon's Resurgence is the epitome of this, allowing Kiryu to unleash a unique combat method of turning the game back into a Beat 'em Up brawler, which makes fighting much easier and quicker, with the length of time he can remain in this state being affected by the depth of his bonds with the party. Kiryu first unlocks this after Jo Amon threatens to shoot everybody as motivation for Kiryu to strain himself into reaching his old combat prowess momentarily, and expresses interest in how well he can fight with the strength of his bonds going forward.
  • Story-wise, this is best shown in the triple boss fight against Daigo, Majima and Saejima. Getting to the half-way point of the fight has Kiryu exhaust himself from fighting against his old equals and leave himself wide open, only for the others to step in and cover for him briefly in fending their opponents off until Kiryu's recovered. Depleting the health of each enemy has them pull off their own version of Dragon's Resurgence, forcing Kiryu into a one-on-one fistfight that only he can win, but the Heroes of Tomorrow were instrumental in wearing his opponents down to get to that point.
• Cult: One of the major groups that Ichiban contends with in Honolulu is Palekana, a local native religion led by the sage Bryce Fairchild. While it's had a long history and has existed even before Hawaii's annexation as a charitable organization, it's also one with a lot of secrets and eyes everywhere.
• Cutscene Incompetence:
  • In Chapter 7, the party is forced to abandon Kiryu to Yamai's group so they can escape with the odds portrayed as insurmountable. While Kiryu was hit by his cancer flaring up, the other three party members are combat capable and could very likely have taken the number of people shown in the cutscene. In fairness, Ichiban, Chitose, and Tomizawa had Wong Tou to worry about because he was also wounded and they needed him for information so Kiryu urged the former four to leave him.
  • A notable aversion happens in the finale. Unlike what happened with Munakata in Yakuza 4, the second Bryce tries to run from accounting for his crimes after Chitose blows the whistle on his actions, Ichiban saves him so that he doesn't get the pleasure of going out on his own terms.
  • Saeko is never shown fighting in cutscenes despite being as much of an Action Girl as Chitose and Seonhee. She either just supports another character or gets knocked down.
• Cutting Off the Branches:
  • Ichiban and Saeko go on a date in Chapter 1, which Ichiban says is the first time he's done something like this before, indicating that he didn't complete any of the romance sidequests from Yakuza: Like A Dragon. Of course, none of the 'romances' in the first game also had dates…
  • Ichiban and Ikari discuss the latter's perpetual joblessness despite his substory ending with him being hired for Ichiban Holdings, indicating that substory wasn't canon (or Ichiban didn't hire the guy for some reason). He also describes Miyakoshi as 'that girl from the counter' when Ikari brings her up, indicating that the two never got close.
  • Ichiban confirms in the Dondoko Island quest chain that he successfully ran Ichiban Holdings, which makes his poor state and lack of prospects after being fired in the beginning of the game somewhat odd. While visiting Ichiban Confections reveals he let Eri take over the company, it's still rather strange.
• Dance Battler: Two of the new Jobs are Geodancer (inspired by Hula Dancers) and Pyrodancer (inspired by firetwirlers). Chitose also uses a lot of ballet dancing in her default Heiress class.
• Darkest Hour: From Chapters 9-13: Ichiban and Kiryu have to deal with two problems from different countries that are too big for just the two of them, Eiji is revealed to have been a traitor the entire time, Hanawa and Wong are dead, Sawashiro's hands are tied, the Tatara channel constantly finds ways to dox them (even with the real Tatara already on their side), several gangs and yakuza are constantly hounding them, public opinion is at an all time negative. And worst of all Lani, the girl Ichiban and the group is constantly trying to save, always slips from their grasp no thanks to the villains. To top it all off, Bleach Japan that was thwarted in the first game is not only at risk of reviving, but also with the risk of finishing what they started.
• Demoted to Extra: Characters such as Nick Ogata for example, whom played a pivotal role in both the main story and side content in the previous game, take a back seat this time around and merely make an NPC cameo.
• Dented Iron: While Kiryu has never been a particularly delicate kind of man, he still looks great, even when contending with cancer. Though, while still capable of being easily stronger than Ichiban and the party when need to be, his illness leaves him much more susceptible to fatigue compared to the previous times where he can wipe the floor with a load of people and take on some of the strong bad guys without feeling the strain much, if at all.
• Developer's Foresight:
  • The Kunoichi and Pyrodancer jobs have alternate "revelation" cutscenes for if the player waits until after Kiryu returns to Japan to unlock them, with Adachi replacing Kiryu in them.
  • During the boss fight against Dojima, Majima and Saejima, defeating any of them causes them to get a Heroic Second Wind and activate their own versions of Dragon's Resurgence, with Kiryu responding in kind, resulting in a real time one-on-one duel like the older games in the series. The dodge button (X on PlayStation, A on Xbox or E on PC) is fully functional during these sequences despite not being mentioned at all in the tutorial for Dragon's Resurgence, since other enemies never attack Kiryu during it.
• Dirty Cop: After Ichiban gets roofied and wakes up naked on a beach with all of his possessions missing, he's arrested and taken to a police station. In the interrogation room, the cop who brought him in tells him that as Ichiban has no money, no ID, and barely speaks English, he's the perfect patsy to pin a few unsolved crimes on. It's later revealed that virtually the entire Hawaiian police force is on the payroll of the Barracudas, the local criminal gang, and pinning crimes committed by members of the Barracudas is one of their main tasks. And that's not even getting into the Palekana "Haku" sleeper agents that Bryce has had infiltrate both the police and the gangs, all ready to throw their lives away at his command. Dana realises that a police officer she once encountered was a Child Soldier who'd undergone facial and vocal surgery to gain a new appearance under Bryce's orders, emphasising the extent of their infiltration over the decades.
• Disc-One Nuke:
  • Completing the first Asakura's substory which is unlocked at Chapter 4 gives Ichiban the skill "Merciless Melee", a Grapple skill which deals heavy damage and has a chance to debuff the target's attack and defense. The sheer power of that skill on top of the debuffs make it extremely effective skill to use against humanoid boss level enemies. It also sticks with Ichiban no matter what job he takes, so there's no need to worry about squeezing it into an inheritance slot.
  • The Aquanaut job is one of the earliest available jobs to unlock and one of its included skills is the humble "Trippy Flipper Ripper". While the overall damage output can vary depending on your level and build, what makes this skill particularly effective is its massive area of effect that also pulls in enemies toward the user. Which, depending on your location, can make a very potent way of keeping enemies as close to each other as possible.
  • The Samurai job can be unlocked by getting Ichiban's confidence to level 5 and paying $1600. One of the job's initial skill is "Burning Arrow", an attack skill which deals heavy gun/fire damage in an area. It is one of the most ideal skill for any male party member to be inherited due to its ease of access, massive attack power, and its potent ability to clear out group of enemies in one strike.
• Distaff Counterpart: In place of Gary Buster Holmes is his daughter Chitose Buster Holmes, who's basically just a female version of Gary.
• Distant Prologue: The first cutscene is set sometime around the 1950s, before the second cutscene skips to 2022. After a few scenes, the game time jumps a year to 2023 and the game begins properly.
• Don't Create a Martyr: At the finale of the game, Bryce attempts to commit suicide by jumping into a pool filled with nuclear waste after Chitose blows the whistle on the dangerous conditions of his so called waste storage facility, claiming that he will always judge them after his death. However, Ichiban grabs him by the ankle and stops him, forcing him to take responsibility for his crimes.
  Ichiban: I made a promise! I can't just let you die and be done with it... You're not getting the last laugh. If you think you're going out in style, you got another thing comin'!
• Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: With the possible exception of Julie (where it's left ambiguous on if she actually had sex with Ichiban, or simply used her tools to forcibly augment his body) all of the 'romances' have the women forcing themselves on Ichiban despite his vocal protests or how he still holds a torch for Saeko. It's Played for Laughs despite Ichiban clearly not wanting to partake and essentially being raped.
• Double Unlock: To unlock new jobs in this game ^note with the exception of the ones that unlock once Kiryu visits Alo-Happy Tours in Ijincho in Chapter 8 (Host, Chef, Breaker, Idol, and Night Queen), Ichiban needs to hit certain thresholds of his personality values like in the previous game, but you then have to pay at Alo-Happy Tours for the party to be able to use that job, with some jobs costing up to $1600 to unlock. Linebacker and Tennis Ace are technically a Triple Unlock, as they're paid DLC on top of the other conditions here.
• Downer Beginning: While is starts off somewhat happy at first, Ichiban's story soon starts with him failing a date with Saeko, being ghosted for a year, and framed as criminal schemer. He loses his job, the respect of the people around him (sans his friends), and the woman he loves in short order.
• Drives Like Crazy: The "Essence of Buckle Up" of Tomizawa's default Taxi Driver class has him take an unfortunate enemy on a literal wild ride, slamming them around a taxi's cabin as he drives erratically. Tomizawa finishes off by sending the cab spiraling through the air and exploding as he performs an Unflinching Walk away from the fireball.
• Dual Boss: Try Triple Boss. Daigo, Majima, and Saejima all team up against Kiryu's Party in Chapter 12. Each having two health bars total - one that's whittled down normally, and another reserved for Kiryu to finish them off in a Dragon's Resurgence duel.
• Dueling Player Characters:
  • Like Joongi in the previous game, Tomizawa is a retroactive example. He's fought shortly before joining Ichiban's party in Chapter 2.
  • Daigo, Majima, and Saejima are all fought in a Triple Boss encounter in Chapter 12. Daigo is an especially notable case as Gaiden marked the first time he's been playable, if only as DLC and in a limited capacity when compared to Kiryu.
• Easily Forgiven: As always, Ichiban is very quick to forgive and see the best in others:
  • He doesn't hold a grudge against Tomizawa for attempting to mug him, pointing a gun at his face, then trying to get him arrested by the local cops by exploiting the language barrier. Some characters even comment on how the two have become fast friends after only knowing each other for a couple of days despite their horrible first meeting.
  • Like with Tomizawa, Ichiban decides to forgive Chitose for stealing his passport and leaving him on the beach naked to be arrested by the police as a streaker. Chitose herself is very surprised by this and decides against leading them into a trap for Dwight despite the risk it poses to herself.
  • Despite Eiji faking his side of their friendship during their time in Hawaii and harshly disparaging Ichiban once he revealed his true intentions, Ichiban tells him at the very end, after Eiji's been exposed and is on the verge of being publicly lynched for his crimes, that he still considers them friends and enjoyed the time they spent together in Hawaii. Ichiban even carries Eiji over to the police so that Eiji can get proper protection, enduring not only the ridicule of the mob but an actual beating.
• Empty Levels: The game has three different levels that are tracked: Character levels, Job levels, and Bond levels. All three go up to 100. Character levels provide a boost to base stats and as such are never empty. Job levels represent a character's class, unlocking all the skills associated with that job. Unfortunately, the last skill is unlocked at level 30, so progressing after that only awards some minor stat boosts. Bond levels are a measure of how strong of a bond a character has with Ichiban. Unfortunately, they're almost entirely empty, as the only Bond levels that unlock anything are 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 70, and 100. The other 93 levels do nothing whatsoever.
• End of an Era: In one way, the game serves as a definitive end to the legend of the Dragon of Dojima as Kiryu passes the torch to Kasuga. Another is in the description of the "Second Great Dissolution": the first "Great Dissolution" saw the simultaneous dissolutions of both the Tojo Clan and the Omi Alliance, the two largest organized criminal factions in Japan. The "Second Great Dissolution" is stated to be the definitive end to the yakuza as a whole.
• An Entrepreneur Is You: The Dondoko Island sidestory is the new business minigame, in which Ichiban build up an island resort in order to make it suitable for tourists. Helping him out are kids show mascots Gachapin and Mukku.
• Everyone Has Standards: For all their trash throwing and doxing, the shame mob that harass Ichiban and Eiji at the end of the game begin to stop cheering and lowering their recording devices as Ichiban gets brutally beaten.
• Failure Is the Only Option: Deconstructed. After several games of having good things go bad, Daigo and the gang are thoroughly demoralized with what seems to be their lowest point, being convinced that if they do try something to fix the problem it'll inevitably go south. It takes Kiryu's fight and words of encouragement to give it one more go.
• Final Boss: One for each protagonist. Ichiban first fights Bryce Fairchild on Nele Island in Hawaii, after which Kiryu fights Masataka Ebina for his final Millennium Tower showdown.
• First-Person Snapshooter: The Sicko Snap minigame has Ichiban riding the Honolulu trolley to find and photograph assorted weirdos in leotards for the police.
• Fluffy the Terrible: Nancy the Crayfish not only returns as a Poundmate (and has now been officially adopted by Ichiban as his pet) but is now accompanied by a hermit crab named Olivia.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Chitose being skilled in video editing and having deep knowledge about video monetization hints that she has experience in influencing.
  • Ichiban asks Chitose at one point what Akane's like. Chitose dodges the question because she's never actually met Akane, she was ordered to wait for Ichiban at Akane's place by Eiji/Ebina and pose as the housekeeper to win Ichiban's trust.
  • When the Heroes of Tomorrow confront Wong Tou and one of Wong Tou's men reveals that he is a spy, after the spy jumps through a window to his death, his hands are making a gesture that resemble a gesture the Palekana members use.
• Fourth-Date Marriage: After a mostly successful first date, Ichiban ended the night by trying to propose to Saeko, which leads her to friendzoning him.
• Framing the Guilty Party: Inverted. Jo Sawashiro reveals that he didn't actually shoot Hoshino in the last game, with Aoki having caught wind of his Batman Gambit to have Ichiban stop him and instead having had somebody else sneak in and assassinate Hoshino prior to Sawashiro's raid. When Jo entered the room, he found Hoshino's body with a gun lying on the desk and was then phoned by Aoki, who verbally confirmed the Frame-Up he'd been lured into. Having no real reason to protest his innocence for a murder he'd basically already agreed to commit and a situation arranged to look like he had, Sawashiro picked the gun up in his Despair Event Horizon after Aoki revealed that he never trusted him and played along with the Party's assumption when they burst in to find him.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: In the post-credits scene, there's a small plaque on the wall of room where Kiryu is being wheeled to, indicating that it is a LINIAC room. This seems to be a fictionalized version of a real-life cancer treatment named LINAC, an MRI scanner mixed with a particle accelerator that irradiates cancerous cells with extreme precision, making them slowly melt while not harming non-cancerous tissue. This treatment is still relatively new, but has shown great promise for the future of cancer treatment, so including the LINIAC plaque in the final scene implies that Kiryu might be able to overcome his cancer and live out the rest of his days with his loved ones, even if the cancer has weakened him to a state where he can't fight anymore.
• Game Within a Game: At the arcades, players can indulge in Sega Bass Fishing, Spikeout, and Virtua Fighter 3tb.
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • With this game now being set in Hawaii, of course the main currency (at least in Hawaii) is US Dollars instead of Japanese Yen. Interestingly enough, cents are also taken into account when you earn money in Honolulu, unlike other present-day games which feature US Dollars as currency (i.e., Grand Theft Auto or Saints Row). Ichiban's 'treasure hunt' ability will now have him picking up dimes and quarters off the ground rather than yen coins.
  • Kiryu and Ichiban's special Hype attacks reflect their characters. Kiryu's Dragon Resurgence allows him to return to his peak One-Man Army status for a few seconds at the cost of only his own Hype bar. Ichiban's, meanwhile, is a group attack that consumes every party member's Hype bar in exchange for high damage to every single enemy on screen.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • Despite Ichiban having gone down to level 1 again (with the justification that he's gotten rusty over the time skip), his skills in the story are consistent with how he is by the end of the first game. He takes down Yamai and his goons by himself very early on and likewise has no trouble fighting against other gang leaders such as Dwight Mendez and Wong Tou in their dynamic intros.
  • Early on, Ichiban, Kiryu, and Tomizawa act as if spending 30 dollars for some info is expensive and will be difficult to scrounge together. The player likely has hundreds of dollars at that point and can earn the required money with a couple of street fights. A later sequence has 10,000 dollars, which is similarly treated as severe despite the preceding fights giving the player more than enough to pay the woman demanding the money immediately.
  • Kiryu states his cancer is terminal and he only has six months to go. The player can spend months in Dondonko Island without Kiryu's state worsening. If they have the DLC, he'll even show up as a resort guest!
  • Just like the last game, only Ichiban and Kiryu appear in substories and life links but the party shows up for any combat that inevitably arrives. Once the fights end, the party disappears again and the story acts as if Ichiban/Kiryu fought solo.
  • In his drink links with Nanba after his collapse, Kiryu agrees not to drink with him. You can then turn around to the bar and get to max drunkenness together.
  • Despite Ichiban having been friends with the playable characters from the last game for years, their bond links all start at 0, just like the bond links for the new characters. Likewise, bond levels gained by one protagonist transfer over to the other character.
  • As always, guns are far more dangerous in cutscenes than they are in gameplay. Characters will stop or get killed like Hanawa and Wong Tou because of firearms only to take hits like a champ once gameplay commences.
  • Kiryu's cancer will never hamper his abilities in gameplay. Despite certain scenes implying that he's getting worse as the story goes long, he'll continue to fight in peak condition from beginning to end with no drawbacks or stat loss. If anything, due to the nature of the game, Kiryu will actually become stronger.
  • Despite the party facing tangible time limits during the story, such as being given exactly 2 hours to complete a task, they can casually go into restaurants and have leisurely chats over a meal, or play mahjong or sing karaoke together without a care in the world.
  • If any of the Walk and Talk finale cutscenes happen after Kiryu changes back into his trademark gray suit and red shirt (at which point he cannot change outfits again at all until the end of the game), the photo Kiryu takes with his teammate will still depict him in the black shirt he wears for the majority of the game.
  • All the enemies (and in turn, all the Sujimon that Ichiban can recruit) are all male. However, through DLC, he can recruit his party members as Sujimon to use in battles as well as on Dondoko Island; this includes his 3 female teammates Saeko, Chitose and Seonhee, who are still referred to as male by Ichiban and the system menus for any Sujimon-related activities.
• Green Aesop:
  • The story has elements of this due to nuclear waste from Japan's reactors being an important plot point. The Big Bads Ebina Masataka and Bryce Fairchild take part in a government-mandated plan to store Japan's nuclear waste on remote islands; Ebina however, plans to use ex-yakuza labor for the storage process, knowing that its remoteness makes it impossible to leave, and that their part in nuclear waste disposal would lead to a slow and painful death. Bryce, for all his posturing as the leader of the religion revering Hawaii's natural beauty, also seems to actively not care about how he stores the nuclear waste and simply dumps it into a large cavern on the island haphazardly. Ultimately, the plan is thwarted by our protagonists.
  • Dondoko Island is a straighter example, since Ichiban spends the majority of his time cleaning up the island in his quest to make it a 5-star resort. The Arc Villains of the island, the Washbucklers, have every intent to (illegally) dump their garbage purely For the Evulz, causing no shortage of trouble for everyone involved.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: The giant squid in Nele Island appears straight outta nowhere (aside from missable NPC conversations mentioning they spotted it) other than to give a boss fight, with even the shark at least having some foreshadowing with Dwight Méndez's last fight occuring around those areas.
• Giant Squid: Two of them: the Blessed Leviathan lives in the underground waters of Nele Island and serves as a boss fight. If its tentacles aren't taken out in time it'll eat a party member, and they'll subsequently have to fight their way out. The Game Master from the Big Swell DLC is a golden recolor, but it can talk.
• Goroawase Number: The Linebacker DLC job has different jersey numbers for each man that can use it, with most of them being their names as spelled out with numbers:
  • Ichiban: 1 (ichi)
  • Tomizawa: 103 (to-mi)
  • Adachi: 51 (ko-ichi)
  • Nanba: 78 (na-ba)
• Gratuitous English:
  • Justified, as one half of the game is set in Hawaii. As such, all of the NPCs speak English in Honolulu, while NPCs speak Japanese in Ijincho and Kamurocho.
  • One particular instance in the beginning has Tomizawa trying to pull a fast one on Ichiban by lying to some police officers and framing him up in heavily-accented (but still understandable) English.
    Tomizawa: Yeah, arrest that scumbag! I'm pissing myself over here!
• Goofy Suit: The mascot of Alo-Happy Tours wears a ridiculous suit of a perpetually-smiling anthropomorphic palm tree. And despite the suit's constant grin, the poor guy in it sounds absolutely dead inside, and makes it clear that he hates his job.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Unlike the previous game, this iteration sometimes gives you these, either controllable or not:
  • Saeko is playable for all of one battle in Chapter 1 before formally joining the party in Chapter 8.
  • Eiji is also on Ichiban's side for a few fights in Chapter 2, but only to provide buffs from the sidelines.
  • Yamai joins the party for one battle.
  • Asakura and Ichiban team up for a side-quest fight.
  • In The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, Daigo, Majima, and Saejima team up with Kiryu for one last hurrah, with the four legends beating the crap out of a bunch of greenhorn Seiryu members.
• Happy Ending Override:
  • At the beginning of the game, Kasuga is hailed as the "Hero of Yokohama'' after the events of the previous game, and he seems on track to lead an honest life as a normal civilian, only to lose his job and have his good name tarnished by an antagonistic Vtuber. He then journeys to Hawaii in the hopes of finding his mother, only to find himself stranded in a foreign land without a possession to his name — not even his clothes! In the span of a short time, he goes from folk hero to, once again, rock bottom. On the plus side however, Ichiban states early on that Kume was eventually arrested for the death of Masato Arakawa.
  • Many, many ex-Yakuza suffer this fate in the wake of the Great Dissolution, as their attempts to lead honest and legitimate lives are thwarted by Tatara Hisoka. Ichiban's attempt to help one such ex-con, Shinya Suzuki, is what leads to him getting slandered by the Tatara Channel; much later in the game, it's revealed that Majima, Saejima, and Daigo's private security venture went under due to her interference as well, and they're eking out a lonely and difficult living in a remote fishing village, too depressed to get back on their feet. This is all part of Masataka Ebina's Evil Plan: by interfering with their efforts to go legit, he hopes to force former Yakuza members to give up their attempts at redemption and join the Seiryu Clan, so that he can then destroy his own organization and wipe out the Yakuza once and for all.
• He's Back!: In the final chapter, Daigo, Majima, and Saejima pull a Big Damn Heroes to help Kiryu during his party's ascent of the Millennium Tower. All three are raring to go, having clearly been snapped out of their earlier funk by fighting Kiryu.
• Hula and Luaus: One of the new jobs is a Hula Dancer inspired class called Geodancer.
• I Know Madden Kombat: The two DLC Jobs are Linebacker (for males) and Tennis Ace (for females). There's also the Aquanaut skill, which involves using a surfboard as well as diving techniques.
• Illegal Gambling Den: Honolulu has some, most of which are run by the Ganzhe. This is Truth in Television as gambling is completely outlawed in Hawaii, so casinos can't operate out in the open.
• In Harm's Way: Kiryu insists on being sent on missions and involving himself in combat despite his terminal cancer diagnosis. He pointedly refuses any attempt by others to suggest he slow down or spend his last days relaxing.
• Innocently Insensitive: Nathan in the substory "Samurai, May We Walk Together?". He has nothing but love and respect for Japanese culture, but the way he envisions how Japanese people live is stereotypical at best and racist at worst, such as making Ichiban play darts with shuriken and expecting him to either commit Seppuku or yubitsube when he loses. He learns to see Japanese people as real individuals instead of fictional characters by the end of the substory.
• An Interior Designer Is You: You can customize houses in Dondoko Island with furniture you can buy or craft, a la Animal Crossing.
• Immediate Sequel: Not the full game, but the story half of the game's special demo is framed like this. It starts off literal seconds after The Stinger of Like a Dragon Gaiden, with Kiryu having just placed Yumi's engagement ring on the altar of the Nanala Hill church in Hawaii.
• Internal Reveal: Kazuma Kiryu was publicly declared as deceased back in Yakuza 6. In the story, Kiryu's survival is publicly outed on a major VTuber channel.
• Interface Spoiler: The fact that only some characters get markers for bond conversations in Hawaii lets you know which characters are not staying in Honolulu.
• Irony:
  • In the last game, Ichiban willingly accepted prison time for a murder (he thought was done) in Jo Sawashiro's name. In chapter 2, Sawashiro reveals that the Seiryu Clan are accepting of him being around because he didn't actually shoot Hoshino: Ryo Aoki was aware of his anonymous tip to Ichiban to get him to stop him and had somebody else stealthily assassinate Hoshino prior to the raid, leading to Sawashiro walking into a Frame-Up. When Aoki phoned to gloat about this, he confirmed to Sawashiro that he'd never actually trusted him, pushing him into a Despair Event Horizon that had him willingly accept prison time for a murder he didn't actually commit.
  • Right as Kiryu reveals to be dying of cancer in this game the news spreads about him that he actually survived the events of Yakuza 6 after all. Talk about adding insult to injury.
• Item Crafting: You can craft furniture to decorate your house as well as buildings in the Dondoko Island sidestory.
• Job System: The system returns, now with the context of unlocking new jobs by going on tours in Hawaii to get inspiration from them.
• Lady of Black Magic: The Housemaid job for female party members. It's got the weakest attack rating of any job, but makes up for it with powerful skills ranging from burning enemies with steam irons, scrubbing the stains out of them, or running them over with a horde of Roombas.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Wait a minute, Kiryu faked his death and was thought to be dead for a while? Better go play Yakuza 6 to get more context on that.
• Let Us Never Speak of This Again: Sawashiro actually did find Akane on one of his trips to Hawaii looking for her, but Akane told Sawashiro to tell Arakawa that she was dead so that he wouldn't worry about her. After this, Arakawa never talked about Akane ever again, not even to Ichiban or Masato.
• Lemonade Stand Plot: The substory "A Love As Sweet As Lemons" features a young boy named Tony running a lemonade stand to try and raise money for a going-away present for his teacher. Ichiban, being Ichiban, helps him out by handing out free samples of lemonade to draw in customers.
• Lord British Postulate: It's possible to win against the first battle against Jo Amon in spite of being a Seemingly Hopeless Boss Fight at first, but the game still treats as if Kiryu had lost.
• Miles to Go Before I Sleep: Kiryu's side-content has him making peace with his past with the time he has left via a personal Bucket List, which has various objectives involving such things as reminiscing about past events. Filling out the list will also strengthen Kiryu gameplay-wise.
• Mood Whiplash: The story deals with both dark drama and vacation fun, so some incredibly jarring mood shifts are a given.
  • The trailer switches from dark drama, to Ichiban having a lot of fun in Hawaii, then finally Kiryu somberly revealing he has cancer.
  • As with the previous game, some of the jobs are extremely silly such as a Ninja Maid, the Action Star job with its wacky kung fu moves, and the Aquanaut job which has someone surfing around and tossing jellyfish to attack. However, when a battle follows a desperately somber or dramatic moment such as directly after Eiji's betrayal and resulting death of Wong Tou and Hanawa the shift into the fun combat outfits can be jarring to say the least.
  • Also directly after said example, when Chitose decides to reveal her true identity as the voice behind Tatara Channel and goes into her cutesy VTuber voice to prove it... in the same room as Wong Tou and Hanawa's lifeless bodies and an unconscious Akane.
  • At the start of the final chapter, Ichiban and Kiryu are having a very serious conversation about Ebina's origins and how Kiryu is entrusting the yakuza's future to Ichiban, with Ichiban in turn imploring Kiryu to not think of what's coming as the end. But then the mood shifts completely as Kiryu asks Ichiban how things went with Saeko, turning the mood hilariously awkward as Ichiban recalls how horrendously the date went, and freaks out at how simple things could've been. Then the mood goes right back to serious as a Daidoji agent shows up to scold Kiryu for having his cover blown to the world.
• Money Mauling: The Millionaire Strike option from Poundmates lets you summon Shun Akiyama, who causes a Flechette Storm by hurling handfuls of yen notes like throwing knives. It's one of the most powerful Poundmates options in the game.
• Musical Theme Naming:
  • In the English translation, the chapter titles are all named after Elvis Presley songs. In the Japanese sub, all 14 chapters are names of pop songs, both old and new. The title of the final chapter means, you guessed it, Infinite Wealth.
  • The ending reveals that the game's subtitle itself, Infinite Wealth, is named after the song, Ariamaru Tomi -The Invaluable- that plays as Ichiban carries Eiji to the police. The lyrics of the song discusses how true wealth lies in the lives we cherish and live to the fullest, and that this wealth is something nobody can take away from you.
• My Rules Are Not Your Rules:
  • Applied as a heroic power move this time. Befitting his stoic, no-nonsense personality (up to a point) Kiryu has a unique Limit Break ability in his "Dragon of Dojima" class called "Dragon's Resurgence", that effectively allows him to forgo the Turn-Based Combat nature of the fighting system and switch straight back into the series' traditional Beat 'em Up fighting system where he excels in creatively destroying his opponents. Given the name of the ability, it also serves as a way to highlight the difference between his Brought Down to Badass circumstances with his cancer, and just what he'd be capable of if he wasn't being held back. Albeit for only about ~10 seconds at a time.
  • On the flipside, the Tojo Legends all use their own equivalent to the above ability once their health is depleted, forcing Kiryu to respond with his own Dragon's Resurgence.

Tropes N-Z

• Naked People Are Funny: The title reveal has Ichiban waking up naked on a Honolulu beach.
• Nerf:
  • In Yakuza: Like a Dragon, Joongi Han's Head Trauma is considered by many to be his most powerful skills, and is considered to be a major pick due to it. In Infinite Wealth, Head Trauma is removed from his Hitman class, which when combined with his later joining time, may make it harder to justify using him.
  • To compensate for all Poundmates being able to be reused, after using a Poundmate in a battle at least once, the hiring price for all Poundmates will massively increase until the end of the battle to prevent players from spamming them. Additionally, unlike the first game, the first usage of a Poundmate isn't free (barring the tutorial section with Chitose Buster Holmes).
  • Essence of Orbital Laser was the most powerful electric attacks. This game's version of it, the Essence of Dodonko Beam, is classified as a non-elemental magic attack. Downplayed as it can still paralyze enemies.
• Nerf Arm: The low-tier "weapons" for the Desperado, Kunoichi, and Samurai jobs are all childrens' toys before getting replaced by real revolvers, short swords, and katanas (respectively). All the weapons for some of the other jobs like the Housekeeper (mops and cordless vacuum cleaners), Tennis Ace (tennis rackets), Chef (spatulas), or Geodancer (maracas) also count.
• Never Bring a Gun to a Knife Fight: A standard trope for the franchise made even more prominent in this instalment. The Heroes of Tomorrow (who mostly fight with melee weapons and Good Old Fisticuffs) go to America, which has much more relaxed gun laws than Japan. Naturally, this results in them getting iron pulled on them frequently in both gameplay and cutscenes, and it barely slows them down either way.
• Ninja: One of the female-exclusive classes is "Kunoichi".
• Ninja Maid: The Housekeeper class has a female character make use of various cleaning implements to literally scrub enemies into submission. At higher levels, they can use a vacuum cleaner to make a mini-hurricane. The revelation for the Job even comes from Chitose watching a janitor do some amazing acrobatics and twirls with a mop to clean up some spilt food.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: How did Kiryu (most likely) get cancer? He got exposed to toxic chemicals while working at a disposal site because he went out of his way to help someone who suffered a heart attack, causing a barrel to fall on him and break his gas mask. Had he simply left the man to die, he might've avoided getting sick.
• Obvious Rule Patch: To prevent Sujimancer from completely obliterating the early-game, the Sujimon obtained through DLC cannot be equipped on Ichiban, forcing him to use only Sujimon obtained through convincing certain defeated opponents, defeating Sujimon Trainers, or the gacha.
• Occidental Otaku: One substory has Ichiban bump into Nathan, a small-time TV producer with a huge obsession with Japanese culture stemming from old samurai movies. He asks for Ichiban's help in making a TV show following a Japanese tourist as they experience Hawaii. He's a nice guy with great passion for his work, but his ideas of Japan and its culture are very... narrow.
• Older Than They Look: Applies to many characters returning after having previously been Put on a Bus. It's the most notable with Kaoru, who looks like she hasn't aged a day in 18 years, and even moreso with Yuki, who looks almost exactly like she did in Yakuza 0 which was 35 years earlier.
• One-Steve Limit: There are two people named "Chitose" in this game; one is a playable character and the other is your first Poundmate, who you meet accidentally when looking for the first Chitose. The two even have similar hairstyles.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Not commented on but present. During the final fight with Dwight, succeeding in the QTE has Ichiban throw Dwight into the ocean which has a very large shark that already ate one of the Barracudas. If not for Dwight managing to twist himself around, Ichiban would've killed him, which is pretty odd for the staunchly Thou Shalt Not Kill character. This is likely because Dwight has ignored every chance to back away and made it clear he'll kill Akane and kidnap Lani no matter what.
• Out-of-Genre Experience: In Chapter 12, during the boss fight with Goro Majima, Taiga Saejima and Daigo Dojima, each one will activate a special buff when their health is nearly empty that returns the game to its action brawler roots, with Kiryu and his old friends duking it out in a real-time slugfest until one of them goes down.
• Out of Job, into the Plot: Ichiban, Nanba and Adachi all lose their jobs at the same time due to Ichiban getting exposed online, which frees up their schedule for the rest of the game. This is revealed to be deliberate, to make sure Ichiban goes to Hawaii. Nanba and Adachi were just collateral damage, and Nanba getting fired actually had nothing to do with Ichiban's scandal as revealed in his Drink Links. Later on, Tomizawa and Chitose both find themselves without employers.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: In Seonhee's final Drink Link, Kiryu wants to help her with the attempted overthrow by a Geomijul elder, but knows that actively following her would undermine her authority as leader. So the Survive bartender presents him with a Geomijul mask to hide his face... and that's it. He's still otherwise wearing his same outfit and doesn't even try to hide his voice. Naturally, Seonhee sees right through him the moment he opens his mouth.
• Passing the Torch: As the story trailer shows, Kiryu more definitively hands over the role of protagonist to Ichiban in this installment, due to cancer starting to claim his life.
  Kiryu: I'll take on the yakuza's past. But you...I want you to handle their future.
• Phonýmon: Sujimon from the previous game were as subtle as a dump truck with how they were meant to be the game's equivalent to Pokémon, but with their return in this game, that dump truck has been loaded to the brim with Sujimon Battles, which are basically 3-on-3 Pokémon battles. There's also the Ichiban-exclusive Sujimancer Job that's capable of summoning Sujimon to fight for him.
• Playable Epilogue: "The Big Swell" DLC takes place after the events of the main story, with the party all together and taking the time to enjoy Hawaii while conquering a new dungeon.
• Post-Victory Collapse: After defeating Ebina and giving him a speech, Kiryu collapses from a combination of his injuries, old age and cancer. All of his friends present panic and call for a helicopter to take him to a hospital, but fortunately, he survives.
• Power Up Letdown: Maxing out Kiryu's Soul stat causes all of his improvised weapon attacks to turn into Heat actions with quick-time button presses for extra damage. While this does mean that they hit somewhat harder than regular improvised weapon attacks, it also means that they now only strike the enemy that is targeted when many would normally hit everything around the target as well. It also stops any secondary effects like stun or burning from happening. Combine both of those and it's effectively a downgrade.
• Precision F-Strike: From the Special Demo, we have the unique Coco Nutjob enemy encounter. As opposed to being designated as "Thugs", "Yakuza", or the like, he is simply referred to as "Asshole".
• Product Placement: As is tradition in the franchise, except now with the change in location some Hawaiian brands are thrown into the mix such as ABC stores. Local Honolulu stores such as 88 tees and Matsumoto shaved ice are also in the game.
• Promoted to Playable: Seonhee returns, now as a playable party member.
• Purposely Overpowered: Kiryu's Dragon of Dojima job is the strongest in the game. While it lacks in healing and status skills, its sheer damage output allows Kiryu's normal attacks to hit with the same damage as special skills and he has access to nearly every damage type in game. The Stance System also allows him to do things like attack twice in one turn or break through guard without the use of skills. It also doesn't require a weapon but still hits with more damage than another fully kitted out job with seven star gear.
• Recurring Boss: Dwight is fought three times, Asakura is fought four times (though every fight past the first is optional), and Yamai is fought five times.
• Recycled Soundtrack:
  • A brief snippet of "Bishop Violet Velveteen" from Yakuza 6 plays whenever Kiryu uses Dragon's Resurgence and literally breaks the turn-based combat back into a Beat 'em Up.
  • Kiryu's and Ichiban's parties both get returning themes for their respective encounters in Kamurocho - Ichiban getting "Ascension Point" from 7 while Kiryu gets "Funk Goes On" from the original game (as opposed to the Kiwami remix).
  • "Ogre Has Returned" from 3 plays during Kiryu's optional fight with Chau Ka Long, confirming the latter's identity as Lau Ka Long.
  • '"Speed Star" from 4 plays whenever Akiyama's Poundmate summon is used.
  • During the boss fight against Daigo, Majima, and Saejima, whenever one of their health bars go down, they'll activate their own version of Dragon's Resurgence and force Kiryu to do so as well, essentially turning the fight into a boss fight with them in the gameplay style from past games. When that happens, Kiryu is transported into an arena surrounded by his opponent's moments in past games, complete with their respective battle theme from 4 playing ("For Faith", "Receive and Bite You", and "Massive Fire")
• Rejected Marriage Proposal:
  • Ichiban tried proposing to Saeko on the first date, who turned him down. A cutscene with Kiryu and Ichiban talking to each other has the two discussing how he was rejected.
  • Saeko also does this in her final Drink Link to a CEO who was supposed to be distracting her while a rival club poached her girls. While the CEO developed real feelings for her, Saeko partly shoots him down because of what he and the rival club owner had been doing, but also because it reminds her too much of Ichiban's utter clusterfuck of a proposal.
• Revenge Before Reason: One of the game's main themes involves how corruptive the idea of revenge over redemption can be. Both Ebina and Eiji conspire to deny former yakuza any sort of redemption as part of their elaborate revenge, literally becoming the very thing they despise. Their wish to save people from the corruption of yakuza lead them to destroy both innocent lives and lives looking for redemption. It takes Kiryu's plea to live on to properly change the future, and Ichiban's compassion and sincere belief that anyone can change for the better that help steer them both off their self-destructive paths.
• Rewatch Bonus: The confrontation with Jo Sawashiro in Chairman Hoshino's office from Like A Dragon takes on an entirely different context with this game's reveal that he didn't actually shoot the chairman.
  • Sawashiro never actually says "yes" when Ichiban directly asks him if he shot the chairman. He affirms the plan was to kill him to topple what was left of the Ijin Three and payback for the "humiliation" of Ichiban running against Kume, but he side-steps Ichiban's question because he sees no point in protesting his innocence in his current state of mind.
  • Swashiro despondently states that Ichiban was too late when they burst into the room, noting that it was true of every job he'd always given him, even back when they were both in the Arakawa family.
    • Whilst initially it seems to be referring to how Sawashiro secretly wanted Ichiban to stop him from assassinating Hoshino, thus giving advance warning of the raid, Jo actually means that they were both too late. Hoshino had been assassinated long before the attack happened, possibly before Sawashiro even discreetly gave Ichiban the "job" of saving him, and he's noting the Irony that he should have known leaving it to Ichiban would have ensured the job was doomed.
    • Relatedly, For a man who didn't want to kill Hoshino, Sawashiro doesn't seem to have waited that long on entering the office before killing him, despite his men guarding the entrance to avoid interference, and there being no pressing issue forcing him to shoot quickly within the room itself. This hints at the fact that Hoshino was long dead before Sawashiro ever entered.
  • Sawashiro seems disgruntled when his threat to shoot Ichiban in the face with the murder weapon reveals it's empty.
    • He seems to apparently forgot to keep track of how many bullets he had in the chaos of reaching Hoshino and emptying the magazine into him. Except Hoshino only has a single gunshot wound to the chest, and Sawashiro had plenty of time to reload whilst waiting for Ichiban and company. The gun is empty because Sawashiro didn't bring it, it was left behind on Hoshino's desk and he picked it up in his despondency on seeing how thoroughly Aoki has Out-Gambitted him and his own son taunting him that he'd never actually trusted him in a final phone call. The pistol was left unloaded just in case Sawashiro tried to use it to defend himself against the Seiryu Clan in the building, further incriminating himself without leaving any actual means of defence for him.
    • Ichiban and the party find Takabe in the Lobby, injured with a gunshot wound to the arm, stating he got it from the attackers, and further reinforcing the idea Sawashiro was carrying a gun on him during the attack. Except, Takabe only says one of them has a gun, not the Lieutenant himself. Sure enough, the mandatory fight with the Omi Alliance goons outside the office will have one or two of them holding guns in their fighting poses, suggesting Takabe was referring to one of the unnamed goons rather than Sawashiro himself.
  • Sawashiro's Sanity Slippage from Arakawa's death seems to get more pronounced throughout the fight with him, ultimately culminating in him grabbing a broken Katana blade bare-handed to utilise two weapons at once against the party, which both Joon-Gi and Saeko note is uncharacteristically intense for him. At first it seems to be his frustration against Ichiban for failing to stop him in time along with his beloved patriarch's death. In actuality, it's both the fact of Arakawa's death, Hoshino being long-dead due to Aoki predicting Sawashiro's plan to spare him, and arranging the scene to frame him for the murder. A final phone call to his (unknowing) son has him confirm to Sawashiro that he never trusted him, which brings the full weight of Sawashiro's failures down on him and pushes him into a full-blown Despair Event Horizon, which he eventually turns into a frustrated breakdown against Ichiban and the party, cathartically venting his self-hatred over his inability to save anyone.
• Riddle for the Ages: Who it was that actually shot Chairman Hoshino in Like A Dragon becomes this, as Sawashiro reveals that, rather than Ichiban and Co not arriving in time to stop him, Hoshino was already dead before Sawashiro's raid ever began, with Ryo Aoki having contacted somebody else to sneak into the building and silently assassinate him beforehand, aware of Sawashiro's aim to have Ichiban thwart him and turning the situation into a Frame-Up he had no reason to deny. With Aoki long dead and no traces of the actual assassin remaining, all that can be deduced is that they were incredibly stealthy and calculated, having left behind the unloaded murder weapon in case Sawashiro tried to defend himself to further incriminate him.
• Romantic Wingman: Adachi and Nanba are this for Ichiban towards Saeko in the first chapter. By the end of the game, everyone is looking outside Survive Bar as Ichiban, once again, goes too over the top in his love confession for Saeko.
• Ruthless Foreign Gangsters: Played With by the Barracudas. They're local to Hawaii, which means they're only "foreign" to the Japanese protagonists, and they're ethnically diverse rather than being a Generic Ethnic Crime Gang, unlike the Yamai Syndicate and the Ganzhe. But they're much, much nastier than any organization that Ichiban and Kiryu have dealt with in Japan, brutally killing anyone who crosses them with their signature machetes.
• Sadly Mythtaken: The Indomitable Venus, the Infinity +1 Sword for the Tennis Ace job, refers to Venus as the goddess of victory. Venus was the Roman goddess of love and beauty. Victoria was the goddess of victory.
• Scenery Censor: In the teaser, common beach elements such as surfboards, seashells, and a bottle of sunscreen were all that kept Ichiban's unmentionables hidden.
• Searching for the Lost Relative: Ichiban's trip to Hawaii is so that he can find his birth mother.
• Seemingly Hopeless Boss Fight: The fight against Jo Amon in Chapter 8 has him at an extremely high level compared to Kiryu and his party, and he can and likely will kill Kiryu within a turn or two. And then Kiryu unlocks Dragon's Resurgence in the ensuing cutscene, turning him into a Zero-Effort Boss that Kiryu can wipe the floor with in a single combo.
• Sequel Goes Foreign: This time around, Ichiban is traveling to Hawaii in search of his birth mother.
• Shamu Fu: The Aquanaut's "Ahi Aloha" ability has them clobber opponents with a gigantic frozen tuna pulled from Hammerspace that's longer than they are tall.
• Shout-Out:
  • When infiltrating a secret casino using a camera hidden in Kiryu's sunglasses courtesy of the Daidoji faction, Ichiban compares himself to James Bond while looking at the video feed.
  • The Action Star job has the job user wear what's basically Bruce Lee's signature yellow jump suit.
  • The "Crazy Delivery Driver" minigame is a giant Crazy Taxi sendup, only replace "driving dangerously to get passengers to their destinations" with "cycling dangerously to get food orders to customers". Charlie, the one who gives Ichiban the job, even resembles Axel from the first game.
  • The entire Sujimon Battle minigame is an incredibly obvious Affectionate Parody of Pokémon.
    • It revolves around recruiting Sujimon and pitting them off against other Sujimon in turn-based battles, complete with Sujimon having elemental types that counter or are countered by each other.
    • The Sujimon League features four elite Sujimon trainers that Ichiban has to face before he can fight the champion.
    • When the Sujimon Professor learns that Ichiban is going to Hawaii, he describes it as a "new region" of Sujimon paradise blessed by the Sun and Moon.
    • Hawaii has "Suji Spots" dotted around that give free resources for the Sujimon minigame, and "Raids" that pop up for chances at getting rare Sujimon, à la Pokémon GO.
  • Photographer George Kuroki mentions his field of photography is "lifestyles of the sick and infamous".
  • Kasuga's new animation for summoning Poundmates is a recreation of the transformation poses for Kamen Rider Ex-Aid.
  • Two of the Kunoichi job's abilities are called Shadow Clone Jutsu and Essence of Sexy Jutsu.
  • In the first episode of the radio show "SegWaves", one of the hosts describes an incident when a young man in a leather jacket walked up to him and asked him where to find sailors, proceeding to ask the same question to everyone else on the street.
  • One of the new Sujimon is named Jetstream Samurai. Another is named Pretty Cur.
  • A conversation between Saeko and Seonhee over nail polish reveals that one of Nanba's hobbies is making model kits. Specifically, mecha model kits.
  • Two of the Action Star skills are taken directly from Virtua Fighter. The Flying Monkey Strike is a string from Eileen whereas the Tiger Palm Strike is one of Akira's signature moves. Characters will even say "Juunen hayain da yo!" to hammer the shout out further.
  • Tomizawa's ex-wife is named Marie, and her new boyfriend's last name is Kondo. Hmm...
  • During a conversation about tomato jam, Ichiban and Adachi begin wondering if they could make all food taste good if it becomes jam. When Adachi begings musing on creating an unholy abomination that is dried mackerel jam, Chitose protests that this isn't the Cathedral of Shadows for food. In the English dub, she'll complain about applying demon fusion logic to food.
  • The bond conversation in which Saeko talks about taking boxing classes is called Hajime no Saeko.
• Showdown at High Noon: Parodied with the "Essence of High Noon" Essence Move for the Desperado Job, where the Desperado and the foe get into a classic Western duel... Only for the Desperado to pull out a massive Railgun to blow the enemy to hell.
• Significant Name Overlap: Used to introduce Poundmates mechanic when Ichiban's party were looking for a girl with braided hair named Chitose, only to end up meeting Chitose Buster Holmes, who is also sporting braided hair.
• Social Media Before Reason: Kiryu gets framed as being an out-of-control berserker who's murdering ex-yakuza out of pure bloodlust. This results in a bunch of people running up to him to shove cameras in his face, and not one of them bother to stop and consider the idea that if he really was a wild and bloodthirsty mass-murderer like they believe, then going anywhere near him would not be a good idea to say the least.
• Stance System: Kiryu's character job, Dragon of Dojima, features his signature Brawler/Beast/Rush stances as its central gimmick, now adapted to turn-based combat. "Brawler" is balanced with the ability to perform unique context-sensitive HEAT Actions, "Beast" buffs his attack and defence while enabling his basic attacks to break guards, and "Rush" expands his movement range while enabling him to perform two basic attacks per turn.
• Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: In Chapter 9, after Eiji betrays the group by revealing the Daidoji safehouse's location to Bryce, Barracudas assault the safehouse. During the attack, Hanawa is shot in the gut and pronounced dead soon after. Given his implied true identity as Morinaga, this left many fans confused and disappointed. Consider this a bit Zig-Zagged as Like A Dragon: Gaiden's plot was actually developed after this game's story although releasing before it.
• Suicide Attack: Ichiban's final boss Bryce can command his goons to hug live dynamite and charge the team. It doesn't even do that much damage; he mostly does it to showcase the absolute loyalty he commands.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Kume's last appearance in Like A Dragon had him indicate through his words and body language that he expected not to be punished for assassinating Masato Arakawa, and would carry on the cause of Bleach Japan in his stead, and the game ended with his fate after left ambiguous. This game, during Ichiban's reminiscence on the last game's events, he reveals that Kume was eventually caught by the police and incarcerated for the murder. He stabbed an unarmed man in front of several witnesses, and even if his victim was indeed no saint himself, Kume's decision to take justice into his own hands was unneeded and unlawful, meaning there was no legal protection he could have used as a defence, not even the "Gray Zone" logic he was so prone to accidentally falling into. He also didn't have the best combat experience to evade authorities with, either.
  • Unlike Masaharu Kaito, Tomizawa's attempt at a dropkick on Roman earns him a not-so-fun back injury. Should go without saying, but Don't Try This at Home.
  • The Great Dissolution of the Yakuza ended on a pretty idealistic note in the last game with the hope that former members could reintegrate into society. As this game shows, however, 70,000 former criminals would not be fondly looked upon by society. The anti-Yakuza laws make it hard for any ex-Yakuza member to re-integrate into society and many turn back to a life of crime out of desperation since the majority of workplaces aren't willing to hire them. Lost Judgment showcased this as well with many former Yakuza and random punks drifting into gangs like RK that filled the void left behind.
  • Additionally, the Great Dissolution only affected the Tojo and Omi clans — whom were still the major two Yakuza clans in the country, but far from the only ones — and thus there were lots of minor, but still-intact Yakuza clans with an established command structure left standing in the aftermath. Whilst the Anti-Yakuza laws have made life difficult for them, clans with a history like theirs don't just vanish overnight, and have endured the harsh conditions even 4 years after the first Dissolution. Ebina and Sawashiro's aim is to finish what the first failed to accomplish, and consolidate all the clans together to fully legitimize the remnants, now that it's obvious the old Yakuza way of life is done even to the most vocal of protestors.
  • Kiryu's often smoked like a chimney ever since he was a young man and regularly consumed alcohol in liberal quantities over the years. Whilst he's in amazing shape for a man in his 60's, this unhealthy living style seems to have caught up to him by the present day, contributing to his widespread cancer diagnosis. Even when the given cause is claimed to be exposure to Radioactive waste whilst on a mission, Kiryu can't conclusively say that his past habits didn't add to it, given how widespread the cancer had become once it was fully diagnosed afterwards.
  • What, were you thinking that Dwight would leave you be as thanks for sparing him after you've beaten him? He stays in power and proceeds to send his men after you at every possible opportunity. That costs Hanawa's life down the line, as he got an ambush ready when The Mole gets exposed.
  • The reveal of Eiji as The Mole in Ichiban's party has him reveal that he was Faking The Disability to specifically prey on Ichiban's fonder memories of caring for Masato in order to quickly gain his trust whilst monitoring his search for Akane. However, whilst he's a skilled actor, he notes that it took more than sitting down in a wheelchair to convincingly enact his performance, as the same experience with caring for an actually-disabled person meant that Ichiban would have been able to pick up on the subtle tells that indicated he still had motor function in his legs. Therefore, at Ebina's insistence, Eiji's been using anaesthetics to numb his legs into genuine non-responsiveness the entire time, and requires aid from the Barracudas he summons to the safe house to escape until the drugs wore off.
  • Prior to his Boss fight, Narasaki's Dynamic Intro has him getting an Odachi from his subordinate as long as he is tall (and he is a tall bastard). Whilst it looks like he's going to unsheathe the blade himself, the sword is actually too long to be drawn in a single motion with the width of one man's arm span. Narasaki has to partially unsheathe the blade from the scabbard, and then dangle the whole thing over the banister he's standing on to let gravity pull the sword free to do it by himself.
  • The Like A Dragon series is known for its Final Boss fights usually being a challenging fist-fight against a skilled hand-to-hand fighter. Whilst that is indeed present in this game too, as shown by Kiryu's face-off with Ebina, in Ichiban's case, his final opponent is Bryce Fairchild, an elderly man in his 80s-90s who maintains power through his indoctrinated agents and connections rather than physical force. Whilst Bryce is indeed fairly hardy and spry for an elderly man, his threat comes from the zealots he sics on the party alongside spraying them with machines gun fire and grenades. When Ichiban overcomes all of this and disarms him of his guns, forcing him to pick up a discarded sword, his showing is exactly as pathetic as you'd expect from an old man in a physical confrontation with a much fitter and younger opponent.
  • Kiryu once famously took a bottle being cracked open on the back of his head without flinching. Despite being a Stone Wall who takes regular hits in combat like a champ, Ichiban has nowhere near his superhuman durability, merely a high endurance threshold. In the ending, after helping Eiji Mitamura turn himself into the police, some jackass in the crowd around them beans him in the head with a similar bottle (which doesn't even break). On top of the injuries he's already accumulated, the blow concusses Ichiban near-instantly and makes him collapse face-first.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Honolulu has the Revolve Bar, which is effectively the overseas version of the Survive Bar. Not only do the bars serve similar purposes as a hangout/base of operations for Ichiban and his crew, the local bartender is also implied to be a surviving previous character (in this case, Andre Richardson).
• Super Mode: Kiryu has a unique power-up known as "Dragon's Resurgence" in which he temporarily ignores the turn-based combat and starts beating up enemies using the traditional beat-em-up combat system.
• Take That!: The substory "Samurai, May We Walk Together?" is this towards Americans who only enjoy Japanese culture on a superficial level without actually knowing anything about the country or its people. Nathan and his friends expect Ichiban to eat cold rice over Hawaiian food, wear a fukaamigasa instead of using an umbrella when it rains, use shuriken to play darts, commit seppuku or yubitsume when he loses, and snorkel using a bamboo shoot. All because he's Japanese. Fortunately, the substory also makes the point that there's nothing wrong with Westerners enjoying Japanese culture in and of itself so long as they truly understand and appreciate it beyond what they perceive to be "cool".
• Then Let Me Be Evil: This is deliberately invoked as part of Ebina's plan to consolidate all Yakuza under his banner. By actively sabotaging all possibilities for them to reform and live lives as normal civilians, he plans to force them back into organized crime under the Seiryu Clan so that he can eventually round them up and send them to the irradiated hellhole that is Nele Island under pretenses of being sent there to oversee what they assume is a legitimate waste disposal facility.
• Threatening Shark: One of the bosses in the game is a giant shark that attacks the boat the heroes are on.
• The Topic of Cancer: Early on in the story, Kazuma reveals to the group that he is dying of cancer.
• Title Drop: In the English dub, when Sojimaru gives Professor Okita an Ash Face with her flamethrower, Ichiban makes his shock clear.
  Ichiban: This is no time for an analysis, doc! She breathes fire now? Like a dragon!?
• Trailers Always Spoil:
  • Two of the biggest reveals/plot points/Player Punches of the game, namely Kiryu dying of cancer and Ichiban proposing to Saeko and getting rejected were thoroughly spoiled months before release in official trailers and releases from Sega, which significantly lessens their impact in the game - Kiryu's illness and expected death in particular is presented as a shock to everyone present, but the player likely already knew about it and was just waiting for it to get brought up, and there was an entire trailer focused around the "Bucket List" mechanic.
  • On top of the above, the Final Boss was basically spoiled in the final trailer, seeing as a shot of Ebina can be briefly seen atop the Millennium Tower with an irezumi - of Gozuki, to be exact - on his back. If you know anything about Like a Dragon, you know that the Final Boss is almost always set atop a building (not always, but usually the Millennium Tower) at night (save for Yakuza 5^note  Technically speaking, Saejima's Final Boss, Majima, took place on a rooftop, but Kiryu's Final Boss (of the entire game), Aizawa, was set in Tojo Clan HQ. , 6^note  Iwami's fight took place at a shipyard in Onomichi. , and Gaiden^note  As a parallel to Aizawa's fight, Shishido's was set at the Omi Alliance's HQ, and during the sunset, at that. ), and said Final Boss is almost always shirtless, to boot.
  • A more minor example, but Yutaka Yamai getting his own character introduction trailer and not being in the "Overseers" trailer is a subtle hint at Yamai's true colors. Bryce being in that trailer with Dwight and Wong Tou is this as well, albeit in a different way.
• Trash the Set: The Tojo Clan HQ is burnt down in the final chapter by Ebina.
• Turn-Based Combat: Like the previous game, combat takes place on a turn-based basis. This time, the player is afforded a measure of maneuverability on their turn, as they are able to manually position their character within a circle before acting to better take advantage of certain abilities. The circle gets bigger as the character levels up.
• Uncertain Doom: Ultimately, Kiryu still lives by the end of the game. However, his cancer reached terminal levels and is undergoing chemotherapy. Regardless whether or not he survives, if he does, his haggard and thinner frame in the post-credits scene makes it clear that the Dragon of Dojima is gone for good, and Kiryu can no longer function as a playable character going forward.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: The Dondoko Island side-activity not only changes the game to a life sim focused on turning a polluted island into a 5 star resort, but the combat sections has Ichiban whack pirates with his baseball bat in real time rather than engage in turn-based combat (though the combat is also much more cumbersome than the typical RGG brawler combat).
• The Unfair Sex: After Ichiban and Saeko's date ends up ending badly, the other characters are quick to criticize Ichiban for what he did wrong but at no point does anyone suggest to Saeko that holding a grudge against him and refusing to talk to him for an entire year wasn't exactly a mature response. She does, after all, know that Ichiban is highly inexperienced in relationships and is rather clueless but well-meaning and prone to having a motor mouth whenever he's nervous. While Saeko does apologize to Ichiban during the post-credit scene, the closest she gets to criticism is advice she receives from Kiryu during their Drink Links.
• Unflinching Walk:
  • "Ultimate Tag Team: Essence of Friendship" has every party member attack one after the other, which ends in Ichiban creating a giant blue explosion before everyone calmly walks away without a passing glance back.
  • Tomizawa's "Essence of Buckle Up" ends with Tomizawa's driving causing the cab to go flying and explode, before he bids them farewell and coolly walks away from the ensuing fireball.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Kiryu is outed by the Tatara channel at the end of chapter 8 as having faked his death. Unlike when Ichiban was slandered, however, it in no way keeps him from being able to walk around unimpeded and no one ever seems to recognize the legendary Yakuza wearing the same outfit and hairstyle as the video he was outed in. As a note, by the time this happens, Tatara Channel was taken over by a soundalike due to Chitose defecting. Diehard fans of hers noticed the change along with the shift in content and question her legitimacy.
• We Are Everywhere: The Palekana Cult is revealed to be this throughout the game. Starting from the heist on Wong Tou's secret casino in the Nirvana Hotel, it's revealed that most, if not all the members of Barracuda and Ganzhe are actually working directly for Bryce Fairchild, the Sage of the Palekana cult. Worse, it's later revealed that he has been indoctrinating child soldiers and planting them back into society as sleeper agents; Tomizawa's acquaintance, one such secret cult member, later kills himself after attempting (and failing) to kill him to carry out Bryce's orders. Soon after, several seemingly innocent Honolulu citizens all zealously attack the party, showing how deep the cult's influence goes.
• We Cannot Go On Without You: Downplayed. As the game has two different Party Leaders (Ichiban being the leader in Hawaii, while Kiryu leads in Japan), if you happen to have the other protagonist in your party and he gets knocked out, you won't be hit with a Game Over. They act like any other party member and as such, can be easily revived if they're downed.
• Wham Episode: Chapter 9. Hooray, Ichiban and his friends found Akane and Lani before Bryce did! All that's left is to fly them to safety in Japan! Except, at the Daidoji safehouse, Chitose exposes Eiji as a spy for Ebina, after which the Barracudas raid the safehouse, kidnap Lani, and kill Hanawa and Wong Tou. If all this wasn't enough, at the very beginning of the next chapter, Chitose then reveals herself as the voice behind Tatara Hisoka, having been blackmailed by Eiji to ruin Ichiban's career and reveal that Kiryu is alive to the world.
• Wham Line: After Ichiban, Tomizawa and Kiryu share a drink at his hotel room, Kiryu reveals something important, one that many longtime diehard Like A Dragon/Yakuza fans thought they would never have to hear:
  Kiryu: Thing is... I've got cancer.
• Wham Shot: The end of Chapter 8 has a sure sign of shit hitting the fan when, after Kiryu is exposed on the Tatara Channel, he tries to get in touch with Hanawa... and the audience sees him dead in the safehouse.
• Wolfpack Boss:
  • The final fight in the Hawaiian Haunt is against the "Michio Rangers", consisting of the original Robo Michio and four others named after The Four Gods.
  • Similarly, the final fight in the Yokohama Underground is against Jo, Jiro, Sango, and Kazuya Amon, each with a different skill set and the ability to do Tag Team attacks.
• The Worf Effect: Despite having cancer, the game makes sure to remind us that Kiryu still ranks as among the strongest characters in the series.
  • Sawashiro put up a pretty hard fight against Ichiban and his crew in Like A Dragon, but his boss fight in Infinite Wealth, while the other strongest fighters of the Seiryu Clan are being handled by Nanba, Saeko, Zhao, and Seonhee, has Kiryu single-handedly defeat him. Something that shocks Nanba, Saeko and Zhao considering how hard the party struggled against him before.
  • In the previous game, Majima and Saejima are fought as a Heads I Win, Tails You Lose encounter with all seven members of the party taking them only leaving them a bit winded. In this game, despite Daigo also joining in, the fight ends without a clear winner, leaving both sides exhausted. As implied from the QTE during the fight, the three were able to fight off the party just fine and easily would have been able to take Kiryu down, as he collapsed after defending himself from Majima. Due to the party protecting Kiryu, however, Kiryu himself was able to retaliate in return. In fact, the finishing blow to each of those three legends even has the fight turning to a one-on-one match as both Kiryu and one of them break the turn-based combat rules and seemingly focus on fighting without anyone else getting in the way, as implied by how the surroundings turn into an ethereal space filled with the memories Kiryu had with one of them. Despite this, Kiryu is brought to the ground by the end of the fight, cementing a true draw.
  • The Dynamic Intro of Ebina's cutscene has him making short work of Nanba, Zhao, Seonhee and Saeko, but Kiryu alone was able to stand up to Ebina and land solid hits. Though he does seem to require aid from the others into weakening Ebina, by the end of the fight, he's the only one out of the party who is left standing and is ultimately the one who finishes off Ebina by breaking his sword bare-handed, punching him so hard as to knock him into the air, and then pushing through Ebina's punch that collided into his face to finally down Ebina with his punch.
• Worf Had the Flu:
  • A game-wide example. Kiryu's cancer has weakened him to the point that he needs to rely on others to be able to fight as effectively as he once did, and while he is still capable of demonstrating somewhat similar levels of strength to his old glory, his age means he can't maintain it for long and he will quickly start weakening if he pushes himself too far. It's made explicitly clear that if he could bring in his old levels of strength completely then a lot of the story events and fights would be way easier. Characters such as Yamai even express disappointment that Kiryu seems to be far weaker compared to how he'd normally be.
  • Compared to their portrayal in Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name and Yakuza 6, to a lesser extent, as a shadow organisation with absolute power, the Daidoji faction has a rather pitiful presence in Hawaii. Justified as they are carrying out their mission in a US state as opposed to Japan and would prefer to be discreet, but at most they have a total of five agents, including Kiryu and Hanawa on Honolulu. This ends up backfiring horribly as their supposed safehouse is attacked by the local Barracuda gang after Eiji tips them off. Even worse, this happens while three agents are off refueling a plane to return to Japan and Kiryu already having returned to Japan after falling into critical condition. This leaves only Hanawa to defend the safehouse and he very promptly gets shot and killed. Potentially Justified once again as they were betrayed from the inside after all; additionally, the Daidoji apparently now have less government support than before with the CLP's fall from grace after Yutaka Ogikubo's hospitalization and Ryo Aoki's death.
  • It's subtly implied that Saejima, Majima, and Daigo are holding back against Kiryu due to not wanting to push him to where his cancer could flare up, and/or they're pretty rusty themselves from their harsh living in exile. Considering that Saejima was able to stalemate Kiryu in 5 at his prime and how Majima was able to put up a pretty good fight against Kiryu in all their battles, even Kiryu at his prime would have most surely lost against all three of them, and it doesn't stop them from still stalemating Kiryu and the entire party. Kiryu even comments that Daigo was reluctant to actually attack him despite how angry was due to finding out Kiryu's cancer diagnosis.
• Worth Living For: One of Kiryu's main plot points is everyone close to him trying to convince him to get treatments in order to live. To do so, characters such as Nanba and Date work diligently in finding ways to make Kiryu see that, despite all the hardships since the beginning of his yakuza career, there is something worth living for. By the end of the game, it seems to have worked as Kiryu decides to risk going to chemotherapy for.
• You See, I'm Dying: Kiryu reveals that he's dying of cancer.
• You Wake Up on a Beach: After Chitose drugs Ichiban for his passport, he wakes up on a Honolulu beach with nothing to his name, not even clothes or underwear. This was so Ichiban would focus more on staying out of jail instead of finding her, and it would have worked if Kiryu didn't get involved.

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To our friends around the world...Enjoy your trip! - Bon Voyage -