YMMV / Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth

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Yakuza series
Yakuza | Yakuza 2 | Yakuza 3 | Yakuza 4 | Yakuza 5 | Yakuza 0 | Yakuza 6
Like a Dragon series
Yakuza: Like a Dragon | Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name | Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
Judgment series
Judgment | Lost Judgment
Other Spin-Offs
Ryū ga Gotoku Kenzan! | Yakuza: Dead Souls | Like a Dragon: Ishin! | Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise

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• Accidental Aesop:
  • Don't smoke. Though Kiryu himself is unsure of what caused his cancer in the first place, cigarettes are a surefire way of getting cancer in either the lungs or throat. Given how Kiryu lights a smoke at least once per game (with it even being weaponized during gameplay from Y3 to Y5, and he's seen smoking in the intro to Gaiden), it's been speculated that it had eventually caught up to him. Akiyama's joke of his waning stamina after running up a flight of stairs and telling himself that he should quit smoking in Yakuza 5 suddenly becomes a little less funny with Kiryu's own cancer, too. Though as the game reveals, Kiryu seemingly gets his cancer as a result of radiation poisoning, although even he's not completely certain if that was the actual cause, given how far the cancer had spread when diagnosed. Moreover, one of his symptoms is coughing up blood. This only happens if you've got lung cancer (or if the cancer's metastasized in the lungs.)
  • Don’t run from your responsibilities. It’ll only lead to long term suffering for you and others. Since the first Yakuza game, before she died, Yumi made the point of not running from your problems. Kiryu skirted from the responsibilities of being the Fourth Chairman of the Tojo clan and had to suffer the long ramifications of it for over five games, with only Yakuza 3 and 4 offering a brief reprieve. It comes full circle when it’s discovered that many events throughout the series happened because of the mismanagement of the yakuza. Kiryu is on his last legs and admits that he should’ve done something as the Fourth Chairman and changed the yakuza for the better. Resolving the issues of the disbandment and Ebina’s antagonism being two of them.
• Adorkable:
  • Seonhee, so much. A lot of her Party Chats and Table Talks and just her general demeanor around Kiryu, really juxtaposes the Queenpin that she typically presents herself as. Especially given how this is the same woman who leads one of the most dreaded and clandestine factions in Yokohama.
  • Joongi also shows shades of this as well, clearly having cheered up after the events of the previous game. A far cry from the stoic, no-nonsense hitman that he was when he and Ichiban first met. Especially if his Drink Link here is anything to go by.
• Angst? What Angst?: Despite going out of his way to save him in Gaiden and being one of his only friends in the Daidoji faction, Kiryu doesn't seem all that upset by Hanawa's death, only ever taking time to think about it in an (albeit automatic) "Memoirs of the Dragon" moment. This is likely an unfortunate byproduct of the games' development, as Gaiden was developed in only six months, likely after much of Infinite Wealth had already been written.
• Best Boss Ever: The Triple Boss encounter against Majima, Daigo, and Saejima. For a start, as opposed to them being the ones to start the fight, it's actually Kiryu who goads them into fighting him, which is already a neat twist on the usual business with the Tojo Legends. Then, what follows is an intense fight as Kiryu - with help from Nanba, Saeko, Zhao, and Seonhee - wears them all down to their last legs. And finally, once you get one of them down to their last bit of health, they'll get back up and you're prompted into a Dragon's Resurgence duel between the Legend you downed. It's already amazing that they managed to slip in a classic Yakuza-style encounter, but the icing on a delightful cake goes to the Background Music Override that plays their respective theme from Yakuza 4. Really, could you ask for a more fulfilling and amazing fight in a turn-based JRPG?
• Best Level Ever: Like last game, the Millennium Tower. This time, Kiryu's the one to raid the tower, for the last time, with the Heroes of Tomorrow in tow as he sets to make things right by putting a stop to Ebina's schemes once and for all, after Ichiban had taken care of business with Bryce back in Hawaii. What follows is an intense gauntlet through the Tower itself against the Seiryu Clan set to an awesome remix of the series' Signature Song, "Receive and Believe You". Then, at the halfway point, as the Party gets ambushed by a helicopter, it's promptly taken out with an RPG blast... by Saejima, as Majima and Daigo show up in tow to give their old friend a helping hand in cleaning up the riff-raff. In that brief moment, all three function as Guest Star Party Members, paving the way for Kiryu and the Heroes in the process, with the track shifting to the triumphantly somber "The Four". It just doesn't get any better than this.
• Camera Screw: On a few occasions, if your party members are sparsely spread out in the field, the game fumbles the bag during enemy turns as the way it pans to the party member being attacked can make timing Perfect Guards difficult. Thus necessitating keeping them as close to each other as possible.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Dragon's Resurgence. Nothing's more satisfying than letting the Dragon of Dojima cut loose and annihilate the opposition by giving the conventions of Turn-Based Combat the finger. It's especially gratifying to use when you're dealing with a Boss on their last legs.
  • The beginning of the game reveals that Kume got arrested. Considering how he was (seemingly) portrayed as a Karma Houdini in Like a Dragon, it's very comforting to know he didn't get away with his murder of Masato in the end. Shame it wasn't shown on-screen, though.
  • One of this game's main villains, Bryce Fairchild, is undoubtedly one of the most evil bastards Ichiban's ever faced. Obviously, beating his face in is going to feel good, but it's even sweeter if you're able to subject him to the game's more embarrassing attacks. Yuki and Koyuki could assault him with a hostess routine, Professor Okita and Sojimaru could squash him flat, Tomizawa could take him on a wild ride with Essence of Buckle Up, the list goes on. And he'll deserve every last bit of humiliating pain you throw at him. And unlike Munakata, Ichiban made very sure he didn't get the satisfaction of killing himself when cornered by Chitose blowing the whistle on his actions as Tatara Hisoka.
  • After all the shit that Sawashiro put Ichiban through in the last game (not to mention being all-around unpleasant to him), Kiryu kicking the guy to the curb is nothing short of gratifying. And if that wasn't enough, he flat-out tosses Sawashiro into the bay (which was even his idea) after the fact!
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: For Sujimon battles, chances are you'll have a Sujimon that can do Twisted Dance (such as a Hotstepper or Heavenly Host) in your party at all times. Twisted Dance is a healing special move that costs one bar of SP. While there are other Sujimon with healing moves, they tend to cost 2 or 3 bars of SP. The low cost of Twisted Dance means you can spam healing while having some SP left for heavy damaging special moves. Plus, if you're good at hitting the special move reel, you can offset Twisted Dance's low healing. It's a godsend in survival battles, where you don't get any healing after battles.
• Complete Monster: Bryce Fairchild is the leader of Palekana and overseer of Hawaii. Having stolen the right of Palekana sage from the Mililani family decades ago, he discovers that a surviving member, Lani, is under Akane Kishida's care. Wanting any evidence of his false status erased, Bryce sends numerous Hawaiian gangs after Akane to kidnap and kill Lani. He runs Nele Island as a training ground for brainwashing, morphing children from the Palekana orphanage into Child Soldiers and having followers kill each other as a test of loyalty. Teaming up with Masataka Ebina, he intends to also use Nele Island as a dumping ground for nuclear waste, which would cause severe damage to the surrounding environment, and would condemn numerous ex-Yakuza sent by Ebina to slow deaths of radiation poisoning. Bryce considers his own followers expendable, as they are conditioned to take their own lives to serve him, use themselves as suicide bombers, and Bryce kills one of them to take their gun during the final battle.
• Continuity Lock-Out: Anyone unfamiliar with Kiryu's story must play Yakuza 6 to get context on his situation. And of course, there is Gaiden to get through. And that is not without getting into his Bucket List, which features a lot of Call Backs to previous entries.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • Kiryu's survival being revealed to the rest of the world after having thought to be (legally) dead since 6? Shocking and definitely ripe for trouble. A VTuber with a cutesy avatar being the one to disclose the news? Hilarious. Slightly less so when Tatara's identity is revealed, however...
  • Everything involving the Sujimon is this. Capturing them and pitting them against each other in what are essentially underground cage matches has no business being as funny or as deep as it is, but since when has Like a Dragon ever been afraid of a little Black Comedy? And that's before you remember you can also put them to work at Dondoko Island...
  • Dwight's third and final encounter takes place on a boat that is near shark-infested waters. With the game's physics all but encouraging you to knock enemies into each other, you can actually feed Dwight's cronies to the sharks... or be fed to the sharks yourself. Morbid and terrifying on one coin, downright ludicrous and effective on the other.
• Demonic Spiders: Blood Shadows. Their gimmick is that they use an ability to immobilize your party with the fear status en masse, and then targeting anyone affected with an unblockable grapple-and-stab attack which does a crapload of damage. Worse is that even hitting the prick in the first place is way harder than it should be thanks to his stupidly-high evasion. Unlucky players will be left several dollars lighter in short order if Ichiban is targeted.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Out of all the antagonists introduced in the game, Yutaka Yamai has easily proven to be the most popular and beloved in the fanbase, for his imposing presence, unique and slick design, rather charming personality, awesome leitmotif, and for amazing voicework provided by the legendary Takehito Koyasu himself. Mind you, that's before he turns out to be Good All Along, though it takes a while to see it. Yamai ends up becoming an invaluable ally towards the latter half of the game, even willing to turn himself in for the murder of his Patriarch if it meant keeping Akane and Lani safe.
  • Though Sojimaru was present since the previous game, having two Substories in this game and being a (very effective) Poundmate Summon cemented its Dark Horse status. It certainly helps that the second Substory involving Sojimaru is one of the most hilarious and over-the-top Substories in the series bar none. The fact that Sojimaru even got an epic orchestral theme of its jaunty little jingle (which also plays during its summon) is icing on the cake.
• Epileptic Trees:
  • A humorous example. More than a few fans have speculated Tatara Hisoka to actually be Kume from the previous game, tarnishing Ichiban's reputation as the Hero of Yokohama out of spite (among other things). That might be a decent theory... but the fact that Hisoka also knew of Kiryu's existence (and obviously the fact that he's still alive) makes it fall flat on its face as Kume - beyond what was said about Kiryu to the public in the events of 5 and 6 - likely doesn't even know Kiryu exists, or at least isn't on his radar like Ichiban was. The beginning alone also confirms Kume had been caught offscreen and charged with murder, among other crimes. Some are still willing to joke that he might have been hired as the soundalike to replace Chitose.
  • People have also noticed that the owner of the Revolve Bar (the Hawaiian counterpart to the Survive Bar) looks a lot like Andre Richardson◊, leading to people pondering if/how he miraculously survived the events of Yakuza 3 like Kashiwagi did. They're correct.
• Evil Is Cool:
  • Yokoyama wasn't kidding when he said Yamai is basically Ichiban's equivalent to Majima. Being every bit as unpredictable, charismatic and menacing as the latter in his initial debut while also having a more jovial and well-meaning side to him despite his appearance and actions throughout the game.
  • Dwight Méndez, courtesy of his imposing presence, being a lot more resilient than initially thought, and like Yamai and Wong, a catchy leitmotif. Being portrayed by someone of Danny Trejo's caliber also helps.
  • Despite his screentime, Wong managed to make the best of it not only with his Dynamic Intro (where he's holding his own against both Kiryu and Ichiban), but also being smart enough to see through Kiryu's attempted infiltration of the Nirvana Hotel, ultimately forcing them into a fight. Helps that, like Mabuchi before him, Wong gets one of the best tracks in the game with "Giftiger Fullhalter", making his Puzzle Boss encounter all the more memorable.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • Fans of the game quickly got along with several others fandoms with new games releasing in a very similar time frame, such as Tekken 8, Persona 3 Reload, Ace Attorney, and Under Night In-Birth.
  • Fans from Final Fantasy VII Rebirth ended up mingling well due to both games being anticipated RPGs for 2024 that have, coincidentally, both main characters riding segways in their trailers.
• Game-Breaker:
  • Guest Star Party Members are pretty nuts in this game - enemies will never attack them (for better or worse), they do loads of damage regardless of your level (or in Eiji's case, provide you with useful buffs for free) and clear house very easily, and they can even have their stats buffed like regular party members to tack on extra damage on top of that. Special mention goes to Asakura, who will carry even an underleveled Ichiban hard during his final Substory, since it's just those two against a whole pack of strong mooks.
  • Speaking of, two abilities that Ichiban learns from Asakura - "Merciless Melee" and "Knockout Combo" - are some of the best single-target abilities in the entire game. One is a Grapple attack that has a chance to lower an enemy's defense, and the other deals increased damage to enemies that have been debuffed. Additionally, none of Asakura's abilities take up Inheritance Slots at all, meaning Ichiban will always have these skills on him no matter what class he's in (which can be especially handy for leveling up the Sujimancer class). As an added cherry on the sundae, "Merciless Melee" can be accessed as early as Chapter 4, giving Ichiban a very potent single-target skill very early into the game.
  • By the end of the game, Kiryu's Dragon of Dojima job becomes this. With all the skills unlocked and gear equipped, Dragon of Dojima becomes a highly versatile style with effectively no weaknesses. His selection of Skills are devastating and cover everything from area of effect damage to brutal single target blows. He can deal all three types of physical damage, can break guards for free with Beast, gains a huge speed boost in Rush that often allows him to take his turn multiple times per fight, gains improved context-sensitive Heat actions in Brawler that often deal the damage of a skill for free... the list just goes on. Dragon's Resurgence even allows Kiryu to temporarily bypass Mook Chivalry and attack enemies in beat-em-up combat, and the fully-loaded damage that this Limit Break is capable of allows Kiryu to easily solo encounter or burst down a boss when they're low on health.^note  Kiryu doesn't even have to stay in DoD to be able to use Dragon's Resurgence, by the way. He can still use it even if you put him in something like Aquanaut or Samurai, for example. Coupled with naturally high skill growth and rock solid physical stats, and you'll likely keep Kiryu in this job for most of the game simply due to how strong it is. And the weaknesses it does have (woefully low MP and zero support skills) can be easily mitigated with a Kiwami Mouthguard^note  Which reduces the MP costs for all skills. The Brawler God's Mouthguard, while harder to obtain (e.g., completing all of Asakura's Substories), is a step above this Gear item. , and via Skill Inheritance from other classes for Support skills.
  • The Action Star's "Relentless Dragon's Dance" is basically the Like a Dragon equivalent of Persona's Charge skill, as it doubles the damage of any physical attack used on the next turn. Taking no action on the current turn is a small price to pay for making even weaker attacks doubly-painful. And when combined with a strong attack like an essence move or the returning Game-Breaker that is the Release German Suplex, on top of an Attack buff? Even bosses will lose most of their health in one go, if not be decimated entirely. And heaven forbid you remember the Dragon of Dojima's absurd damage output...
  • The Samurai's "Burning Arrow" is ludicrously powerful despite it being part of the job's initial skill. It's a gun/fire attack skill that deals heavy damage in an area. Once you have Samurai job unlocked, you can finish majority of combat encounter just by firing explosive arrows at the enemies until everything is dead.
  • The Aquanaut's "Trippy Flipper Ripper", for being an early-game skill, is quite potent for its large area of effect and having a unique vacuum effect that pulls in all enemies towards you. Given the addition of being able to reposition yourself in a fight, this skill is quite invaluable at keeping enemies close to each other so that other, more powerful AOE skills (like the aforementioned "Burning Arrow" or Ichiban's "Giga Swing") can connect. Being an ice skill that does a modest amount of damage with its low cost also helps.
  • Seonhee's "Stentorian Whip" from her default job (and its kiwami equivalent "Essence of Wicked Web") can, by end game, clear out huge numbers of enemies while also having a good chance of paralysing any that remain afterwards. Coupling this ability with an agility boost and a class like Night Queen with its special attire (so she can always have the first turn in a fight, has higher damage output and regenerates MP when she kills an enemy) just generally makes her a complete game breaker, almost on Dragon of Dojima levels towards the end game.
  • Hilariously, Adachi's "Arrest" skill from his Detective job got a massive buff in this game that makes it more consistent to use. Which gives more reason to leave him in his default class.
  • The Kuniochi's "Substitution Jutsu" is one of the best Support skills in the game for its sheer simplicity. All it does is have you switch places with another Party Member, giving them her turn in the process. This can lead to some pretty insane plays depending on how and when it's used, as it can be especially devastating when used in tandem with the above-mentioned Dragon of Dojima job (effectively giving Kiryu four turns if you use the Rush style) or after "Relentless Dragon's Dance", letting you immediately cash in the damage with a Physical attack after charging on the previous turn.
  • The Housekeeper's "Scum Scraper" is a Magic-based (meaning it'll never miss) Grapple attack that cancels enemy status buffs and deals a very nice amount of Ice damage. It's especially effective against enemies like Transcendent Transients, who max out their defense the very moment the battle begins.
• Goddamned Bats:
  • Like in the previous game, any enemy that can call for backup is this. Especially higher-level Keepers of the City that'll make their fights a chore to get through, in case their massive amounts of health wasn't enough.
  • Metalworms. They resist everything, can't be grabbed, nerf your attributes with their Gumshot attack, and can heal with their Cocoon skill (making fights drag on, especially if you're at a lower level than they are). And while you don't have to fight a lot of them at once, never expect them to be alone, either. On the bright side, at least they're not very threatening on their own nor do they provide buffs for any enemies they come with. Plus, beating them rewards you with a massive amount of job EXP. But then again, they're one of the few enemies who can flee the battle. So if you're too slow to beat them? Bye-bye, EXP boost.
  • High-evasion enemies in general. It's frustrating when they constantly dodge your attacks and you're unable to flank them.
• Growing the Beard: While the previous game was widely praised, it had notable issues with its combat system. Improvised Weapons were rare to find and unreliable to use, enemy attacks or opportunity could mess with your strategy, most of the game's classes were of limited use, healing skills were rare, Gun and Slashing damage were hard to find in the game's first half, and bosses mostly relied on being damage sponges to provide a challenge. Infinite Wealth fixes all of these issues and in doing so makes the game much easier, but also a lot more fun.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • An internet user predicted Kiryu Coco's appearance in the 8th Like a Dragon game over 2 years before Kson On Air (who, to keep the Open Secret, has told on stream that Coco was one of her favorite vtubers) was confirmed to make a guest appearance in both Gaiden and Infinite Wealth.
  • One of the things you can do with your Sujimon (in case everything involving them wasn't enough of a pastiche of Pokémon as it is) is essentially put them to work and have them help you manage your Farm in Dondoko Island. Remind you of something?
  • About a month after the release of the game, a real-life Yakuza leader was charged with trafficking nuclear material. For an added bonus, the culprit is named "Ebisawa", which sounds a lot like a combination of Ebina and Sawashiro.
• Ho Yay:
  • Saeko's Kiss of Life skill makes a return, and can still be used on the female party members as much as the males. When used on Seonhee in particular, she comments that she doesn't mind getting kissed by her again upon waking up.
  • You cannot forget the Essence of Titillating Claws skill for the Night Queen job, which entails seductively walking towards a party member, grabbing them by the crotch, and them getting extra motivated to fight from the pleasure. It works exactly the same with female members, even the grabbing part.
  • Saeko's karaoke song, "AWAKE", has one between her and herself in the Imagine Spot, as it ends with the AWAKE version of Saeko touching her intimately before pulling her in for a kiss.
  • Yuya and Kazuki’s poundmates attack has them acting as overbearing and flirtatious hosts to the enemy. Every single enemy in the game is male.
  • While meant to be a dramatic Tearjerker, the way Kiryu begs Ebina to forgive the yakuza after his defeat has this still apply due to the... suggestive position he's in. Not helped by both men being shirtless the entire time, and when Kiryu finishes his speech, he collapses right on top of him.
  • In Hawaii there are many NPCs who offer to perform an ambiguous service called "Honk-honk" for Ichiban for a fee. Many of these are women, but the two most expensive ones are both male.
  • Unlike the previous game where Cabaret clubs are exclusive to the male party members, the women can now join in on their services. Not only that, but there are hostesses/strippers who cater to both genders or specifically to women.
  • Sujimon is filled with this. The button you mash after giving a Sujimon a gift is shaped like a heart, and one of the quotes that appears on screen is "I'm crazy for you!" On the Dondoko Island farm, you can build your friendship with individual Sujimon by rubbing them. Remember there are no female Sujimon.
• Memetic Mutation: Check the series page.
• Most Wonderful Sound:
  • Perfect Guards remain as satisfying to land as ever, thanks to their distinctive clanging sound.
  • The original iteration of "Funk Goes On" (the normal encounter theme back in the first game) playing in Kamurocho as the encounter theme for Kiryu's Party will absolutely bring a tear to one's eye, as it couldn't be a more appropriate way to close off Kiryu's chapter for good.
  • The sound of landing a critical hit remains as satisfying as ever. Even better if you hit an opponent from behind with a multi-hit attack.
• Narm:
  • Bryce Fairchild, in the Japanese dub, speaks hilariously broken English for some inexplicable reason despite being a purely American character. A lot of players have said that it sounds horrible and immersion-breaking, and you can't exactly blame them for thinking that. It's telling he drops it after The Reveal of his real motives and personality, speaking in accented but clear Japanese.
  • The Palekana Warriors give off an intimidating aura in cutscenes with their hooded figures and stoic demeanor. Then you actually get into combat with them and they spout out the same childish insults most normal enemies do. It can be hard to take them seriously after lines like "you suck, by the way" and "your ass is grass" make them feel more akin to middle-school bullies than the brutal zealots they're supposed to be.
  • The cutscene prior to the Final Boss drops the big bombshell that has Ebina reveal that he's Masumi's son, making him Ichiban's half brother, with him going on to give a big speech on how much of mirror image they are of each other. This had a lot of players finding this less dramatic and more awkward than intended due to Ichiban being completely absent for the whole confrontation despite how seriously viewers are supposed to take it.
• Narm Charm:
  • The Pocket Circuit Fighter memory should sound cheesy when Pocket Circuit Fighter (now named Pocket Circuit President) wishes to play one more round with Kiryu but many fans bawled over how melancholic it was.
  • The "Let it Snow" substory involves the infamous Gondawara Family in assisting Ichiban fulfill a dying woman's dream of seeing the snow before she passes. Even with Gondawara's crew in full diaper gear, the substory ends up being one of the most heartbreaking moments in the entire game.
• Paranoia Fuel:
  • Regardless of how hard you work to get your life together, no matter how much of an upstanding guy you are, you can lose everything you've worked for if just one person thinks you don't deserve any of it, as is what happens to poor Ichiban shortly into the beginning of the game. You don't even need to be actually framed and falsely convicted for that to happen. Anyone can just flat-out make up a lie about you with just a little Manipulative Editing and post it up online, and the public will just take it as fact. And to add insult to injury, people related to you can also take fallout from that Frame-Up if, say, their employers find out about their association with you, as Adachi and Nanba found out the hard way.
  • After discovering Tatara's true identity, it's even worse for Chitose herself. Imagine you're doing a fun influencer hobby as a side job you genuinely enjoy, only for a yakuza boss and a weird, ideologically motivated hacker to drop in out of nowhere and threaten to ruin your life and humiliate you in front of your hated family if you don't ruin the lives of other people. Even if you didn't do anything wrong, if someone decides you're useful to their agenda, you can wave goodbye to your own agency.
  • The Reveal of Palekana's sleeper agents. Anyone you meet on the street (be it the angry gangster or some random tourist) could actually be a Brainwashed and Crazy cultist waiting for Bryce's command to attack his enemies. No one is safe- even hardened gangsters like Yamai and Wong Tou, who no doubt have good vetting processes for their gangs, have had their organizations compromised by Bryce's infiltrators.
• Polished Port: The game runs smooth across all platforms, but special mention goes to its Steam Deck port. The game is verified for it, meaning it will run just as smoothly on the go like with a regular console.
• Play the Game, Skip the Story: General consensus is that Infinite Wealth improves and expands on everything gameplay-wise from Yakuza: Like A Dragon by fixing most, if not all, of the issues players had while adding many new quality of life features that greatly enhance the overall experience. Storywise, however, the narrative is seen as having taken a couple steps back compared to its predecessor due to it getting too big for its own good, with the main mystery having too many characters (many of whom go underutilized), plot points, and themes that don't get enough focus throughout the storyline and/or don't have a satisfactory resolution by the end.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Ichiban's Freelancer job, big time. In the previous game, it was useless the very moment Ichiban gained access to the Hero class due to its abysmally low damage output and Crippling Overspecialization favoring one-on-one encounters, not helped by how stats were tied to Jobs instead of Character levels. Here, however, with the changes made to stat distribution (now tied to levels and not jobs) and the reworking of the Skill Inheritance system (letting Ichi take up to 6 different skills from any other job he uses), the addition of directional attacks (and better visual indication of when enemies guard attacks), and its significantly better damage output across the board, it's now a viable job to take well into the endgame. Especially when you pair its buffed damage with Asakura's exclusive skills, "Merciless Melee" and "Knockout Combo".
  • Saeko's Barmaid job was borderline useless in the previous game as all of the attack skills are physical oriented for a character who specializes in magic and the only skills that get carried to other jobs are a self-buff and self-healing skill. Infinite Wealth would tweak the skillset to include magic skills (such as the powerful Essence of Magnum Bottle skill), turning her into a Magic Knight, and on top of allowing every character to inherit any kind of skill to other classes, gives the job some worthy investment.
  • Adachi's Detective job in the prior game was considered to be one of the weaker default classes; while it was ideally supposed to cement Adachi as a tank who would deal high damage and take even more, the Enforcer job did what Detective did but better, leaving little reason for him to stay in his starting class. However, Detective has more value in Infinite Wealth due to the Enforcer job not returning, making Adachi's default niche more unique. It's still one of the less versatile classes with all of its offensive skills only being Blunt attacks, but the Skill Inheritance system allows him to port over more offensive options as necessary. The only other class that has a similar purpose to Detective is the Linebacker, which is less of a total improvement over Detective and more of a sidegrade, offering more innately diverse skills in exchange for pure damage. Being that's one of the DLC classes, if you opt not to get it, that makes Detective even more of its own thing. Perhaps even more amusing is that one of its unique skills, "Arrest", went from next to useless to surprisingly effective and more consistent.
  • The Chef job is mostly this, excepting one of its skills. In the previous game, it was an oddball class with decent Fire and Blade skills but mostly underwhelming damage output, with Zhao being the only character to reap its benefits. However, it also came with the Peppermill Blow, an inexplicably powerful grab attack that could also inflict Blind on the opponent. While Infinite Wealth nerfs the Peppermill Blow's strength somewhat, it also buffs nearly every other Chef skill to make it a worthy Glass Cannon class with a very good attack stat and a magic power stat only outdone by the Host among shared jobs. Nearly all of the male characters synergize well with it too, not just Zhao anymore. The Cutlery Crash is now an insanely strong Blade attack that is likely to leave an opponent with the Bleed effect if they somehow survive it, and the Vanquishing Pan has been changed to deal bonus damage to opponents with ANY status effect, not just Stun, dealing even more damage to poor saps with multiple effects at once.
• Salvaged Gameplay Mechanic: Back in Like a Dragon, improvised Weapon Attacks was an ability that was only exclusive to Ichiban, but its randomness in combat made it unreliable to use. Here, however, it's now an ability that the entire cast can use, and with the addition of being able to reposition yourself when in a fight, it's much more useful and consistent, if not invaluable in a lot of cases (especially if you're low on MP and need a quick source of damage, for example).
• Sequel Difficulty Drop: All in all, this game is considerably easier than its predecessor in places. There aren't any notable difficulty spikes in the main story and you've plenty of opportunities^note  Including a mandatory trip to both of the main dungeons - Hawaiian Haunt and Yokohama Underground - at a point in the main story. to grind to the point you might even find yourself over-leveled for a lot of the story battles. Throw in the quality-of-life improvements like knockback attacks, the ability to reposition yourself, and level recommendations before starting a major story encounter and Infinite Wealth will be a much easier time overall than Like a Dragon was in its latter half. It's especially telling that the Final Boss in this game has a much lower minimum level requirement than that of the last game's Climax Boss (Level 52 vs Level 60).
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Many sidequests, particularly ones related to party bonds, can only be performed at a specific time of day. The issue is that the only way to actually advance the time is by performing story missions, which can result in being forced to advance by several chapters before you get to actually complete the sidequest. It's only until the very last chapter of the game (and by proxy, Premium Adventure) where you can freely switch the time of day to get caught up on any side activities you may have missed.
  • More like the lack of a certain mechanic, but the removal of the Skill Shortcuts (using the directional pad) from the previous game is sorely missed here. Especially when Kiryu is the sole character in the entire game who uses the Directional Pad in the first place with his Dragon of Dojima job.
• Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer: Several players have admitted that they pretty much gave up on playing the actual game the moment they discovered Dodonko Island (which is basically just Animal Crossing with the Serial Numbers Filed Off). And that's before you remember several other activities exist, making this the single-most feature-rich installment in the series so far.
• Squick:
  • While it's a heartwarming gesture that Ichiban dives into the Sakura River to get Sasaki's money back in the beginning, said river is filled to the brim with sewage. And on top of that, Ichi ends up getting a used condom on his head. And later on in the chapter, he, Nanba, and Adachi have to swim in it to be able to reach the Seiryu Clan's Headquarters.
  • The Giant Squid boss in the final chapter has a skill where it eats one of your party members, trapping them inside its stomach and the only way for them to escape is by destroying hanging ink sacs all while standing ankle deep in stomach acid (which takes away a portion of their HP at the start of their turn). When the ink sacs are destroyed, they burst in black liquid, causing it to spit out the party member. Even some of them will comment how disgusting the whole experience is.
  • The Ultimate Egesta bat is created by finding 100 Etheral Egestas. By digging in toilets. You're literally collecting crap to make a weapon that is a magical turd on a stick.
• Suspiciously Similar Song:
  • Yamai's leitmotif, "Kooky", almost sounds like an Ishin!-style remix of "Asphodelos" (the scenario battle theme) from the previous game.
  • "Guardian of Despair" is as close to "BFG Division" in Like a Dragon as you can get. Without it actually being Doom.
• Tainted by the Preview: While narrowly avoided with the last game for every region outside of Japan, this go around (unfortunately) New Game Plus will be locked behind a paywall for all regions. Naturally, this put quite a bitter taste on a lot of fans' mouths after the otherwise stellar RGG Summit that introduced the game in full.
• That One Attack: The Eye Beams used by some robotic enemies. It always has a wide enough range to hit all of your party members, is difficult to parry, and hits hard. Worse still is that some enemies, most notably Robo Michio as a superboss, are fond of spamming it, leaving you with little breathing room at best, or unable to keep up with healing your party at worst.
• That One Boss: Fittingly enough, the game's Final Boss is the most difficult encounter in the main story. Ebina hits very hard with a lot of devastating single-target attacks like Pierce the Muladhara, which can not only leave one of your Party Members at critical health, but can also put them to Sleep as well, preventing them from being able to guard against Ebina's follow-up attacks. If that wasn't enough, his second phase has a massive AoE attack that - unless you see it coming and guard against it beforehand - can deal a lot of damage to everyone present. Of note, even if you have six or seven-star weapons and equipment (or being slightly over Level 52, for that matter), it won't save you from the sheer amount of damage Ebina can pump out, so you'd better make liberal use of healing skills wherever possible during the fight. Good thing the game throws you a bone by giving you a Safe Area beforehand.
• That One Component: Any UFO Catcher prize that has a prize stuffed in a box. Due to the unique nature of the crane games holding them, combined with the less-than feasible physics compared to real life, it's possible for a prize to get stuck in one place even moreso compared to the non-boxed prizes, which at the very least, could be only stuck via bad luck. To make matters worse, some NPCs specifically want those if you want to become friends with them.
• That One Sidequest: Both of Bony Kashiwa's substories. You have to race to the finish while dodging vehicles, and given how fast they're coming it's easy to get into a position where you can't dodge and lose one of your 3 lives.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • The Big Bad Masataka Ebina. While many agree that he thematically serves as a fitting final opponent for Kiryu, many felt that the revelation that he is Masumi Arakawa's son had a lot of unexplored potential. The first is that he has no meaningful interactions with his half-brother Ichiban following the reveal, something that the game and Ebina himself lampshades and is especially galling in that unlike Kasuga, Kiryu has no real connection to the Seiryu Clan at all. The second is that his Freudian Excuse is only explored at the tail end of the game, meaning that it's difficult for players to get emotionally invested in his motivations regardless of whether he had a point or not. Both of these points make Ebina one of the lesser-liked antagonists in the franchise, especially coming off of Masato Arakawa from the previous game, who had roughly the same motivations, but better execution overall, which makes Ebina look even weaker by comparison.
  • Despite the hype in the trailers and incredibly catchy leitmotif Wong and the rest of the Ganzhe in general are woefully underutilized. Wong himself is only around for a few chapters after his boss fight before eventually getting the axe, which is a stark contrast to the amount of screentime that the other factions and their leaders (especially Yamai and his syndicate) get. Doesn't help that there isn't a main party member who has some personal affairs or history with him and/or the Ganzhe, unlike Tomizawa (who has history with the Barracudas and worked for Yamai in the beginning) and Chitose (who is being threatened by Ebina and Eiji to do their dirty work).
  • After having such a prominent role in Gaiden and hints pointing to him being the seemingly dead Yuu Morinaga from 5, Kihei Hanawa ends up being Demoted to Extra in this game. And like the aforementioned Wong, he gets killed off unceremoniously. What's worse is that Kiryu barely interacts with him throughout the game and shows no emotional reaction to his death barring an automatic "Memoirs of a Dragon" moment in Chapter 10, despite Hanawa being one of his only friends in the Daidoji faction.^note Given that production of Gaiden began relatively late into Infinite Wealth's own development, it's likely that Hanawa's importance to the story was a last-minute addition
  • Joongi Han easily has the least development out of all recurring party members as he joins Ichiban's party in Chapter 13, the second-to-last chapter of the game, making him an 11th-Hour Ranger. The reason for this might stem from how much of a Game-Breaker he was in the previous game (especially his broken Head Trauma skill), therefore making the sequel as an attempt to balance the powerscaling of the party. However due to his very late availability, he can be immediately benched for the rest of the story if Ichiban and his party members are over Level 38. Compared to his boss Seonhee and previous Sixth Ranger Zhao who joins Kiryu's party in Chapters 8 and 10 respectively, the two have much better roles and more screentime than him.
  • Eiji Mitamura, after antagonizing Ichiban on a personal level for a few chapters, disappears from the late-game, skips most of the climax, and only reappears in the epilogue so Ichiban can help him turn himself in, which some people consider a missed opportunity, especially since it makes Ichi's insistence of redeeming him just a bit too hard to swallow.
  • With all the build-up and backstory in the previous game and in this one, you'd think Akane wouldn't amount to little more than a Living MacGuffin, but unfortunately, her and Ichiban share very little screentime to start with. Which is especially odd considering she's the reason why Ichiban (initially) went to Hawaii in the first place. Heck, we're only ever told of her exploits and shown very little as to why the Palekana idolize her enough that the orphanage workers say that they miss her.
  • Relating to the above, Lani. For all the trouble and toil that the Heroes go through to keep her safe and reunite her with Akane, she has very little agency or even personality of her own to speak of. Especially considering how even Kiryu becomes invested enough to want to keep her safe, seeing as her plight reminds him of his time with Haruka all the way back in 2005.
  • Roman Reynolds, while portrayed as a total slime ball and Dirty Cop, has hints of having of more to his character beyond that. Such as his (reluctant) willingness to help the heroes and his legitimate pride in his son. Whatever potential he had was cut down when he gets offed by the Barracudas in Chapter 5.
• Uncertain Audience: One of the biggest criticisms of Infinite Wealth is that it struggles to balance being a continuation of Ichiban's story (therefore appealing to fans who got into the franchise with Yakuza: Like a Dragon) and being a Swan Song for Kiryu (therefore appealing to old-time fans). Some felt like the game ended up leaning more towards the latter than the former, resulting in Ichiban's character arc being comparatively weaker than Kiryu's despite promotional material promising that Kiryu would be a supporting protagonist to Ichiban.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Eiji Mitamura is supposed to come off as a sympathetic villain, taking vengeance on the entirety of Yakuza after getting his life ruined by them. While him becoming as bad as the organizations he wants to eradicate is the point, the things he does over the course of the game — preying on Ichiban's sympathies by faking being crippled, being a former Bleach Japan member with all that it entails, being fully complicit in Ebina's plans of literal genocide to the Yakuza as a whole, blackmailing Chitose, playing sadistic mind games with Ichiban and Lani, being willing to murder the latter (who is a mere child, by the way), and willing to torture Akane out of spite towards Ichiban, to name a few — are so heinous and so petty that any Freudian Excuse would fall flat. He also hates Ichiban in specific, to the point of antagonizing him out of sheer spite, solely because he's an ex-yakuza and he's convinced they're all evil. Putting aside Ichi being nothing but kind to him, the player knowing full well it's all genuine, and Mitamura doing much worse things than Ichiban ever did while banging on about his alleged soullessness, the whole plan to get close to Ichiban by faking being crippled hinged on preying on Ichiban's kindness, so calling him soulless after that comes off as borderline delusional. And in the epilogue Ichiban forgives him, still treats him as a friend, and even helps him evade everyone that wants to maim or kill him for his role in Ebina's scheme (by getting him to the nearest police station so he can turn himself in). Even if it's absolutely in-character for Ichi (he's been repeatedly established as absurdly forgiving, and doesn't want another Heel-Face Door Slam on his hands, like what happened in the previous game), and even after Mitamura himself calls him out on this, some players found the scene too much to swallow, and the mostly-offscreen punishment for Mitamura insufficient. As explained in They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character above, other players at least believe it could have been handled better due to being noticeably Out of Focus in the final chapters.
  • Saeko's response to Ichiban's love confession. While Ichiban was extremely awkward and it is understandable why Saeko would want to step away for a moment, most fans feel that Saeko deciding afterwards to ghost him for an entire year is a completely disproportionate and weirdly immature reaction, particularly since everybody involved is aware that Ichiban has spent most of his adult life in prison and isn't the most socially savvy person around, and it is very clear that Ichiban has no ill intent. This also extends to Adachi and Nanba, who solely blame Ichiban for ruining the moment without considering whether Saeko could've been more diplomatic, and the whole thing comes off as a lot meaner than was probably intended. The only person who seems to acknowledge Saeko's reaction as problematic is Kiryu, who advises against it during their Drink Links and not in the main plot, and Saeko herself, who apologizes to Ichiban for it at the very end of the game.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley: In the English dub, Ichiban, Kiryu, Seonhee, and Joongi have Autotune on their voices for karaoke and it sticks out like a sore thumb. Joongi in particular gets the short end of the stick. He sounds more like an AI or a Vocaloid doing karaoke than an actual human singing.

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