At the start of the year,a few of us at TheGamer made some gaming resolutions. Mine was that I would finally play a Kiryu-ledYakuzagame, having only ever playedLike a Dragonbefore. I know these days we’re meant to call them all ‘Like a Dragon’, but you know what I mean. The one with Ichiban. Anyway, eager to keep my promise, I have already started my campaign in earnest, but things weren’t going so well until one magical plate of spaghetti.
There’s quite the debate over which Yakuza game is best to start with. Technically I already started with Like a Dragon, but Kiryu’s story is his own thing. The three candidates that I heard when talking to people are: Kiwami, the remake of the first game; 0, a prequel which is the first chronologically; and 3, which is when the series sorted out its teething problems. Like a Dragon is in the mix for complete newcomers, but it doesn’t offer anywhere to go from there, so even from a running start I’m left with three options.
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In the end, I decided to go for Kiwami. People often talk about the narrative of the Yakuza games as a core selling point, especially how the character develops over time. Ichiban’s story was surprisingly moving, so I want to experience Kiryu’s to the full. Jumping to 3 feels like a cheat just because the gameplay is a little smoother, and while 0 is technically the start, a prequel written after so much of the journey seems like I will have needed to taken that journey to appreciate it. So, I started with Kiwami. At first, I felt I had made a horrible mistake.
I knew the move to action combat from the turn-based play I was used to in Like a Dragon would take some getting used to, but it’s not like I hadn’t played a game with action combat before. The problem was everything was too clunky and stilted. There was something of a compelling story (although it seemed to be setting up a slow burn rather than exploding out the gates), but actually playing the game felt like a chore. In Chapter three, things finally warmed up as the plot started moving and Kiryu took on swarming gangs in fast-paced action, but then it ended with an irritating punch-sponge of a boss who just kept on trucking no matter what happened. He was easy enough to dodge or block, it just took forever.
I was tempted to give up. Even if I wasn’t going to turn my back on the series entirely, maybe I could read a plot summary and skip to 3, or dive into 0 and hope it would prepare me for another go at Kiwami in the future. Enter the spaghetti. Or, more specifically, the spaghetti carbonara.
A carbonara done well is one of my favourite dishes, so I already had some affection seeing it pop up on the screen. But I’d also heard Yakuza was weird and wonderful in all sorts of ways, and, while I had experienced that with Ichiban, I was yet to see it in Kiwami. In chapter four, the game opens up and allows you to wander the city a little more, and Kiryu is forced to attend a hostess club . In one of these, I was paired with a woman named Yui, and while talking with her, could order a carbonara. It seems silly, but it made me connect with the smaller stories for the first time, because it was grounded. I wasn’t just fighting or following along with (to this point) fairly trite mafia stories. It felt like I was deciding Kiryu’s favourite food, and adding depth.
The longer we talked, the more Kiryu’s personality poured out. He’s blunt but respectful, he’s loyal, and has a firm commitment to always doing what is right, he makes no judgements of people, and is considerate despite being stoic. He seems like a regular, unfeeling video game protagonist at first, but over spaghetti, the real Kiryu pours out.
I’ve kept going with the game, and I’m currently trying to find some water and a dish for a hungry puppy, which is a lot more like I expected my time with Kiryu to be. I’m hoping I fall in love and blast through the entire series. If I do, it will all be because of spaghetti carbonara.
