I know I only mention my dissertation periodically, but those mentions have been ramping up recently. It’s because this is a period of high productivity and necessary focus on that project. I even scheduled my dissertation defense. Honestly, I can hardly believe it. Once I finally have the degree in hand, I’ve got some great material planned for the newsletter. Some things just can’t be said about a task until it is finished.
Plus, I am going to make people call me “doctor.” I won’t use it as my prefix if I’m riding on a plane, though.
The Fake vs. the Genuine Article in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
I can't decide if playing Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth (2024) is more similar to playing 1,000 games at once or playing the One True Game, the game to end all games, the glorious abomination that has seemingly absorbed the entire history of Japanese video gaming and — not so much distilled it — but reconstituted it as a whole by way of bricolage.
This game has everything. If I tried to list all he sub-systems, mini-games, and side activities, I am sure I would leave something out. There are conventional diversions, like endless procedurally-generated dungeons, gambling mini-games, various items to collect, and two varieties of fishing mini-game. There's also several mini-games that are so expansive that they could be retail products in their own right. There is an island management game taking liberally from Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon that involves the main character building a resort, fending off nefarious ecological polluters, choosing attractions, and designing a layout all with the gathering/crafting gameplay loop that has become so familiar. There is also a Pokemon knock off called "Sujimon," where the player can entreat enemies (human, rather than monstrous or cute creatures) to join a fighting stable and field them against other "Sujimon" trainers.
The level of ridiculousness entailed in the Sujimon mini-game in Infinite Wealth may not be immediately clear. The Sujimon gameplay, as one would expect, is derived from Pokemon. It's a turn-based RPG. What's funny is that Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is also a turn-based RPG. Meaning, this is a game with two different turn-based RPG systems for two different parts of the game. It's really something.
A design document on this game would be the size of Encyclopedia Britannica. I consider myself, as a long time enthusiast, reasonably capable of understanding why a game makes certain choices in its system. But I couldn’t, for the life of me, understand how the simplistic gameplay of Sujimon was designed as a companion to the main battle system of Infinite Wealth. I couldn’t tell you why there are two different finishing mini-games, one using a typical fishing pole and another letting you skewer fish with a harpoon. I don’t think I can reverse engineer the thinking that went into throwing everything but the kitchen sink into this thing. Funny enough, I faced this same conundrum with Palworld, but the games are orders of magnitude apart in terms of quality and quantity, with Infinite Wealth winning on both counts. The games have nothing in common, of course, but any leisure time I have to game will be absorbed by Infinite Wealth before I ever load up Palworld again.
It’s not just the gameplay mechanics and breadth of game content that feels chaotic, though. Like a Dragon games (fka Yakuza in the U.S., but now favoring a transliteration of the Japanese title Ryu Ga Gotoku) are cinematic in the scope of their plot and in the experiential fact of playing them. As much game as there is, there’s just as much movie. I’ve written about the Yakuza series in the past, but if the earlier games dressed their underlying, fundamental absurdity and melodrama with a thin veneer of realism, Infinite Wealth and Yakuza: Like a Dragon (2020 — titled Ryu Ga Gotoku 7 in Japan) have fully embraced unapologetic irrationality.
Not for nothing, the most recent two numbered games are the first to embrace the turn-based genre. Yakuza 1 through 6 (and there’s a 0 there, too) are action games.
The narratives of RGG 7 and 8 do leave a little to be desired as a result of their game-y formula. In both, new protagonist Ichiban Kasuga leads his “party” through a litany of different ethnically specific gangs. When he subdues one, he is on to the next one, meaning a new part of town, a new cohort of generic enemies, and a new future friend to beat into submission and then recruit into the party.
Maybe that familiar structure is the only thing holding this mess together. And the game is, somehow, more than the sum of its many disparate parts. Yakuza finds its spots to throw in a cultural reference, to give audiences something familiar.
Or, perhaps, unfamiliar.
The effect of the structure and allusions, I think, is similar to the the RGG series uses tropes. Pulled from the vast history of cinema, anime, and video games, they are taken beyond their most logical extremes. In Yakuza, a beating will prevent any kind of ongoing wrongdoing. Ne’er-do-wells are so afraid of getting the paws put on them by Kasuga or Kiryu Kazuma (protagonist of the first seven Yakuza games) that they will abandon just about any criminal enterprise or evil scheme, no matter how grandiose, elaborate, or long-running. The fists can also often communicate the content of the soul, resolving disagreements or miscommunications and turning enemies into allies.
Through it all, Ichiban Kasuga’s English voice actor, Kaiji Tang, is on 11. His performance is unbelievable. His voice is familiar, close enough to a Nolan North or Troy Baker, but that kind of voice conveys the kind of heroism that is the essence of Kasuga’s character. There’s no path Tang is afraid to tread with Kasuga. He tackles any emotional scene with conviction and delivers ridiculous or saccharine lines without a hint of irony. He’s good enough that I am playing Infinite Wealth in English despite the fact that Kiryu Kazuma’s Japanese voice actor, Takaya Kuroda, absolutely smokes English counterpart Yong Yea. With all due respect to Yea, his casting as Kiryu is the most egregious miscast and a huge disappointment for such an iconic character who has gone without an English voice actor for so long. Steve Blum was right there.
As disparate as the gameplay offerings are, as overwhelming as the story might be, Infinite Wealth is consistent in the themes it explores and the kind of social consciousness it endorses. RGG games have gotten more polemical as the series has matured. Their plots depict characters who oppose prejudice and corruption.
Infinite Wealth includes side quests and major plot points that suggest an awareness of and opposition to a version of online “cancel culture,” the use of CGI in films, the harassment of game developers by fans, and casual sexism (although the game itself might not reflect the attitudes of its characters). The main plot presents a wide range of questions about appearance and reality. There’s bootleg clothing, unfairly penalized yakuza, fabricated crimes in a “callout video,” and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. For a game that is so capacious, I’m impressed by the philosophical focus and rigor in a plot that is a bit meandering. Many of the questions the game raises are less polemical than the opinions expressed directly within the side quests. Ultimately, though, Infinite Wealth satisfyingly repackages a familiar truism: the surface deceives and what’s below takes effort to uncover.
Though I’m not done with Infinite Wealth yet, I’m sure there will be more to the game that surprises me. The game’s underlying premise reminds me of a story from Japanese hardcore luminary Shura "SHLA" Fujimoto:
Near the harbor there was this shady-looking foreign guy selling a Rolex. “This is even better than Rolex: the mechanics are Seiko” ... That kind of punchline: the copy is even cooler than the original.
In Infinite Wealth, a genuine article might not necessarily mean an “original.” The game itself is an authentic copy, something that borrows widely but is unmistakably distinct from its influences. What matters for Kasuga and his team is not what came first, but what endures.
Weekly Reading List
I haven't finished my writing on 2023 music yet, but I already have some thoughts on 2024. Fania released a remaster of Willie Colón's debut album, El Malo (1967). Translated as The Bad (as an adjective with an implicit noun), the story behind this record is too good. Colón recorded it at age sixteen, with Héctor Lavoe, only twenty one, beginning a years long collaboration with Colón on this first album.
The lyrics to the title track, “El Malo,” involve a threat of violence calling a punch a gift. The remaster itself seems respectable, too, though I haven’t listened to the original in a long time.
The Rabid Few demo is so good that, despite knowing all of the songs already, I sat down, stopped what I was doing, and listened to it front to back. As far as demos go, this one is an experience. The band has been playing regularly enough (three or four shows) in 2023, with this demo being the first recorded material. It will be a paradigm shift in their live performances, driving an unprecedented level of enthusiasm for real DIY hardcore.
Until next time.
Loved going back to issue 49 and seeing how the theme of “the fake that shines brighter than the real” has carried forward in a new way.