Like A Dragon: Ishin!

You say you want a revolution? Well...

- Malindy Hetfeld

This latest remaster of a game in the Yakuza series (now known as Like A Dragon to match the original Japanese title) is called Ishin, or revolution. It’s a word used for one revolution in particular, the Meiji Restoration, a period in Japanese history during which Japan’s military government lost power and the emperor regained his position as head of the country.

You play as Sakamoto Ryoma, a lower-caste samurai and excellent swordsman from the province of Tosa. Returning home after some time away honing his skills with a blade, he finds his foster father, government minister Yoshida Toyo, plotting a coup to overthrow Japan’s military government, the Tokugawa shogunate. However, before he and his allies, the Tosa loyalists, can land a decisive strike against the shogunate, Toyo is killed by a mysterious assassin. The police arriving at the scene mistake Ryoma for the killer, forcing him to flee to the capital Kyo. From then on, Ryoma has only one goal – to identify his father’s killer and take his revenge.

Although this is a remaster, most fans will be unfamiliar with this setup, as Sega thought Ishin too Japanese to be worth localising for the West the first time around. Because of that, this version with overhauled visuals and mild changes to how you play is the first to be released in the West. Ishin uses familiar characters from the Like A Dragon series in new roles. Protagonist Sakamoto Ryoma, for example, looks like a young Kazuma Kiryu, and behaves like the man you’ve come to love across several games, too. You don’t need to be a history buff to follow this samurai tale – in many regards this loosely-based-on-a-true-story tale of loyalty and inevitable betrayal seems tailor-made for the Yakuza series.

BATTLE WITHOUT HONOUR