A few weeks ago, I got in the car to see my granda for the last time. I knew it would be the last time on the drive over. The radio, wi▨th no knowledge of me or my situation, chose Elvis Presley for the journey. I don’t tend to believe in signs from the universe, valuing science and logic above all else. This is the closest I have ever come to doubting that belief.

My granda died that night from cancer. His funeral is this week, and he will be cremated to the Elvis song Can’t Help Falling In Love. This has made playing 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, a game framed by Elvis refereꦫnces and shaped by the protagonist’s struggle with cancer, one of the most powe♛rful games I have ever played.

Spoilers for Like ⭕a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, and my grandfather’s life, follow.

The Wonder of You

I stood🐻 over him on his last day with us, lost for words, and my mother asked if I wanted the room to myself. I told her no. My goodbye to my granda was mumbled and awkward, but I don’t regret it. I had already said everything I ever needed to say to him. Anything I might have said in that moment would have only been to make myself fee൩l better, and I know I could never have found the words to do that.

While I knew of Kiryu’s disease when I started playing Infinite Wealth a few days after my grandfather passed, I expected it to be something I’d suppress. Something uncomfortable, painful, that I would skip over and ignore to amuse myself with the abject silliness th🌱e series is known for. Simply, I thought the game would be a distraction. Instead, it became a goodbye. It transformed into those words to say to make myself feel better.

There’s a lot of my grandfather in Infinite Wealth, something beyond sharing Kiryu’s illness and liking Elvis Presley. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Like a Dragon extols kindness, but also stands as a shining example of positive masculinity - both traits I saw reflected in my granda. Even in a life as colourful as his, I don’t think a bird ever nested in his hair, and a giant vacuum never went haywire on his watch, but in finishing every ridiculous substory, I found myself living out my granda’s spirit. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:I wish I could see myself in Ichiban or Ki𓃲ryu - in their selfless kindness without cyni♋cism. I can♕’t. But I can see my granda.

Many Lost Souls Need Help In Infinite Wealth

I’ve sat for hours each night playing Infinite Wealth, listening to Elvis Presley on repeat, remembering him. My grandfather was a man dedicated to community service, running different charities throughout his life. While I doubt he ever 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:helped two crustaceans fall in love, it felt like living o♊ut his legacy to make the world a better place through Ichiban and Kiryu’s actions.

My granda’s life was shaped by community spirit. As a joiner, he spent his life building and fixing things, and didn’t stop at wood and metal. He drove the infirm to church, collected𓃲 furniture for the less fortunate in the community, and helped organise parish fundraising. He used religion as a shield, not a sword, to protect people in his community, not fight them. He found a way to bring out the best in people. He found a way to see the best in me.

Memories

Infinite Wealth is a game that 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:values memories highly, som𝔉ething that I realise now there are no new ones to be made, I may have taken for granted. In Kiryu’s chapters, we wander through his old haunts and he recalls details from earlier games. I started with Yakuza: Like a Dragon and have since only caught up with Kiwami, so a lot of these memo🎐ries didn’t mean much to me - and yet they all meant so much.

It was the act of reliving memories, not the memory itself, that had me welling up. We don’t often think of the lives our parents or grandparents had before us, and even though these memories were not my granda’s, I felt as though I was celebrating them all the same. I😼 had the honour of writing my granda’s eulogy, and in doing so I learned of so many memories that came before me.

Reliving Kiryu’s moments allowed me to feel the po𝐆wer in memories that weren’t mine to begin with, but became mine through stories passed down the years. It’s especially effective that during this section, Kiryu develops new memories. Initially Survive is just a bar, but after he sings karꩲaoke there, it becomes the inspiration for another memory. That’s how memories work - we keep making them right up until the end.

It’s also very respectful of Kiryu’s condition, despite the necessity of this being a video game requiring him t💧o face boss battles. When we first play as Kiryu, he needs to rest regularly to keep his strength up. Typically, the game only directs us back to our home or hotel when there📖’s a specific story beat to happen there, but in Kiryu’s chapters, it’s part of the regular rhythm of the game - time is relentless and inconvenient.

Cancer took away my granda’s walks around town, and every time I took Kiryu’s weary body back home when I wanted to be out gri🥀nding levels or finishing stories, I thought about my granda. Would I have done anything differently if I knew those last weeks were the last?

Love Me Tender

Perhaps my favourite memory in the game though is not Kiryu’s at all, but that of an eccentric old man we meet in Hawaii. Initially we see him throwing shaved ice in the air, and naturally think him a little strange. Flash forward through his story (which in true Like a Dragon style, includes some helpful adult babies), and it emerges his wife is dying and wants t⛎o se🌺e the snow one last time. When we’re able to grant his wish, the camer🦄a moves off Ichiban, and the focus switches to the old man.

In a tender moment, we see the couple exchange loving last words. The man holds his wife’s hand and worries that he worked too much, that he never made time for family, that he should have been there more. Though she reassures him before her hand slips away from his, it’s a powerful message on the value of things that matter, and one we all need to hea𝔍r. For Infinite Wealth to take its time with such tenderness exemplifies why this game’s connection runs deeper than naming the chapters after Elvis songs.

There’s even a character called Gramps in the game. While he’s technically Chitose’s family butler w🌞ho helped raise her, the value of that relationship resonated deep as I explored my own memories. Much as Like a Dragon does itself, Gramps balanced kindness and masculinity,ꦕ and represents the power of legacy. As he passed his values down to Chitose, I hope my granda passed his down to me.

Crying in the Chapel

I loved him, and not just in the way we love all our relatives, or say we do. And yet I found myself bracing for emptiness as he neared the end. I’m not a particu💟larly emotional person, and I worried that💛 when he left us, I wouldn’t feel anything at all. That my lack of feeling would be proof of something broken inside, that I would be left with guilt. Instead I cried.

I was prepared to feel nothing, and in doing so was blindsided by the pain that hit me. In the month since his death it has slowly retreated back into its lair, ready to strike agꦕain at the funeral. I🌼’ve tried to embrace this pain, not fight it. Not skip over it to ignore it or amuse myself with something easier, but to experience it. That too is part of memory.

In the weeks since, I have found myself to be more emotional. More moved by movies, by conversation, by memory. I don’t know if it will last.😼 I think I hope it does. Most people play Like a Dragon and want to be more like Ichiban or Kiryu. After Inf💝inite Wealth, I want to be more like my granda.