168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Infinite Wealth sees the Like a Dragon (formerly known as Yakuza) series head outside of Japan for the first time, arriving on the beachy shores of Hawaii. The team decided on Hawaii due to its large Japanese population, but chief producer Hiroyuki Sakamoto explains that while Covid stoppe🍎d the team from initially visiting Hawaii to research the area, it was the only real option to tell this story and fortunately, travel restrictions lifting enabled them to go with their first choice.
“The main thing that was important was that Kasuga Ichiban's mother would find a place where she could go into hiding,” he says. “We were floating around ideas like Bali, for example. We weren't really serious about alternatives. We were just trying to get the Hawaii thing to work out. Luckily, it did. We weren't necessarily very serious about pursuing those other options.”
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Sakamoto-san 🔴laughs that he “barely did any fun things” on their research trip, but that didn’t stop it bei♛ng useful. Visiting the location gave them a better picture of how to construct the story and decide on locations, such as the type of place to use as a headquarters for the bad guys, while the wide roads and popularity of Uber Eats became the inspiration for the Crazy Delivery minigame.
The introduction of the segway was a “fun” solution for players travelling around the largeܫ Honolulu City map, and Sakamoto-san was surprised by the coincidence of Cloud riding a segway in the Final Fantasy 7ꩵ Rebirth trailer. He also tells us that if Ichiban and Cloud were to race on their segways, “I think Ichiban would definitely lose.”
But travelling outside Japan wasn’t so much a purposeful attempt to capitalise on the series’ new Western popularity, but a natural part of the storytelling. Sakamoto-san said, “With every iteration of every game that we release, we don’t really think about the next game. Everything hinges on the story. If the game taking place outside of Japan will enhance that story and make it fun, then we'll definitely go that route. It all depends on what the story is [and the] narrative we want to tell. Every time, we just reset it and say, ‘okay, what's the story going to be like?’, and then [consider] what the location is going to be to facilitate that storytelling.”
Sakamoto-san tells us that we wouldn’t have Infinite Wealth if the pivot to a new cast and change in mechanics in the previous title had not been well-received by fans, &ld𓆉quo;If Like a Dragon 7 wasn’t received very well, then we probably wouldn’t have this game. It is really because of the success of the previous game that we were able to come up with this one.
“We really try to focus on the balance between good gameplay and a good story. We don't want to have just good gameplay and a mediocre story, and vice versa. We're always trying to have that balance and make sure that we give you the full package in terms of quality.”
As always, the team doesn’t just balance gameplay and narrative, but also juggles the emotional storyline with the quirky humour it’s known and loved for. “The devs at RGG Studio [and] story writing team are a bunch of comedy lovers,” Sakamoto-san says. “They watch a lot of anime, manga, and just general comedy, they really love that kind of stuff. And so they just have so much to draw from. Ever since Like a Dragon 1 [Yakuza], we've been putting in some really crazy and, dare I say, stupid jokes and funny elements. One of the things that make RGG Studio and Like a Dragon special is the contrast between the serious and very funny aspects of it. I see that as a signature of this game, in this franchise.”
Sakamoto-san explains the team tries to appeal to all types of fans with each new game, “Every game that we do, we consider what would be the most satisfying for the long-time fans and new players. We have to have the success of the games to have the next game. So that doesn't change.”
Infinite Wealth sees Kiryu deal with cancer and working through his bucket list, while also helping Ichiban. “Every release, Kiryu gets older as the game and the story progresses. We don't do this thing where the characters are the same age all the time. They're not like Superman. We're following this character getting older and hitting those different life stages. That's the kind of story that we want to tell. Everybody goes through different stages in life. Experiences different things and problems or issues that come up. We want to illustrate that and tell that very realistic life experience story.
“We also don’t want the story to be so bleak and predictable. We don’t want Kiryu to rot away or anything like that or end in that kind of dark tone, so we have a lot of excitement. The story has a lot of hope. It's what you want to see from Kiryu, right? Turning things around, having hope, figuring out what would be best for him and what would make him the most happy. We try to make it very exciting, and we’re not trying to make anything that’s going to be super sad or disappointing at the end. I hope you’re looking forward to how the story unfolds.”
Dondoko Island, Infinite Wealth’s side content that sees Ichiban 𒐪tidying up an island, gathering resources, crafting, and enjoying the delights of collecting different bugs and fish, kicks off as soon as Ichiban arrives in Hawaii. Once you have access, you can go back and forth between the main storyline and Donodokoꦦ Island as you please.
While Sakamoto-san adm⛎its there was some Animal Crossing influence, the most important thing for the team was allowing players to engage with nature and wildlife in Hawaii. They then decided the idea of cleaning up a trashed island would be the best way to make that happen while still keeping in line with Ichiban’s character, and so this Like a Dragon version of a sim game was born.
&ldqu🎉o;There are no real time interactions witᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚh any of the players, but you can look at the ranking scores and leaderboards and go into their islands and interact with things there. One of the things you can do is a Sujimon battle at another person’s island.”
Like previous Yakuza games, Infinite Wealth will let players check out retro Sega titles in-game, “One of them is called Spike Out, and this is an arcade-exclusive game. This is going to be the first time it will be available at a console consumer level. Sega has a long histꦐory of releasing games, so we would like to include a lot more of ℱthese types of games that people haven’t had a chance to actually play.”
Unfortunately, the team can’t just pick any game from Sega’s back catalogue. “There are lots of r💛estrictions when choosing retro games and which ones we can implement or port. Things like games that are too old or that have maybe some bugs that are too hard to fix🌟, those we probably steer away from, and there are some games that we run into usage rights issues and things like that, which conflict with other IP.
“We do plan on trying our best to bring to life some of the games that have been forgotten and raise it up and give everyone a chance to play those really fun games. I tend to continue to work hard and bring you these fantastic retro games. In my office, we actually have a model three circuit board, and one of the big things that made the ports possible for those games is that we actually developed an emulator for the model three circuit board.ও”
Despite the name change from Yakuza to Like a Dragon and the game venturing outsid𓄧e of Japan, Infinite Wealth retains the same heart and soul it’s always had. Even though the series has grown in popular🌸ity overseas over the years, this doesn’t affect the way they design the games.
“We really try to focus on what we want to make and try to stay true to what we want to make because we don't want outside feedback or opinions to influence our decision-making. We try to stay true to what we want to make and try to pursue that. Afterwards, we consider the international audience and how to localise the game for people who don't read or understand Japanese. We work hard to try to communicate those very nuanced Japanese terms so that you all can get that authentic experience.”
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth launches for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, Xbox Ser𓄧ies X|ܫS, and PC on January 26, 2024.
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