I’m lazy enough to only speak one language, and lucky enough that this one language is English. I don’t let this stop me from experiencing art in other languages, enjoying films like Helter Skelter, Titane, and City of God, as well as many others that would make this sentence too long. I fully agree with Parasite director Bong Joon-Ho that Western audiences need to “overcome the two inch barrier of subtitles”. But I’m still playing 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth dubbed.
If I want to watch something and it’s only available subbed, that’s how I’ll watch it. That’s how I saw those three movies above, as well as The Handmaiden, Hatched, and Piggy. Again, let’s keep this sentence short and sweet. I will do it if I have no other option, but only if I have no other option. With Infinite Wealth, I have another option, so I🐓’m taking it.
In♐finite Wealth Is A Mixed Bag For New Western Players
But trust me, ultimately, the game is 💝worth playing
I was a latecomer to the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Yakuza/Like a Dragon series, starti꧟ng with Yakuza: Like a Dragon (AKA a million other things, so - Ichi’s first game). This was available dubbed, so I chose it without a second thought. I realise for players who have persisted through the game’s lack of popularity in the West that subbed is the only true way to play, because, for a while, it was ✨the only way to play. They’re used not only to specific actors, but to the subbed experience overall.
Subbed versus dubbed is often a pointless debate because the answer is almost♎ ꦐalways “whichever you prefer”. Occasionally, a dubbing is so egregious that it changes the meaning of the original to the extent that subbed is the only option, but this happens far less often than people would have you think. Still, people would have you believe it for Infinite Wealth.
A core reason for this is 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Yong Yea’s performance as Kiryu. It’s a little mean and overblown, but not all that inaccurate. Even as an interloper to the Like a Dragon fandom, I find Yong Yea to be one note and dull, rarely finding layers in Kiryu’s more stoic disposition. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Christopher Judge he ain’t. And I can only imagine that die-hard fans so accustomed to Takaya Kuroda’s Japanese performance are disappointed that the English version is𝔍 such a downgrade from the perfect one to one translation they had in their head. I’m just still going to play in English, though.
While Yo🌊ng Yea has been voice acting for nearly a decade, this is his biggest role to date, and first video game lead.
Part of this, sure, is just being uncultured. Speaking English, I can still get along better with a bad English performance than a performance I don’t understand at all. But mostly, it’s that I don’t have the af𓄧fection for Kiryu that others do, so it’s less of an albatross. I still don’t think Yong Yea is that good, but as someone who didn’t grow up with a perfect idea of Kiryu’s English voice, it’s just one valley in a land of peaks.
Kaiji Tang is excellent as Ichiban Kasuga, and I can’t imagine hearing anyone else - which I suppose is how subbed players fee♕l about Kuroda as Kiryu. Though the more emotional moments can feel a little stilted, I’ve also been enjoying Matthew Yang King’s Eric Tomizawa so far. Of course, the English dub has Danny Trejo and Daniel Dae Kim. But it’s not just a case of the good performances outweighing the bad.
Like a Dragon is full of party banter and even includes a bingo card for activating different conversations with 🀅your pa༒rty members. This chatter (led by Ichi himself) is an integral part of the background, and best enjoyed when running around doing other things. It’s much harder to do that when you need to read small subtitles off to the side rather than just listen.
It also makes heavy use of cutscenes, and while subtitle reading is easier here, they already make the game a little stop-start. Like a Dragon tends to do a long burst of several cutscenes in a row, then back to gameplay for a chunk of time, then back again. They’re the kind of cutscenes where you put the controller down because you know they’ll be a while. I can lock into a subtitled movie, and by the end of it, I’m so used to reading and to each voice that my brain convinces itself it’s English, and I’m no longer thinking about🎀 it. Like a Dragon’s cutscenes lure you to this point, then give up.
I have no interest in subs versus dubs, just as I have no interest in what you eat for lunch. But since the debate is heating up, it’s worth remembering that the weight of Kiryu is far lighter for some players, and t💫hat the whole reason we have dubbed is because Like a Dragon has finally made it in the West. It’s worth celebrating that, not fighting over it.
Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth continues the story of Ichiban Kasuga, in the ninth mainline entry in the series formerly known as Yakuza. It will once again feꩲature turn-based combat, and takes our protagonist outside of Japan for the first time.
- Developer(s)
- 🍬 Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio ﷽
- Platform(s)
- PS5, PS4, Xbox One, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Xbox Series X, PC
