Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth makes gaming’s best hero even more lovable

digitaltrends.com:

A good deal of RPG protagonists tend to be on the dark and broody side, if they’re not altogether silent. That’s usually justified — they tend to go through circumstances that uproot their lives at best and, at worst, irrevocably ruin them. It would only be natural for that to have an impact on their overall demeanor.

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth‘s Ichiban Kasuga has also gone through plenty of tragedy, loss, and hardships himself. And yet, his unbreaking optimism somehow only shines brighter through that adversity. As was the case in Yakuza: Like a Dragon, Kasuga continues to be a breath of fresh air in a sea of stoic characters, making him the perfect role model for 2024.

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While I distinctly remember loving Ichiban and crew in 2020’s Yakuza: Like a Dragon, it wasn’t until I booted upInfinite Wealth that I connected the dots on exactly why. Ichiban has every reason to give up, to give in to the seemingly endless curveballs the world throws his way that are completely beyond his control. From birth, his life has been nothing but tragedies. The faint glimmers of hope or joy tend to only exist as a knife that can later be twisted in his back. Even at the end of his first game, despite being victorious, Ichiban’s life is far from improved. In fact, it could even be considered worse.

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When I reunited with Ichiban in Infinite Wealth, I was greeted by a man who had nothing but positivity and joy behind his eyes. People would yell at him, assault him, and betray him, but he not only didn’t let those things get to him, and instead found ways to use them to fuel his determination. Every setback was viewed as an opportunity to learn, and every person who wronged him represented a chance to help someone out of a bad situation. He never