Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth takes 8 hours to get started, but it’s worth it

polygon.com:

Few phrases in video games send chills down one’s spine like, “It gets good after eight hours.” With that much time, you could beat Bowser in Super Mario Bros. Wonder, watch most of The Bear, or read The Great Gatsby — twice. It should be no surprise, then, that those six cruel words hang like an albatross around the necks of countless role-playing games collecting dust in my backlog.

So, dear reader, consider what I say equal parts warning, threat, and dare. But I must confess that Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth gets good after eight hours. And in that long, cutscene-heavy intro, it’s doing something that’s charming in its own, not-very-game-like way.

The Yakuza series — of whichInfinite Wealth is the latest entry, despite a confusing name change — has a reputation for slow starts in which the story drifts from one expository cutscene to the next, gradually setting the stakes of a melodramatic plot about bureaucratic negligence, post-incarceration societal reacclimation, or the fragile formation of a found family. But no prior entry has asked so much of the player so early.

The opening of Infinite Wealth isn’t a bad video game; it’s an entertaining TV show. The plot moves at a popcorn pace, deftly introducing lovable characters and a catchy hook: Our hero Ichiban, having just lost his job and spoiled any romantic hopes with his longtime crush, takes a trip to Hawaii to find his mother, whom he’s never met. But when he arrives, he gets drugged, jailed, and stripped of his belongings (quite literally!) while learning he’s not the only person looking for sweet mom.

A quest to kill the dragon, defeat the crime lord, or save the world this is not. The premise is ripe with human drama and developer Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio is game to juice it for every emotional turn, so that when control shifts to the player, we don’t just like these characters — we love them. We are, in the traditional sense, invested.

I appreciate how this happened, gradually lowering the viewer into an