Yakuza: Like A Dragon has been released, marking it as the first title in the series to release on launch day for Microsoft consoles and PC as well as Sony consoles, which held exclusivity for a long time.
It’s also the first in the franchise to release for the new generation of consoles, with it already being available for the Xbox Series X and it is scheduled to release for PlayStation 5 in March. For those currently enjoying the delights of Yakuza: Like A Dragon, there might be a thing or two that have gone unnoticed. Check out these hidden details in Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s latest adventure.
10 Shangri-La Soapland
The protagonist, Ichiban Kasuga, grows up in a soapland called Shangri-La (essentially a bathhouse with adult services) and was brought up by his adoptive father, the owner of the soapland who decided to raise him. Longtime fans of the series will recognize this particular soapland, as it has featured in the series since the very beginning.
After being away from Kamurocho for awhile, Ichiban returns to find the soapland vacant with damage to the front of the building and is told that someone drove a truck into it. This is a nice nod to Yakuza, where it is none other than fan-favorite Majima who drives his vehicle into Shangri-La.
9 Poundmates
Yakuza: Like a Dragon introduced a slew of new features as it evolved into an RPG, adding in many elements of classic RPG games. One of these new features is the ability to “summon” characters to help during battles, similar to the idea of summons from Final Fantasy.
This feature in Like a Dragon is called “Poundmates” and when you first unlock it, you call your first summon automatically. The Poundmate that arrives is called Gary “Buster” Holmes and for fans of the series, he’s a familiar face. Holmes appears in multiple Yakuza titles, with him first appearing as the unbeaten champion of the Coliseum.
8 Voice Actor Trivia
This detail definitely slides by rather hidden, unless someone goes digging through IMDB, but Ichiban actually shares his voice actor with another character from the Yakuza series. It’s not easy to tell, as both characters have very different personalities and so their mannerisms and speech are conveyed differently.
The voice actor is Kazuhiro Nakaya and he voiced both Ichiban and Akira Nishikiyama for the Japanese audio. The English equivalents of these characters do not share a voice actor.
7 Real-World Research
Yakuza: Like a Dragon introduces players to a brand new area to explore, Isezaki Ijincho — a red-light district in Yokohama. Interestingly, this new area is based on the real-life Yokohama district of Isezakichō.
In fact, the Isezaki Road shopping area in the game is modeled after the real Isezaki Mall from Isezakichō, where noticeably even the chicken restaurants are in the same place — though in the real world they are KFC restaurants. This isn’t the first time that this has happened in the Yakuza franchise, as the previous setting of Kamurocho was based on Kabukicho, a real red-light district in Tokyo.
6 Dragon Kart
One of the new mini-games added to Yakuza: Like a Dragon is Dragon Kart, essentially it’s a homage to Mario Kart, and sees players race against others around the streets while using weapons and power-ups to get the advantage over competitors.
The NPC who runs this new mini-game is called Fujisawa, but old fans of Yakuza might notice that he’s rather familiar. He is the Pocket Circuit Fighter, though understandably he’s aged since those days, who used to run the Pocket Circuit mini-game in the first couple of Yakuza titles.
5 Summoning Majima
The Poundmates summoning feature is very useful to players, but also offers up plenty of fan-service for longtime fans as there is more than one familiar face from the franchise that players are able to summon into battle.
One of the available summonable characters is Majima Goro, and a rather nice detail that generally goes unnoticed is that when he is summoned, the music in the background is his battle theme from Yakuza 4. Players don’t unlock Majima until Chapter 12, and regrettably, he costs a cool 1,000,000 to summon.
4 Hidden Honk-Honk
There are five secret characters hidden throughout the game that offer the player a “honk-honk” in exchange for money. Agreeing to this will see Ichiban get a personality stat increase. However, if it wasn’t for an achievement/trophy relating to this, many players might never have thought to look for them.
Even knowing they exist, the honk-honk characters are hard to find, as although they all have set locations — they spawn randomly. There are three hidden in Ijincho, one in Kamurocho, and finally, one in Sotenbori. More than one requires that you have passed a certain chapter to gain access to their area.
3 The Party Queen
Eagle-eyed players might spot yet another familiar face hidden in their surroundings in Like A Dragon, as AIKA makes an appearance on a hostess board. AIKA is a famous Japanese singer/songwriter who lent her voice and face to a character of the same name in Yakuza Kiwami 2.
However, AIKA wasn’t playing herself in the game, but a Platinum hostess at Four Shine, and she was referred to as the “Party Queen.” She’s not the only hostess from previous titles to appear either, as an image of Marina from Yakuza 0 can be found in the soapland.
2 Ode To Nugget
Like a Dragon has many mini-games, one of which is a business management sim game that sees Ichiban helping a family turn their small confectionary store into a business empire. The interesting thing is that the family has a chicken mascot named Omelette, and players can actually assign Omelette as a manager working in the store.
This isn’t the first chicken to run a business though. In Yakuza 0, fans fell in love with the chicken Nugget (he also appeared in Fist of the North Star) and players were also able to assign Nugget as a manager in the Real Estate Royale mini-game.
1 Nods To Other Games
Like many Yakuza titles, Like a Dragon has many nods to other game series, both obvious and not so obvious. As well as having other Sega games and their merchandise in the arcades, there are mini-games that pay homage to other games, such as Sujimon parodying Pokémon, among others.
However, Like a Dragon also has some direct links to other games, though they’re not as easily found. Players are able to play CDs at Survive Bar, with CDs being collectible throughout the game. For example, players can find soundtracks from the likes of Persona 5, Sonic, Valkyria Chronicles, and other games from certain vendors.
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