Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth players love the game, but hate how it handles DLC, and they've got a point
To be fair, do we really need nine million booster packs to be available right now?
Good news, you can now dive into Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth yourself following its release! Just make sure you don’t look at the DLC packs on offer for it, or you might kill your buzz a bit.
Don’t worry, the vast majority of those who’ve already delved into the game or have left a review of it before doing so (just for the record, you’re a bit of a weirdo if that’s you) look to agree with our very correct opinion that Ichiban Kasuga’s latest RPG adventure is a good time. That said, the DLC offerings available for Infinite Wealth look to be the main reason the verdict isn’t close to unanimous, and I can definitely see where people are coming from.
As spotted by a user over on the Yakuza subreddit, while the lion's share - about 90% in fact - of the 1000 or so (as of writing) Infinite Wealth reviews left on Steam so far are positive, pretty much all of the negative ones aren’t about the game itself as such, but how RGG has handled the add-ons you can grab to go with it. Naturally, a lot of these reviews cite established frustration with the new game plus mode being locked behind a paywall, but its day one DLC lineup is also getting plenty of flack.
Some players have likened the lengthy list of stuff on offer, which would cost you £137.37/$158.81 if you were to buy all 19 things, to “a Mcdonald's menu board”, mainly because of the fact it offers several different strengths of boost to everything from Kasuga’s personality stats to the job ranks of your party members.
Now, before we go on, it’s important to acknowledge that a number of the packs and bundles making up that list are just add-ons that come with the Ultimate and Deluxe editions of the game, meaning you may well already have some of them depending upon which version you bought. That said, it’s not the few extra outfits and jobs that seem to have irked most folks, but the sheer array of options RGG has put together for the booster packs designed to save you some grinding.
As we mentioned in our review, Infinite Wealth, while still grindy at times, doesn’t suffer from quite as egregious-feeling difficulty spikes compared to Yakuza: Like A Dragon, so the game’s balancing doesn’t seem to have been set up to push people towards buying these optional helpers. However, do we really need four different versions of a ‘Leveling Set’ for your party, each with a separate price point aligned to its strength, or three different versions of a ‘Self-Improvement Booster Set’?
To put this in context a bit, Yakuza: Like A Dragon currently offers six bits of DLC, the majority of which add either extra jobs or extra outfits to it, rather than just being boosters.
So, I think people are well within their rights to be giving SEGA a bit of grief with regards to how Infinite Wealth’s DLC has been handled.
If you’re not planning on getting any boost pack help while you play Infinite Wealth, make sure to check out our guide to its best jobs and how to unlock them.