Yakuza: Like a Dragon dabbles into Dragon Quest‘s RPG genre with its own unique twists, and this time, the RPG convention of a special Coliseum challenge is represented by the Sotenbori Battle Arena in Kansai. Additionally, we got a more in-depth introduction to dungeon exploration. [Thanks, 4Gamer!]
Sotenbori Battle Arena
At a very certain underground arena under a building in construction, you’ll find the Sotenbori Battle Arena. In this event, you’ll face off against tough opponents brought here by the organizer of this event. You begin from the ground floor, and aim to reach the 30th floor. If you don’t defeat each floor’s enemies, you can’t proceed.
Battles are different from regular street ones, and you’ll play under the special rules that you are constantly taking poison damage. Additionally, many special combinations of enemies will appear.
Furthermore, apart from regular battle result rewards, each floor has a Normal Reward, and a Special Reward gained from beating specific requirements (these can be gotten multiple times). You can get rewards only found at the Battle Arena.
As this place is crawling with tough foes, it can be a great place to level up. Rewards include strong equipment and rare materials, so use this place to train Kasuga and his friends for the battles ahead.
Dungeons
As you play through the story, Kasuga and co. will need to go to enemy headquarters via an underground passage. However, it’s not very safe, and is infested with strong enemies who wouldn’t appear in the streets, and enemies from the opposing organizations, just like a dungeon.
After the events with enemy organizations, dungeons can be a good place to grind levels, and farm weapon and armor materials efficiently, as you can go there anytime. The briefcases left behind will contain random contents each time, so go back for new items.
Dungeon Enemies
Dungeons will have enemies from other organizations, but also have rare enemies like unhinged or even escaped convicts to fight.
Dungeon Items
Dungeons contain safes and briefcases that have many items and equipment to obtain. Briefcases have only one item, and this changes each time. It focuses on healing items, but sometimes rare items will appear.
Safes need a key to open, but contain rare equipment that are not sold in stores. Safes are split into gold and silver ones, with gold ones having rarer things.
Apart from this, you can find materials to forge weapons on the ground.
Traps within the safes
Some gold safes might have enemies hiding within them, waiting to strike. These enemies are very tough (and can use freezing attacks), so you might want to check up on your party status before opening the safes.
Dungeon Boss
At the end, Kasuga and co. will face off against a dungeon boss waiting for them. Bosses can range from multi-man fights, to heavy machinery like power shovels, and more.
Yakuza: Like a Dragon releases for PlayStation 4 in Japan on January 16, 2020. The game releases in North America and Europe in 2020 with a possible English dub. Check our previous report to know more about party members Han Joon-gi and Tianyou Zhao’s playstyles, and Bleach Japan.
