Sega's next crime-thriller, Stranger Than Heaven, is shaping up to be the boldest entry yet in the Like A Dragon series. RGG Studio's spin-off looks like a grittier, more brutal take on the familiar brawler action, but after several hours of hands-on play, the game feels more grounded and personal than its marketing suggests.
The story follows Makoto Daito, a mixed-race Japanese-American outcast whose life spans five decades, from 1915 to 1965. Fleeing corrupt police in San Francisco who accuse him of a crime because of his race, Daito arrives in Japan, where he faces a different kind of prejudice. His rise takes him from a scrappy dock and factory worker in Kokura to a nightclub owner in Osaka, and eventually to a key figure of the Tojo Clan in 1960s Shinjuku.
The game is a standalone story, but it also sets up the lives of Kazuma Kiryu and Ichiban Kasuga in future entries. Like A Dragon, formerly known as Yakuza in the US, has always mixed over-the-top action and goofy humor with earnest storytelling. Stranger Than Heaven plays its material far more straight, with fewer outlandish mini-games and a heavier emphasis on Daito's perspective as an immigrant.
The new combat system takes some getting used to, but the familiar Like a Dragon activities are still present, now set against a world slowly moving into the modern era. The reviewer compares its decades-spanning tone to Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America.
Source: Engadget · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing