Disposable Media

Art, Music, Games, Life

You are here: Home / Archives for like a dragon

Qazi’s Disposable 2024 – Highlights

By Leave a Comment

With the conclusion of my entertainment round up in 2023, I outlined some vague plans for these twelve months – catching up on my library, buying some new tech and doing some more streaming. And so when I started collecting my notes filed under “Qazi’s Disposable 2024”, In all honesty I probably didn’t get as much done with my plans as I would have liked, but I’m still content with the year in entertainment.

Qazi’s Disposable 2024: Watching

Qazi’s Disposable 2024

In my round up for last year I mentioned that I never got around to Barbie or Oppenhemier, so I made a point this year to watch both and write my thoughts on the films. Scheduling a block of two days to watch the two films, I began with Oppenhemier and enjoyed the atmosphere and tension; less so the nonlinear storytelling which came across as a bit clumsy and unnecessary. Barbie, on the other hand, was a fun commentary on identity and self-image, but was light-hearted enough for anyone to enjoy it. I also took some time to watch Fallout, the Prime Video series based on the popular post-apocalyptic RPGs. Whilst I haven’t played the games myself, I enjoyed the dark humour and the contrast of the three main characters, but also the moralising and the depth of emotion in the scenes. Purnell, Moten and Goggins were a joy to watch, and despite being talked into watching the series I ended up looking forward to each of the episodes.

Elsewhere, I did more catching up on older films, and I think I explored both ends of the emotional scale. The Mike Judge film “Idiocracy” had been on my bucket list for a while and I finally rented it in June. A fantasy comedy which follows two individuals into a stupider future, it’s a brilliant commentary on our own sense of intelligence, and I enjoyed it so much that I searched around for somewhere to order it on disc the next day. The other bucket list film – on the other end of the emotions – was “Hachi: A Dog’s Tale.” I vaguely knew about the story of Hachikō and so I had a general idea of how the film would play out, but it still got me pretty choked up. It inverts your typical animal tragedy by framing the dog as the one continuing life after the passing of their owner, and even though it gets a little bit samey in the middle, the last half hour or so was genuinely moving. I figured that as I grew older I wouldn’t have the same emotional reactions to tear-jerkers with cute animals, but this film managed it.

I don’t have any massive regrets about movies I missed, but I can’t deny that I’m falling behind on a few long-running series. The third Sonic movie was being talked about this year and I still haven’t got around to watching the second one – meanwhile, there are around four Avengers movies now and I think that I’ve only watched up to Age of Ultron. Oops.

Qazi’s Disposable 2024: Listening

Qazi’s Disposable 2024

Conveniently enough, I’m drafting this article on the same day that Tidal has published my “Most Listened” of 2024, although its summary of the year’s music isn’t too surprising – I ended up listening to plenty of EPs and singles in 2024, and a lot of “high energy” genres such as drum & bass. Under Influence Records, Bungle continued to deliver some dreamy D&B vibes with things like the Black Waves EPs. Squarepusher made a return with “Dostrotime”, his follow-up to 2020s “Be Up A Hello” (I particularly liked the “Arkteon” acoustic pieces that served as nice interludes between the more intense tracks) and even the dubstep producer Sharks decided to pivot into a high tempo number with (checks notes) “watching everything burn right in front of me”. However, if I were to settle on one standout I’d probably pick something from the Bungle EPs, because each one absolutely dials into the kind of vibes that I enjoy in electronic music.

(Although it isn’t a genre I typically follow, I also need to give a special mention to the feud between Drake and Kendrick Lamar – it’s been highly entertaining and captured the attention of all kinds of people who weren’t keeping up with the modern rap scene.)

I’ve also been revising and refining the sources of music discovery available to me – making regular visits to the Vision Recordings YouTube channel and their radio show (the show has a lot of exclusive early reveals and I often end up having to write myself reminders to hunt down tracks when they’re released for purchase and streaming), bookmarking the channels for Liquicity and Night Bass for my liquid and house needs, and keeping my one dormant X account alive just so that I still have a list of musicians, labels and DJs I can continue to follow. And of course, I’ve been insufferable on social media – filling Bluesky timelines and Discord channels with links to whatever tune has dominated my attention span on a given day. To everyone’s credit, I haven’t been met with any resistance and all of my mutuals and contacts seem pretty tolerant of my enthusiasm. The one thing that’s kind of remained dormant in 2024 has been my listening tech – I got some Marshall Mode EQ earphones in a sale, but that’s about it. Then again, not much is wrong with my current setup – I’ve generally covered my needs for home and portable listening. The only possible future purchase would probably be an optical drive for my desktop that actually works… but even then I have a dedicated CD player…

Qazi’s Disposable 2024: Playing

Qazi’s Disposable 2024

I was pretty excited going into this year. The inaugural Qazi’s Disposable 2024 article would have so many good things to say with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth being released and Metaphor: Refantazio finally making an appearance. What was more surprising, however, was that my favourite RPG was neither of these games. Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth wasn’t just a riot from beginning to end – it’s probably provided me with the most fun over an RPG’s hour count since Persona 4 Golden. It filed the rough edges of the seventh game’s pacing whilst also making nearly every interaction fun and rewarding. The instant takedowns and pursuit of job skills made combat incredibly satisfying, the playground of minigames and side-stories managed to provide hours of distractions, and there are no difficulty spikes as notorious as chapter 12 in the predecessor. Did I enjoy it more than P4G? Not really, but in my mind – in my world of likes and dislikes – it’s one of the first games that’s comparable to P4G in terms of polish and quality. Tellingly, I’m already considering buying it again on Steam.

However, in a year without Infinite Wealth, Rebirth and Metaphor would still be remarkable achievements as well – one an extravagant celebration of FFVII’s world and characters; the other a stunning entry into the fantasy genre from a studio that leans more towards modern urban settings. Both impressed me to the extent that I’m already keen for news about the next game in the FFVII Remake trilogy and the next Metaphor game.

Finally, I was able to get around to some classics that I always wanted to play – I managed to complete Super Metroid at last (I enjoyed the adventure but I will never forgive how vague the in-game map is. I know that it’s nice to give the player room to speculate, but the map could at least colour-code the pink, green and orange doors on the map once I’ve seen them! In the end, I actually created my own map in Google Drive, but it’s likely to be full of errors…) and set aside four or five hours for Doki Doki Literature Club – the sugary-sweet visual novel which I… can’t really talk about. Just like Undertale, it’s the kind of experience you enjoy more if you know less beforehand.

As with most years, I wish I had more time to play more things, but I already have gaming plans outlined for 2025. Oh, and I didn’t play the Elden Ring DLC because I lent my disc to someone – so that’s why we haven’t covered it this year.

Qazi’s Disposable 2024: Streaming

I don’t have much streaming news to reflect on this year, save for one long-term project; I played through Final Fantasy V Advance on stream. I’ve streamed a few highlights from RPGs before, and I’ve previously streamed a full “Hero” playthrough of the charming Half-Minute Hero, but in terms of total hours streamed for a single game this is easily the most – 13 hours of stream footage over 16 sessions. I even streamed a separate window with the pages of notes I had written from a previous playthrough, so that I had something to refer to and so that anyone watching could see my inner madness. And although FFV Advance actually took more than twice that many hours to finish once the stream was done, I wasn’t going to broadcast all of my grinding. Personally I’m really happy with how much I was able to stream, and I have a more ambitious stream planned for next year…

Future adventures

As ever, I don’t know how much any kind of life stuff is going to affect me and the time I have to enjoy my favourite entertainment, but I’ll have some things lined up for when opportunities present themselves. For instance, I’d like to check out the new Monster Hunter but also get into a few older games, I’ll continue to grow my digital music library and look at more films to stream, and I’m considering some new hardware too. For now, I’ll just say thanks to anyone who has clicked on any of our articles this year, or followed us on social media – your support is always appreciated, and we hope you have a great 2025 planned. And while you’re here, don’t forget to take a look at Dan’s Disposable 2024 highlights as well.

In pursuit of Infinite Wealth

By Leave a Comment

As a casual follower of the Like A Dragon series (formerly the Yakuza series until you look at the spine of the eighth game’s box), I was pleasantly surprised by Ichiban’s first outing in 2020. The move to a turn-based format was a perfect fit for a combat system that already encouraged a methodical rhythm of waiting, blocking and countering, and the supporting cast were generally a great bunch of virtual characters to hang out with. For the most part, the game was a fun twist on a formula that may have risked becoming overfamiliar, but I felt like it stumbled a bit in the later chapters. Whether you were meandering through a slower part of the narrative or hitting a wall with one of the notorious bosses found in the late game, such moments were blemishes on something that could have been a future classic with a little more balance and tweaking. And so when I’m deep into the last chapter of Infinite Wealth and considering the journey the game has taken, I’m torn – because I can’t decide if this is simply better than the previous game or if it’s rivalling some of my all-time JRPG favourites.

Fair fights

Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth - in battle

The truth is, I’ve found it really hard to tear myself away from Infinite Wealth. It’s another adventure through dungeons of turn-based encounters set against the backdrop of a modern urban open world, and whilst the characterisation, story, job system, minigames and battle mechanics are as good as they were before, the previous game had conditioned me into thinking that the high wouldn’t last forever. Sooner or later I’d be cursing a forced encounter that’s far more challenging than whatever I was fighting five minutes ago, and I’d walk back to one of the grind spots so that I can make some cash for gear and maybe level up my party. However, I’m currently at the doorstep of the final boss and most of the mandatory challenges have felt surprisingly fair. It’s still not a game where you can waltz through every boss battle on the first attempt, but your party is well catered for with the material and upgrade system, a satisfying selection of character classes in the job system and a couple of “optional” underground dungeons that fill the gap between the encounter you just completed and the one causing you problems right now. There always seems to be something that you can do to develop your party in some way, and it’s offered as a path that you’ve always had the chance to revisit, rather than something you’re thrown into because completing it is the only way you’ll see anything past chapter 12 of the previous game.

Infinite Wealth – recommended

Even Persona isn’t immune to questionable pacing, whether it came from the notorious party wipes experienced when you first attempt the next mandatory boss in 3 or 4, or the extended bespoke mazes introduced in 5’s palaces. Infinite Wealth, however, is performing an admirable balancing act of being just challenging enough. I’ve had a few tough battles in a couple of earlier chapters – as well as this last chapter I’m trying to complete (note from future self; train up a dedicated healer role, and save your Extreme skills and Tag Team moves to blow through the latter “phase” as soon as possible) – but they’re only tough in the way that JRPGs have their challenging bosses; there hasn’t been a “chapter 12 of the previous game” moment in Infinite Wealth. For the moment, it’s just provided a solid challenge and has been responsible for a lot of late nights and lost sleep as I’m desperate to see the next battle, the next dungeon floor, or the next story sequence.

And outside of the business of story progress, it’s just a fun game to be absorbed in. When you’re not busying yourself with upgrades and job levels, the move to Hawaii works as a new change of scenery for the player and the foundation for much of the game’s levity. Returning hero Ichiban plays the role of the bemused outsider exceptionally well, and exploring the streets and venues is enhanced with what is essentially a summonable Segway (that moves you through the streets faster, but needs to be recharged at stations for a small fee) and even a dedicated “aloha” button to greet passers-by. Furthermore, regular enemy encounters in the open city environments are engaging without taking up too much of your time, and encounters with low-level groups can be ended in an instant with a squeeze of a shoulder trigger. The usual abundance of minigames and amusements provide a welcome break from the fighting, and loading between the transitions is fast and painless (unless you’re walking into a lengthy FMV). The usual taxis are in place to send you between notable locations, and the map is continually an invaluable resource (although I do find myself hopping between multiple stores to find the one that has a particular piece of gear,)

This had previously shared the company of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth as one of my most anticipated games of 2024, but Square Enix will have to deliver something exceptional in order to match this. If you have any interest in modern turn-based RPGs with impressive production, lots of optional distractions and customisation, and what seems to be a decent challenge for fans of the genre, consider this a confident recommendation.

Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth - cinematic finish to battle

Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth is available now for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series and PC. For more information, visit https://infinitewealth.sega.com/

Delivering street justice like a dragon

By Leave a Comment

Everything feels familiar at first. There are the similar exploration and interaction controls, there’s the urban backdrop, and the wealth of stats and sidequests – I’m definitely playing a Yakuza game. I’ll admit that I kind of dropped off the series after a while; I think after the first couple I fell behind and didn’t stand a chance of catching up, but the newest instalment – Yakuza: Like A Dragon – seemed interesting. Even after such a long break, however, everything feels familiar. That is until trouble begins to brew and the only way to settle things is with a classic Yakuza brawl. Or not. The headline feature of Like A Dragon’s combat arguably comes from the new format which adopts a turn-based approach and a party system, much like classic and modern RPGs, and it was the feature that interested me enough to want to get back into the series again.

I don’t know if we’ll end up covering this game in the form of a full review, because traditionally Yakuza games are bursting with content, sidequests and other features – it could be weeks before I’m done. However, the combat deserves a mention, hence this article. To be honest, when I first found out about this new turn-based approach I wasn’t even that surprised – the early games that I did try already felt like they force the player to wait and respond during battle. In the PS2 games, simply button-bashing would quickly land you in trouble; it was wiser to block, let your opponent attack and wait for an appropriate opening when you were able to respond with your own moves. So before the game was even in my hands I had allowed my mind to make sense of this new system.

Like A Dragon’s Meta-protagonist

Like A Dragon - Ichi

Part of the framing for the battles reveals that our hero, Ichiban Kasuga, seems himself as a hero akin to the protagonists of the videogames he played growing up. As a result, when you enter a classic Yakuza random encounter, the allies and enemies visibly transform into whatever Ichiban imagines them to be in his mind. It’s all satisfyingly meta – videogames are a pleasant escape and allow players to pretend to embark on an epic journey, and Like A Dragon sees Ichiban referring to his street justice as an ongoing “quest”, and frequently making comparisons between his predicaments and the plights that faced the heroes of his favourite videogames. Better still, it means that he can actually talk about levelling up without it sounding out of place – because it’s what’s happening in his head and what’s happening as a result of the player’s actions.

Risky beatdowns

The battles themselves are snappy and satisfying – like modern Persona games, they are initiated quickly and smoothly, and if your tactics are on point then they don’t need to last more than a handful of seconds (unless you’re facing a boss character, or entering a new zone with levelled-up encounters.) To take some examples of the fundamental battle mechanics that are simple yet satisfying – Like A Dragon lets you guard enemy attacks to reduce the damage you take, but it also offers a “perfect guard” window if you guard just as an enemy’s attack connects with your party member. Perfect guards reduce damage further and help prevent things like knockdowns, and so they keep you engaged even in a turn-based format, and encourage you to learn the timings and animations of attacks. Similarly, the opportunities available after an enemy is knocked down encourage quick decision making – enemies can take time standing up from a blow that knocks them to the ground, and if another party member executes a follow-up attack whilst an opponent is still “knocked down”, they take bonus damage. It’s an interesting way to invite risk-taking – you may have a healer in your party and you’re waiting for their turn to come around so that some life can be recovered… but if you end up knocking an enemy down, it might be better to spend their turn on a follow-up attack instead.

Like A Dragon and other battle formats

Like A Dragon - Battle

Other traditional staples of RPG battles introduce themselves as the game continues – available special actions eventually include buffs and nerfs for attack and speed, status effects similar to bleed, poison or charm, gear upgrades and material exchange, enemies calling in reinforcements and prolonging a battle – but I keep returning to my first thought – Like A Dragon still feels like a Yakuza game, and so there’s no need for people to be penning angry letters about how the series has been ruined. As mentioned in my opening paragraph, there was always a bit of a turn-based rhythm to combat in the early games, and other titles in the series have played with stats, levels and allies – this is just being a little more honest about everything. And even though this may look like a typical Yakuza battle format in RPG dressing, the combat system is still worthy of praise alongside the systems used in other RPGs I’ve played this year – I feel like it finds a happier medium between real-time response and turn-based action than something like Final Fantasy VII Remake, although Remake has more polish elsewhere. Equally, Like A Dragon’s battle system sits well next to Persona 5’s own system of weakness exploitation and follow-ups, but both suffer from a few moments where the pacing dips; in Like A Dragon’s case, this could come from a situation where you’re underlevelled, or perhaps where a particular story thread is overstaying its welcome and you’re waiting for something more interesting to happen. Even so, these moments aren’t ruinous, and Like A Dragon’s map is fairly quick to open up – so it’s easy to find distractions if you’re not interested in chipping away at the main quest.

I haven’t finished the game just yet, and I’m probably pretty far away from doing that, but I don’t think the combat is ruinous at all, and I’d love to see it either in future mainline games or in their own spin-offs. (Of course, there’s always a chance that this game could still throw a massive difficulty spike at me, but that would be more of a balancing issue rather than anything problematic with the battle system itself.) As ever, let me know what you think of Yakuza: Like A Dragon and its combat below.

Yakuza: Like A Dragon is out now for eighth-gen systems and Xbox Series platforms; a PS5 version is reportedly coming in 2021.

Join Us…


Privacy Policy

Cookie Policy