Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth might be Ichiban Kasuga's second adventure, but if this is your first time with the Yakuza/Like A Dragon franchise, there are a ton of things you should know before starting. From knowing what to look for in the environment, how to excel in turn-based combat, or even the best ways to bond with your party, there are plenty of small things that can vastly improve your experience. Here are 10 tips to help you get started in Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth.
I'm the trash man
While Ichiban might have a wealth of powerful allies at his side, he doesn't have a wealth of resources. Luckily, Hawaii is covered in resources and items you can scrounge up. Collecting trash and miscellaneous items while exploring will give you a wealth of resources to use and there is typically always something worth collecting. There are a variety of different places you can find items, with each kind offering something different.
Shiny spots on the ground are typically resources, metal cases are usable items or equipment, and dumpsters contain weapons or upgrade materials. Bushes and trees have cooking items and newsstands contain magazines, which give job XP. All of those items spawn randomly and respawn over time, but there are also safes you can find, which will require one key for silver safes and three keys for gold safes, which don't respawn.
Combat positioning matters
While Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth is a turn-based RPG, your positioning in battle is pretty important. Whenever it is one of your party member's turn, you have a small blue circle to move around in. For your basic attacks, you get a proximity bonus if you are close to an enemy and deal extra damage if you hit them in the back. You will also automatically pick up items in the environment for basic attacks, which deal slightly more damage, so long as you are near the item. For special abilities, some attack in an area while others attack in a line. You can line up these attacks to hit multiple enemies.
When you increase your bond levels with your party members, you unlock other bonus attacks based on where you are standing. Early on you will unlock follow-up attacks, where party members will do a follow-up if they are nearby and you knock an enemy down. Also, you can unlock combo attacks, which can be triggered by doing a basic attack while standing next to that party member.
Make new friends
Early on in your adventure in Hawaii, you will gain access to the Aloha Links, which lets you make friends with various NPCs in the area. You can make friends with most people by pressing a button to wave at them. Some NPCs will require you to give them a type of item--typically food--to improve your relationship, and some will need to be saved from attackers. There are also a few shop owners that you can befriend by buying their goods.
The reason you want to do this is that you get a boost to Ichiban's social stats for making friends. The first level, which is achieved the first time you interact, gives five points to a random stat. The second level, which occurs after two or three additional interactions, gives 10 points. Some side stories and unlocking new jobs, which are classes for your party members, are locked behind social stat requirements, so boosting these are important.
Get to know your party
Bond Bingo is a set of small conversations you can have with your different party members. These can be found all throughout Hawaii, marked on the map by a small pink ticket with a heart on it. You don't have to do anything besides press a button to start the conversation, but the rewards are massive. You get a small boost to your bond level for each conversation, but there is also a board of all the potential conversations, with each party member having their own board. When you get four in a row in any direction, like bingo, you get a bonus boost to your bond level. Some jobs are locked behind bond levels.
Take a breather at Revolve
Revolve is a bar in Hawaii where you can have drink links with your friends. Drink links are small story moments you can have with your party members every 10 bond levels, up to level 50. You get a small bit of backstory for your party member, but there are also gameplay benefits. Each drink link you complete gives a new combo bonus, unlocking follow-up attacks, tag team attacks, and combo attacks, or increases the frequency/damage of the ability. Completing all drink links will also unlock additional costumes for that party member. Some drink links are locked behind story progress.
Keep your entire party geared up
Similar to Yakuza: Like A Dragon, at some points in Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth you will have more than four party members, which is how many you are allowed to take into combat. While you might have a preference for which members you prefer to take into combat over others, it's important to keep the entire team geared up. While this can be expensive, there are multiple story moments where party members come and go, impacting who you can use in combat. You might be in trouble if you reach one of these moments and have to use someone with low-level gear.
Don't save weapon upgrade materials
There are two types of weapon upgrade materials: the kind that can make new weapons and the kind that increase a weapon's level. Basically, anything listed as iron in its many forms is for increasing a weapon's level and anything that has an element (like Lava, Electric, etc.) is for creating new weapons. Typically creating a new weapon requires a base weapon and some materials, adding an element to your attacks. Upgrading a weapon increases the base damage, both magical and physical. While your impulse might be to horde materials for better weapons, you don't need to do that. In terms of crafting materials, there are multiple tiers of quality and you can't combine lower quality materials into higher ones, so you won't have much use for them if you hold onto them.
The weapon upgrade materials also go up in quality, but that just impacts the amount of XP given. However, you can scrap a weapon to get upgrade materials, and the higher its level, the more you get back. It's not an exact 1:1 ratio, but you can get more than enough back that you shouldn't sweat using the materials to upgrade a weapon you will probably end up replacing.
Do some dungeon crawling
Around Chapter 5, you will gain access to the Hawaii underground dungeon. This dungeon features multiple floors, filled with enemies to fight and minibosses. While you won't really be forced to grind excessively at any point in the game, you should really consider playing through the dungeon anyway. Not only do you get a bunch of XP from fighting enemies down there, it's also a great place to earn money and find materials. There is a ton of crafting materials throughout the dungeon, along with chests that typically have high rank armor or weapons.
Not only is there a ton to gain from running the dungeon itself, there is also a point system where you find Robo Disk, which can be exchanged for a large variety of items. The items include a ton of high rarity crafting materials, which can really only be found randomly otherwise. This makes it much easier to craft better weapons without having to hope you get lucky with enemy drops.
Get in the kitchen
While the cooking mechanic in Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth isn't particularly deep, it does give you some high quality healing items. Cooking can be done at certain locations marked by a green blender icon on the map, with the first one located on the eastern end of the beach in Hawaii. You can take herbs you find in bushes, fruit you find in trees, and seaweed you find in sand piles on the beach, and create high quality items. These items typically refill a large amount of health or mana and always do so for the entire party. Fruit dishes restore health, herb tea restores mana, and seaweed based dishes restore both.
Take a breather, see the sights
While doing side activities is pretty core to most RPG experiences, they can be especially rewarding in Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth. Despite the main story feeling incredibly time-sensitive and pressing at moments, there is never a bad time to explore the town and do some other content. Side stories can award a variety of different things, including new Poundmates--summons that can help you in combat--special gear or even large amounts of money. In addition to that, many of the stories are quite compelling and occasionally funny.
Some of the bigger side activities, like Donoko Island and Sujimon, are massive, so saving them for the endgame probably isn't smart. Plus, both of these offer pretty big rewards for progressing through them and in the case of Suijmon, a decent amount of that activity is based around finding them around Hawaii while you explore.
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