Yakuza Gaiden is the perfect ending to a never-ending story

A gun was pointed at the back of his head, but he said it didn’t matter.

“I’ve been dead for three years,” he lamented, “and I won’t haunt you from beyond the grave.” Like the others, the man with the gun couldn’t do it this time. “Always so quick to sacrifice yourself for others,” he replied to the tortured soul known as Kazuma Kiryu, “How come this attitude hasn’t gotten you killed yet?”

It’s a legitimate question for Hanawa, but he’s already shown he knows the answer. The only person who can kill Kazuma Kiryu is Kazuma Kiryu. In Yakuza Gaiden , that step has been taken, and heartbreakingly, at first, it doesn’t seem like it’s enough.

The choice Dojima no Ryu makes at the end of Yakuza 6 defines the existence you find yourself trapped in his body in RGG Studio’s latest entry in the Yakuza series. Everything the man now labeled “Jiao Flow” does involves trying to reshape his sense of self to fit who he is now, and trying to redefine it when the differences prove irreconcilable.

He faked his own death instead of turning into a monstrous bug (as happened to Gregor Samsa, the unfortunate protagonist of Franz Kafka’s novella “The Metamorphosis” ), but the two situations are strikingly similar. Before their transformation, both men’s lives were defined by that nagging little question that haunts all of our minds: “Why am I doing this?”.

Kiryu was trapped in a vicious cycle of physical and mental torture. He feels he can’t stop putting his loved ones and his own health at risk to protect the mobster family his adopted family once represented and, more importantly, the lifestyle it symbolized. There has to be a place for people like Kiryu to make something of themselves, and as it stands, that can’t happen if those orphans in Okinawa can’t sleep at night.

Samsa is tired of his life as an overworked salesman, but he is forced to continue because his parents are in debt to his tyrannical boss. Something bigger is at stake, so people and their feelings must be put aside.

To some extent, it’s something we all have to do every day, but in both cases, things keep bubbling away until things break, but the circus of frustration doesn’t leave town. Now, as an agent of the soulless Daidoji sect, Qiao Long is still forced to put himself in danger and is held hostage due to violent threats against his family.

The gun Hanawa pointed at him didn’t lead to him ending up in a cage as he was asked to pick up a gun himself and kill the Watase family. It is a reminder that the Sword of Damocles hangs over the children of Morning Glory. Then, through an agreement between Tsuruno and Daidoji of the Watase family, Tsuneryu was eventually involved in the plan to dissolve the Tojo clan and the Omi alliance. Throughout the game, he is relegated to an entity that is used, traded, and talked about by the friends, allies, and enemies around him.

He has always been viewed by many as a force of nature, or a pawn on the chessboard of life, something to be sought for profit, considered, or removed from the equation entirely, rather than a person. Now that he is exiled from those who care about him in that sense, trapped in a bubble of anonymity that is also supposed to protect them, the process is complete. He is a thing. A tagged object, a walking corpse in a body bag with toe tags and a price on it, should have a name.

Despite Samsa’s efforts to maintain a normal life, or at least find a way to minimize the damage his sudden transformation could cause to those around him, Samsa eventually becomes an inhuman entity. Something needed to be hidden, something to be managed, something to be cared for by his family and a succession of butlers. A useless ghost haunts his former bedroom, and he is increasingly ignored by the outside world once the initial morbid curiosity sparked by his situation begins to wear off.

Increasingly, all both sides can do is watch how the world around them fares without them. Sometimes it seems like they’re watching new episodes of a show they once starred in after their characters were killed off or recast. Each scene is shot without them, in familiar settings where they have walked around, interacted with props, and delivered lines.

The broader plot threads at play are inseparable from the protagonists of each story, but are also shrouded in a veil that prevents Kiryu and Samsa from interacting with them without feeling like aliens. In Kiryu’s case, the great disintegration of the Tojo clan and the Omi Alliance by his long-time allies and protégés was an idea he had no input in creating, even if he ultimately helped bring it to fruition – by executing a plan they had planned for him character of.

In the end, I can’t help but read these two stories as exploring that terrible question that I think almost everyone finds themselves pondering in the most difficult moments that life throws at us – no matter how briefly.

The information you can glean from both Metamorphosis and Yakuza Gaiden is well worth your time.

Kafka’s work ends with Gregor Samsa’s family – formerly struggling people whom he helped through years of self-sacrifice and toil – finally leaving the apartment where his fate haunted them , a trip to the countryside. They realize that their lives are now filled with “new dreams and good wishes” due to the changes that have occurred since Samsa’s famous transformation since the story began.

Meanwhile, in what soon becomes Gaiden’s defining scene, Kiryu finally meets the orphans in Okinawa who he has been unable to visit since he had his name erased. He could see them visiting his tomb through some cameras installed at Daidaiji Temple. Taichi and Ayako then notice the camera and talk about the children’s lives in Kiryu’s absence.

Some already have jobs, some have dreams and goals they are pursuing, and most bear strong signs of Kiryu’s positive influence. Haruto can walk now.

The most important thing is that they are okay. Kiryu’s tears turned into a flood as he realized the truth.

It’s natural to worry about what the people you care about are doing and where you fit in the ever-changing world around you every day. The scariest thing about life is that life goes on with or without you.

At the same time, the best thing about life is that it lasts forever.

With or without you.

Dragon Gaiden is now available on Game Pass. Members of the service can also check out our list of the best Game Pass games to see what else you can get and play for free today.