Seohyun

I finished Yakuza 7: Like A Dragon (Y7) a year or so ago, and I just finished Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth (IW). I have to admit, these are the only Yakuza games I've played (I have seen bits of of the older titles before on Youtube) because Y7 was advertised as Persona with middle aged adults. Having played both of them, this is my thoughts as what you can say a newbie to the universe.

This will inevitably contain some amount of spoilers but I will try to be vague as possible and keep them to a minimum.

Y7: LaD
Kasuga Ichiban is the new protagonist of the Yakuza series, replacing the fan-favorite Kazuma Kiryu. On the whole, Ichiban is a big contrast to the moody Kiryu, almost being dog-like in dealing with issues. This was partly due to the game changing to a turn-based RPG format, where the main characters of those games tend to share similar traits with Ichiban. Similarly, there is an in-game reason to explain why the game is turn-based: Ichiban is such a big fan of Adventure Quest games that he sees every fight as an AQ battle.

Speaking of which, the turn-based system will be divisive to people, especially fans of the older titles. The fluid action is gone and every character will take turns and complete all of their animations every time. This drastically slows the pace of the game down. While I can stomach that, it definitely isn't it for everyone, especially late game where you still have to just mash A through every trash mob that you accidentally stumble into while walking around.

The RPG combat system isn't anything new. There's physical attacks, magic attacks, HP, MP, etc. The fresh coat of paint, though, is fun. It's like a child imagining that their play fighting is real, but you're playing as a man in his early 40s. The party members are also pretty typical. There's your standard mage, tank, healer... and whenever someone joins your party you hear a familiar jingle. The party members also aren't fixed in their roles (though their stat growths definitely push them in certain directions), you can have them change "jobs" and they will have different movesets unique to those jobs. Every party member has a unique job and some jobs are gender-locked. I didn't find it necessary to really grind levels for too many jobs. Usually the unique jobs are enough for normal mode but at least one party member should be the healer.

While I like all of the party members, there is an optional one that barely has relevance to the story. She was probably put there last-minute because there is only one other female character in the entire party but still, it is rather jarring and she is the only one who isn't a recurring party member in IW.

There is a romance system in the game, though it's not what you would expect from a JRPG. You can romance the two female party members and a few other female NPCs in "important" locations. There isn't really that much depth into it besides like one cutscene (or two, if you romance everyone) and if you are NOT comfortable with women disrespecting your boundaries while drunk (or kind of getting gaslit, if you choose to romance everyone) they really suck. Either way, none of these are canon (except one, but even then the in-game romance isn't canon due to what happens in IW) so you can just skip them if you don't want to do every substory.

Speaking of Substories, you will be pleased to know that they are similar to what you would see in previous titles. A lot of them are very wacky and downright hilarious sometimes, others are heartwarming and makes you cry a little. Some of the funny ones turn serious and some of the serious ones can also take a funny turn but they aren't jarring. I think RGG generally does a great job at balancing the emotions in these little sidequests. You also see some cameos from older titles which is a nice little treat for the hardcore fans.

As for the main story, it's well-written. It's got the twists and turns that older titles have and every named character is compelling and memorable. I can't really say much more beyond that but it is very good. Since the game doesn't start to pick up until you have a party of 4, it can be a little slow at the start depending on how much side content you do in the beginning, but it does pick up quick from there. The main theme of the game, bringing everyone together to overcome difficulties, is present throughout the whole game. I like the overall messaging and does signal a different era of future titles.

LaD: IW
Infinite Wealth is a vast improvement over Y7 in almost every way. The map has effectively doubled, the party members have also doubled, I mean, it's just SO much more and better content that it's hard to really sit down and list them all in a little blog post.

The combat has vastly improved, which is very impressive for a turn-based JRPG. you can move your characters around in a small radius so you can better position yourself for advantageous combo attack setups and prop pickups (this was more or less random in Y7). I do wish you can choose to use the prop pickups instead of it just being radius based, though. Or you can choose between combo attack and solo attack when able to. It also tells you roughly what level your party members and your equipment should be before you tackle battle-heavy main story content, which is an improvement over Y7's ambiguous "I should prepare before heading in..." comment.

There are two (three if you include DLC) grinding dungeons where you can get lots of rare materials, exp, and money. These are akin to the randomly generated Persona 3 style dungeons. I like the idea of having it but it's very slow because you can't just instantly leave at any point after finding the stairs tile like you could in Persona 3. You have to manually run all the way back. There are also inexplicably doors that don't stay open, so it slows you down even more if you are just running back to the stairs after having explored all of the current floor.

The job system is back with a Hawaiian flavor, and you can transfer a limited number of job classes into different jobs. So say you want Ichiban to be a Breaker but you also want him to heal, you can import the healing skill of his Hero class into Breaker with no drawbacks. This incentivizes you to try and level different jobs to make your party more versatile (though, again, you don't really need to do that on normal mode). My only big complaint about IW's jobs is that I prefer Y7's jobs better. I get that you HAVE to have Hawaii stuff but they just seem too generic for my tastes and I'm not a big fan of some of the the jobs that did get imported from Y7. You do get a short cutscene reward with every new Hawaii job unlock though, so that's nice at least.

You can play Pokemon. I won't say anything more.

IW also has a "make buttload of money with this simple trick!" minigame like with Y7 but it's literally Animal Crossing this time around. I'm not the biggest fan of Animal Crossing type games and it was way too involved for me to stick around and finish in one sitting, whereas I could easily just do CEO sim all in one go in Y7. That being said, if you aren't a weird freak like me you will enjoy Dondoko Island a lot.

The new party members are all likeable and you get to know more about the recurring ones in this game as well so they're not stale. I do wish there were much more interactions in the postgame. I can't really get into the details as I consider it a bit of spoiler but you will see why.

The game has so much content for Kiryu fans. It can get a bit "do u remember this" but I think they are all handled well as long as you don't just binge all of it whenever they're available like I did. There is a really really hype battle in the lategame and I was very disappointed that the end result was way underutilized. I know this game isn't really about that but still, it left me wanting much more out of it.

The main story is also solid. The devs had good foundation to work with regarding Ichiban's backstory and tied it together well to Kiryu's. You would think the pacing would be weird since it focuses on two main characters, but I could follow it easily. Not as tragic as Y7's in its lowest moments, but I have to admit, it got me tearing up at certain points.

I just wish there was much more postgame, especially not locked behind a 20 dollar paywall.

The complaints I listed above are rather minor and shouldn't detract from the fact that it is a feature-rich and vastly improved product made from the solid (if rather barebones) foundations that was Y7. Whether you're a hardcore Yakuza fan or a JRPG fan, these two games are a must-play.

This Saturday was the 12th anniversary of DACA. I have been living in the United States for 20 years and DACA for the last 12 of it.

I'd rather not bore you with explaining what DACA is. If you would like to know more, this link should explain the basics.

My only paths for a green card/citizenship are the following:

1. Whoever is president remembers we exist and gives us amnesty like Reagan did, most likely as part of a package deal for immigration legislation reform.
2. I find an American citizen to get married to, and obtain a K-1 visa through marriage.
3. [we'll talk about this secret option at the end]

Path 1 is a write-off. It will never happen. If it was possible, it would have been done in 2009 with a Democrat supermajority under Obama. Biden will NEVER give us a pathway to citizenship. The Democrats are all asleep at the wheel for this issue. We only see politicians talking about us because it's the election cycle that coincides with a 12 year anniversary for this program. If Trump becomes president? Maybe he learned from his mistakes with Jeff Sessions and to maybe try dismantling DACA in a more competent way. Either way, at least for another 2 renewals worth of time, the best we can hope for is that "nothing will fundamentally change." Did I mention that it's about $1500 for two DACA renewals?

Path 2 is ever slightly more possible but is also rather unfeasible. I look at myself and have concluded that even if someone did find me attractive enough for a first impressions talk that eventually evolves into a serious commitment like marriage, what would that entail? No matter how much we love one another, there will always be a psychological wedge of "part of this was also for the citizenship" stuck in place. My friends reassure me with the Disney-esque platitude of the "love triumphs over all! :)" which sounds nice on paper but once the disagreements and arguments that are inevitable in all relationships start, guess what that first nagging thing in mind would default to? Anyways, this is all predicated on someone even finding me desirable at all, which is again a laughable prospect from both a physical and personable sense. Another write-off unless I marry someone for purely cynical and transactional reasons a couple more decades which I may not have down the road.

Path 3 is uncharted territory. Technically, I would be getting a green card in a more or less guaranteed way... in Canada. Cursory look at a Canadian immigration law firm website tells me that DACA recipients can quickly attain permanent residence through the Express Entry program. I meet all of the requirements no problem, apparently. It's probably a cheap and sneaky way for Canada to get access to a highly educated workforce base without having had to spend 20+ years of government investment. As I get older by the day, the prospect seem all the better.

If I decide to go to law school in America and take Path 3 as a qualified lawyer coming to Canada, I would be around my early-mid thirties, which would be the same age range as my parents when we came to America. It is a path of no return to the United States, at least for 10 years. I would not be able to see my parents or my brother unless they came to me, which would be financially improbable on their ends. I would have to start my entire life over. Deal with entirely new people who I have no idea if I can trust. Have faith in immigration lawyers who might take my money and hang me out to dry. Like father, like mother, like son. I've been around this block before, how bad can it be?

Don't bother reading this if you are like, to the left of Biden. None of this is novel to you.

It is passé to get mad at Matt Yglesias in 2024. I try not to care and only find the funny things he does, like when he wrote a book about how his fellow Americans should compete with China's economic growth rate by more than tripling the country's population. The man's so played out that even Chapo kinda got bored of talking about him. I know all this. I also know it's bad for the brain to constantly browse twitter's For You page, but I still do it because I am a fundamentally idiotic individual. All of these culminated in me coming across this post this afternoon at work.

This shouldn't have made me mad. I wasn't really fuming mad, I was more of the kind of mad that parents get when you were clearly smoking weed in the house so they ask you if you smoked pot just to see if you are enough of their beloved child to not lie to them, and you lie anyway because you were 17. Just a kind of defeated mad.

All of the things in the image Matt screencapped above is probably true. I won't really dispute the facts as presented here. Even more so because it's Fox News reporting what I assume to be something positive about the Biden Admin. What Matt is trying to say here is that Biden has been a net good for America from 2020 to 2024, and that him continuing on to a second term would keep this up.

The problem with this is that all of these figures do not translate to what the average American experiences, and especially what the future of an Average American will experience. Let's take the very bottom category of the image. Some of the less attentive will take a look at this and understandably assume "oh that's nice, that means a lot of houses are being sold!" But let's take a careful look: it says "new home sales price." This means only the prices on houses being sold are going up, not the amount of buyers. And this is also correct: who, especially people around my age who are supposed to be the future of the American working adult, are buying houses? I own two businesses as a 28 year old (an extreme rarity considering they're not some stupid crypto or web3 shit), and I can't afford a down payment on a house. What about a 28 year old nonbinary person working graveyard shifts at a gas station in Georgia? Which of these scenarios is most accurate to them: one where they have the 20-30k in cash to put a down payment on a 2bd 1bath single story house, or one where they can't even live paycheck to paycheck because they are drowning in student loan, car, and credit card payments?

What does a 2.7% decrease in unemployment rate mean to the person who hurt their back and can't work construction anymore, and their disability paychecks can barely cover rent? What if said ex-construction worker got lucky enough to get a part time job to supplement their income and that suddenly makes them disqualify from disability? What does the 2.7% decrease in unemployment mean to a homeless veteran who got so fucked up from his 4 years in Afghanistan that he can't go 2 hours without screaming at the top of his lungs for his buddies atomized by a roadside IED blast?

What does a 15% increase in wages mean to a woman whose landlord raised rent by 150 dollars a month for next year's lease renewal? What does the 15% increase in wages mean to a middle school teacher with a fresh Bachelor's Degree in Chemistry whose student loan moratorium got killed off by the Supreme Court and has to pay off all of their loans?

Statistics, no matter how true, don't mean anything if people can't feel it. I can give you a slice of Kraft American Single and say that it's 25.8134% more cheesier than last year's, but if you can't taste the F L A V O R B L A S T, that 25.8134% figure is meaningless.

Let's take a look at another American president who Biden is compared to a lot, for some reason. FDR served almost 4 presidential terms and is consistently at the top of people's list for Best American President. This is not only because he beat Axis Powers in WW2, but also mostly because he successfully brought the USA out from the Great Depression and into one of the most prosperous nations in the world. A lot of this was done through many, many government programs and subsidies to the American people. WPP, WPA, TVA, FSP (now we know as SNAP)... programs like these not only gave the destitute Americans jobs, but jobs that lead into the American culture and infrastructure being developed further and improving the livelihood for everyone. This is what America needs now, a century later. This is how people see tangible improvements being made to their lives, and support the administration that implemented them. Can you imagine if the FDR administration on his first term did as little as the Biden administration did and just had town criers yelling out stuff like "unemployment rate has decreased 2.7% since the Stock Market Crash!" Would there have been 1924 Matt Yglesias pointing to those children and saying "It's impressive that Roosevelt did so much despite the bad economy!"

Reiterating my first point: none of this is anything new. What I suggested has been proposed by mainstream Democrats with actual platforms and political careers, yet none of this is taken seriously. There is a clear disconnect between the average American and the Democratic politicians. The precedent has been set, yet the Democrats have been asleep at the wheel for 4 years. In eight months, any lead the Democrats had could be lost, yet they only seem to yell and tut-tut at the people desperate for improvements to their lives.

Times have passed. Everyone is tired. The Progressive push from 2015-2020 failed. Bernie Sanders has disappointed many with his attitude towards the Israel-Palestine conflict, and Being a Progressive is no longer the meta platform to set yourself apart as a politician, and the ones claiming to have been one have lately been bleeding fascism especially with the issue of the recent struggle for Palestinian liberty. The old neoliberals we loved to make fun of like Matt Yglesias and the new, younger twitter neoliberals with the globe, sock, Ukraine flag, etc. emojis only seem to rise in popularity from concern trolling people with actual political convictions, telling us that everything is fine actually, and that we are the ones making Biden and the already right wing Democrats shift toward the right.

Especially maddening are these liberals who essentially hold the LGBTQ+ people hostage, saying that Biden is the only thing keeping them from not losing their rights, never mind the fact that states like Kansas and Missouri are already moments away from a Kristallnacht against queer people, passing legislation that nullify gender identities granted by the federal government. They ask: do you not have any heart left for these people? And I do. Every time when my friend who I love very much talk about laws being passed or proposed in her state that strips what little rights or protections she has left, I feel my heart getting ripped into bits inside me, because I can't do anything for her, and because I know that the depraved, eternally damned fuckers can just coast by doing nothing except pressing the "Trump is even worse for LGBTQ+ people!" button and they'd be right, and therefore continuing this ouroboros.

These liberals have won. Whether or not Biden wins, the untrammeled march of apathy and despair will go on, but they don't care. They will always have the stats to back them up and they'd be correct enough to win whatever stupid twitter argument they want to post about. And if they don't, well, half of these fuckers live in Europe anyways so what's it to them. That's what seeing that Matt Yglesias post got me so mad about, all these things I just said being felt in a microsecond, writing all of this shit in an hour and a half.

lately i come across cute things and think i should get one but then i think about how silly it would look either on me or in my room lol